Recently, I’d been coaching a handful of people who said that they have no motivation to do anything.
While at work, they’re not motivated to work on their projects. At home, they’re not motivated to do more than the bare minimum.
They want to do more things, like exercise, or clean the house.
But they find themselves scrolling on the phone (while telling themselves they should sleep early), or they’re watching Netflix (while telling themselves they should go on the treadmill while watching).
So they feel bad, they feel lazy.
Here’s something I always say to them.
Our body knows exactly what to do that is the best for us.
Look at all the things you are doing right now!
I’m sure you can rattle off 10 things you need to do right away!
I need to do the laundry.
I need to pick up meds for my mom.
I should make something healthy too because we haven’t eaten so well lately, and you know what? Christmas is coming, so I need to list all the gifts to buy!
…. …. ….
Take a deep breath in.
And out.
Look at all the things you’re doing in your life right now.
Can you blame your body for not being “motivated”? It desperately wants to protect you from potentially burning out!
Nothing has gone wrong.
And that’s why I’m here to offer you, a free Community Hour called, “Stress Free Holidays”!
I’ll share with you tips on what you can do to de-stress.
We’ll go on a “Inner Knowing Journey to help you decipher between what you want to do vs what you have to do.
I’ll also share some tools to build your confidence, so you know what to say when your brain criticizes you.
The Community Hour will be held on
Monday Nov 6th, 8pm EST
Sign up here, Looking forward to seeing you!
My clients:
- are strong, smart, hardworking, intelligent, fun, creative, courageous, etc. And yet, they
- are frustrated with whatever they're dealing with now, it's been so many years and they're sick and tired of dealing with whatever they're facing
- have tried many different things to move forward, but nothing is working. They're getting disappointed, feeling like "it only works for other but not themselves"
- they'd been trying to deal with all of these through emotional eating, excessive shopping, spending a lot of time on Netflix, or even have thought of ending their lives
- are still fighting hard to believe that there is hope for them, things can change around
As a coach, I believe my clients:
- know exactly what they need, their bodies have an intelligence that act in a way that is best for them (which means whatever they'd tried before and didn't work, it was only because something else was blocking them)
- are learning to see their lives with new perspectives
- have a deeper knowing of what is best for them and are looking forward to learning more about themselves
- are excited to gain new skills to overcome whatever challenges they're facing so they can level up
- have the inner knowledge to solve any problems that they're experiencing
- know that they're meant for more and they're looking forward to what happens next
It is extremely important for me to create a space where my clients can freely express themselves. When we are allowed to say what we want to say and admit to the darkest truths, that's when we can let the pain and suffering go.
I believe that my role as a coach is to stay right there with my clients and guide them to their inner knowing.
So often, our inner knowing has been buried deep within us through years of living, listening to others, neglect, shame, blame, which are extremely painful. Now it is time for us heal ourselves, so that we can dig that back up, to trust ourselves and live truly as who we are supposed to be.
Also, while growing up, we were left to our devices to deal with everything in life, and part of us feel extremely alone and tired. When I was going through my own journey, all I ever wanted was someone to be right there, to stay beside me, hold me, cry with me, laugh with me, walk with me, be proud of me.
And this is what I came here to do, not only to to stay beside you, hold you, cry with you, laugh with you, walk with you, be proud of you. I am also here to give you tools, offer you new perspectives, cheer you on, and celebrate you. Because I see you at your highest, and I want you to see it, go toward it, and be it.
You are worthy to be fought for. And I'm right here with you.
If you'd like to work togethers, you can book a free 20-min consult with me, and we'll see if we're a good fit to work together.
For the last few weeks, I had kind of stoped creating content or making offers.
My brain had been really mean to me, saying things like, “You’re so lazy, of course no one wants to work with you.” “Claudia pull yourself together, why can’t you even get one task done?”
Then yesterday, I realized it’s because a part of my brain really believed that I was the only one working really hard for something (even though it’s not true), and it is at a point where it doesn’t want to keep going anymore. So it became really rebellious.
That was why it was coming up with every excuse to stop me from doing what I needed and wanted.
And I had to go into those feelings to work through that. Giving myself the permission to feel emotions, like anger, tiredness, disappointment… and I just let myself cried them all out.
Then I was able to go back to work.
Allowing myself to face the feelings without making it mean anything is a really big skill I have gained.
I have also gained a tremendous ability to be insightful about what exactly is causing the feelings, which allows me to help my clients pinpoint why they’re feeling the way they do.
So if you want to figure out why exactly you aren’t doing what you want to do, and you want to go further from where you are, book a free 20-min consult with me!
