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.
I was on a coaching call this morning, and had a breakthrough, so really wanted to share this with you.
Since I was in high school, my motto had been, “Do your best but expect the worst.”
I was extremely scared of failing and disappointing myself, so I trained myself to expect the worst. This way, the result I get will never be as bad as can be.
I had been operating with this mindset for a very long time, and it had helped me get through so many things.
But now as I am working through my beliefs, I discovered that this exact belief had completely stopped me from celebrating my own achievements.
Not once in my life, had I truly been proud of what I had done.
It was really tough for me to tell myself, hey, look at this! You did this!
I had studied hard and I work as a radiation therapist full time since 2004.
I had my fair share of failed relationships, and had 3 guys walked out on me.
I stood up to my family to be with the person I truly love.
I had self published 4 colouring journals
I had created a calligraphy and engraving business, where I had taught students how to do calligraphy, and engraved for brand name stores like Dior, Guerlain, Fendi.
I am a certified Life coach
I have bought our family the condo we're living.
I have financially supported my family through 6.5 years
I am working on my dream, working closely with my clients to make their dreams come true.
And I'm not listing these to impress you.
I had always seen myself as a small chinese girl, and I am not good enough to offer anything.
And this is a list I'm reminding myself, how much I have accomplished.
With this protective belief of mine, I didn't see any of it, feel any of it.
When I shielded myself from feeling scared and disappointed, I also shield myself from feeling excited and proud of myself.
When my coach challenged me to let go of this belief, I felt so much resistance.
Letting go of expecting the worst. Can you imagine what that means?
Expecting the worst, means I have a protective bubble around me, so whatever happens, I am immune to the pain, to the disappointment.
Letting go of this belief means.. I’m not going to be protected anymore. I’m going to be wide open for the disappointment, for the pain, for the judgement. For everything.
And that’s scary!
My fear brain is saying, you’re not letting go of that!
But this part has also blocked out my achievement.
When I talk about all the things I’d done with my coach, instead of feeling happy, I cried. Because I felt like I still didn’t do enough.
By letting go of this bubble, I am welcoming the upcoming disappointments and pain into my life.
I am also welcoming and cherishing my successes, accomplishments, love, effort, joy.
And this is true for a lot of things.
I mean, have you been hurt so badly in a relationship that you didn't want to get into another relationship, becuase you didn't want to get hurt?
You think, I don't want to open myself up anymore, because I don't want to get hurt.
In blocking out this pain, you also block out the potential of finding someone who will love you.
You block yourself from the excitment, from the joy, from the satisfaction, from the potential of what can be!
It is only when you allow yourself to feel the negative side of the coin, like pain, disappointment, frustration, fear, then you will be able to allow yourself to experience the positive side of the coin.
It is the scariest yet most exhilarating thing in the world.
And I invite you to do this for yourself, for the one life you have.
Letting go of the protective bubble is scary! Many times I ask myself why am I doing this?
And every time, after I work through my emotions, I give myself the same answer.
I do it because I want to see what else I am capable of.
Not for the sake of proving myself, but for the sake of, I only live life once, and I really want to see how far I can go.
It is hella scary. But feeling scared is a feeling, it is an emotion created by a thought in our head.
And I can help you, I can teach you how to face this fear and find out that it is only a vibration in the body.
When you're not afraid to face this feeling, you'll find it much easier to give things in your life a try.
You'll still be scared, but you'll be more willing to try.
It is a process that I can guide you through. You don't have to do it alone.
I am willing to let go of my own scary bubble, so I can be all in, make my life all worth it.
Are you?
If you are contemplating of letting go of your fear, book a session with me, so we can chat.
Sometimes it can feel like time is just passing by, I mean, 2 months has already gone by in 2022!
Since today’s March 1st, I’d like to ask you something.
Is there anything you want to change in your life?
Maybe you want to have a better relationship with your family.
Maybe you want to be able to say no to others.
Maybe you want to have more fun in your life.
Maybe you want to eat healthier.
Whatever it is, you may be thinking, oh it’s so daunting or defeating...
I mean… you probably had set it as a goal before. You’d tried changing before, but it didn’t work.
So you gave up on it because you thought that it wasn’t for you, you thought you weren’t meant to do it.
And now thinking about it again, it made you sad. you may be beating yourself up for not having followed through.
Or maybe you started comparing yourself with other people.
Here's something I’d like to offer you, and this was something that really changed my life.
Whenever I felt overwhelmed or defeated thinking about the changes I want to make in my life.
Rather than going to the place of what didn’t work, or what I could have achieved.
I brought myself back to the present moment.
That’s because if I feel defeated, my thoughts are either in the past criticizing myself. Or they are the future doubting myself.
So I bring myself back to the present moment, and I say this to myself: I am just ONE thought away from a different life.
I only need to take one little step, what do I want to do now?
Right? Because I can’t jump from now to the future version of myself in one big leap.
But I can take a tiny tiny step toward my goal.
And that first step is just as small as changing the way I think about it.
I haven’t done anything yet, I just changed internally, on how I think about it.
If let’s say I want to have more connection with my kids, I can choose to think: I‘m going to pay a little bit more attention to my kids for the next 5 minutes.
