Mindspace

San Damiano Godspeak

Every time i come here, God speaks. Whether i like it or not, whether i am attentive or not, He has a word for me.
This time up here, i find myself distracted and un-meditative. i am just excited to see people, loving my small group but unwilling to listen to the leaders' lecture. i feel sentimental about the retreat, i have all my usual triggers about authority figures, i am fidgeting through group and annoyed at the material.
The session is on fear. And during the healing ceremony, God asks what is one fear i can let go and what is one action i can take to overcome it.
And i was examining my greatest fear around  communicating with my husband.  i was picking up what underlies all my anger and anxiety and i came up with a list:

• fear of being unappreciated
• fear that he is not interested in my journey
• fear that he takes me for granted
• fear that he expects to served
• fear that he has no intention or desire to serve me
• fear that all the years i supported him during medical school was a wash
• fear that my prayers for my husband since i was 10 years old was a wash
• fear that he thinks he is better than me because he is a physician
• fear that he expects to have more say because he is the breadwinner
• fear that he will use money to manipulate me now and in the future
• fear that he will never show up in the interpersonal space
• fear that i will never be able to have an authentic real conversation/ connection with my husband
• fear that this is as good as it gets
• fear that my children will think the above
• fear that he won't understand the pains and anxiety i go through to support the family, care for the kids, and run the household.
• fear that everything else will always be more interesting and activating that this marriage and me
• fear that he only wants to have happy times with me and not sad
• fear that he will not be able to comfort me when something really devastating happens in the future
• fear that i will feel/ feel more connected with other people/communities than i do him
• fear that we will never connect spiritually
• fear that he can't be there emotionally for the kids
• fear that he will raise aidan the way his dad raised him
• fear he won't be there for the kids

i suddenly notice that most of the fears live in the future, in the unknown in what we cannot control and see. 
i can't control my husband's heart, his responses to me, his ability to grow and change and interact with my kids. It's easier that i assume he can't and won't and don't want to, instead of living each moment as it comes.

i'm reading a book Recovery-the sacred Art. The 12 steps as a Spiritual Practice which talks about all addictions as a need to control. Yesterday i was reading about the idea of Karma which is defined as not the ability to change what was, or what is, but what is next. 
As i sat with my spiritual director and ruminated about my marriage, she looked at me confused and said " you seem open hearted about whatever God is going to do ", and i thought  "i am?".
It was liberating to hear somehow. And as i type my list of fears, i realize most of it is located in the future, or the past. The present is so tricky. One school of thoughts says we can only live in the present, now karma says we can't even change the present, we can only change the future.
But i think am getting a new vision of how to see my marriage. To let go of the past and even the future, and live the present one step at a time. And when sorrow and hurt show up, to not try to control it, but accept it, but take responsibility for sowing the very next thing.
Not the future, but the next thing.
That i think i can do with hope and openheartedness.

 

 

Afterglow of Clients

So distracted up here God, i feel like i'm buzzing with the afterglow of an amazing week with clients. I feel full somehow, that you have met me already.
I've had good weeks before but somehow, this was different. For the first time in my life, i feel like i want to hang out with my clients more than with my family and friends.
I'm wondering why they are so satisfying. They've blessed me with their stories, how God shows up in their life. i like who i am when i am with them -- forced to be positive, forced to track Your goodness , forced to encourage and uplift and pray.
God if only i had the same discipline in our marriage.
It's been an exquisite week. You showed up so many times, had a chance to pray with S and B.B's comments " This was the best session" is still ringing in my ears. The fact that a client decided to come in in pain before surgery, just blew me away. Great EMDR sessions, it was the most perfect day.Usually, i leave work at work. This weekend, i feel it fill my heart and nourish me in a way that is grounding.  
For the first time, i am not fleeing up the hill, but i am actually enjoying life at the bottom of the mountain top.

Nally and LD

Nally might have a learning disability Lord. i think i've always known her brain worked differently. i've just never called it an LD. A part of me still refuses to. She's compensated beautifully and is doing fine at school.
Yet part of me feels that it's important if she does have it, to address it before middle school.
My heart is tender here, can't decide why. i feel like somehow, i had it, and no one addressed it and knew and i felt so alone and ashamed for being different. Hopefully, you have protected her from this. That is all i can pray for.
I feel like God is sending resources. I have a reading specialist at St Lawrance that is willing to test Natalie for free, i met a woman here at the retreat that can hook me up with a reading recovery tutor.
I just want this summer for her to get help. And a part of me chastises myself for not getting help earlier.
To imagine her doing less that what she could just breaks my heart.
This retreat, i hear the mothers talk about their children. i have the privilege of listening to them talk in retrospect.
God if i could have a glimpse of who she'll be like in college, i would worry less. If i know you'll get here there eventually, i can let go of the process. Help me to trust you and start now.

