Why Becoming Our Own Person Is Required to Mature in Love

EPISODE 92 | WHY BECOMING OUR OWN PERSON IS REQUIRED TO MATURE IN LOVE

Enmeshment is where there are no boundaries and no emotional boundaries in the family or in the relationship. In order for me to feel like me, I need to be with you. I don't know how to be myself without being in this relationship. On the other end of the spectrum, where you see detachment. This is referring to like the other extreme, on one end with this enmeshment. The other extreme is the boundaries are there, but they are really rigid.

[00:00:24] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:01:01] Good morning. Welcome to day 17 of my 30 days IG Live challenge. 

[00:01:11] So, today, I'm shaping the sharing today for today's Live, which is actually a very important topic, but also in response to a question that came in after yesterday's Live. So, one of one of you who attended my live yesterday, as it was happening, sent me some messages. I mean, we continued the conversation our direct messages afterwards and this was a question that I received.

[00:01:40] Okay, I'm going to share it. So, she says, "I'm not sure if I've already covered this, but I was wondering if you have done any work on what is specifically about Chinese culture or expectations or maybe just intergenerational trauma that leads to what feels like such unique difficulties in the interior journey".

[00:01:59] Okay, I think this is because I've been making references as my specific experience as an Asian, especially as an Asian woman and my particular struggles with an interior journey. So, this is resonating with this listener, who is also Chinese? Okay, so, she's asking whether I’ve looked at anything specific to Chinese culture or the trauma that we kind of like inherit through the generations as Chinese - and Chinese Catholics, specifically actually - that makes the interior journey so difficult.

[00:02:29] Okay, and it continues. "I'm really struggling with that these days as a Chinese American and I always thought it was a child of immigrant parents in a foreign country kind of struggle. But I know that you're in Singapore" - I'm in Singapore. "So, I'm wondering if this is just like an everyone thing or is it a unique Chinese Catholic thing? Anything? Would love to hear your thoughts if you had any. Any thoughts on this topic?"

[00:02:52] GETTING INTO THE SPECIFICS
So, it's a really good question. I really appreciate questions at this level of specificity and depth because as you would have heard me repeat, you know over different podcast episodes or now, I think even as I do more lives you would hear me say this It is not enough to understand interior journey in general, right, in order to know how to walk this. We need to get down to the very nitty gritty specifics.

[00:03:18] So, we need to understand the first principles, but we also need to understand how it applies to us in very concrete ways. Okay, so, the way I want to talk about this, or the way I want to address, it's not just to this specific question. 

[00:03:34] I want to come up, zoom out a bit to talk about the principles underlying why it is that this person and maybe me, from our culture, both being Asian, being Chinese, as well as maybe being Catholic. That's another culture, right? What about that makes the specific interior journey into becoming more integrated, challenging. Okay, so, I would like to begin kind of like by restating so that we have a similar starting point. Okay, so, I'm always talking about the interior journey and the interior journey into integration.

[00:04:10] WHAT IS THE INTERIOR JOURNEY ABOUT?
So, specifically when I speak of the interior journey is about integration by becoming more whole. Okay, why do I even talk about this journey? Why are we even interested in this journey? It is for the sake of becoming our true selves. Okay, so that we can become more fully alive.

[00:04:29] The interior journey into integration is important because it's for becoming our true self, so that we can become more fully alive and more authentically loving, so that our lives can be abundantly, spiritually fruitful. Okay, that's another point. Spiritually fruitful. According to our unique personal vocations, right?

[00:04:51] So, becoming our true selves. The interior creation is important because we want to become our true selves. Part of that is becoming more alive. Every creature that God created is meant to be alive, okay? Not sickly and dying. I mean, there's a time for dying, but we're meant to thrive, not just survive.

[00:05:09] So, becoming our true selves would also lead to becoming fully alive. That would mean because we are relational beings and we are created to, for love, right? To love and be loved. Thriving, for us, necessarily includes being able to love. So, authentically loving, that's a big question. What does authentically loving look like?

