Finally feeling a sense of freedom from my family situation, at least for now

For the first 21 years of my life, I felt like I was on track to a productive, well-respected life. I studied hard, tried to cause little trouble, was an totally obedient little girl. When I graduated, I learned that just focusing on school and not researching about the job environment or getting work experience was quite a stupid decision. So I tried to get work experience. Then I felt that the field I chose would benefit a lot more if I entered grad school, so that's what I did. Then I realized the academia and the world of scientific research was nothing like I imagined, but I gritted my teeth and toughed it out. This blog chronicles my struggles, first with yoga as a healing process, with the naive thinking that I would be healed very soon. Then I slumped into a couple years of mostly negative emotional states, sad and confused how I got there.

Now I'm back home again, and for the first time in a very long time, I am happy to report that I no longer feel like I am a disrespected, useless, trapped, immature little girl who has never grown up and never will. In a way I guess it's good that my family stays consistent all these years, so even though I am slower than average people to figure out these kind of stuff, I can finally predict what I would face every time I return home. I see that on the surface they treat me courteously but in reality their actions say that they think I know nothing outside of studying so therefore they must guide me step by step how to do the simplest stuff like taking a bus. Viewing it another way, perhaps my family just doesn't know how to raise children to be independent. They like to handhold younger generations for all of their lives, to the point that they never end up learning how to be on their own. And then they turn around and say, "Look, these younger generations are so useless compared to us and the older generations. They don't know how to learn to do anything on their own." It's the same as complaining about weight issues and then overeating "only during" special occasions (holidays, guest visiting, birthdays, anniversaries ), which happen so often that they are practically overeating most of the time. Basically they complain or talk negatively about something, but these traits or situations they don't like are caused by their own doings. I guess it's human nature to do so.

I feel a great sense of freedom that whatever absurdities I observe and experience, they will be over in a week and a bit. I'm so happy that I found a place to live who respects individuals as equals (well, not 100%, but much, much better than here in Asia), and allows people space to grow and learn. I spent a good part of my life trying to be good, to impress people, and to make my family happy, but now I see it's quite a futile attempt. What makes them happy will make me very miserable. I should look out for myself and be okay with the fact that they have never thought highly of me and may never will. Their opinions of me do not define my success or failure in life. Feeling very relieved about that.

Happy New Year!! New Year's resolutions for 2014

Happy New Year from Asia!! Seems like I go right back into my mindless eating habits, stuffing my face like mad. Luckily I'm only here for two weeks so hopefully the weight-gain will not be overly substantial. Family members still behaves pretty consistently with how they've always acted (behaviors in which for the past 10 years I had found to be quite annoying). But now I'm looking at their behaviors in a different light, so that is interesting. It would be really nice if I myself can look at them in a more compassionate and tolerant way, which it is difficult, but I am trying.

My New Year's resolutions for 2014:

- Learn Taichi and/or qigong -- learn to move my chi to improve energy/alertness

- Exercise more -- I would like to improve my cardio fitness

- Continue to work on my arm balances -- my shoulder and upper body weight-bearing capacity have improved, but there are still a lot of room for further strengthening

- Publish publish publish!! Must focus more on work when I get back.

- Try harder to get to work on time -- been getting to work late every day for the past few months.

- Blog more often -- want to aim for at least once a week.

- Manage myself at work better... I don't know how I will succeed at this but I really need to work on it. Try to get along with my co-workers better and communicate better with the boss. Lots of new challenges happening next year so I need to be more confident to face them!

- In terms of yoga, I think I need to work more on strengthening, more mindful of movements and avoid over-stretching, and really do more pranayama + meditation

Hope I can achieve at least some of these points!! Will work on all of them for sure (I just don't know for how long)!

p.s. Just watched this video, "Try something new for 30 days". I think one suitable activity to try could be daily pranayama exercises (at least one, say alternative nostril breathing, but ideally more than one, like breath of fire and other techniques) for 30 days.

Will keep you updated on my progress.