Last client of the day

I had the most beautiful session on Thursday. My last client for the day is a 63 year old elderly lady who is a derivative victim of crime. The state provides 35 sessions of free therapy for anyone who is a victim of crime.
She called me hard as nails on the phone convincing me that she didn't need therapy. Something about her touched me and i went out on a limb i took her on before she got her sessions approved.
It's been 3 years  since i've started seeing clients. i've finished 3000 hours. In the old days, i would journal every session with every client. Every client was nothing short of a miracle,  every connection, every revelation. i was incredulous about therapy, amazed that this is the work i do.
These days especially with my recent work with EMDR, great sessions are almost "given", every client is amazing and special and i have to keep telling myself that i am so privileged to do this work and not lose the wild eyed wonder of watching people heal. 
Thursday's session was one of those. Somedays i can't even believe how people change. She came to me traumatized, angry, jaded and scared. Hard as nails yet trembly at the same time.
We spent the first couple of sessions playing in the sand tray, listening to dripping caverns, and taking deep breaths. i remembered thinking what in the world could a 40 year old young therapist as myself offer this woman who has lived 3 of my lifetimes.
All i did was listened, empathized, held a loving, consistent container and kept showing up. And slowly and gently she healed.  She unfolded, she let her guard down, she let me in, she called me on vacation. She cried into pillows and she let me wrap her with blankets and play the song "Gentle with Myself ".
Yesterday we are 8 sessions to the end of 35. i am officially in "denial" and refusing to count. When i told her, this tough woman who has survived so much teared up. And we looked back at how far she's come and marvelled. I told her that yes, she has gotten assertiveness skills, she's learnt parenting skills, she is drawing boundaries and feeling better about herself, but more than anything -- she has let someone in. That is the real work of all the time she has been here.
Yesterday, she came in before she had to go into surgery. And i felt so moved to be able to spend time with her before she went in. During what seems like a stroke of bad luck, people have been coming out of the wood work for her. Not only has she let me in, she is letting others, she is finally reconciling with family, her sweetheart is flying in from Canada, people from a church she swore hated her is showing up and caring for her.
i stand in awe of how God orchestrates what seems like horrible news and weaves so many answers to prayers that we have prayed through all the months of work.
I couldn't be more proud when she was articulated His goodness through it all. If there was anything she could leave with was that God was crazy about her, loves her and is tenderly healing and advocating for her.
As i watched her walk away, my heart overflowed with gratitude for being so privileged to walk this journey with her; to bear witness to God's goodness in her life, to keep noticing, keep tracking, keep seeing the patterns of how God shows up. Today she finds them on her own. Today, she is soft enough to let God in.
He was there all along.

 

 

13 years at San Damiano

I'm up here in my favorite runaway place San Damiano.
In the 13 years i've come up here, i've always come up on a Friday evening. I've always called 5 minutes till the retreat starts to confirm attendance; Like a thief in the night, i come driving up the hill after 2 hours of rush hour traffic, exhausted from the stop and go, on the heels of crying children running after the car, my clothes thrown together, me finishing up calls with clients in the car.
Today because i worked Monday, i had the day off, i wandered around the morning lost, answered some calls so i missed my exercise class, was distracted all through my Al-anon meeting, asked my husband out to lunch, went home, napped, day dreamed in bed, took a shower, got lost in thought there too. And then leisurely found my way to San Damiano on the first day of Memorial Day weekend, with no traffic at all. i even stopped by Trader Joes to get all my favorite comfort food -- cooke dough filled dark chocolate and rosemary and raisin crackers.
It's hard to believe i've been coming up here for over 10 years now. 2000 was the year, i turned down this brand new house my in-laws bought for me. i remember coming here trembling with fear after saying no to them terrified that they would guilt me into changing my mind. That year marked the beginning of now 12 years of recovery -- my first introduction to twelve step, my first retreat, my first looking at my codependency and my need to please as a disease.
The beginning of a turn in my marriage -- a change in what my friend calls " false advertising ". i can't say our marriage got easier or better after that, but i have to say a part of me swells with pride when my husband says i am a "RECOVERING" codependent. i think he's not too pleased with my getting healthy. Life has gotten harder for him.
But i'm wandering the grounds, amazed at being here on a Friday in daylight, thrilled that i don't have to twitch all evening and take till Saturday afternoon to calm down. i left a cold and  chilly Palo Alto to come to a sun-bathed Danville, the grounds ablaze with flowers and the water trickling in my ear.

Either i have grown, or i am completely discombobulated.

Bouquets from Heaven

He showed up this weekend God, twice now in ways he probably doesn't even know.
Maybe, more accurately -- You showed up. i got 2 bouquets of flowers today -- evidence that You are working on my behalf.
Yesterday my husband finally said that maybe his sleep habits were affecting his work ( DUH! ) and that he was going to try to sleep early at 10.30 from now on. i wasn't even present enough to register how huge that was.
Today he actually told me that he attempted to keep to the limit of bottles of wine he promised me he was going to drink during his party. Just that he tried, and that he told the guests the limit was huge. He promised 3, they drank 4. For his parties, it was a miracle.
i told my therapist today, part of me doesn't want him to get well. How else would we monitor the mania, how else would i account for being in Al-anon for 3 years.
I am reminded of the conviction God gave me years ago about my favorite Bible hero Joseph, that had he not done his own personal work all the years in prison, the day God finally opened the jail gates and told him he was Pharaoh, he would have been too bitter to embrace God's dream for him.
I feel like i am right on the brink of that work. That God is about to give me what i've been wanting my whole life, and i am too bitter and angry to receive. i want an account, i want an explanation for the hell i've been through. i don't want God to fix it, i want God to understand how horrible it's been. i just want acknowledgment and validation. i don't care for the suffering to stop.i have a high threshold of pain. i don't have a high threshold of being invisible.
But just for today, i am clutching both my bouquets tightly. As i told my therapist, when i see the Giver as God, i am moved to tears. When i see them as gifts from my husband, my heart is hardened and guarded.
Every good and perfect gift comes from you God -- i'll take it from you.