[00:05:30] Which I talked at length about in yesterday's live. And then spiritually fruitful, okay. I speak of this also in a specific context of being a disciple of Christ who believes in the Trinitarian God, right? God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Of course, whatever traditions may be religious or spiritual traditions you may come from that may look a little different, but I speak from this specific experience in this specific relationship.

[00:05:54] SPIRITUALLY FRUITFUL
And for me, this relationship with the Trinitarian God is at the centre and the anchor of my interior journey into discovering who I am. Okay, it is being loved by this God that gives me that firm foundation of knowing who I am. So, spiritually fruitful means that my life is a blessing spiritually not just spiritually When I say spiritually here, I mean really in an embodied spirituality.

[00:06:19] Okay, so spiritually fruitful. It means it brings life and restoration to the people around me as well. Okay, it brings peace. It brings joy. It brings healing over the long term, okay? So, that's the dream or that's the hope of being authentically loving, becoming spiritually fruitful and spiritually fruitful, not just in any kind of one-size-fit-all way of thinking about it but in the specific unique way that I am created to be spiritually fruitful.

[00:06:54] Okay, so, again, that becomes very granular. It becomes very concrete. A lot of times, we get tripped up because we think of these terms as very, in very general ways. You know, becoming alive, fully alive and being authentically loving and spiritually fruitful in very general ways. But that's a problem because how each of us looks like, feels like when we're fully alive.

[00:07:14] When we are authentically loving, when we are being spiritually fruitful, it all looks really, really different. Okay, so, when we are not aware that it has to be unique to us, and that for another person as well, that it's going to be unique to them, we can get really tripped up and get in one another's ways, get in our own ways, of becoming our true selves, becoming more integrated.

[00:07:39] Right, so, the interior journey to integration is for all this. Now, with this backdrop in mind, I'm going to explain why it is that the question that was asked earlier; why is it that sometimes being Chinese or being Asian and being Catholic - the unique combination of this - why there's certain unique challenges into making this journey, okay.

[00:08:01] ENMESHMENT AND DETACHMENT
Okay, when we are in relationship with others - so, in our families, for example, in our communities, in any of our relationships, right, there's self and there's other. Even with God, even our relationship with God, there's self and there's other. Now, we tend to, in order to have a healthy relationship, to really be able to love one another, we need to have a clear differentiation. Okay, so, there tends to be like a spectrum.

[00:08:26] So, I got this from an article from the Gottman Institute. I will share the link after I've shared this Live. But you can just do a search, okay, for differentiation or enmeshment and you will see plenty of stuff crop up.

[00:08:41] All right, so, first, there's a sense that there's kind of like a spectrum in terms of relationship dynamics. On one end is enmeshment - enmeshment is where there are no boundaries and no emotional boundaries in the system. Let's say for example, in the family or in the relationship, in order for me to feel like me, I need to be with you. I don't know how to be myself without being in this relationship.

[00:09:03] I have no sense of identity outside of my position or my membership in the collective. Alright, so, that's one end where everything is, there's no boundaries, there's no emotional boundaries. Okay, and we tend to be very sticky. This can be a very codependent. Sometimes, it shows up as a very codependent kind of relationship dynamics and measurement.

[00:09:22] On the other end of the spectrum, where you see detachment. Okay, so, this is detachment. I'm not talking about a healthy kind of detachment here. This is referring to like the other extreme, on one end with this enmeshment. The other extreme is the boundaries are there, but they are really rigid.

[00:09:40] Okay, in which case it's like, I don't want to draw close to anyone at all because maybe it's very vulnerable and I feel too vulnerable to draw close to anyone. So, a person who is on this end of the spectrum can look very functional. Actually, it doesn't matter where you're on the spectrum, you can actually outwardly look like you're very functional, you're very confident, accomplished. But specifically, those who are very on the end of being very detached would be very, very independent.