So I deliberately put down my phone and I interact with my kids for the next 5 minutes.
Really pay attention to them, listen to what they’re saying, get curious about them, get to know who they are.
And after 5 minutes, Celebrate! I pat myself on the back and say, Look! You did it! Great job!
And now try to choose another thought.
And you keep doing it again and again: one thought at a time to change the trajectory of your life.
You’re always just one thought away, just one tiny step, from the life you want.
Jeremy Anderson did an excellent job at explaining self-worth, so I really wanted to share this with you.
(Note: I watched a few other versions, but this video makes me cry each and every time)
I shared the above video with you because I want you to get this.
For me, seeing my own self-worth is the KEY in breaking through my own limitations.
Throughout my life, I had built up so much self-doubt, guilt, and shame.
The life I lived, was one of me doing whatever I could to prove my worth.
Other people might have seen this as ambition.
In reality, I pursued because I wanted to prove myself.
I wanted to prove that I wasn’t dumb. I wanted to prove that I have what it takes. I wanted to prove that I am capable.
It was only until I understood the meaning of self-worth, did I change the energy of why I do what I do.
Now I’m doing it because I want to, not because I have to prove anything to anyone.
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You are 100% worthy.
It means that no matter what happened to you, no matter what you did, no matter what you didn’t do, no matter what other people did to you, no matter what they said to you..
None of that could diminish your self worth!
You may feel like you’re not good enough, not smart enough, simply not enough, only because you’re seeing yourself based on your previous experiences.
Your brain has been trying to keep you safe up to now.
And the thoughts and beliefs it holds are not serving you anymore.
So maybe it’s time to let go of your current reality.
If you’d watched the video, and if you’re reading this, and if you feel something resonates with you, that’s because deep down, you believe that you’re ready to question this reality of yours.
Is it really all there is to life?
The simple answer is No.
Because you have a whole universe inside of you.
And you’re only seeing part of yourself.
You are more, so much more!
Yes there is also a lot of pain.
There is a lot of pain, frustration, anger, resentment, doubt, fear… etc.
There are also fun, excitement, gratefulness, anticipation, possibility.
They are all part of you.
And I want you to know that you are worthy to live the fullest life you want for yourself.
Today, I’d like to share this with you, which is my journey through dealing with envious/jealous feelings.
It all started when my mom compared me to someone else.
I was probably 11/12 yo, and one of my dad’s friends came to visit, who had 2 daughters.
We were playing, and my mom made a comment about how I should cut my hair short like the older daughter.
My mom really likes short hair, and always wanted me to have short(er) hair. (Even now, whenever she sees me, she’d ask me when I’m going to have my next hair cut).
And funny enough, I wrote about it in my journal, and she found it, read it, and dismissed it altogether.
Simple innocent comparison?
Maybe?
But at that moment, as a 12 yo, I felt like my mom approved of her and loved her more than me.
That was how the seed of jealousy was planted for me.
Ever since, I’d been “battling the demon of jealousy”.
It wouldn’t matter what the other person’s background was, or what they were going through, if I saw the other person doing better, I would immediately start comparing myself.
I could totally be comparing apples to oranges, but it wouldn’t matter.
Right after feeling envious of the other person, I’d start beating myself up, believing that I wasn’t good enough.
They were very dark, all-consuming, exhausting battles.
I remembered so many times I wrote in my journal, begging God or someone or something to take it away.
Because it was poison running through my body, and I had so much hate and resentment inside of me.
I literally had to shield myself away from other people, because I couldn’t tolerate the amount of hate I carried.
It was only after I started working on myself, did I start loving this part of me.
It hasn’t fully gone away, it still comes up from time to time. But I feel so much better and lighter!
If you have ever felt jealous/envious before, this is what I learned:
Nothing has gone wrong. It’s a super normal reaction.
It is a part of you, it’s the wounded part of you, so you can’t push it away. In fact, it is the part of you that needs the most love.
And you have to learn to recognized it instead of letting it consume you.
What I mean is, many times, instead of being aware of it, we react to it.
You reactions may include:
- Gossiping about people
- Intentionally being unkind to them
- Being snappy at others
- Judging others/ Criticizing others
- Keep one-upping yourself, so you feel you’re better than others
- Beating yourself up
- Hiding from others
And you may have your own version of it.
So the first step is to recognize it.
The second step may sound really simple, but it’s the hardest thing to do.
You have to love it. You have to feel it and accept it.
What does this mean?
This is a process I do with my clients, which is to feel the feeling.
It is through feeling it and not push it away, can you start accepting it as being a part of you.
We’re so used to seeing these negative emotions as bad, so we push them away because we don’t want them.
We think being jealous is a sign of being a “bad girl”. It’s unacceptable, so we try our hardest to cast it away.
But the more we reject, the more it builds up in our system.
To deal with it, we have to do the exact opposite.
We have to look at it, and see it in its rawest form, so we can accept it and love it.
Loving this jealous part of me lifted the heavy weight off.
The best part is I could finally celebrate other people for who they truly are, and feel so happy and proud of them.
All because I could fully love myself.
I am so much more joyful than before.
It changed me so much, and I hope that you’ll get a chance to enjoy this for yourself too!
