78: Western Therapy Doesn’t Work on Eastern Minds

Looking at the diverse aspects of mental health from different angles is part of what this show is about. Today’s episode features Soo Jin Lee and Linda Yoon, who are clinicians, therapists, Asian Americans, and the co-authors of Where I Belong: Healing Trauma and Embracing Asian American Identity. Join us to learn more about mental health and the Asian American community!

Show Highlights: 

●      How Soo Jin Lee and Linda Yoon met while working in a community health setting mainly with Asian immigrants and refugees in the US

●      Why Asian clients generally experience big stigma and shame around mental health care

●      Why there are common barriers to treatment for Asian Americans, including intergenerational trauma, racial trauma, migration trauma, and invisibility

●      Why therapists have to approach identity issues and family dynamics differently with children of immigrants

●      Soo Jin’s story of the extreme effects of growing up as an undocumented immigrant

●      How Soo Jin’s mother experienced “functional PTSD”---which led to intergenerational trauma in the family

●      How Linda experienced different kinds of intergenerational trauma, mainly due to domestic violence and abuse in her family

●      What is involved in breaking intergenerational family trauma

●      How their book addresses a community perspective on emotions and mental health

●      How practices like yoga and Tai Chi help create a somatic connection between trauma therapy and movement

●      Why everyone, including non-Asians, can benefit from reading their book

Resources and Links:

 Connect with Soo Jin Lee and Linda Yoon: Yellow Chair Collective Website, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook

 **Get the book, Where I Belong

 Mentioned in this episode: Teaching the Invisible Race by Tony DelaRosa

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello you sentient balls of stardust, welcome to struggle care, the podcast where I talk about mental health and self help and self care and wellness in general, but in a way that doesn't make me want to bother, because I sometimes don't like those concepts and when they get to the pop psychology level, so we'd like to dig into I always say we, I don't know why I've decided it's the royal we I like to dig into these topics from different angles. And I'm here today with Su Jin Lee and Linda Yun, both clinicians, therapists, Asian Americans, and we're going to talk today about their book where I belong, healing trauma and embracing Asian American identity, y'all, thank you so much for being here.

  Soo Jin Lee 0:45

  Thank you for having us. Thank you so much for having us.

  KC 0:47

  Tell me first how you guys met.

  Soo Jin Lee 0:50

  So we met working together at community mental health setting. And this was before we were a licensed clinician. And we were just working trying to achieve our licensure and community mental health setting that we met, we were working with majority of immigrants and refugee from the Asian community. And we started talking about the ways in which this system of health care in general, but mental health care specifically was not equipped to be able to serve the people that we were asked to serve. It wasn't well received. And what wasn't well received about it the way that psychology is presented in general, where the mind and body is completely separated. And we're just trying to talk about what are you feeling? What are you thinking was not a way that was very receivable for the clients that we were working with at the time. And then we also realized that the sense of community and that sense of belonging was really important for these refugees and immigrants that we were working with, and that portions were not being addressed through the individual therapy work that we were doing. And so it was really important. And we saw people come to light, like their mental and emotional well being was coming to light when we would host a community event actually. And when we would share food, when we can naturally talk about what they're eating at home and what they're doing at home. How are they having conversations with their children or their grandchildren, the language barriers, right, and these are all mental health issues that can be brought up in a more natural way that is more receivable for them. However, in a traditional very, very traditional sense, therapeutic work does not involve any of that eating even together with a client can be a little bit of a taboo subject. Right. And so then then i We're just having a lot of conversations around like, what are we not doing here? Right, let me pass it on to Linda and see if she has anything to add.

  Linda 2:48

  Yeah, I mean, traditional therapy models that was very Western and what we are taught in grad school, trying to do CBT on a client who's severely traumatized from the war, you know, back home, and there are children who had been affected by parents dissociating, it just wasn't working, that we just couldn't talk out their way through healing. Right. So and also big stigmatize big stigma around mental health care. So a lot of especially immigrant clients, or their immigrant clients, it took them so long to even get there. And they're coming with so much shame about their symptoms, what they have went through, even though it's not their fault, like what happened to them was not their fault. And we just have to figure out, like, we just cannot make them talk, they don't want to talk. And I cannot tell them to think differently. Because you know, what happened to them was just tragic, horrible. We just cannot talk our way out of it. So we start to look into like, works for them, what gets them, like what gets them to talk about their life a little bit more naturally, rather than like, feeling like they have to be forced, you know, being in one on one set? Yeah, cuz