His Supply shows up!

Had the craziest weekend. Have been "pre-stressing" about it for weeks .I hosted my husband's 42th birthday on May 18th, assisted for a former professor for 7 hours for a Spousal Abuse workshop at Santa Clara University and taught a class at Calvary of Los Gatos on Sunday.
Today i was telling someone on the phone that it was the culmination of recovery because in the past any one of those commitments would have kept me up late and obsessing. I used to wake up anxious about Nally's birthday parties, i would stress over presentations at churches for weeks on end, staying up till the past midnight.
i had been praying about this weekend for a while, determined to simply put one foot in front of the other. Determined to simply do it when i "get there", refusing to stress, imagine, run ahead. Trusting that God's supply will be there when i need it. Almost covenanting to fail, to jump off the cliff the deep end, daring God to be there, throwing caution to the wind -- "What's going to be the worst thing that happened ? I fall flat ! "
But he was there. i had time on Friday to get off work, stop by the bakery to get birthday cake, see my last client of the day at 4 and then come home and prep for an hour. i was able to have all my supporting dishes done in an hour while my husband who had all day was "late" with entrees.
Saturday couldn't have been more nurturing. My professor -- Susie Herricks is the most nurturing, loving person to be around. She let me co-teach, co-contribute, be around her calm, centered and relaxed energy. She modeled for me what a relaxed, loving centered class was.
Sunday came along and i was scattered before church. Slightly triggered and grieving something about hubby. Yet pastor preached the most amazing sermon, i drove to work flying on air.
The seminar went great.  The class was engaged and participative, and i left full on adrenaline even though i was starving going in.
Thank you God, you are teaching me to trust that Your supply will show up when the time of need arises. This weekend showed me that you will provide above and beyond all i can ask or imagine.
Everything from helping me to be there for my 4pm Palo Alto client, to carrying all the cakes into office so they won't melt,  to getting all the side dishes up and ready, to having a good time at a party which i was worried i wouldn't. Thank you for honoring my refusal to worry about the technical setup, for my trusting that you will show up even if there was the biggest snafu,for honoring my determination to be centered even if everything went wrong.
You were there -- i praise you.

Just listening

A client called today. She is a 50 some year old whom i saw in 2008. She was part of my Advanced Family Therapy Class and she was set up by Santa Clara University. A 50 some year old who had just lost her adult daughter in a car accident, i sat in all my newbie inexperience immersed in horror of her loss. i remember feeling -- what could i do in 4 sessions? How could i wrap my thirty-something brain around such pain. i simply sat and felt with her.
My favorite professor, Dave Larson at Santa Clara used to say the most important thing we do is "just listen". Then an active process therapist, giddy with interventions, i poo-pooed it. I am a Gestalt therapist, i am a multi-modal, art, psycho-drama, sand empty chair therapist, my recent new fad -- psych-biological therapist equipped with EMDR.
But it's calls like this that humble and tell me about the sacred miracle of of human connection when we just listen.
At 8.15am, she was the highlight of my day. When her number came on my phone, i was befuddled. i have had at least 50 clients since i've seen her. Yet she spoke to me with the familiarity of an old friend. i was a resource, and internalized presence, after all these years.
Today when i sit with my Axis 2 clients, the ones that i now know i'm working on a much deeper task of attachment, i know that i am not working with frontal lobes and insight. I know that they are the ones i know i have to earn every minute of my ability to speak at all. i've had enough of them now to have sat with them for 3 years, for them to wake up as if from a comatose and say " i haven't been showing up have i ? " and i can gently say " Yes, but i have. And i will be right here when you decide it's safe enough to come. "
i have seen it with men and women, when all i've done for years and years is "just listen" and then one day, they insist on my "opinion".
3 years later, on the brink of being licensed, i feel so blessed to hear from my very first client. She is my confirmation that i was "qualified" all along.
Keep me humble God, to keep coming back to "just listening".