Let’s figure out what you want to work on, and I can share with you which areas we can dive into, so you can go further.
Because you deserve to go further, and right now you’re not moving because your body is trying to tell you something. And nothing has gone wrong!
Book your consult now and Let's chat!
It's September already!!
Can’t believe it's back to school. Our son is going to Gr 1 on Tuesday! New school! Have a mixture of excitement and nervousness!
This Thursday, I’d like to invite you to join me and my good friend Magda Diaz, from Elemental Truth, to redefine what it means to be a “good mom”.
In this post, I'd like to talk about acknowledging our kids.
A week ago, I took a nap prior to dinner. When I got up, we were close to eating, so I got a set of knife and fork to cut up my son‘s food.
Once I started cutting, I noticed a set of knife and fork set out by my son. But since I already used mine, I asked him to put the clean ones back.
He went into a full meltdown, because I asked him to put “his” knife and fork away.
At that moment, I thought.. arrgg, what’s the big deal anyway? It’s just a knife and fork.
I was trying to stay calm, but a part of me was like, Really? What the f-? 😤
He went on crying. I tried to ignore him by continuing to cut up food. Then eventually, my husband started hugging him.
Upon seeing this, I took a deep breath, and said, “I‘m sorry, I didn’t see your knife and fork. Are you upset because I didn’t use your knife and fork?”
He nodded, I said I’m sorry again. And then I told him, “I appreciate you putting it out, it’s just sometimes Mama doesn’t see things in front of me, so I missed it. Next time please let me know so I can see it.”
Then he calmed down, and went back to his happy self.
And just yesterday, he pointed out that he’d put out the cutleries for me.
Now you may ask, why is it important to acknowledge our kids? The world doesn’t do that. Wouldn’t it make my kid feel disappointed once he/she goes out into the real world, and doesn’t get appreciated?
And I’d like to propose that, THAT is the exact reason why I believe it’s important to acknowledge my kid.
So often, we put in an effort, but don’t receive a thank you. The world dismisses our effort, and it hurts like hell, but we were told to suck it up, that's how it is! And guess what? We end up dismissing our own effort!
How many times had we set a goal, accomplished it, and then went immediately to our next goal?
Or how many times did we do something, but rather than looking at the progress we'd made, we kept looking at the things we did wrong?
The truth is, no one can appreciate us more than ourselves, but because our parents never showed us how to appreciate ourselves, we didn't know how to do it, and end up dismissing our children's effort too!
I want to change that for my son. I want to demonstrate to my son I appreciate him, I see his effort. So he can learn to see his own effort, without needing to rely on others.
When I can encourage him, he can learn to encourage himself to keep trying, even when other people tell him no.
When I can appreciate his effort, he can learn to appreciate his effort, even when he fails and other people laugh at him.
When I can celebrate him, he can learn to celebrate himself, and continue to pursue his dreams!
Going after our dreams can sometimes be a lonely and scary journey.
But if we can understand what it means to appreciate our efforts, to celebrate ourselves, and have our own backs, it will make it easier for us to continue on our path.
So this is not just about acknowledging our kids. it is to learn to acknowledging ourselves.
and I invite you to join me to go on this journey, so we can demonstrate it to our children.
September is just a few weeks away, which means back to school is on the horizon. This year, my son is going into Grade 1! It was only 10 months ago, my husband and I were deciding whether to send our son to private school.
Like many other parents, we want our son to thrive! Academics is important in the Asian culture, and we also want to him to be a well rounded kid. So we signed him up for extra-curricular activities, like jiu-jitsu, abacus.
Yet, I also understand it is not what we offer our son, but how we interact with him that makes the most impact. We want to ensure he grows up feeling empowered, because for me, I wasn’t brought up this way.
I remember when I was in Gr 4 and 5, I was still in Hong Kong at the time, my mom would physically discipline me every day while studying, which made me really scared of "getting it wrong".
And instilling fear in our children is still a technique that is quite widely used.
One of the mothers I know shared how she would tell her kids that the police would take them away and send them to other families if they don’t practice piano.
And I’d even come across another mother, who glared at her son with an extremely disappointed look on her face, because she believed her son had failed to complete an “easy” task. While the son was crying from frustration.
Do these scare tactics work?
Let’s dive a little deeper to see how these can impact a child’s upbringing
Fear of speaking up
“I can’t say exactly what I want to say because other people will judge me or may hurt me.”