[00:10:11] They maybe would like to be able to help others, but they don't like to ask for help, okay. And they could be sometimes be very married so-called to their work or to what they can do.

[00:10:22] So, they may enjoy serving and contributing to others, but actually they're very detached, okay, there's no intimacy. Neither is there real intimacy when you're at the other end of the spectrum, which is enmeshment. Sometimes, in enmeshed families, they can look very close, they look very intimate, because they do everything together, right? They can do everything together. There's a big show of unity. Maybe they have gatherings very regularly.

[00:10:48] You may see all kinds of things planned and everybody should be a part of it. Everybody needs to be a part of it. In fact, in a system where there is a very high degree of enmeshment, the family or the unit - it doesn't have to be family. So, imagine this could be a community as well, okay, or a friendship.

[00:11:05] There's a sense of being threatened if any one of the individuals tries to be him or herself, tries to express an opinion that is different from the group's, tries to make a choice that requires him or her to maybe step a little bit away, from the group. Okay, so, in an enmeshed system, any movement towards becoming an individual feels like a threat to the system.

[00:11:31] Alright, and there's usually some energy and dimension to pull the person back. That's enmeshment. So, there's actually no real intimacy either. In an enmeshed system, none of us actually see the other person for he or she is. We only see all of us as a unit, okay? We don't even have a good sense of who we are individually.

[00:11:52] LACKING INTIMACY
So, whether you are at an enmeshed end of the spectrum, or a very detached end of the spectrum, where you're just very highly, highly independent, right - do everything yourself, don't really want to need anybody, you can't really relate. You can't really attune. There's no real intimacy, okay? You can't really say that you can be authentically loving, because being authentically loving requires us to really be in relationship. There has to be some kind of intimacy.

[00:12:20] And that's why even with God, our relationships with God. Some of us, maybe we come from very unmatched families and we have a very codependent kind of relationship with God. That was me, very much so, you know? I feel like there's no me apart from being me and God or being with God.

[00:12:38] And I thought that was a good thing, right? That clinging to God is a good thing. It didn't occur to me, I didn't realize in the past there was a healthy and an unhealthy kind of clinging to God, right? And without that lens, without that perspective, what I think is healthy could actually be making things worse for my own interior journey. It's not setting me free, right?

[00:12:57] If you're on a very detached end of the spectrum, you could have a very quote-unquote "professional" relationship with God. It's actually interesting. That was actually something that someone had told me. This was a man who already had a very active prayer life.

[00:13:12] And at one point in his journey, when there was a conversion experience into going deeper, when he was at an eight-day silent retreat, he shared with me afterwards that the turning point of that retreat was when he felt God ask me, or ask him, "Why are you so professional with me? Like we're close but it's like we're close colleagues, you know? Or like I’m your boss. You're treating me like I’m your boss". 

[00:13:33] There's a sense of I’m independent as well, from God. You tell me what is it that you need me to do, right? I’ll get it done and I’ll do it. So, that's like a very detached kind of relationship even with God, right? The healthy balance or the golden mean for us to be able to be in a meaningful loving relationship with someone, whether it's with God or another person, is when we are differentiated.

[00:13:58] DIFFERENTIATION
So, this is the mean, meaning that when you're differentiated, you have a sense of yourself as a separate self from the other people that you're in a relationship with, but at the same time, you feel like you belong to a larger entity rather than just yourself.

[00:14:14] So, you're not just a separate self, like an island, right? You are in relationship with others, but at the same time, you know that you are a separate self. You're an individual that you're different from all these other people that you're in relationship with. And not everything needs to be done together, but there is a healthy give and take, there's a mutual interdependence. So, not co-dependency, and not just complete and utter independence, but there is a healthy mutual dependence, interdependence, that is only possible with this process that's called differentiation.