Enjoying the equanimity post-Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone gets to spend the holidays with family and loved ones. Santa granted my wish and I got to spend a traditional Swedish Christmas with my significant other and his relatives. I was so happy to be surrounded by dogs. My poor s.o. who's totally not a dog person had to endure an entire evening struggling to shove away a massive dog trying multiple times to French kiss him on the mouth, lol. He might have skipped the family dinner altogether (due to the dogs) if it weren't for me. I feel very loved :D

I gave my s.o. the space he needed the past couple of days and thoroughly enjoyed spending 2 days on my own doing nothing (well, a little bit of shopping :D). I slept for long hours each day. It's kind of scary how much rest I need. I don't know how other people do it working 100hrs/week and raising 3 children or something ridiculous like that. If I had a job like that I'd be a terrible employee, and if I were a mom of three I would have a nervous breakdown every other month I think.

I think part of the reason is that my family is so obsessive about child-rearing as well as pet-rearing. My s.o.'s relatives do spoil their dogs (eg. they get walked 3-4 times every day), but they don't obsess about them. Same with kids. When dogs and kids are around, they take care of them, but the focus is still on the adults. This way, kids are relatively calm. Dogs snuggle againsts guests and we the guests have the option to push them away or let them kiss us (I give them my chin and they happily lick on that :D). In a few days when I go home, I know I will be going to gatherings where the adults attention will obsessively focus on the baby in the family, and the young children ages 7-35 will be regarded as invisible (children have ears only and no mouths/voices). Conversations will be interrupted by requests for pictures with and of the baby. I know that my cousin will avoid eye contacts with me and keep her eyes on her phone or on her dog most of the time. The human interaction/connection process is badly broken back at home. But maybe, just maybe I'll be able to survive going in equipped with this knowledge. Previously I didn't understand and was sad people paid so little attention to me. Now I know, and will try my best to do the least harm to them. I can't perform exactly as they want me to perform (my mother always wants me to play a role and talk from a script that she never sent me but expects me to know anyways, just because I'm Chinese or something like that). I'm really bad at not being offensive, but I will try harder this time.

I will enjoy that last couple of days of peace and equanimity I have here in Sweden. Hope I get some time to myself when I return home to Asia. Hope dad and everyone else are healthy and happy, and can give me some space.

Feeling grateful

Compare to last year around December time, right now I feel so much more settled and at peace. I am grateful for the quietness around the house (roommate has gone home for Christmas holidays).  I feel very blessed with so much abundance. I got a slight raise at work. Two projects I started a year ago are both at a final stage where I feel like I'm in control and satisfactory about the progress (a very rare occurrence for me).  This winter season has been quite warm compared to last winter, so I don't feel like I'm freezing in my bones, which makes me happy. For the first time in my life, I have a companion who seems to enjoy my company. The past year I went through a long phase where I would start panicking whenever I couldn't see him for more than a week. I imagined he must have gotten tired of hanging out with me and was planning to gradually decrease the frequency that we saw each other. Luckily it was just an overreaction on my end. I am super grateful to have a person who appreciates me, keeps me company, and cares about me enough to put up with my long-winded rants at this point in my life.

It's taken me my whole life to get to this stage. Who knows how long this security and stableness will last, but right at this moment, I'm really happy where I am (physically and mentally).

I hope I can maintain this mental strength and be more assertive when I go home in 1 week. It will be difficult but I have to be more assertive in declining offers I do not want and insist that I be in control of my own vacation. Anyways, I look forward to really enjoying this coming week where I get to relax, do what I want, try out lots of online yoga, cook, bake, and hang out with my bestie companion :) Maybe brave the Boxing Day shopping as well.

Looking back at the past year

As I look back at my blog posts this past year, I have been struggling a lot mentally, despite my best efforts to grow out of my negativity. For me, the toughest part doing this whole personal growth thing, was that I kept reaching home to friends and family for empathy and support, only to be given   implications to "grow up" and "be more independent" and to take responsibilities for myself.

