MARCH FELT LIKE A DECADE:
As I’m reviewing this past month, I am continually astonished at how the month began and how it ended. Most of us never saw this coming, and I remember laughing at how COVID-19 was being blown out of proportion and was some kind of anti-China propaganda. “People just need to wash their hands and not give into the fear.” WOW…the turn around from that mentality was FAST. I’ve been self quarantined for…feels like a decade…by myself in my studio, it has been a rollercoaster of anxiety, fear, depression, hope, overwhelm, gratitude, guilt, and basically all the feelings. And I know for a fact that I am not alone in it. I am sure you have had your rollercoaster of feelings. I want to take this moment to remind you to:
Take a deep breath
Honor where you are and how you feel right now
And know that you are not alone
what have i learned?:
For my mental health, I need to FaceTime my sister + niece and friends every day. Even a couple of minutes go a long long way.
Routine/ritual is important.
Moving my body is needed every day.
Rest is very very hard for me. The capitalistic conditioning runs so deep.
This time is an INVITATION and not a time to self punish. Every day I am confronted - INVITED I mean - by the same cycle of thinking.
I feel anxiety and loneliness, and then I am tempted to: berate myself because people have a way harder time than me…I have so much privilege (which is absolutely true)…and what I’m experiencing is not a big deal…people are literally dying and are people who are more marginalized than me have little to zero resources to be supported during this time. And then I want to shove all that anxiety and loneliness down.
So some days I spiral and the overwhelm evenly passes. This is an important observation, because whatever I do with that anxiety and loneliness, the overwhelm always passes.
When I am reminded to press into healing, I allow myself to feel the anxiety and loneliness - and I honor it. I can acknowledge my privilege and the suffering of those who have less privilege. Both can exist at the same time!
In a self compassionate voice, I tell myself that OF COURSE I feel anxious and lonely. The future is uncertain and scary for myself and others. And I’m experiencing being by myself for such extended periods of time for the first time in my life. Of course many traumas are triggered.
I ask: what do I need? How can I relieve myself right now? How can I contribute to the collective?
Painting and my plants have helped me a lot during this time.
Podcasts:
I started the month listening to this series called “Divesting From People Pleasing” by Nicole Kelly. This series is incredible. We all need to be continually listening to and believing Black women.
THIS EPISODE. “When Fear of Coronavirus Turns Into Racism and Xenophobia” by Code Switch. After this episode, I took a break from podcasts, because I was so inundated with news - it was all too much.
Books:
Severence by Ling Ma
I saw that @cookiecat.herine wrote that this was her top rated book that she read in 2019, and I got it from the library (in ebook form) right away. WOW I loved reading this book, and it was surreal to read it during this pandemic. Here is the synopsis:
“Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend.
So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.
Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?
A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.”
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
I am taking my time reading this book, because it is heavy and not something you rush through. It’s been a good opportunity to always check into my body as sexual assault and the way our system fails us could be very triggering. I’m 3/4 through it, and I know for a fact it is a very important book. A must read if you are aware of your own triggers and are up to a heavy read.
The bride test by helen hoang
As you might have noticed that those books are pretty intense and heavy, and I realized I needed a book that is light. So this romance novel is perfect! It’s another book that @cookiecat.herine also recommended.
I’m also slowly reading Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown. I read it every morning, and has given me hope and inspiration.
My next book for april:
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Join me in reading it if you haven’t already! And if you’re in for a heavy read.
Taking walks:
Taking walks have been incredibly difficult for me. Every time I have to leave my studio because I have to go to the grocery store or because I want to move my body outside, I get an incredible amount of anxiety. So I haven’t left unless I absolutely have to because I need to buy food. Outside feels so unsafe from being afraid of getting the virus to being afraid of spreading it to anti-Asian verbal/physical assault. The one time I went on a walk by the river right by my apartment, it was one of the hardest days while being self quarantined. Nothing particularly happened, but I was so anxious about what people would say or do - and on top of it, I was reminded how I’m alone doing self quarantining. I saw people on walks with their partners, kids, and dogs. Something so simple like taking a walk now feels so threatening. This is something I’m coming to grasp with and am grieving.
articles:
THIS ARTICLE was sent to me by a dear friend, and when I read it - it put to words what I felt so viscerally.