Neuroscience and God

Just came back from a weekend of a really amazing conference on couple's therapy. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, babysitting cost more than the conference itself. i have to say though, it was more useful than the couples session that we had the day before.
But's so interesting to see the field of psychology and attachment come full circle to psychobiology. Neuroscience is now having a field day with psychology as we have found the "mirror neuron", the parts of our brand that light up when we attach to someone, the actual bonding hormone is now available as a nasal spray and we are studying conflict in terms of " fight, flight or freeze". The hopeful thing is studying how brains that have been wired for danger and threat, get rewired with new neuro-pathways when different undergoing different experiences. Science can now track what us therapist do for a living -- with MRI scans. We are literally blazing new pathways in the brain. Even at old age, we are discovering our brain is neuroplastic and capable of change.
On that note, i was in a particularly bittersweet moment on my way to work  thinking about all the deficits that we were struggling with in our marriage. How there were some basic mirroring skills that were so obviously not there. In turn, how our brain has been wired now to see the other as a threat. In this space, as i learnt, very little learning and insight can happen. The lower, reptilian brain hogs all resources and we are what the layman calls just ever so slightly " defensive".
It resonates so sorrowfully because till this weekend, i haven't had the language to describe what i was feeling. It's almost like my brain and body are now operating parallel. My brain has undergone years of therapy, and even couples therapy, it's what shows up at 12-step meetings, it's what reads the Bible. Yet in the morning, i wake up and i am "angry", or now i learned, on defense and i don't even remember why.
Psychobiological psychology says that the narrative can change, but the biological reflexes stays the same. My body is now wired for threat and abandonment. And there seems very little i can do to change my reflexes.
Yet as i land at the school site i was a counselor for this morning, i thought i'd stop by the chapel for mass. And suddenly, in the light of the conference, it makes total sense for God to say "Give your body as a living sacrifice ", " this is my body broken for you", suddenly the word "body" brings me to tears. Here is my broken brain God, my screwed up set of reflexes, my wiring designed for threat and danger. I am not wired to bond with this person. Yet you say, you were broken for me, for my transgressions. You say you give me a new and living body in exchange.

I took communion even though i wasn't Catholic. i felt like i really needed the hope that morning. That this neuroscience stuff isn't new to the person who created it. He who began a good work will bring it to completion.
He designed it. He can fix it. And the thing that comforts me to know is  -- He wants to.

Jehovah Jireh

Thank you Lord, You know that i have been worried about finances. Today, i released my husband's earnings to you, trusting that your dreams for him to do work abroad was from you. God today, you reward me with a sign and i breathe a sigh of relief and gratitude. Thank you. You've done this before, and i have lived here before. Forgive me for my fears and anxieties. You have been the Breadwinner of this household for years when my husband's salary couldn't cover. You have taken 5 loaves and 3 fishes and multiplied. Help me to trust you completely. 

My side of the street

Lovely day off. i realized that this weekend left me off kilter. i woke up this morning in 3am anxiety despite the Melatonin. Called the office multiple times checking on my voicemail. Made 3 outreach calls for potential lunch-dates and then bailed last minute. I'm craving contact but avoiding it at the same time. My therapist is going to have a field day with all this material.

I know that part of it is that i am unconsciously tracking husband. He is on some kind of manic cycle with sleep, activity and consumption. Yesterday he slept in the morning missed church and then proceeded to sleep from 5-10pm. He's been doing 2am bedtimes for a week now while working 12-hour days. He's been sleeping in in the morning.  i know better now than to figure out what time he eventually fall asleep. The old me would have stayed up waiting for him to come home, mad at his lack of check-ins after work. i don't ask anymore, i don't wait till he comes home, i don't even let myself ask him how he is when he eventually gets into bed. Like clockwork, if we make any kind of significant contact -- he passes out and i am wide awake. i have come such a long way learning to let go of knowing in order to protect my sleep,serenity and well being. 

Subconsciously though, i am a scientist. i am keeping track of his sleep, his consumption, his activity. i realize part of why this past vacation was so relaxing for me was that i knew he was " safe" at all times.  At the back of my mind, i knew that my parents were filling some kind of companionship need he had. i could sense his spirit relax, i slept better, even though i didn't do anything different -- it was amazing to be able to entrust him to them emotionally.

Here, i know when he is about to start some manic spree. His sleep starts going haywire, his drinking, his activity. All of me wonders if it is my fault, something i did. Something i could be doing different.

When i tell this to my Al-anon group they roll their eyes impatiently. They say they have stopped tracking their qualifiar's behavior a long time ago. They don't ever assume sustaining sobriety outside of recovery. They remind me to keep track of myself, to stay on my side of the street, to mind my own business and focus on the only thing i can control -- myself and my own serenity.

So for the 100th time, i plead ignorance and turn my husband over. God reminds me that if he stops drinking, he'll be a dry drunk, if he is in recovery, it doesn't mean our connection problems with go away. When i am typically anxious about his drinking, it's because i feel disconnected from him and what better to blame than alcohol.

So i am back to working on me, and being grateful for the little things -- like how i was able to detail the insides of my car to half the price of a usual cleaning. It is a brand new car so much so Aidan LOOOOOves being in it.

i was listening to a client describe how cruddy her car was and how it truly irks her; and something about the helplessness of a child struck a chord in me. Aidan is like that - he likes things clean and orderly. The car hadn't been washed or cleaned in 6 months.

It is beautiful. Today, i packed up 4 bags of old clothes and am taking it to the Goodwill. i've decided, every week i will give away at least 3 bags from my house. It is a good practice. 