And with this "tough love", I have indeed grown much stronger emotionally. I have realized this is what made me move to Europe in the first place -- the fact I have very weak emotional and social support back home. It is a huge personal failure on my part. I have false assumed that once a good friend, always a good friend; that family should automatically be supportive and care about my well-being. I guess I was never a very good friend for my peers. With family, I guess all my uncles/aunts and cousins have enough family problems of their own that I end up as the least dysfunctional family member whining the loudest. I've been pretty retarded not realizing how much effort my cousins have put in to erect a false image that they are leading normal, happy lives. I seek them out for help, naïvely assuming that the image (stable careers, responsible husbands, happy kids, vibrant social life) is not in congruence with their inner psyche. Everyone else is desperately trying to suppress their emotional baggage, burying them as deeply as possible, while I on the other hand, have been aggressively digging through all my emotional crap, showing everyone and asking them to identify the contents for me. This hit a lot of nerves and that's why I've received a lot of cold, unsympathetic responses.

I'm not trying to say I am better than my extended family. I'm saying I just now figured out that I have been asking the wrong people for help... I'm asking people who have more garbage than me to help take up some of my junk. Of course they would refuse.. I would refuse too if my plates are totally full. This whole time I had thought that it was all about me... that they dislike me because I'm bratty, spoiled, immature, not lovable, etc.

I am lucky that my chosen field of study allows me to move to another continent at my will. Just like I did in India, while immersed in a totally foreign culture, I get to examine which of my values were culturally ingrained, do not serve me and can be let go, as opposed to values that are universal to human kind (or simply unique to this particular culture I'm immersed in) and should be treasured. I get to interact with people with other types of problem upbringings and see how they manage to partly function professionally. This sounds kind of horrible, but it's reality that most people in the world carry trauma. Some are more damaged than others. Some are less good at hiding their trouble than others. As much as I like to complain about my roommate and some of my co-workers, I see they are still able to master some aspects of their work lives, solving problems I'm not so good at solving, dealing with issues that I try to avoid/suppress myself, presenting themselves confidently in certain situations that require it.

All in all, 2013 was psychologically a very challenging year for me, but a lot of growth and maturity happened. I learned that I shouldn't depend on my family any more. It's good in that I will take more mental responsibility for myself from now on. The sad part is that this could only happen when I put up more physical and mental distance between myself and my family. The hard truth is that my extended family have never in their lives felt close to me. I'm the one who had been clinging on to them the whole time, the way my mother had been clinging onto me emotionally the past several years. It's a good thing I'm sorting out all my mental garbage just in time for a new year to come. 

Need to be stronger mentally

Came home to a stuffed bag of recyclables, empty pizza boxes, a fridge full of expired food items (and no, I do not live with a guy). I never imagined I would be sharing an apartment with a messy roommate in my 30s. My bf does not like to make plans more than two weeks ahead; my roommate serves as prime example of how not to live life (working weekends on her own initiative while complaining about how much she hates her job/life -- once you have completed your higher education you should have the option to choose a job you like, or at least try out several jobs and pick the one that bothers you the least).

They say you should surround yourself with role models and people who are better than you, and that is precisely what I have done for years. My social circle consisted mainly of people who have better personalities, are better cooks, more disciplined, more self-confident, more good-natured, more athletic, more inspiring, more caring, more compassionate, more organized, more charming, more patient, more intelligent, but at the same time are tolerant of having me as their friend. My nature is not competitive; I just want to spent my entire life bettering myself and learning from those around me.

Because these people are better than me in so many ways, it's easy for me to get along with them, whereas my friends need some patience, compassion and consideration to hang out with me. The past year I have been under in a very different type of challenging situation. My social circle consists of people who are much more negative, more prejudiced, less considerate and compassionate than what I'm used to. It's been extremely difficult for me to stay positive and content under this situation. I guess what I dislike most in other people are often a reflection of what I dislike about myself, so I am shown in a magnifying glass how unlikable my own negativity, inconsideration, subjectiveness, and messiness can be to my friends and family back home. It's a useful lesson but so tough on my psyche. Oh well, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger I guess.