I remember having trouble speaking up to share my ideas at a more public setting (at school or at work). Looking back, I realized it was because I was scared of getting it wrong. My inner critic would question, what if it’s a “stupid” idea? What if I was totally off the mark? Other people would judge or make fun of me.
This also applies to facing conflicts in life and at work. I found it extremely difficult to speak up for myself in the middle of a conflict. I had a lot of fear of possibly getting hurt or getting yelled at by the other person.
I realized how much this fear hold us back, and when we stop speaking up, we start losing our voice.
Fear of rejection
“I can’t do what I want, because my parents will be disappointed in me and will stop loving me.”
For those of us who hold onto this belief that our parents would stop loving us when we do something to disappoint them, we may sacrifice our own identity and desire just to keep them around.
For example, some may go after a career or a position that they are not interested in, just to make sure that their parents will approve of them or keep loving them. This makes their parents feel proud, and may brag about them. But deep down, they may feel a sense of lost. Because they’re essentially giving up their their dreams and identities for someone else’s approval.
Dim their own light
“No matter how much I do, I’m still not good enough.”
For those of us whose parents have very hight expectations, we may keep being shown our flaws.
I remember my mom would keep telling me to stand straighter, or to make sure I’m well put together before heading out the door.
This made me hyper-focused on my own shortcomings, and made me dismiss all the effort I’d put in. I had a lot of difficulty showcasing my achievements, either dismissing them, or letting other people know that I still have all of these things I need to work on. This made it difficult for me to promote myself, and let other people know why they should hire me.
For some people, they may end up feeling de-motivated, because no matter how much effort they put in, it’s still not good enough, so they end up losing the drive to continue.
As a result, all of these create a person who may not be happy where they are. They may feel lost and wonder why they’re doing what they’re doing, yet feeling too scared to try other things. They may even feel trapped because they feel they’re not good enough to do something else to get to another place.
I felt exactly that way going through life, and I wanted my son to know that he is fully capable to do what he wants. So I’d like to share with you three strategies I use to empower my son.
1. Creating a safe space to speak up
Sometimes, my son may say he wants to do something that is contrary to what I want. And even though it may agitate me and we get into a fight, I always thank him afterwards for speaking up. I want him to know that his voice is important, and that it is safe for him to speak up at home.
Home is supposedly the safest space for a child to practice using his/her voice. I want him to know that he is safe to exercise this aspect, because I know how scary it can be to speak up in the real world. If I yell at him, he wouldn’t speak up at home, and why would he speak up outside? So it is very important for me to help him develop an ability to speak up for himself.
2. Letting him disappoint me
This is a concept borrowed from Glennon Doyle. To train my kid to disappoint me.
When I ask my son to do something, he’d usually cry and defy me, because he didn’t want to do what I ask. I’d usually explain to him why, and allow him to choose. While I’m working on being okay for him to choose something that disappoints me.
This is a way for him to explore who he really is, so he can develop his own identity. Through this, he knows full well that he has the freedom and ability to choose, and he also knows that there are consequences through his choices.
I want him to know that the choices he makes are not for us, he’s doing it for himself.
I am fully aware that I will eventually get disappointed from something he chooses, but I’m allowing myself to let go, so I’m not forcing him to follow what I want. And I let him know that I still love him no matter what.
3. Celebrating every win and effort
Every time my son encounters something difficult, I always celebrate the hard times with him. This is especially true when it comes to practicing complex activities or trying something new.
In school, we usually want them to get an A, but in real life, failure is a must. If we ever want to try something new, we will encounter failure. So I want him to understand that things are tough, and it’s okay to fail.
That’s why it is super important for me to sit alongside him to work through the feelings of frustration. And after each activity, I make it a point to let him know how proud I am of him for showing up, for practicing, for getting it wrong, and for working through each difficulty.
I want him to be truly proud of his efforts, and be able to own it and share it with others.
In order to support my son and raise him into an empowered kid, I personally had to heal through my wounds and work through many of my own triggers.
I never really blamed my parents for what they did, because I knew they loved me the best way they knew how. It wasn’t the best execution, and yet, I am responsible for my own life. And I don’t want to pass my traumas onto my son.
Through working on myself, I end up giving myself more love and support, and I can go after my goals and dreams for myself. I’m doing this so I can put my best foot forward to live the life I want. And through this, I am giving my son a chance to put his best foot forward to live the life he can call his own.
If you feel this is something you'd like to work on, I'd love to invite you to book a free consultation session with me! Let do this together, so that you could raise your children to feel more empowered.
So many times, life takes over, and we’re constantly doing something for someone. We work to bring in money. We drive our kids around to go to school or programs. We cook and clean to prepare for the next day.