  KC 3:58

  like traditional therapy, there's a lot of pressure. I mean, you're sitting across from someone and making eye contact with them. Typically, like as a therapist, we're not, you know, we might talk some, but we're just like sitting in a waiting room, and what's the trauma? And tell me the details? And what is it about, right? I mean, even therapists that are trying to do like somatic work with the body are still very individualized in this country, right, like, so this idea that the therapy process has to shift to include just bringing people in a community together to have a meal is seems so simple, and yet it's so profound. Exactly.

  Soo Jin Lee 4:36

  One of the things that you know, we're doing a lot and working a lot with is this concept of intergenerational trauma. And one powerful moment that I remember was this grandmother who was talking about her recipe and the way that her vegetables that she farmed back home just tasted so I'm different from the vegetables that she's mine here at the stores and being able to tell that story to her grandchild for the first time. And that moment, to me, it was like this is the definition of like wellness and the healing of intergenerational trauma. And so yeah, that moment just stayed with me. And those are the moments that we want to create more of

  KC 5:22

  facilitating that conversation between family members, is really different than just sort of eliciting that piece of information in a private therapy session where you know, you hear it and go, Oh, that must be hard, right? You don't like gray, that's a very individualistic killing. But there's something so healing on both sides about facilitating a conversation like that. Is it hard to work around some of the like, Western components of therapy, like, you know, confidentiality and boundary, you know, you brought up like, oh, eating with clients, or showing up in this casual way, and professionalism and all this kind of stuff? Like, have you run into barriers there? Or are there barriers you've had to break,

  Speaker 1 6:01

  I think we've had to have a little bit of flexibility, when it comes to trying to get a little bit creative, especially doing the community work. And being that ourselves, we acknowledge that we're part of the community too. And so that's also a conversation that we like to have with our clients initially, too, is I know that, you know, when we do get together in this space that we're creating together, the intention is that we might share a little bit more about ourselves than we would in just a traditional one on one therapy setting outside of this space that we're creating the confidentiality still stands, you know, the comfort level in which that you would like to engage with me outside of this space, right, this therapeutic space, it's still relevant until we talk about that as well. And what it means if we run into them, because we are in the same community, right? Like if I run into you at a friend's family's cousin's party.

  KC 6:54

  Interesting, and one of the things that, you know, as you write about intergenerational trauma, and you talk about racial trauma, and you know, racism and racial trauma is something that I have been learning more about in the past few years. But I'll admit, it's primarily something that I've been learning about in the context of the black community and the racism that people from the black community experience. What is it that is unique about the way that many Asian and Asian American communities experienced racism that we may not know or that might be kind of different?

  Linda 7:27

  Yeah. First of all, it's hard to just say, this is the experience. Of course, Asian Americans were not monolith. And it was very diverse. But the common theme that has been around for Asian community members has been invisibility. There's actually a book called Invisible race teaching invisible race in education, how to acknowledge and validate Asian American students in educational setting and the invisibility we actually almost named our book almost, you're not invisible. Our editor really like has like don't papel resonating title because Asians have resonated feeling like we were invisible, and it has many layers to it for longest time, especially for East Asians, but also south east and south Asians being impacted by model minority myth. We're expected to assimilate, put our heads down, follow the rules work hard, and not complain that model minority model citizen that put us to, you know, different level different light than other races in America, right. And that made us who even seem like there isn't racism, even though there were like, because Asians work hard. Asians not achieved like that kind of narrative that kind of their type have made Asian people feel like there is no racism or other races looking at Asian people, right. And like, there's no racism like if definitely have her like, oh, Asians, like honorary white people. So which also ignores a history of discrimination and marginalization that Asian community has to experience. And there's also diversity within Asian communities and different socio economic status to and what really brought the racism that does exist towards Asian American in modern day has been pandemic right COVID-19 And the nervous around like Asian people being bearers and there's a lot of anti Asian crimes and policies that we're trying to come out at a time that really, I don't think that was not new, that was always there. But it really just came out like up front become more blood racism that may have been more polite racism in some ways, or microaggression, or something that was ignored because of the stereotypes that we have Asian American communities have experienced. It's interesting to