The kids have been so clingy lately. Right on the heels of 10 days of vacationing -- we couldn't be more in love.
Aidan is in his prime -- brimming over with chivalry, rushing to get me towels if soap gets in my eyes, helping me get and put away groceries, giving me massages and opening my car door. Today he even agreed to exfoliate WITH me ( i think he thinks it's a fair exchange for me cheering him on with basketball ) and we spent 10 minutes just putting moisturizer on our faces.
Nally is insatiable - " My love tank is 28%"  ( this is at 930 at night  ), jumps in my arms, takes up breast feeding position and wants to be rocked in the rocking chair. I think one day i wouldn't have 2 children who fight for my touch, cuddles, massages, songs, prayers and hi-lows. This lady stops and watches our daily good bye ritual at the school and says " Affectionate day ? " i say " No, this is EVERYDAY" 
I feel so blessed to have children who still think i am the best thing since sliced bread.

So grateful God, to come back to a full week of clients -- intact after 10 days of vacation. There was a time, i was so nervous about my practice, about client loyalty and about alliance. i was afraid that a week away would cause the bottom to drop out of my practice.
Today, i never want take for granted the intact alliance that just picks up where we left off. Today, L and A went even deeper. It warms my heart to hear my clients say they missed me.
It warms my heart when a client that was suppose to transition from twice a week to once a week, reinstate her second session just for this week. God could we find a more gratifying profession ?
i feel different coming back this time somehow. Something about submitting my hours and leaving for vacation and coming back to a new practice.
I feel myself such a different person walking around CCC. Just as happy to be there, just as excited to see my colleagues but perhaps a lot less to prove.
I am grateful that on my first week, where i don't have to count my hours -- i have 14 clients. It's amazing to take clients simply on the basis of need not requirement.
Thank you for filling up my week. One week at time. Help me to surrender my work to you.

Gratitude List

Thank you for a wonderful Monday God,
I feel your love and care for me,

• as i get my keys this morning for my new Palo Alto office,
• for having enough time to get to the Dailey Method and exercise again
• for how my 12-step group resonated with the share i thought was so random and unrelated
• for grace to be able to let go and accept the fact that my manicurist couldn't fit me in today
• for a brand new  Palo Alto client referred by a good friend
• to be able to call 3 people today without worrying about who they symbolize in my life -- just to give without expecting anything in return,
• for the ease to be able to trust the kids will get done with homework without rushing them and squeezing in every sliver of time,
• for Firestone serving my belts in 1.5 hours
• for the resources to pay for the belts
• for enough time to shop at Trader Joe's and Costco
• for having enough time to get my new name plate for my office
• for the warm welcome my colleagues give me at my new office -- offering to inscribe my name up on the door
• for successfully scheduling an appointment with my acupuncturist whom i haven't seen in 7 months because of scheduling difficulties.
• meaningful conversation with my friend Jane
• for a fully booked week even though i don't need to count my hours anymore.
• great prayer time this morning in the car praying for humility and teachability.
• a renewed ability to write and blog with freedom.

i feel so full, so lavished on, so loved. Today as i choose to not know, not think, not pre-think, or pre-know -- i covenant to relish your peace and goodness in the moment.

 

Taking off with EMDR

Taking off with the newly acquired training i have with EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization Response. To be honest, it was something i had had a lot of skepticism going into. As a client, I did experience some positive response during training.  But nothing convinced me more of its efficacy than the impact its had on my clients.
Perhaps it is because of the type of therapist i am, perhaps it because of the kind of clients i have , perhaps it's because i have an already experiential practice -- my clients all seem to take to it like fish in water.
Who knew, that it fit like a glove with process therapy interventions, my clients have been acclimated to this modality for all the months of therapy. They are used to closing their eyes, and imagining resources coming to their rescue, they are used to having their adult self talk to their little girl self, they are used to trusting me in this scary unexpected space.
When i first met the trainer, something about the certainty and cockiness about him triggered me. i was outraged that someone would be able to predict the outcome of an intervention with such certainty, or be able to commit to a "0 level" of disturbance regarding a memory that had been there for life. It felt like voodoo or magic.
Yet the more i do it, the more i feel like the brain itself is doing the work. My clients are already high functioning, they have resources, they are just stuck in this one part of their past. Something about EMDR, moves the blockage and they can get to their high functioning self.
Over and over, i see that there is something very definite about the right and left brain connection and what happens when we keep both sides engaged while processing trauma. The traumatic block moves and the high-functioning adult takes over and the memory loses its charge. My job is to simply work with moving that block.
Feedback i've been getting have been incredible: an instantaneous reduction of anxiety regarding the target traumatic memory ( level 10-0/2 ), changes in the memory ( remembering new facts, truer facts or positive resources ), a greater sense of peace and even better sleep. This is with clients i've seen for 1-2 years with enormous trauma in their lives; that we've only just touched on with talk therapy.
As a therapist, i feel so blessed to be able to offer them something so tangible and concrete. I send them home with exercises of self-soothing and butterfly tapping ( where they tap themselves ) with positive affirmations.
But more than that, i am so blessed to witness again the "randomness" of God's guidance. i had picked EMDR a week to the end of my hours. i picked the last 20 hours of workshop i could do before April. I chose EMDR because the trainer came to us instead of me having to fly somewhere. It wasn't a thoughtful, well researched decision. i didn't set up a file on all the different skills i could acquire that would enhance my practice.
i have flashbacks of these meticulously kept files on job searching i used to set up my first year out of school; how i researched every CEO and founder of the companies i wanted to work for. How i took every interview so personally. How i "studied" for my job search like a British exam.
And how almost 2 decades, i make these "careless" decisions in the moment, with the wisdom i have in the moment, trusting that if i make a mistake, God is big enough to save me from it -- the most profound and amazing turns in my life has occurred.
It was how i decided to go to Stanford, or take a class at Santa Clara, or stumble onto Process Therapy Institute, or found my Sun Micosystems job. It was even how randomly Enoch and i decided the timing to get married or conceive Natalie. 
I pause in humility to acknowledge that "Unless the Lord builds Zion, they labor in vain " and how " No eye has seen no ear has heard what God has in store for those that love him "; i breathe a prayer realizing that the older i get, the more willing i am to be "dumb" and hopefully in time to be "wrong", to submit to a God that is obviously doing a much better job running my life than i am.

