Guiding Practice: an introduction & offering 🎁
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Piggy :-) See the plant with pink flowers on the lower right corner? It's only during Tet in Northern Vietnam
It's soon to be Tet here in Hanoi, Vietnam, the biggest celebration of the year. I haven't been back for Tet for a 7 years, and it feels very different this time with my mom not at home anymore while I am still adjusting to a new environment. Being on the busy streets of Hanoi for the last two chilly days feels very special though.
I will write more about it this week. For this week, I want to let you know that I've been exploring how to continue to share my gift of curiosity while creating a viable interdependent way of living. The result is another gift.
Time for unwrapping...
Guiding Practice
I wrote this after realizing from my experiences and those of many other friends that we all need guidance, not only in specific domain but also in life as a whole. The rise of the life coaching industry to me reveals a yearning for true guidance of the kind that enlivens you as a person, not just making you better in doing certain jobs. Such yearning is a good thing. Please embrace it.
So what does a guide do? I have written before in this post, ”the best teacher set you on a path that neither of you knows what lies ahead. Often they don’t even tell you to do so. Their lives speak that message.” The more valuable gift of a guide is not so much a specific direction but rather the spaciousness in which your own inner knowing can surface. As John O’ Donahue once blesses,
“May you have the wisdom to generously enter your own unease / to discover the direction your longing wants you to take.”
It dawned on me recently that I have a fantasy of protecting my own freedom and independence, which is why I stay at home and write everyday. Yet the best stuff I've written is often about real life experiences that seem simple at the first glance yet rather profound.
I have ideas, insights and oftentimes wisdom that can be very helpful to those who can appreciate it. Most importantly, I'm curious enough to explore the impossible; this abundant energy needs a place to flow through. Which means I have to keep on giving and trust that I will be sustained to do this work. After a few trials, I'm almost confident enough to start something, which is always a sign telling me to do it anyway. Let me offer you my free guiding session in my calendar here at calendly.com/khuyen. Send me a note, we'll see how I can help.
You can see the whole explanation here, including philosophies, what you will get, etc.. Khuyen's guiding practice.
Here is a bonus graph of how we will approach the conversation.
Send me a note, and we will take it from there! 😃
The Enzyme portion is for deeper musing, and this week, the Enzyme proudly presents to you where this guiding practice came from, through a very important story of my life.
(the once enigmatic stranger & me at my graduation, May 2017)
There are two kinds of luck. The first kind is by chance, like when you buy a lottery ticket and yell “I’m feeling lucky!” The second kind is by a powerful force that changes fundamentally who you are, one that cracks you wide open and begs you to ask “What have I done in order to receive all of this?”
This is a story about the second kind, and it started with an invitation seven years ago.
“Khuyen, will you send me an email? I’d like to offer you my guidance”.
As the door behind me closed, I stood there, still in awe, trying hard to comprehend what had just happened. I was at a fundraising dinner for a service learning project, and this enigmatic person offered me his guidance. At that point, I most needed help with my American college applications, which he, an accomplished professional who attended prestigious Ivy League schools, knew a lot about.
The only issue? I didn’t know him at all. In my family in Vietnam where I grew up, I was taught to not trust stranger. Why on earth would someone like him pay attention to a random 18-year-old Vietnamese guy like me?
The cynic in me whispered “He must have some ulterior motives. Otherwise, what have I done in order to receive this?” Yet in that evening, there was a crack on that cynical wall inside me, and behind it there was another, quieter voice saying “Maybe he really wanted to help. Maybe I can trust him”.
I sent him a follow up email, and our conversations continued from there. The first time Leng asked me why I wanted to go to college and why America, I stumbled: I never really thought about it. “Because everyone said it’s good” wasn’t really an answer.
From then, I started reflecting on deeper questions of why, about my purpose. Leng did not tell me how to get into college; he listened and made me think about those questions on my own. He helped me learn how to learn for myself, to become a person who can navigate in this world regardless of whether I go to college or not. College application was no easy process, but with his help it became an inward journey so rewarding to my own personal growth.
Fast forward to the morning on April 1st, 2013, the day college application results arrived. Nine letters came in a row, all rejection. Then the last one arrived. It was a yes. Frankly speaking, at that point, I was relieved BUT still disappointed with the result.
Nevertheless, I mustered enough optimism to write Leng a thank you email. I was genuinely grateful, and I wanted him to know.
A few hours later, I got a reply from him. The first few lines sounded to me like a half congratulation, half consolation. “Congratulation. I imagined you must be a bit disappointed with the result.” Then there was a line: “I have a two requests for you in “payment” for what I did” The cynical voice in me reawakened. What does he mean by payment? What can I pay?
I read on. The first request: “Promise me to never compare your school as better or worse to other schools. Love your place, your friends, your work. Give it your best” I took another deep breath. The second request was “Promise me that you will help someone else younger than you who needs a hand”.
I read it again. A warm sensation rose up from my heart and then to my eyes.
I started to cry, big tears of joy, of being touched by something so beautiful that it cracked me wide open. For once and all, the thick cynical wall between me and the world collapsed. That email to me was in effect saying “Khuyen, you are loved, and sometimes you don’t need a reason for that”.
I don’t know what luck it takes to realize such truth. What I know though is that now looking back five years after, I wouldn’t trade anything for that email. I did fulfill these two promises to Leng and had a beautiful time in college. Last summer he attended my college graduation in place of my mom who couldn’t come, and I told him about my side of the story. He was glad he had played a part.
Leonard Cohen once sang “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in”. It’s soon to be a new year in Vietnam. I wish you the good luck in discovering your inner crack. May the light get into you.
The story can also be found here on Medium.
Sharing is sprouting.