But maybe one day, you have a moment to yourself and thought… is this all there is?
Who am I? What do I want?
As a Life Coach for Asian Women, these questions tend to induce some stress.
For some people, it may be hard to tap into this, and they may think, “I’m already 43, I’m getting too old for this.” or “I’m already at this age, why haven’t I figured it out yet?”
So let’s understand 3 reasons why it’s difficult for us Asian women (particularly Chinese) to tap into what we want, and I'll share with you some tips on what can we do about it.
3 reasons that hinder us from finding out who we are
1 Result Driven
When we were brought up, most often than not, our actions were gauged against a “productivity” chart. Is what we’re doing “productive”? I remember my mom would limit the amount of TV I could watch. She'd sometimes question why I would do something. Will it bring in more money? Will it get me a better title? Could I help more people? Which are all very much result driven.
And it is understandable, since for most of our lives (if you grew up in Hong Kong or China), we live in an extremely competitive environment! Somehow, we were always trying to get better grades to get into a better school, and then get into a better job to make more money. So it’s been ingrained in us that results are important. Otherwise, why do it?
Because of this, we rarely ask what do we really want for ourselves. Even being able to say, I'm doing it because I want to! Rather than saying, "It's a waste of time!"
Since we never got to develop this muscle, that is why we find it so difficult for us to figure out our internal desires!
2 Inner critic
While growing up, our parents may constantly nitpick on the things we’re doing wrong. My mom would usually say, "Stand with your back straight." or "That's so dumb". Or maybe she kept questioning, "Why would you do that?", or "Why can't you be more realistic?"
All of these statements and questions created an extremely strong inner critic within me. And in turn, it constantly compares me to other people, spits out disapprovals, which makes it extremely difficult to try things out.
This may actually stop us from taking the first step, or it may cause us to give up easily.
3 Selfishness
We live in a society where women are still expected to take care of our kids, our spouse, our parents. So when we decide to focus on ourselves, we sometimes get labelled as selfish.
So many times, my mom would tell me how I should pay more attention to my son, "always keep an eye out on him", "tell him to behave this way or that way", and she'd tell me, "That's the way it is, you have to sacrifice yourself because you're now a mom."
There is this perpetuated idea that we need to give up ourselves for our family. And because of this pressure we receive, we turn around and place this expectation of sacrifice onto others, which is an extremely harmful idea.
What can we do?
There are two things I work constantly with my clients. The first is to build the trust back into their bodies, and the second thing is encouraging them to admit the honest truth.
Trusting their bodies
So many times, because we'd grown up in a society that tells us what to think, how to behave, we stop listening to our inner wisdom.
Maybe you've heard it before, there was a little voice within yourself that sometimes speak to you.
But because we'd never learned to listen to it, we end up turning back to our brain to rationalize our decisions.
To trust our bodies, I usually encourage my clients to take some deep breaths, and drop into their heart, and see if they could hear anything. And the more they do it, the more they'll be able to hear this voice. And together, we'll explore ways to implement it in their lives.
Admit the honest truth
For some people's childhood, they had never been allowed to be honest. Maybe they'd spoken up, and had been yelled at or beaten. Maybe their parents had shown a lot of disapprovals when they behaved a certain way, so they stopped doing that thing.
Being allowed to admit the truth can be quite scary for them. For example, it can be difficult for someone to admit the simple sentence, "I don't want to do this" without feeling a lot of guilt and shame.
To be able to admit the truth, there needs to be a safe space. It could be journalling, where no one would openly judge you, or it could be from coaching, where the coach is able to listen to you. And it can be a very liberating experience.
In order to discover our true desires and who we are, it is important to articulate with words:
What do I want? What works best for me?
Many times, we seek out other people's opinions, and what works for them may not be suitable for you.
So now, it's time for you to trust your body and admit the truth to yourself, so that you can shine!
Because you are the only one who knows the answer.
If you'd like someone to guide you through this process, I'd love to hop on a session with you! Let's chat!
As a Chinese girl who was born in Hong Kong and came to Canada when I was 11, filial piety is one of the key Chinese cultural values to live by. The premise is, a child is to care for, love and respect their parents and elders.
However, it often holds an unspoken obligation, which has the potential to eliminate one’s identity and voice:
The obligation to sacrifice their wants and desires to show their love to their parents.
In the Chinese culture, it is considered unfilial, or disrespectful, to disobey one's parents.
So often, especially for immigrant families, a child is aware of the effort and energy their parents had given for the family, where hopes and expectation are usually woven in.