  KC 9:48

  think about a prejudice and racism that's always there, but that is just brought more visible by certain you know, events because I do think that for a lot lot of people, they might have that impression of wow, you know, the pandemic really brought on a lot of anti Asian discrimination and racism. But as you talk about, you know, for those of us in those communities like we have always known that those attitudes were there, it sort of reminded me of, you know, post 911, when there was a lot of Islamophobia. And it wasn't, it's not that event made people hateful and racist, it's that it's almost like it gave people permission to start being more loud and visible and unapologetic, but it's not like those attitudes weren't affecting the way they were treating people before. One of the things that you also discuss about some differences is like migration, trauma. And being a war refugee, can you talk about what are you have this example that we talked about, I think it was Cambodia, and people who were refugees, and they messages that were passed on from generation to generation, and how unique of an experience that can be?

  Speaker 1 10:59

  Yeah, of course, you know, every cultural group under the umbrella of Asian and Asian American is so diverse. And this one example that came up for us, because we were like I said, Linda and I worked a lot with immigrants and refugees at the time. And one of the primarily huge group of people that we were working with at the time was from Cambodia. And we noticed that they were a first generation refugees that have come from Cambodia, and have experienced firsthand experience of the Khmer Rouge. Some of them are very young, like children at the time that they were experiencing what was going on historically, and they talk about all that they've been taken away from their family, their identity, even right and how their parents have to be in hiding, specially if they were educated, because they had to assimilate into be farmers. But the huge part of hiding their identity was part of the survival and to hide who they are associated with, even as family members, that was part of their survival during that time of war. And so that carried on with them as refugees, that to them, it felt really important that they continue to hide who they are, and then to be put into a place of practice in a therapeutic sense, where they're constantly prone to, to be asked to talk about themselves. That was a huge barrier in the mental health wellness journey that we were trying to guide them through.

  KC 12:26

  Yeah, and it's interesting how, you know, I could also see that if those were your parents, even though maybe you didn't firsthand experience, you know, war time and having to hide your identity. But if your parents did, and that sort of value becomes ingrained in the way they live, that comes also through and the way that you are raised. And so just some people have values like this, they maybe don't even know where they came from, but that are barriers to the way that we're trying to deliver, like mental health services in our country.

  Soo Jin Lee 12:57

  Yeah, for sure. One of the things that we are currently working a lot with our children of immigrants and the identity portion of who am I is a question that comes up a lot. I mean, I know who I am, like, I know who my parents are, I know where I was born, a lot of them also have been born in the state, but this identity portion of what I know who I think I am, however, historically, there's a lot of missing gaps of my family history and the way that my parents are acting or behaving, or have beliefs around certain things. And I really can't relate or understand where that is coming from. And that creates a lot of uncertainty and conflicts within the family dynamics. And so trying to understand that is part of the therapeutic work for a lot of children to immigrants want to

  Linda 13:45

  add. Susan has a very personal story that really illustrates no like what a lot of our clients also go through. Do you like to hear? Yeah.

  KC 13:56

  Not to put you on the spot. But

  Soo Jin Lee 13:59

  yeah, so for me, I grew up as undocumented immigrant actually. And that's another whole underrepresented community within Asian American community in particular, no, as you might see, in the media, the way that undocumented immigrants are portrayed tends to be, you know, they're violent, they're criminals. They're also a lot of them from like South America or Mexico cross trying to cross the border, right. That's what's been seen in the media. And so when I talk about my journey as an undocumented immigrant, the first reaction that I get, typically is what, wait, there are Asians that are also undocumented. And then there's curiosity that follows anyways. So the way that I was brought up also had a lot to do with surviving and hiding my identity, a part of my identity undocumented immigrant growing up in that family household meant that if I had mentioned anything to do with our legal status or portrayed that we were not school having any kind of status in any way, then that put my entire family at risk for being deported anytime of the day. And so I talked about this in the book to have like I purposefully had like dated a boyfriend that had a car so that he could drag me around in high school, because I couldn't get a driver's license, things of that nature that we try to get around. But this was this hidden secret this hidden what we like to call hidden ghost in the family that kind of lived with us and was weighing down in the way that I was interacting with my family. And they in turn, also interacted with me, my mom had a lot of trauma. And my mom had a lot of anxiety that had developed from this and she was displaying them in a very somatic sense, she would have a lot of pains in her body, she would have a lot of aches, she would have very severe insomnia, I would hear her in the middle of the night screaming and waking up because of her PTSD, too. But all of that I thought was actually very typical. Like I thought that was in many household. I thought moms are just supposed to not get enough sleep. I thought moms just have a lot of aches, because they give birth because they're always cooking. You know, they're always standing. I thought that was just part of what it means to be a mom. Well,

  KC 16:19

  and I mean, there are societal messages about that. That would totally make you think like, oh, yeah, overworked mom stressed neurotic. Like that's yeah, that's motherhood, yeah, drink a glass of wine.

