Claudia Chan

Maybe there are still people or things in your life that you want to let go of. 

Maybe your ex walked out on you, or maybe your mom hurt you so badly that you’re still holding onto it. 

You’re so angry, you’re still in so much pain, and you want to let it go already, because you don’t want it to control you anymore, you don’t want to be defined by it anymore. 

When other people ask you how you’re doing, you thought, I can’t share this.. because I’m still mad, sad or upset about this! 

When you talk to other people, they may say, it’s time to let go, and you’re like, I want to, but how?! 

I’m going to share with you two practices. You get to choose whichever one suits you best. 

Practice 1 - Letter Ascension Exercise

(10 consecutive days practice) 

On the first 9 days:

In the comfort of your own room, get a piece of paper, sit in front of it. And conjure up the person’s image in your head. 

Set a timer for 10 min, and write whatever comes to your mind. 

You can tell them how much you hate them. 

How much you love them. 

How much they hurt you. 

What you wish could happen. 

How they make you feel. 

What did they take away from you.

What you wish you can do to them. 

What they could have done. 

etc. 

For 10 min, write whatever that comes to mind.

If you finish early, see if you can continue until the 10 min is up.

If you need more time to write, then keep writing until you’re done. 

If any emotions come up, let them come up. 

If you need to stop, you can stop to scream, hit the pillow, pound on the bed, cry. Let it out, don’t hold back.

Still crying or screaming when the timer dings? Continue with the emotion until you have nothing left. 

With whatever you’d written, rip the paper into pieces. You can throw it in the trash, or burn it if you wish. 

Thank yourself for doing this hard work. 

Continue the Letter Ascension Exercise for 9 days. 

As you continue, you’ll feel that each day, the feeling will become less and less, until there is no more.

Complete all 9 days, even if it feels repetitive. 

On the 10th day, write a thank you letter. 

This letter is to thank the person for any and all lessons you’ve learned. 

Ie. 

Thank you for (hurting me/walking out on me) so that I am.. / I learned… 

Because of you, I can now… 

Keep writing all the lessons you’ve learned until you have no more left. 

Once you’re done, read the letter out loud. 

And feel the warmth, strength, love inside of you. Feel how much you’ve grown and expanded. 

Thank yourself for doing this hard work. 

If you need more time after the 10 days, continue until you’re ready to write the thank you letter. 

Practice 2 - Phoenix Rising Meditation 

(9 consecutive days practice)

In the safety of your own room, identify the person and three 3 scenarios (with that person) you’d like to break free from/let go of. 

Find a comfortable spot, sit with your back straight.

Close your eyes. 

Take a deep breath in slowly, and out twice as long. 

In front of you, imagine that there is a big pit of raging fire. A fire that is so hot that it will burn down anything that comes near it. 

Walk up as close to it as possible, feel the heat on your face. 

Whenever you’re ready, think of the first scene. 

Imagine it playing on a screen in front of you. And as this scene plays, feel some of the feelings that come up in your body…

As the scene runs, imagine the screen float toward the raging fire… the screen starts cracking and crumpling up.. shrivelling up into a ball. 

As the ball goes up in flame, you can let out a silent scream, or scream into the pillow, or let the tears flow. 

As the ball turns into ashes.. feel that memory and feeling dissolve… as they get erased and removed from your body and mind. 

Summon the second scene in your mind’s eyes and recall some of the feelings. 

Let the scene play on the screen in front of you.. as it enters the flame… watch it crack and crumple into a ball. 

As it gets engulfed in the flame, let the flame turn everything into nothing. 

Letting the flame remove the memory and the emotions from your mind and body. 

Now, call up the third scene, recalling some of the feelings.. 

While it plays on the screen let it move towards the flame… watch, as it cracks and crumples into a ball. 

Watch as the flame burns everything down. 

Feel, as the memory and the emotions are removed from your mind and soul. 

as it comes to completion, 

A wind of speckled golden dust rises up in the middle of the flame.. 

And the most beautiful and magnificent phoenix rises up into the air and flies around you.

Wrapping you with waves of love. 

Letting you know that 

you are not alone, 

that you are loved, 

That you’re stronger and wiser now.

And as you feel the warmth.. thank yourself for doing this hard work. 

Continue the Phoenix Rising Meditation with the same person and same scenarios for 9 consecutive days. 

Thank you for doing this work for you.

Sending you lots of strength and love.