[00:14:51] Okay, so when we make the interior journey into integration, we also need to make this journey of differentiation. Okay, so, whether you are coming from the end of the spectrum where you're very enmeshed, or you're just very detached, it's about coming to that mean where I have a sense of myself as separate, but also belonging to a larger group, right?

[00:15:17] Because there are two needs that are equally important. One, for authenticity and for the sense that I am a separate self. I have my own needs and my needs are warranted and important to be met. I have certain freedom in a sense to be who I am, to be where I am, to feel what I feel. That is one side.

[00:15:35] And the other side is I also have an equal need to be in attuned and attuned relationships, to be attached, to belong. Because of the brokenness of our families and the world and all that, usually these two are in opposition, right? They are in opposition, meaning that we often experience that tension that if I want to assert my identity to be true to myself, I feel like I have to pay the cost of not belonging.

[00:16:05] That's the reason why so many of us then, just go to either one or the other end of the spectrum when we are enmeshed. When you're an enmeshed system, in a sense, you give up. You give up having to do the work of finding out who you are. In a sense, it's like you just - it's easier in that sense, to just go along with what the larger entity tells you who you are because you know you belong to us. We are a we. 

[00:16:30] And as long as you are continuing to be part of us and follow all the unspoken rules, et cetera, what it means to be part of this entity - whether it's family or community or friendship or relationship, whatever that is - you're okay. Right, but you'll never really know who you are.

[00:16:46] Some of us then also, because of this fear of this experience, that if I were to be myself, then it has to come at the cost of belonging. Maybe we just decide, well, okay, then I don't need to belong to anyone. I don't need to belong to any entity. I'll just be hyper independent. I can't be vulnerable. I won't be vulnerable with anyone, right? Because when I try to be authentic in relationship, I get hurt.

[00:17:07] So, in this case, if you're on the side of being very detached, you choose in a sense authenticity, but it's not really a full sense of authenticity because part of being really authentic as a human person, as a human being is also to give and receive love. So, we can't not have that as well, okay. To be really our true selves. It's together.

[00:17:31] So, then that's why differentiation is important. So, back to that question earlier, as to, is there something uniquely challenging about being Chinese or being Asian, and being Asian Catholic, for example, for the interior journey? I would say yes.

[00:17:44] I would say that, in fact, I think every culture, every context that's different, would probably pose a different kind of challenge for the interior journey, right? So, for example, we often hear, okay - so, we think just generally let's say east and west. And for this person who asked this question, you say you're an American-Asian, right? So, you're living in the States. 

[00:18:05] And I think for America, for in the United States, the culture tends to lean perhaps more towards the other end of the spectrum, which is that detachment, right? Which is that it's very - the focus is very much on the individual. In fact, maybe so much that there's a hyper individualism there.

[00:18:22] DYSFUNCTIONS
Right, so, that is the larger culture that you're in, but being Asian, being Chinese, the Chinese culture, and a lot of Asian cultures, and I think maybe even like Latino cultures, from what I understand, tends to go towards the spectrum of being enmeshed, right. Because it is very - there's a lot of emphasis on the community, on the group to the extent that dysfunctions, when there's dysfunctions, and there's always dysfunctions, right?

[00:18:51] So, dysfunctions in cultures where it's, I guess, more group-centric, tends towards enmeshment, right? Dysfunctions in cultures where maybe the emphasis is a lot more on the rights of the individual, the dysfunction may veer towards being too detached to being too individualistic. I imagine for this, for you, someone who ask this question, you're kind of like caught in two cultures, right? Your family are immigrants and so, the original family of origin culture. 

[00:19:21] And sometimes, when people are away from their homeland, in that sense, a diaspora, right? Like, your family, they can cling even more tightly to the values and the culture of their homeland.

[00:19:34] Okay, so, you see that quite often. We've seen them. We were just talking to someone recently that even in the evolution of language, for example, I was in Canada for quite many years and I learned French there. But when I was in Singapore, I also picked up French and the difference was, the French in France is, I mean, or Parisian French, is different from the Quebecois French in Canada.

