Some Life Updates from me
and what healing is
Hello hello dear friends,
I hope you are all well, and that 2021 bring something fresh.
I miss you writing to you all! Sometimes when your friends lose touch, you secretly wish that they would be doing so well that they forgot you.
Well, that would be me.
I'm doing well. This newsletter has been put aside to give priority for the book, but as the Lunar New Year is approaching in Vietnam I so want to send a life update to you.
Let’s start with a photo taken at the dance camp I organized on new year’s eve. Your friend is looking good, huh?
What's new in my life?
Book writing:
The book is coming along and is expected to be done in April. The current title is "Not Being - The Art of Self-Transformation". It's a rather different kind of writing from this blog - a bit more formal than personal - which requires me to adjust to my co-author's style and intended audience. It has been a good learning journey though.
This is also the biggest formal commitment to a clear output I've ever taken, and I'm grateful for all of it. More announcement to come.
Relationships:
First, the community of supportive friends continues to grow in Vietnam (come here one day and I'll have good friends to bring you around).
Second, the past two years, I've been exploring being in several intimate relationships with openness, curiosity and a naturally grown sense of commitment. The latter surprises me greatly. I have a lot more to share, but for now it is suffice to say that life is filled with more joy and at the same time very grounded and practical.
Vietnam
I've been writing a lot in Vietnamese and spent my time cultivating my root in the local community here.
As someone who has moved around quite a bit in my life, cultivating roots in a place becomes all the more important. For a long time I felt like a wanderer who doesn't belong. It wasn't until stepping back into Vietnam in 2018 did I had realization that we all belong here.
But you don't only keep going on searching for the ultimate place where you belong, geographically or emotionally or professionally. You also have to learn to establish yourself in a place fully, and once that happens the next place for you will reveal itself.
The trick to a sense of belonging is that it is not something you can "get". It is something bestowed on you when you begin to give yourself to a place.
To paraphrase Kennedy "Don't ask what the place can do for you, ask what you could to the place".
You know you belong to a place when you begin to care for it.
A desire to be connected to the global world.
While being rooted in Ho Chi Minh City has been wonderful, I still long to write more in English (my English writing is clearly better) and connect to beyond here while still having a strong root and presence with Vietnam.
This year I will do that, which means you'll see more of this newsletter again!
This also brings me to a point
Master: I did apply to a Master in Harvard Divinity School. Result will be out in mid March, so there is a chance I’ll be back in Boston in future. Unlikely this year though.
Dance: Perhaps the most wonderful part in my life. For those of you who haven't seen, this is a short clip recap of a 4-day Year End Dance Camp I organized recently. It is done with love by a amazing videographer and you could see me dancing there 😍😎 In a year of global lock down, the Contact Improvisation scene in Vietnam is flourishing. I feel very grateful and often remind people coming to the class that we are dancing for those who don't get the chance to. It's a wonderful privilege.
Given my nerdy philosophical computer science background, I never would have imagined myself teaching dance and turning it into something just five years ago. Yet the more and more I step into this strange path, the more it feels right. I'd rather see a world where people can enjoy being in there body and dance!
How about you? Write me a few lines about what you are most grateful for, and what your 2021 is about? I'd love to hear!
ps: here is me climbing a pine tree. Newfound hobby!
With that, a short post about enjoyment and healing.
I’ve been pondering on this word “healing”, which 1/3 of my friends find too alternative and 2/3 are so into that they don’t bother explaining what it is. This post is an attempt to bridge that gap.
WHAT IS HEALING
Whenever we enjoy something that we previously couldn't (or didn't think possible), healing happens.
The best measure of successful healing is enjoyment.
After a painful breakup, could you enjoy dating again? That's healing.
After rejections, could you enjoy sharing yourself, your gifts and idiosyncracies again? That's healing.
After being unattended for so long that you have become independent, could you enjoy being taken care of again? That's healing.
After trying so hard to become somebody, could you enjoy being who you are now, just as you are, again? That's healing.
My silliest and yet most powerful healing experience comes from buying clothes.
Two years ago, my mentors brought me to get new clothes. I habitually underdressed myself, and they loved me enough to see that I could be more than that.
For many people, that would be a wonderful occasion.
For me, it was painful.
I struggled so hard at the shop. "Oh, this pant was so expensive, finding cloth is a waste of time, I'd rather do something else," I kept whining. I was so full of unease that they were upset too!
I resisted the material world and money. I resisted myself looking handsome. I resisted myself being like "normal people" enjoying their simple consumeristic streak. Although consciously I told myself "I don't care about that", subconsciouly it is BECAUSE I'M BETTER THAN THEM.
Hey Mr Holier-Than-Thou in me.
You know where you should be.
In imagination, not reality.
After that experience, I could imagine going clothes shopping without that much resistance and sometimes even with enjoyment.
The most important healing though is that I feel like a normal person doing normal thing who enjoy connecting with normal people doing normal thing. YAY!
I LOVE BEING NORMAL, whatever that means. Then normal thing in life takes on new level of enjoyment.
Another example from a friend, a very independent person who got a lot of stuff done on her own.
Only when she had to do some huge tasks that she finally opened up to let people help.
She told me how moved she was when people came
into help her. That she almost forgot how nice it felt like to be taken care of.
That's huge healing.
The deeper and more rejuvenating healing is to realize that life, even beyond the human world, does care for you, often in ways that you don't expect.
When you see that whoever you are and whatever you are doing is not separate at all from life, healing happens.
Healing is not crazy medical operation or magical alchemy bringing your broken bones into alignments, your numbness into aliveness and sadness into joy. These are results.
The word "heal" shares the same root with "whole", which means completeness and nothing left out. It is restoring of connection with the wholeness of life.
Healing ends when we can enjoy every aspect of existence, including what we think of as the worst.
"THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN", I hear you scream.
Well, then the good news is that there will always be more enjoyment to come into our lives.
Which is something worth celebrating 😀