If you'd like to get a copy of the audio version of the Phoenix Rising Meditation, enter your info below.

Today, I got a sore throat so I stayed home.

Since the beginning of Jan, I started writing on Wed mornings. For two hours, I wrote whatever I wanted to write.

So even though I was sick, I still pulled out my laptop because I wanted to continue this writing.

If I make this open, would you be interested in it?

It's basically joining my zoom room, and we'll just take time to write. You can write a journal, you can write your book, you can write your email sequence. Or if you don't have anything to write, I can give you a promote to write about.

Would this be of interest to you? You can reply to this post to let me know.

Recently, I’d been watching YouTube videos of this Shaolin monk called Shi Heng Yi

One of the videos was his TED Talk about the missing link.

He shared about how one of the links he saw missing was the ‘care’ within ourselves

“When you don’t care, you don’t spend time with it….

But you can only care for some one, or some thing, if you only know how care feels.”

THIS.

This caught my attention. Because… for the majority of my life, I had used this sentence.

“I don’t care.”

Care, is a funny word.

Looking back, I thought.. was I not cared for?

I mean, my parents “cared” for me.

Yet, a lot of times, it wasn’t the care that I needed.

I didn’t know how care feels like.

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When my mom asked me to help out, she would demand that thing according to her timing, and instructed me to do things a certain way, and if I didn’t follow, then I'd get berated and criticized.

Care meant to be given an opportunity to do thing my way, and be grateful of it.

When my mom didn’t ask for help, but expected it out of the blue, and went on a shameful rant about how none of us are helpful at all.

Care meant to lay it out in the open to talk about it as a family, asking others for opinions and contributions.

Listening with respect, working as a team.

Of course growing up in an Asian family household, this was not a thing.

So I ended up not caring.

Because if my opinions were not cared of to begin with, if my feelings were not taken into consideration to begin with. Why would I want to give that back to someone?

And this was how it all started.

It didn’t stop there. Once my mom told me to keep my flaws behind closed doors, that I can’t show my weakness with others, this wall just kept building.

And with the law of mirroring, the more I didn’t care about myself, I didn’t care about others as much either.

If they resonate with me and want to be my friend, sure I can be their friend.

If they don’t care too much about making friends with me, then they can just leave.

This extended into my work life.

There were so many times things were happening at work where I'd say, “I don’t care”.

My colleague was like, but you should care more.

I pondered about it, thinking.. why?

Why should one care?

This has been a question I’d been wrestling with for years.

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For me, care is not only about being physically cared for: like being provided a safe space to live, having food on the table, having all the material things in the world.

Care, for me, is to know that I matter.

My opinions matter.

My voice matters.

My experiences matter

My feelings matter.

I matter.

And not only that, I am respected when I share them.

That I don’t get made fun of.

When other people’s opinions differ from mine, rather than being attacked, they actually try to find out why I think differently.

They want to hear exactly what I have to say.

Rather than dismissing my feelings, they sit with me, let me know that they’re with me.

And if they see that I’m in a slump, they will do their best to pull me out, show me what’s possible, share with me what they saw in me. Paint a picture of possibility and share that vision with me.

How do I bring “care” into my life?

The truth is, it’s a journey, and I’d been on this journey for decades.

I’d been called selfish, apathetic, disrespectful, aloof, taker, etc.

If I hadn’t gone through those moments, I wouldn’t know.

I think the most important, is for me to really care about me first.

Because when I “don’t care” about others, it’s also because I “don’t care” about myself.

I’m learning to value my own opinions, my voice, my experiences, my feelings…

They all matter to me.

And no one else care more about them than me.

Second, I have to say that the people whom I’d attracted into my life had been phenomenal.

Because they would harp again and again to my face, how great I am, how brilliant I am, how strong I am, how amazing I am. Even when I didn’t believe in them.

It is through them, I learned to love myself, to care about myself.

The one two punch.

Me having people around to lift me up.

And me learning to lift myself up.

Having people who care about me.

So I can care about me.

And then I can go out and care about others.

“Because you can only care for some one, or some thing, if you only know how care feels.”

And through this, I’m moving forward, learning how to care more about the important things in my life. And care less of other things that really don’t matter.

What do you care about? How did you learn to "care"? What are some things you're learning to care less of? or more of?

Would love to hear about them.

One thing that I have to be very mindful of, is to be aware of what I say to myself, because I can be outright nasty to me.