  Soo Jin Lee 16:32

  Exactly. pour a glass of soda if you're Korean, like my mom. So, I as a teenager, I actually also started developing insomnia. And I also started developing some pains and aches, and I started hiding a lot of my emotions when I was in social settings. And I thought that was just everyone too. And I didn't know that that was what now I can say it's an intergenerational trauma.

  KC 16:57

  What's so interesting, as I listen to your story is reflecting back on things that we've already talked about, about how the western approach to therapy is not an appropriate fit, but also just our western conceptualization of disorder and disease. I mean, right down to, you know, the DSM definition of PTSD, you have to have first hand experience with death, dismemberment, or some near death experience, or you had to have seen it. And maybe you're a firefighter at the Twin Towers, like there's this qualifying about like, even if you have all the symptoms of PTSD, if you didn't experience this very narrowly defined, like definition of traumas, you don't qualify for the diagnosis. And it's really interesting for me to listen, especially. And I was thinking that even before you got to the part in your story where you said, and then I developed insomnia, and then I developed the anxiety, and then I'd write and yet, to the degree that it is helpful for there to be these like validating labels or these labels that can go oh, this is happening. And so these treatments might be helpful, or, you know, insurance might cover this treatment or whatever. It's interesting. How you, I mean, you absolutely are describing PTSD, if not complex PTSD. Exactly,

  Soo Jin Lee 18:14

  yes. And not only is it the what you mentioned, of like witnessing the or having, you know, experience near death experiences as part of the criteria, but also quote, unquote, like the functioning level, right has to be impacted, functioning, daily functioning has to be impacted. The thing is, in my story, my mom, even though she suffered insomnia, and had would get up in the middle of the night screaming, she would still get up in the morning and go to work, she would still cook for her family that was just part of her day to day still right. And in a quote unquote, functioning sense. She was very functional. Right in this society, like she still contributed to society, she still contributed to family, she still had relationships with us and her friends in a very minimal sense. But she did. And that's a pass to not have PTSD.

  KC 19:03

  I mean, how much of that is, though, like a person's ability to get up in the morning and keep functioning? Like, how much of that is? Oh, okay, so they must like be okay. But there's probably also a level there of even like a cultural prescription of No, I have to I have to hold it together. You know, we have to keep going. We have to sort of shut down some of these internal systems to keep going because the buck stops here, just from past trauma and things like that. So I mean, this is like a great example. And thank you so much for sharing that story. Because I feel like you can hear about what intergenerational trauma is, but I don't think even I had crystal clarity about what that looks like. Until you describe that story. I feel like that's a story you would like read in a textbook because someone is like, let me think of like, the perfect example of what this is, you know what I mean? Okay, so it makes sense to me then why? First of all, it makes sense that therapy in and of itself in the Western sense would be chromatic to someone who had gone through that, who was experiencing that. It's like if somebody said, you know, I'm really, really afraid of the dentist and I want to work on this phobia and you're like, oh, there's actually someone that works on that phobia. They're called dentists. It's like, wait, you just Yeah,

  Soo Jin Lee 20:15

  I absolutely love the way that you just describe that. Because I think for the longest time, Linda and I were avoiding calling certain models of therapeutic, you know, settings to be traumatic, because that would be going against what they were actually trying to do. But I love that you were able to just say outright that, you know, what we are doing can be traumatic to our clients. Yeah.