In turn, this child may feel a deep sense of obligation to carry out their parents’ requests. May it be to make them feel proud, to lighten their workload, or to bring more joy to their parents' lives.
If there is an alignment between both parties, then there is no problem.
However, when there is a misalignment, that’s when conflict is created.
For example, the child may feel they must achieve certain results to please their parents, ie study in a field they might not be fully interested in, or get into a well known company because the parents may take pride in sharing their accomplishment.
Or, the child may feel obligated to behave in a certain way because of expectations. For example, they are forced to split up from their love interest because of their background or gender, or forced to financially support the parents and their siblings.
This was what happened to me, because my parents did not approve of my then boyfriend, now husband, it created an extremely toxic environment during the few years we were dating.
It was one of the hardest moments I had to live through, which I know could either make or break someone.
That’s because filial piety rides upon this one phrase: “I’d done so much for you as a parent, if you love me you would…”
And because of this, I had to endure through various feelings.
The first is guilt and shame. I felt extremely guilty, because I knew my parents had sacrificed for me. They had given up their own needs and wants to give me the best. Holding onto a relationship they disapprove of made me feel selfish, and I was expected to let go of it to show that I love them. Also, as a culture that cares about saving face, my parents kept this news away from many people, which created a lot of shame around this topic.
The second is resentment. When I was forced to make the decision, to choose between mom or the love of my life, there was this anger that came bubbling up. Why is it that other people can do it and I can’t? Why is it that I have to give up what I want to please others? It carried a deep sense of unfairness.
The third is fear. There were two fears I had to deal with. One is the fear of the unknown. What if my relationship didn’t work out? And the other is the fear of being disowned. What if my parents don’t love me anymore and they walk away?
And lastly, during that time, I was experiencing a lot of anxiety. I was constantly walking on eggshells, checking for my mom’s reaction, enduring the angry yet silent treatment, or getting ready to fight.
In my case, I had a lot of support to carry me through that period of time, which helped me tremendously in making it through onto the other side. AND at the same time, I knew how easily it could be for someone to crumble under the pressure.
The moment one gives up their wishes for their parents, they have given up a part of themselves. The moment they let their parents make the decisions for them, they’d lose their voice.
Through this, that’s how filial piety strips away one’s identity and voice.
What can be done?
It is true that filial piety is about caring for, loving and respecting our parents and elders. However, it is also important to separate this from who we are.
Could we hold onto our own differences, dreams and desires while still doing all those for our parents?
Respecting someone means to have due regards for that person’s feelings, wishes, or rights. Which means, our feelings, wishes and rights are just as important.
For those of us who’d lived under the influence of our parents’ voices, sometimes it may be difficult to distinguish their wishes from our own.
Sometimes we may believe that the things we hold onto are things we want for ourselves, but maybe they turn out to be things that had been forced on us, and we were never given the opportunity to make a conscious choice for ourselves.
To break through all of this, it’s important for us to get to know ourselves better.
1 Create a safe space
Allow yourself to have a safe space away from other people, or find someone who’s willing to listen to you without advice or judgement, which allows you to open up.
Having a safe space is so important, because for most of the times our thoughts and behaviours had been criticized and judged. Our brains wouldn’t let us be truthful.
So having a safe space allows our brains to relax. So that we can..
2 Be Honest with ourselves
Once we have the safe space, we could write in our journals, or admit to the other person the honest truth.
How are you feeling at this moment?
What do you want to say to your parents?
What exactly do you want for yourself?
What are you afraid may happen? What will you regret if you make this decision?
3 Process the feelings
When we are going against our parents, a lot of guilt, resentment, pain, fear may come up.
Learn to process these feelings, which means, be willing to be open to feel them in our bodies while we’re in this safe space.
This will allow us to clear up the emotions, and then give us a better idea of how we would like to proceed.
***Please understand that this will take some time. It is a difficult situation you’re dealing with, and it will not resolve overnight. Every time you take a step forward, you’ll get a little bit stronger to stand up for yourself.
Loving and respecting our parents doesn't mean we force them to change their minds. It means to love them as who they are, because in turn we want them to love us as who we are.
In the name of filial piety, we can still tap into our voices and embrace our identities, by being honest with ourselves, and growing enough courage to stand for ourselves.
If you’re encountering a situation where you are made to choose between your parents and yourself, I know exactly how you feel. I shared it here in my winning speech.
I highly invite you to find someone whom you can give you the support. And if you can't find anyone, and would like some help, let’s hop on a call, and see how we can work together.
You're not alone. I believe in you, you're worth fighting for. Let's do this together.