In a way I've been leaning on my friends back home a bit too much. It's time to learn to stand up on my own, hold my own stance, and try not to be influenced by the negativities around me. I'm not strong in this area but it's time for me to work on my weak mental aspects. It's the only thing I can do considering the alternative (finding another place to stay and finding a more outgoing, organized, domestic bf who is just as considerate and intelligent as the current one) are no easy tasks.

Also, I should work on expanding my social circles. I really could use more friends and a more compassionate support network.

Contemplations on human nature, as always

Human beings are fussy creatures. We have endless amounts of desires, many of which seem to just happen to us at random times of the day. We feel famished, we are itchy, we get thirsty, we are bored, we're over-stimulated, we want a hug, we want sugar, we want to be with people, we need some alone time right now; we are suddenly nostalgic and need to call/go home; we suddenly feel spite towards an ex and deeply desire some form of revenge action, etc.

The buddhist tradition recognizes that these desires come out of nowhere and leave again if we can just recognize this happens, sit on the desire, and let it pass. The thing is, the moment when we think we've achieved the awareness and feel good about ourselves, we let our guards down momentarily and let the next desire guide our actions again. At least this is how I've been feeling over the past few years.

Many other religious and cultural traditions use rules to tell people to suppress their desires and behave a certain way in their daily lives according to the books. They are often successful to a point, but of course, people occasionally slip. People usually either lie to themselves and legitimize their actions with some elaborate explanations or feel totally guilty and swear they will follow the "shoulds" from now on.

What I dislike about the second method is that we are made to think that without rules and religions, we would all be constantly committing immoral actions all day long, killing and cheating each other every chance we get. In addition, sometimes the cultural norm is so ingrained that people don't even realize that their ways of thinking only apply within their cultural and not worldwide. This isn't so much of an issue if they spend their entire lives only among those who were brought up in the same type of culture, but it is indeed a problem if they talk about their values as if they apply universally while living in another country.

Currently I feel like I'm seen as slightly too submissive by my colleagues and significant other, but my parents, aunt+uncles, cousins, sister etc all see me as too selfish and not considerate / compliant enough. I think my defiance is a result of them keep trying to tell me what to do and who to be. I cannot be respectful of their ways if they keep asking me to change myself to conform to how they think a person should be. I guess if I could be more charmeleon-like, I could aim to be more assertive in my normal life, and pretend to agree with everything family members say when I do go back home. Sounds straightforward, but I feel like if I can achieve that, I can be CEO or even president somewhere. Seriously.

I know the readers of my blog have kindly commented, telling me to just be myself and forget about trying to please my family. But the issue is not about pleasing my family. I don't think I've ever tried very hard in that department in my life, which why they disapprove of me so much. My biggest struggle has been how my family and some friends can live in North America for decades, have the chance to see alternatives ways of running a family, and still not distinguish the difference between "universal shoulds" (not sure if there is such a thing) and "traditional values that only apply to our culture". I feel like I have been aggressively coerced to submit to the traditional cultural norm for so long that, as I slowly and gradually make my way back up to the surface, like a deep ocean scuba diver, I'm learning about the different levels of "awakeness" -- what is human nature, what is cultural, the range of open-minded and close-minded "ness" among family, friends, colleagues, and strangers. I'm struggling a lot in my relationship because we were raised by guardians with radically different values. I know some people choose to find partners from similar cultural family backgrounds. I guess I purposely avoided that because I wanted to get as far away from my cultural as I can. Turns out whether I like it or not, I am still influenced by my culture and carry traits of it no matter where I go and what I do.

Sometimes I think like would be easier if I were one of those people who never contemplate about the purpose of life, whose sole focus in life is to be the most typical textbook mother/wife within their culture (and the definition of the perfect mom/wife is quite different in every culture). But that's not how my brain works. I fundamentally don't want to be a stereotype, not even a successful one. I guess my fate is to continue to struggle through life, trying to discover how I am meant to useful to this world while being so quirky, and try to connect with like-minded, or at least supportive beings. It's a challenging journey, but I just don't see any other way to do it.