[00:19:54] In fact, Quebecois French is seen as very quaint. They still use terms and like, words and vocabulary that was used, like, maybe in 19th century France or Paris. They don't use that anymore. So, it's so ironic, right, that, like, for example, in France and in Paris, the language has evolved, but for the language of the diaspora, the French speaking Canadians, it's almost like they want to preserve that language from the time when they left.

[00:20:19] So, sometimes, I think those of us who - especially if you're children of immigrants - may experience all the more your parents not wanting you to lose that heritage or that culture from which you come from, which is very understandable, right? Because that's an important part of who you are, who your family, where your family comes from.

[00:20:40] But that could exacerbate also, any dysfunctional dynamics there, for example, towards enmeshment. Enmeshment would feel often like you have to yield to the view or the values of the group in order to be okay, in order to be seen as faithful or obedient - loyal, whatever virtues are considered important in your specific culture or in our specific culture.

[00:21:11] All right, so, and now you layer on, let's say, being Christian or being Catholic. I think again, there is no - it depends on your experience. We all have lenses, right? We all have lenses.

[00:21:24] So, I also shared with this person who had asked this question, "I think that I'm a first generation convert. I'm a first generation Catholic. I was baptized at the same time as my parents. I was six years old. So they were adult converts and part of their story as to how they had that bridge of trust coming from a non-Christian, non-Catholic background, living in a country that's non-Christian, not Christian country, for them to be okay with considering conversion, even in the first place, was because they felt that there was alignment between what they were being taught about the faith and their very deeply cherished cultural values".

[00:22:04] Okay, so, the cherished Asian values of, let's say, if you're a little pious, honouring people of moral kind of values on family and all that. You know, more conservative, tend to be more traditional, right? Asians are more traditional and conservative. And so, these are cherished values already.

[00:22:21] It was a big part of their upbringing as what it means to be a good person, or whatever it is, as good. So, they thought there was alignment from what they were learning about the Catholic faith in terms of, for example, the moral values. So, that was also part of, wasn't the only reason they converted, but it was a big part of why they converted.

[00:22:42] But even till today, and it's not just with my parents, I see this a lot. I see people interpreting the gospel, interpreting even church or how the church teachings through their cultural lens. All right, so, I think it's part of being human. We tend to do that. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it's important that we are aware of the tendencies that we bring in, and that it's more important that we are aware of the dysfunctions that are inherent in our own systems, in our own culture, which we then use to interpret our faith, okay?

[00:23:20] So, the unique challenge of being Asian, being Chinese, particularly perhaps, and making this interior journey, and being Catholic, I would say is this sense that my identity is more dependent on how the collective sees me, which is, for example, my family, my parents, my community, or even like however I define the church.

[00:23:45] So, even our experience of church, right, it really varies from country to country, depending on your culture, depending on your history. And even as local as, I will say even in Singapore, here, different parishes have actually very different cultures. Right, they're very different cultures.

[00:24:05] And if you only ever knew that culture of the parish that you grew up in, and you feel like you have to belong, you have to be a certain way in order to belong, and that if you don't belong, feel like, you don't belong. I've heard this expressed before. I feel like I don't belong in the Catholic Church.

[00:24:21] You know, because they don't feel that sense of belonging, that they can be who they are in the parish that they've grown up, in the communities that they're part of. And oftentimes, I will ask, have you experienced the catholic church beyond your parish? But in the first place, okay, because the church is much bigger than your parish, the church is much bigger than even your diocese, your archdiocese. I could go on, but you get what I’m saying that in more collective cultures where that sense of belonging really, really forms a part of who we've been shaped to feel like, we need to belong to be okay. And the power of the collective is very strong.