Story 5: Love me through my ugly

Growing up, my mom nagged at me a lot, from what to do, to how to do them. And she wouldn’t stop talking until I was done, and even then she would talk about it some more, questioning why I did what I did, or tell me how I should have done it differently.

It was a week or so ago, I went roller skating with my son. It was his first time skating and I became an extreme helicopter parent. I kept reminding him to bend his knees, look up, etc. I was doing it because I didn’t want him to fall and hurt himself. Midway through, I kept biting my tongue to let it go, because I needed him to do it by himself.

And most of all, I didn't want his brain to develop this nasty voice.

A voice that is quick to myself, and judge others.

One that is relentless.

One day during my Ignite (speaking) classes, we got sent into Breakout Zoom room.

"Okay everyone, I'm going to give you 3 minutes, and you can try out your technique", said my coach.

The first person went.

And my brain started chattering, "Wow, she's so good! I still have nothing yet!"

When the second person finished. "Claudia, you'll be next, have you written anything down yet?"

"Claudia, do want to go next?" my coach pipped up.

My heartbeat thumped against my ears, my mind went blank.

Some broken words came out...

"Uhh.. I don't have the rest figured out yet." the words stammered out from my dried mouth.

My coach softened his voice, "Claudia, take a deep breath in."

Air flowed past my nostrils, my chest quickly tightened up, and tears instantly welled up my eyes. My inner critic screamed at me:

"As mom said, you're not articulate enough, what do you think you're trying to do?"

"You think you can get good at this? That's a joke right?!"

"How is it that others can just pick it up so far? I don't have what it takes.."

After this class, I happened to have a coaching session.

My coach asked me what I'd like to talk about, and I told him about this.

Right away, my tears started pouring down my face.

"What do you think your head make it means?" he asked me.

"That I'm stupid, and I can't do this. I'll never be good at this."

And he said, "The truth is, it just feels that way."

"How is it not true if it feels so true?" I asked...

He said, "I know, just keep crying, and let it all out, just know that in the back of your head, it doesn't mean it."

My tears flowed for 17 minutes.

At first, my tears came because it felt so painful.

But near the end, as I kept crying, my head cleared. I just needed the feeling out.

My head could separate out the feeling (since it's cleared out), from the sentence.

It just felt painful because it was hammered in my head that I wasn't good enough.

And the truth is, I wasn't good enough yet. I just needed to practice. I could get good at this through practicing.

I could still love myself right now. Being able to hold, "I'm good enough" in one hand, and "I'm going to keep practicing to become better" in the other.

Loving my imperfect, ugly self.

Once again, this is something that I will continuously be working on, and I owe it to coaching.

This is one of the most powerful tools I'd ever used for me, and on me. Without doing this work, I wouldn't be able to love myself, to be proud of myself, to change myself.

So there you have it, 5 stories of how coaching changed my life.

If you wonder whether or not this is for you, I’d like to invite you to have a ​20 min consult​ with me.

On one hand, you really don't need coaching, yet on the others, if you'd like someone to walk through this path with you, I'm here to walk with you, guide you, support you and cheer you on. You don't have to do this alone.

And whether or not you work with me, here’s something I’d like to invite you to do. Keep exploring who you are, keep expanding yourself, and keep loving yourself. Because you’re worth it.

Today, it’s my fourth story about how coaching helped me break through mom guilt

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At the time I was running my calligraphy business, my son was around 1-2 yo, and I was also working full time (I’m still working full time).

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And I knew of a girl who was also a calligrapher, who was a stay at home mom. She was producing a lot of work.
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I remember one time, I had really horrible thoughts about her.

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“How is she able to come up with all these things? I mean of course, look at her, she has a mother in law who stayed home to help take care of her kids. I don’t have that luxury of that! And geez.. look at her work, it’s not that great anyways, who does she think she is?”

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I was jealous and was very critical of her.

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Then one night, all I wanted was for my son to go to sleep at a certain time, so I could start working on my writing. Of course, he was fighting me, and didn’t want to go sleep. By the time he was done, it was already late.
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I sat at the desk.. staring at my work..

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Then my mom’s voice came on, “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be taking care of your son? you’re a mom now!”

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Resentment washed over my chest… Why do I have to give up my dreams for my son?
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“What’s the use? I’ll never get there…” tears poured down my face.