 

Enough

These days God has been speaking to my heart about how much this idea of scarcity impacts my life. 
In therapy, we finally got down to talking about my sister, and how she is the one member of my family that eludes a decade worth of therapy. As a therapist, when a client says "i don't remember anything from the ages of 2-5" that is a definite red flag. There is a reason for why our memory blocks out chunks of our lives. Too many times close friends of mine have said " You never told me you had a sister" and i'm like " oh yahhhhhh" and " She lives in San Francisco ? " i'm like " oh yahhhhh".
But these days since we've gone over mom and dad and mom and dad as many times as a compost bin, i finally said to my therapist -- " You should probably know since i will probably forget to tell you -- i have a sister".
And after talking about it a little, we figured it has some to do with idea of sharing; and probably the fact that her birth came at the time my mother was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which basically took her out for the first 3 years of my sister's life.
My therapist says that from my little 3 year old's point of view, the two events got syncronized compounded by the fact that the birth of a sibling is rated highest for trauma next to death and divorce.
i don't know or i am unwilling to know ( either one ) if it's true. But i do know that i've struggled with sharing since the day i was born; that threesomes make me really nervous, that i'm chronically paranoid of supply -- time, money, energy, attention, focus etc. 
i know that somehow it influences how i share my husband with the world, celebrate his accomplishments, share our resources.
I am always living in the space of scarcity worried about when things / time/ pleasure will run out. i am always  preparing for famine, for withdrawal, for the pain of separation. i'm always rationing.
Recently, all of this sibling-sharing anxiety got resurrected when for the second time in a row, my parents spent more time with my sister than my kids when they came to town.
Literally rendered speechless, i couldn't even articulate how much it hurt me. It was a big reason why i previously dug my heels and refused to join the family in their recent trip to Singapore. That plus the fact that my husband did not consult me about it and decidedly got our kids into a wedding party which would take inordinate amounts of recovery to back out of.
But on a silent retreat in San Rafael, God spoke to my heart at 6am in the morning when i was half-asleep and without my usual psychological defenses. Deliberately un-profound and almost trite ( had i had all my woken wits about me )  he asked in a still small voice so contrived it had to be Him :  " What would you decide if you took unforgiveness out of the equation ? " 
For a split moment, my heart flew open and a breath of fresh air came in. Without reservation, i gave myself permission be excited to see my grandmother one more time, enjoy my children in Thailand and choose to hang out with my family. At the end of the day, what my comatose mind couldn't tell me but knew was that going to Singapore, would be the one way i didn't have to share my parents with my sister.
Coming home this trip, they all but confirmed my instincts: that they felt torn when they come visit. They are on delusion that my sister has "less ". a theory i suspect goes back years. For the first time, given all the years of recovery and kudos to Al-anon and being a therapist -- i decided, i didn't want to know, i didn't want to engage in changing their minds, i didn't want to participate.
I was going to accept that just like how they've always done our whole lives,  regardless of our idea that life should treat both their daughters fairly and equally.
i didn't have the heart to tell them that though the concept has been out of vogue for generations; that my sharing that belief has robbed me of so much joy and gratitude; that it ironically creates a strange sense of entitlement, and that fuels years of anger and rage.
No i did not tell them. As everyone of my 12-step group would be proud, i bit my tongue and decided, i have much, i don't have to have more, i don't have to have my fair share. i just have much.
More amazingly -- i just might have enough. 
And the God whom i serve has more where it comes from.

Pictures from April Trip to Singapore

Coming Home ( article to be sent to Straits Times Singapore )