  KC 20:38

  And I'm thinking about, you know, some of the things we know about trauma being stored in the body and our brain system. And like the part of our brain, I know, y'all know this, but for the audience, the part of our brain that senses threat is different than the part of our brain that does like reasoning and logic and things like this. And when your brain is sensing threat, like information is delivered to your brainstem to that part of your brain that does fight or flight like fractions of a millisecond earlier than they hit like the thinking parts of your brain. And so like, it doesn't matter that you intellectually know that you are sitting in a therapists room in Kentucky, right, wherever you are at the time. But if somebody's questioning who you are, and who your family is, is something that has happened to you in a traumatic context. Like if you tell us who you are, your family will be in danger. If you reveal, you know, what you really think and who you really associate with? I mean, how is sitting in a therapist office being asked questions about yourself somatically feel any different than someone stopping you on the side of the road, you know, in wartime and saying, Who are you? What do you do? Who do you associate

  Linda 21:51

  with, and it doesn't even have to be like, more time to like, for me my story is a little different, where we have domestic violence, family violence that we experience, mainly because mainly from my father, who also been abused generationally just been passed down, right. And then my mother's side, watch her mom, and then my grandma's mom, you know, like woman have watched on their side being beat up and their kids being beaten up. So something that we immigrated, I didn't know that was something that not supposed to happen. I didn't know that was an abuse growing up, because that's what I live with. I hope all families secretly went through all this somehow, I thought it was normal, but also knew that it's not something you're supposed to talk about, right like this is going on. And I think this is no more because that's my experience. And that's all I know. But we also know like, just like Suzy mentioned earlier, it's like a ghost, you just don't talk about it, it happens. We don't talk about it, we pretend it didn't happen. And we will just never talk about it to other people. Because somehow I still know that I cannot talk about it. And it's terrible thing. And that's like a part of identity in some way. Part of my experience that I knew I wasn't allowed to share, especially after we immigrated to America, there was really, unfortunately, my dad have used our immigration status as like, hey, that I think that was the first time we actually talked about it, actually, that some kind of acknowledgement that there was abuse going on that he knows what he's doing that if we talk about him acting that way that we could be deported, you know, we will never have life in America that like we actually were loving and then really getting adjusted to and then that we will never have future in Korea, because at the time, though, is very competitive. And we were struggling in Korea. So in that way, it's just kind of a passing down on and that I have to hide and people asked me like, oh, what's going on? You know, what is that bruise? I have to kind of hide that and pretend it just didn't happen, just thinking that people will just get it without me saying it. Right. So like thing on that little bit.

  KC 23:49

  Gosh, and what I listened to that story, you know, so one of the things I think I shared with you guys is like I'm right in the middle of writing this book about relationships. And part of what the book is talking about is this struggle that we sometimes have balancing information that we know about trauma and mental health and wanting to be you know, understanding with the reality that when you have harm happening, it's not as simple as that person is good or bad. Sometimes it's not as simple as people who do harmful things are just morally wrong. You know, a lot of times somebody engaging in harm has themselves experienced so much trauma, and suddenly it gets really difficult to parse. Okay, so what does that mean about fault and responsibility and right and wrong and all these things, and, you know, a lot of what we've talked about is how the impact of how like a lot of the trauma is specifically a cultural trauma, something about war or immigration or these things, but there's also the kinds of trauma that you might see in any therapist office of any background, but it's cocooned in this cultural context and there to know, like, right, wrong, good or bad about the cultural influences, but it's a very unique thing to unravel. And it makes sense that if you didn't appreciate those things, or know those things, or know how to create an environment for someone to explore those, how difficult it would be to engage in a therapy process. Yeah,