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When my husband found me crying, he asked what’s wrong? Upon hearing my response, he said, “Babe, let me know how else I can help so you can have more time”
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That made me feel even more guilty.
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Not being a mom who takes care of her son, and not being a wife who takes care of her family.
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It was through coaching, that I started making these beliefs conscious.
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I don’t have to spend100% of my time being with my son (like my mom) to be a good mom.
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I can rely on my husband to take on the responsibility in the household, and still be a good wife.

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Coaching allowed me the space to explore these expectations handed down to me through society, culture and generations.
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Sometimes, we have a tendency to feel that we have no other choice from what we’re doing because our expectations were handed to us by our parents, and we may feel we haven’t lived up to a “standard”.

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Have you ever wanted to do something for yourself, but feel guilty because you’re neglecting your role and putting yourself first?
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I had to go thought that myself in order to get to where I am.
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As a coach, I work closely with mothers so they can explore these invisible binds, and decide if they would like to be released from them, so they can go after their own dreams.
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If you’re interested to work on this for you, send me a message or book a free 20-consult with me.

Sharing with you my third story of why I hold coaching near and dear to my heart. I actually have many, these are just the top ones I felt were the core of what made coaching so beneficial to me.

Story 3: Tooting my own horn

Once I got married, I was free!!

So right away, I thought about building my business. (😂😂)

As a side story, why I wanted to build my business, because within the first week I started working in 2004, a nurse in the hospital retired. And this nurse retired after 40 years of working! I was like… uhh.. I don’t want to be here for 40 years!

Anyway, that was part of my teenage obsession too. (See story 1), is this all there is to life?

I ended up creating colouring journals. For a year or so, I learned how to create things from scratch and self published my own books!

Then one day, while I was posting on Instagram, I came across a post of someone’s wedding calligraphy.

No lie, right away I thought, “I can do better than that!”

And that started my calligraphy journey. I spent 9 months honing my craft. And proceeded to teach calligraphy and offered engraving service to brands like Dior.

Even though I was able to offer these things, a part of me still felt as if I wasn’t all that good. (Yes.. That is how judgemental my brain was to me, and still is sometimes)

When Covid hit, I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my business.

That was the time when I was exposed to “mindset” work. “If you feel you can’t do something, it’s because of your mindset.”

I started diving more deeply into it, I ended up taking a leadership program, and got more into coaching.

Throughout all this time, my husband was very supportive of me. And yet he’d say, “Babe, you know I always support you, but what about spending a bit more time into what you’d been doing so you can expand.”

But each time, my gut would reply with, ”but that thing is not lighting me up anymore, this thing lights me up now.”

(And partly it was true, and I’m still learning to trust my gut)

Then, during one of my own coaching sessions, this sentence popped up:

“Claudia, you jumped from one thing to the next because you’re afraid to showcase your talent.”

What?

A slap in the face!

I got called out. I mean, part of me knew I was good.

But part of me was judging myself so much that I difficulty shouting, “Hey look at me! Look at my work! Come and work with me!”

And the main reason was because my mom used to say, if you “sell too much of your stuff, no one would want to be your friend anymore.”

Among other thoughts, like,

What if they laugh at me and tell me that I’m delusional?

Who do you think you really are?

It took a lot of work to dismantle these beliefs, AND I’m still working on them.

Coaching helped me work through this difficult task, it’s reframing, working with the unconscious and conscious mind, and building that seed of courage to get uncomfortable.

Eventually, I was more proud of myself than I was critical of myself. And I felt more comfortable sharing.

Sharing my stories with you is a proof in itself.

Often times, we are raised to believe that it’s not good to brag about ourselves. When we work hard enough, maybe someone will notice us.

And yet at the same time, we also have to be proud of our accomplishments, and be able to share them with others without putting ourselves down.

Have you ever been in a situation where you have trouble sharing your wins with others? Or maybe when other people praise you, do you tend to brush them off?

If that’s you, I want you to know that you’re not alone. I used to do that a lot.

And today, I’d like to invite you to acknowledge yourself, praise yourself, celebrate yourself.

What are 2-3 things you’re proud of? List them out and share it with someone you know.

I know it’ll feel uncomfortable.

And those who are supportive of you will celebrate alongside you!

So share yours with someone.

If you don’t have anyone to share your accomplishments with, press the Reply bottom and send them to me!

I’d love to read about them and celebrate with you!!

Let’s be proud together so we can toot our horns together!