We're in Asia for 10 days.
Who knew that when i ran into that midwestern Asian American in the  Singaporean club 2 decades ago at Brown, he would have as much a fetish for my country as i do with his.
17 years of marriage later, he is as much in love with my country as i am with his. It's my mother's consolation prize for having both daughters marry and live abroad.
At first i came home dutifully like a homing pigeon to bring my first born back to my grandmother's house. It was somehow important that she got to see the house i was brought up in, be bathed in the same bathroom with the porcelein water pot with the plastic scoop. It was important that she look out of the same window waiting for my mother and play in the HDB playground downstairs my grandfather took me when he opened the mail box every day.
Then my second born Aidan made his inaugural visit at 6 months old. My grandmother would watch both them while visit my old shopping haunts. She understood nothing about my interface design career, my graduate work, my mid-life career change but as for child-rearing,  she was a pro. She raised 5 children and 3 of her grandchildren while her kids went off to work.
She surveyed my kids when i brought them home and said "These you leave here, go back to America and make new ones " Regarding my parenting practices, she would click her tongue disapprovingly --  "You raise children like you raise pigs " -- with too much ease and too little worry.
By then, The kids were professional travelers when it came to that 20-hour flight home.  We learnt that having the baby basinet aisle was a great idea until they were mobile, and then it was nightmare for a newly walking toddler. We enjoyed baby-food at all hours of the night with SIA, and free diapers. i learnt to trust complete strangers to watch my baby while i took the toddler to the bathroom ( what are they going to do walk off the plane ? ) i packed 2 heavy backpacks of $1knick-knacks and snacks and when in doubt ANOTHER change of clothes.
As the kids got to school age, they hit that wonderful window of compliance when you could persuade them to spent 1 out of the 20 hours doing a freshly minted ten-year series workbook.
Now at 9 and 7 years old, that would be consider unlawful exploitation of captive learning over international airways.
Today, they each pack a carry-on with one iPad and a Kindle and rely upon their own personalized entertainment center. We flew United instead of our beloved Singapore Airlines this trip and missed the free flow of movies, Asian breakfast and doting stewardess.
The result of this my husband and i's unusual fetish for each other's country is a set bi-cultural children that have two homes on either side of the continent. My children have elaborate pre-verbal memories of their early years in Asia which they then describe with astonishing detail when they finally have words.
They nurse the  memories of my mother making cheese toast and cold Milo at 3am in the morning while they were jet lagged. They love watching the dawn as the HDB birdsongs start waking up the skyline. They are enthralled with multi-story malls and escalators ( our US shopping centers don't go past 4 stories ). They love the Shiok river at the Wild Wild Wet and feeding the lorys at the Jurong Bird Park. They love slurping bone marrow and eating crab.
While i roll eyes and complain about the heat at the hawker centers, they love the cone-shaped, honey dripped roti-plata and seem oblivious to being sticky and sweaty all day long.
But more than that, they love mah mah and gong gong's house, and feeding the Koi fishes, and learning to swim in their condo pool. They love meddling with all the touch-me-nots and picking up frangipani's off the floor because it was mommy's favorite flower growing up. They picking up coconuts at the East Coast. They love biking over the Kallang bridge to do tai chi with Gong Gong on the other side.
They see a different side of Singapore than the stressed, frenzied exam cramming that marked every year of my childhood. They never had to stand on chairs when they forgot to bring books to school, or be yelled at for talking. They didn't have their hair cut to 3 cm below your ears or have any interaction with boys announced over the PA system or published in the school newspaper.
They didn't have tutors everyday from the minute you're done with school till you come home at 5pm. They didn't have America as the prized reward to do well in school, so you can get the hell out of here.
When i brought my grievances to my father, his answer to me was " You have to work the system to get out of the system" So i did and went on to Ivy League institutions that were a piece of cake next to the rigors of our educational system. My college application: how i needed to seek psychological asylum abroad to maintain sanity of soul and spirit. 
Brown saw the activist in me and accepted me. Later on, so did Rhode Island School of Design, Stanford and Santa Clara University.
Ironically today, my husband and children bring me home.
And even if i simmer and seethe thinking theirs is the expatriate experience of Singapore, even if i am irritable from the weather, stressed from the cramped spaces and loads of people, even if i am continually irked  by the materialism and meritocracy that continues to plague the educational experience of children growing up here: i am grateful that my children get to experience a part of my country that i couldn't fathom growing up.
That God had the sense of humor to have me marry a man who had more Singaporeans as groomsmen than i did as brides-maids. All his best friends live on my side of the world and all my best friends on his. He is a bona fide kiasu Singaporean, standing 8 hours for an i-pad and squeezing into the early boarding plane lines even though our children are now 9 and 7 hardly qualifying as "young children". I am excruciatingly embarrassed when traveling with him as he asked unabashedly for upgrades and perks. Now we just have to get him to take the fine-signs seriously.

 

Chinese Speech competition

i've been agonizing about the Chinese Speech Competition for months. Part of it is the stress of feeling alone in being the one coaching the kids, writing the speeches and motivating them.  Most of it, is feeling conflicted between the values  a "tiger mom" of which i was raised and the child-centered values i was instilled with as a therapist. Balancing both has been excruciating. At the back of all my child-development theories, is the nagging thought of how much more accomplished my children would be if i had been harsher and pushier with them.
How much success am i depriving them of by letting their wills and desires lead.
I hired a tutor, i practiced deep breathing, i brought it up in Al-anon, i prayed and agonized and practiced Step 1 ( we admit we are powerless ) as Daddy seemingly sabotaged all my efforts by taking them on ski-trips, and planning parties while they were being tutored and of course taking us all to Singapore a week before the competition.
My heart broke, my daughter complained i broke my promise that last year was going to be her last year. My son had no idea why this was so important.
Somewhere in the middle of drop-down, pull-out fights -- we reached a breakthrough. A miracle happened: the kids figured out something they wanted. For Nally, it was Mindcraft, this video game that let her build things. For Aidan, it was time on the iphone. The kids would wake up, demand to say their speeches and then proceed to get what they wanted. One run through, 15 minutes on the computer. It worked like a charm.
Systematic desensitization. i was floored and thrilled, that it no longer was me pit against their angst and their will. It was them begging me to do the speech 3-4 times a day because it was a means to an end.
By the end, they were pros, and they were doing it for mama and yeye, and everyone in Singapore. They made so much progress from last year i was so incredibly pleased i didn't care what they won.
All of what i wanted happened:
- they got over their fear of speaking
- they ran through their speeches as a means to an end.
- they could say it in front of strangers, and mama and gong gong and aunties they've never met.
- i wrote a speech that leveraged Aidan's physical humor
- i wrote a speech the leveraged Nally's sentimentality
- Aidan overcame his stage fright
- Nally was a wet noodle and pulled together and focussed at the end. 
- i got to honor my desires to be a playful, fun mother instead of tyrant coach.