  Linda 25:19

  definitely. Like my story definitely took a long time to impact whether it was in therapeutic setting or community setting, start talking about it, like am I even allowed to talk about it, or people don't just know this is happening. And there has been a lot more talks, even in Korea, like sometimes I look at Korean community news online, and that there has been a lot of Korean drama about like violence, they may experience in families and school setting. So things are being addressed and that things are changing in back in my native country. But when immigrants emigrate timecard stops here a little bit. And we have to figure out like, how do we process because the country may be progressing, but you're coming with whatever you brought it at that time you emigrated, and that you also tried to assimilate a culture rate. Right. I did talk about, you know, what you'd mentioned in the book about my process, I don't think it's done. I have process a lot. But I don't think it's done right how to really make sense out of all that, like, I also felt loved by my Father, like he did. He was a provider, he had a very strong sense that he had to give us the best education. And he was things that he never had, because he grew up really own impoverished household. And his father was really abusive to him, too. And to the point that he had gained some physical disability, because of due to that, in some ways, like, it's hard to say, because there was one point we did talk, my mom was able to talk to him about, like, hey, like, what you're doing is actually wrong, like after, after many years, and this conversation happened when we were adult, and this cycle of violence was still trying to happen. And he was trying to control us. And we were like, Okay, this is not okay anymore, like I'm an adult, and we're able to kind of gain like, where he was from how he was justifying it very confused in his state that he's like, but I'm better than my father. Right? I mean, and I remember things like, you know, just because your parents didn't break all the generational trauma doesn't mean they didn't break any. I mean, he could have definitely done more, like an abuse is never okay. Right. But like, in some way, he was trying, right. And he has no health therapy was stigmatized, mental health stigmatized, he buried all his emotions, all his pain, talked to nobody in just anger management has been a big issue because he didn't know how to process right. And it just generationally that kind of passed down on to there, there's a lot to unpack, because I know abuse was not okay. And that was not Aktobe love, but I also have really great memory where I know he cared for me and he still want, if something happens, he will come and then you know, help me, right? It's like really trying to figure out like, what is it is and it can be very confusing, but we know that things can coexist, even though it's very hard. Yeah, holding

  KC 28:06

  those two, they seem like they're opposing, right, but like holding those two truths of maybe they did break a lot of generational sort of traumas. And also, maybe they didn't break it off. Right. And the impact that that had isn't okay, or justified. And, you know, what do we I think about that a lot. I mean, I have my own family experiences about I've looked sometimes into people who have had an experience with abuse, where like, the person was just like, 100% malicious when 100% Just sociopathic wanting to hurt people, right? And I remember thinking like, even as a younger kid, not like, oh, that's like a better situation or a worse situation, or it wasn't that it was, at least there's is simple, like, there's a simple way to understand what happened to you, which is like a bad horrible thing happened from a bad, horrible person. And there's a simplicity to understanding that, you know, if you do experience abuse in the context of a person where you're going, okay, like, they loved me, and they hurt me. And they did a lot better than their parents, but they probably didn't do enough, but look how much they had to go through. And well, that doesn't justify it. And I love them. But I'm so upset with them. And it's like that. I mean, as you have just said, like you end up in adulthood going I don't know what to do with all these pieces. So let me ask you guys some more about the book. You talk about this process of moving from like an individual perspective to a community perspective. So what kind of things do you talk about in the book with that?

  Soo Jin Lee 29:37

  I think one of the things that is really important to us is community building, because there's not enough community I think that is meant for spaces to be able to openly talk about emotions and mental health. There's enough spaces where people can gather. And that's great. There's not enough spaces where those gatherings can make a safe net to have discussion about the things that actually are hurting us, though. And I think that's not just our Asian culture, I think that's just all across many other cultures as well. And so those are things that we like to talk about in the book of developing our own journey of individual identity journey. And then how do we create those spaces together so that we can create those safety nets, not just as therapists, but just as a member of a community, because I think those are things that are really important in our culture, to be able to continue to have healing is that we take on the ownership of saying, You know what, I've suffered this and I understand where their suffering is coming from, and I want to be able to talk about it together with all their people that have gone through this journey. Speaking

  KC 30:43

  of like, community oriented things, I remember that you mentioned bringing in yoga, as like you said, something that was really stuck with me, you were referring to I don't know what group of people were you were working with at that moment. But you said what they lost was very somatic. You talk about that, because that to me was such a powerful sentence, especially in the context of thinking about, oh, we'll just put somebody in our office and let them talk about it.

  Soo Jin Lee 31:09

  There is a lot of I've been thinking a lot about this. I've been reflecting a lot about somatic and movement in our bodies recently, and the way in which what Linda had mentioned about, particularly with immigrants and refugees, once that migration happens, they tend to be stuck in that period of time or that space, like that mindset. And we know that as therapists and psychologists that that's coming from this space of trauma, right, you get stuck in that space, You're reliving that time and space over and over again. And I've been thinking about how to create movement out of that stuckness. And working with people, especially elderly that have been in that stuckness for such a long period of time, how do we create movement out of that space, and talking wasn't going to be doing it. And I realized, there's so much that we're developing to learn that mind body connection, and the movement of body needs to happen in order for the mind to get unstuck as well. And so Yoga and Tai Chi was one of the things that we had introduced in this wellness retreat that Linda and I had put together for our nonprofit. And that space was to create intergenerational conversations internally and externally as well. And we started the setting with either people being able to choose yoga or tai chi. And it was really great, because the younger generation was saying, I've been curious about tai chi, and I see it in the parks. Like if you're in the San Gabriel Valley in the LA area or something, you'll see Tai Chi happening all over these parks with elderly ease, and really amazing because they have this flow of movement that feels so natural to our body. And yet we've lost that ability even to allow ourselves the permission to do that to free flow in a way and to regain that understanding where how Taichi is taught, but also to go through that movement together. intergenerationally, right. There were elderly folks and younger and children that were participating in this together and to create that space was so healing just for me to even watch. So who would you say this book