So I got pretty pissed off yesterday, because I spent 2 hours typing out all five of my stories in the note app on my laptop. But when I went to retrieve it on my phone, the wifi on my laptop glitched. So rather than my phone synching to my laptop’s update, my laptop synched to my phone’s update. And I lost everything.

Which means I had to type it all out again.

So today, I’m going to share with you Story #2 of why coaching helped me with my life.

Maybe you’d read it before, maybe this is the first time you’re reading this.

When I was dating my now husband, my parents disapproved of my relationship. For four years, between 2011-2015, my household flipped upside down.

Each time I went out with Anthony, I tip toed around the house while getting ready. Then as I went down the stairs, I took a deep breath in, walk briskly up to my mom to say, “Ma, I’m not coming home for dinner tonight”, bracing for any glaring eyes, scowl on the face, or loud yelling, then I would dash out the door to avoid any bombs going off.

During those four years, guilty sat on my chest, as I witnessed the nightly panic attacks or the breast cancer that my mom went through.

Then on this one winter night in 2015, the words finally came, “If you love mom, then give up your relationship!”

The world stopped spinning for a moment.
You mean… if I go after what I want, that means I don’t love mom?

But, why do I have to give up what I want for someone else?

At that moment, I saw two paths. On one side, I decided to let go, my family was happy, and yet I plunged into darkness. On the other hand, I chose the love of my life, and yet my heart shred to pieces as I watch my family walk away…

It wasn’t easy, and yet I was grateful for all the people who were willing to listen to me, and supported me in my decisions, giving me the strength.

I also had to overcome the fear of potentially making a mistake. I kept thinking, what if this is the wrong choice and my mom was right? I had to come to terms that, no matter what happens, it is my responsibility to take care of myself.

I did eventually choose myself.

This happened way before I came across coaching.

And yet, when I started on my coaching journey, I found myself healing through many of those ups and downs. It took care of my old wounds and pains.

Even though the ordeal was over, my body never had a chance to process all the fear, the guilt, the shame, the frustration, the disappointment, the grief.

Even a week or so ago, when I saw this one line on an IG post, I started crying.

“Promise me, that even when we fight, you still believe I’m a good person”

My younger self needed to hear that…

even though I fought tooth and nail with my mom, I still wanted to hear that I am a good person, a good daughter, a good girl.

I know that there are many people who are going through this with their family, with their parents. And as a coach, I am here as a guide, as a companion. Because I wished that there was someone who was able to support me, and guide me through.

And this wraps up my second story of how coaching benefited me.

Every time I got asked the question of how I got into coaching, my brain would usually say, man.. I don’t know what I want to share.

Because there are so many experiences that coaching helped me in my life, so it wasn’t only one thing that got me into it.

In today's entry and the next four days, I’d like to touch on 5 stories.
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Story 1: My circumstances don’t define me.

The main one that started it all happened in my teens. ​

I was sitting in my room, staring out the window. As I was looking out into the backyard of all our neighbouring houses, and saw the blue sky.. I thought.. is this all there is to life?

My mom kept telling me that she wanted me to finish school, get a job, and she would be satisfied, because she wanted to make sure that I could support myself, take care of myself.

But I wanted more.. I wanted to do more in my life, I wanted to have more in my life.

Yet my mom’s voice echoed in my head:

“You’re not smart enough, the people who have businesses have brains that can turn very fast. Yours? Your brain turns too slowly.”

“You’re not articulate enough. If you share about what you want to sell, people will stop being your friend.”

“Life is like this, you have to accept it for what it is.”

Shame, of not being smart enough, articulate enough.

Fear, of being rejected by others.

Defeat, that I can’t do anything about my circumstance.

They swirled in my head and laid heavy in my chest. Feeling inadequate.

I wish.. I wish that I could shadow people who are smarter, more successful. I wish I could hear what they talk about with others, how they say things, how they think, what they do, how they do it, how to problem solve. If I can get a glimpse into what they do, maybe I can learn from them.

I always wished that my mom would guide me more, support me more, and here she is.

I learned that, it is because my mom didn’t support me, so I have to support myself even more. Look for my own people, mentors. So I can change my own life.

And this is how it all started…

Sometimes, because of how we were raised, maybe there is a part of us that believe that "this is what it is", or "this is all there is".

But what if, it is not true? What if we can change our lives around. What if we can have a dream and make it come true?

What if the reason why it feels true is because of all the things we are fed while growing up? What if your circumstance don't define who you are?

If that is the case, what would you want for yourself?