They were confident, and natural and projected so much focus and animation. i told them they were winners already.In Phuket, we even played a game where i would be their hands and act out all their actions for them while they gave their speeches. They thought it was hysterical, they couldn't stop laughing. They begged to do it again and again.

Best of all, we all remained good friends at the end and we actually had fun with it.They were amazing.

Today, they both won honorable mention, which since there weren't any second or third prize in their category was pretty darn good in my book. A part of me feels the familiar hand of God keeping me humble. He had already given me what i wanted -- a relationship-preserved coaching relationship, the kids were ecstatic they won anything, they demonstrated such great sportsmanship being so happy for their friends.
The best part was Aidan saying " I want to do it AGAIN! " and them sleeping elated because they won an award.
For me, i kept telling them how proud i was of them, and to God, how grateful i am to be an altogether different mother during this process.

Taken Care of ( Pt 2 )

Part two of a journey about career that i specifically determined not to plan. i figured, i've micromanaged 3 degrees and 3 career paths -- graphic designer, user-interface designer, user interaction designer and at the end usability engineer. i was determined to "not know" this one as a therapist.
So when i joined Christian Counseling Center San Jose, i was ashamed to tell them that i knew very little about them. i didn't know they were the largest of the Christian Counseling branches in the area. i didn't know that it would one of the few non-profit settings that paid ( albeit 40% ). i didn't know that it provide some of the best training on setting up a private practice, everything from managing monthly deposits, calculating credit card deductions to creating office space.
i certainly didn't envision finishing my 3000 hours with a full practice, a growingly robust client base and a client base that was self-referring. It takes no less than 3 years to build a practice. And while my colleagues work at agencies that pay health insurance and salaries, when they leave, they leave with no clients; while my clients follow me. 
I had joined Christian Counseling Center, wary about being represented by a Christian organization; embarrassed that ours was the table that got passed by the most at Santa Clara job fair. Yet today, i couldn't imagine not being able to run into fellow believers in the lunch room and vent and ask for prayer. 
It was also the perfect complement to Process Therapy Institute, which provided me the best spiritual and clinical foundation any therapist could have. I couldn't be more hand-held than to have my supervisor in my ear for a whole year, or having my colleague watch me work behind a mirror. There, i learnt to receive the most gentle, loving feedback in the most raw and exposed setting and survive with grace and strength. It was healing i needed to bring closure to the years at RISD when my design professors ripped my work to shreds. It was a180 degrees different from me crying in the bathroom, wiping my tears and coming out professional. 
As a client and a therapist, i cried and wept and worked out my fears of working with couples, working with men, working with affairs. 
My supervisor lovingly deflected a year-long projection i had of him as a critical, didactic male. i will never forget the day the projection broke, it was a rite of passage. i learnt never to take my projections seriously again.
But Process Therapy Institute also connected me to St Lawrence elementary and middle school -- a Catholic school i grew to love and appreciate. I loved the community, the sprit, i loved the people and the masses and of course the year-long, uninterrupted space of working with children who couldn't be taken away from me by their paying parents. It was there i learn to relax into the space of play therapy and trust the process. It was there i got to see year long work bear fruit, or see non-directive play manifest itself in better classroom behavior or kindness towards peers. 
I will never forget the day this sullen, monosyllabic boy who basically acted like i wasn't in the room just "wake up" one day after 7 months and inquired about my vacation. Today he chatters non-stop about horse riding and has ambitions on being "student of the month".
But recently i feel God's hand continue to move on my behalf. Just as i give St Lawrence my notice, just as i prepare to move out of my Process Therapy Institute family, i realize i still need them.
i was all ready to start my Palo Alto practice until i realized I can't rent in Palo Alto until i am licensed. And once more i see God's provision as Process Therapy Institute's Palo Alto connection enables me to continue to be supervised as i wait for my hours to get endorsed.
In April, my Palo Alto office opens and i have 2 clients lined up for the slots. I hope to work there in place of the school come July.
It's been a journey of 7 years, seeming wandering, a day at a time, determined to enjoy the process for process sake. Enjoying each bite this time, no more delayed gratification.
Yet i see a God who takes such meticulous care of me, more than i could have ever done for myself. Could i have done it ? Possibly. Am i capable ? Absolutely. But as my therapist and i have been saying lately -- it's so much nicer to be taken care of .