  Linda 33:26

  is for? I will say everyone we did write this specifically speaking to and centering Asian Asian American voices in the US. However, we also have been hearing from people who are not ancient, whether there are educators, therapists or community leaders reading the book, and letting us know how much they have learned how much perspective they have gained. And they feel more prepared to work with their students, their clients who are of Asian diaspora, and it gives them more content understanding about them, too. So that's why I would like to say everyone can benefit from reading the book,

  KC 34:04

  I love the way that you've done that where you've said, this book is going to give some frameworks to help the individual like work through and move through these frameworks and concepts. And it will inform like you said, therapists and leaders and anyone who wants to be better in their jobs, like

  Soo Jin Lee 34:23

  there's a lot of comprising factors in the book. And we made sure that there's something for everyone. And so even if you're not interested in perhaps in the psycho educational portion of the Book, even if you're just reading through those stories, individual stories, those are ways that you can still learn so much and gained so much out of the book and understanding our community.

  KC 34:47

  So let me ask you one last question, because I want to be respectful of your time when you were writing the book, what kinds of things were you considering? Because this could have been written as a textbook, right? Like you could have done it in that sort of like Western psychology book approach, but you guys have, obviously personally and professionally, your whole journey is about recognizing how that's not working. So how did that inform how you wrote the book and how you're presenting the information, we

  Linda 35:15

  wanted to create a resource for general public, especially for Asian and Asian American individuals and communities, but also people who are interested in learning more and understanding more our diaspora experiences to in there are textbooks out there. And we didn't want to be a textbook, we want to make it accessible. What we were looking for was that we couldn't find ourself I like something general papalii trauma book for Asian Asian American experiences, there wasn't any. And it's actually the first book that is written for that. And to do that we couldn't make this as the textbook and Susan and I were just not a textbook people either. I'm sorry, to all the textbook writers out there.

  KC 36:04

  Like, yeah, love, yeah, couldn't be me. And

  Linda 36:07

  also, we want to make this as experience as if you're going through one of our community groups that are being in the community, healing with the community reading other people's stories here, you know, being shared and also sharing your story. There are journal prompts, reflective questions, mindfulness exercises, you can gain, and we wanted it to be like you are in our community group that we have received so many feedback about, like how valuable that experience was, and we want to make that accessible in a book format. The vulnerability

  Soo Jin Lee 36:38

  of being able to go through the journey of healing means that I have to be able to be willing to open up to myself first about what that trauma looks like, my parents trauma looks like what my grandparents trauma looks like. And to do that, with that we witnessed that people are able to get to that place if other people's stories are being reflected of their own. And so then we're able to actually see ourselves in other people's stories. And so that is why we wrote the book in the way that it gives you that journey of other people's vulnerability being displayed. And you can see yourself being reflected in other people's stories. And then we hold that space through exercises and journal prompts so that you can go through whatever healing looks like for you.

  KC 37:30

  That's wonderful. Well, thank you all so much, and I know the book is on Amazon, I'm sure that it is also hitting bookstores and you know tell people where they can where they can follow you and if they want to learn more about you and then I will just plug one more time the book is where I belong healing trauma and embracing Asian American identity Okay, where can they find you guys

  Linda 37:48

  so the book information can be found where I belong the book.com it has all the information of the bookstores you can purchase book from and our book tour that we are currently on. We may be in the city near you will love to see you and other informations as well. And for our practice our practices call it yellow chair collective. You can follow us on Instagram tick tock or Facebook or yellow chair collected calm.

  KC 38:15

  Wonderful. Thank you all so much.

  Soo Jin Lee 38:17

  Thank you so much for having us.

  Transcribed by https://otter.ai