“You said we’re feeling more than one kind of grief?
Yes, we’re also feeling anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.
What can individuals do to manage all this grief?
Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. It’s not a map but it provides some scaffolding for this unknown world. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.
Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies. We find control in acceptance. I can wash my hands. I can keep a safe distance. I can learn how to work virtually.
”
“A writer for The New Yorker, Jiayang Fan, said she was taking out her trash last week when a man walking by began cursing at her for being Chinese.
“I’ve never felt like this in my 27 yrs in this country,” she wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “I’ve never felt afraid to leave my home to take out the trash bc of my face.”
Attacks have also gotten physical.
In the San Fernando Valley in California, a 16-year old Asian-American boy was attacked in school by bullies who accused him of having the coronavirus. He was sent to the emergency room to see whether he had a concussion.
In New York City a woman wearing a mask was kicked and punched in a Manhattan subway station, and a man in Queens was followed to a bus stop, shouted at and then hit over the head in front of his 10-year-old son.”
Earlier today (march 26), I knew I had to go to the groceries. I allowed myself to cry from the anxiety, and then I did it. Fast forward to now, I just read this article. It saddens me, but it also gave me a sense of sanity…because grocery stores came up multiple times. As more and more Anti-Asian racist assaults become visible, we also have to remember that we (Asians) have non-Black privilege. The Black community has always been facing this kind of racism from all fronts.
“Broken”:
shared on instagram
A couple weeks ago, I asked two questions: "Have you been told/taught that you are born broken?" and "Have you recently described yourself as broken?"
No surprise, the majority of people said yes to both questions.
I've been thinking about this alot, because I grew up in a conservative Evangelical Christian household where that was taught. I was taught I was born broken and that "the world" is broken. In unpacking spiritual and racial trauma, I see how intertwined it all is. White supremacy wants communities of color to believe that we are born broken and that society is broken. Imagine hearing that from a cis man - and more often than not - a white man. Over and over and over again.
Society isn't broken: it is intentionally designed to oppress Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. The whole system is designed to do that. So let's not get it twisted that it's also born broken.
BIPOC, as we are decolonizing/healing, we need to remember that that kind of conditioning goes so deep. We need all the self compassion when we realize that it's so easy to see our trauma and coping techniques as evidence of our "brokenness."
You are whole. You are complete. You are healing. You are resilient.
Especially in this time (practicing self quarantining, this can be a very triggering time), we need each other to remind us about the importance of decolonizing and collective healing. And hear it again: you are not broken.
online workshops:
This month I had to be creative about income, and I decided to release two online workshops! And it was a really good experience, because I learned about following my gut. I came out with a workshop for BIPOC that is based off of the healing guide (which many of you are signed up for). And the other one was open for everyone. I was reluctant to lead a healing + arts workshop with white people, because I’m in a particular place in my healing where I’m very easily triggered. But I went with it anyways, because I need to hustle and I do believe in healing that is beneficial to everyone. THEN, no one signed up! I instantly knew that it was the Universe telling me that my intuition was correct and that wasn’t something to be discouraged about - it was confirmation.
For those who are signed up for the Guide to Healing through art for Black and Brown Folx, I am so excited about the online workshops! My spirit feels very in line with it and am energized by the thought of gathering and healing with you all. If you are not signed up for it, it’s not too late! Feel free to edit your patronage anytime.
food:
Eating warm congee that reminds me of home is what I needed this month. Here’s the instant pot RECIPE!
thank you:
Who would have guessed we would be here just a month ago? I wanted to thank you for supporting me. Every patronage really really counts. Every dollar. Every comment. Every kind word. It goes incredibly far, and I am very grateful to have a community around me that believes in healing and art. And me! Continue to spread the love and I am rooting for you!