[00:25:03] MAKING OUR OWN JOURNEY
The challenge for people like us, in this kind of situation, in integration, would be to be able to differentiate from the group, to remember that our identity is not determined by the group, that it has to ultimately, it has to go deeper than that, that being Christ's disciple, being God's beloved, is more than, for example, being, being Christian or being Catholic with an identity like that.

[00:25:32] Actually, the identity really doesn't say very much because, like I mentioned earlier in this Live, it's still very generic. Each of us will have to discover what it means to be God's beloved in my specific life, in my specific body, with the specific experiences that I have to go through, the specific crosses that I have to bear, the specific wounds that I experience in the specific healing that I go through - all of that, what does it mean to be beloved in that?

[00:26:00] And no one can tell you what the answer is based on somebody else's story, or somebody else's experience, right? There could be similarities, because sometimes the things that are the most universal are also experienced as the most personal. Henry Nouwen, a renowned spiritual writer, often, I mean, is often quoted for saying that, right?

[00:26:23] But beyond the universal principles, which help us feel that we're not alone, we each also have to experience what it's like to make our own journey. So, I don't know if you've heard this before, but I also have to - I share this when I sometimes, in the past, gave talks to faith communities, right? Because again, when the emphasis in the culture is on the collective, so much so that actually, it sacrifices the individual, and we don't know it because this is our normal, this is our norm.

[00:26:54] THERE IS NO COMMUNITY WITHOUT SOLITUDE
The message that people often need to hear is that there is no community without solitude. It's true. Okay, this is actually very, very true. If you can, you can find your own sources and go and delve deeper in contemplative traditions and spirituality, all that. There's so much emphasis in being able to be silent and still and alone with thee alone.

[00:27:16] Alone with thee alone. Thee alone being God. God is at the same time perfect solitude and also perfect community, right? He is both. And for us, it seems like it's a tension. But if we don't know how to be in solitude with ourselves, to be a separate person, we don't know how to be alone with God. We don't know what it means to be community because we're just leeching on to community for our own identity.

[00:27:45] If you don't know who you are outside of being a member of your family, outside of a particular friendship that you have, a close friend, a close friendship relationship that you have, if you don't know who you are, if you're taken away from your community, let's say, your faith, then you have a problem. You have a problem, right?

[00:28:05] Because who you are goes far beyond the belonging of the group, or the group that you belong to. And if you know who you are, then no matter where you go, or where the Lord calls you to go, you will know how to be in authentic relationship with whoever is before you, right? So, it's the two together.

[00:28:30] Remember, like, it's solitude and community. It's not just one plus one. There is no real community without solitude and the deepest, truest sense of solitude will always mean that you know you're part of a larger community. It's just the definition of community is different from enmeshed culture.

[00:28:50] So, enmeshed systems, they tend to determine or define community. Okay, community - I'm using this loosely, okay, so, it could be family, for example. Family is a kind of community, right. It could be your family, or it could be your community, your faith community. They tend to define that in a very rigid and exclusive manner.

[00:29:09] Meaning, they have a very particular way of understanding, this is how it should look like, this is how family must look like, this is what a good Catholic family must look like, and if we don't look exactly this way, it means we're not a good Catholic family. It's very black or white. Back to what I was talking about yesterday, it can be very one or zero.

[00:29:27] Okay, rigid, dysfunctional systems tend to be rigid. So, it's different from being close with one another. A healthy dynamics in any system or family would be, there is room for all of us to be our own persons. We can disagree with one another. We can even live life very differently and disagree with that.

[00:29:50] But we honour and respect one another and we are there for one another no matter what. We give each other that room because we all know, we each understand that we need to make this journey into the unknown, into the deeper solitude with God. And that is the most beautiful and important thing, gift, we can give someone we love.

[00:30:10] It is that support and that space to make the journey that they need to make. It actually requires a lot of dying to self, right? When someone that you care about maybe is going in a way that you don't agree with, it takes a lot of dying to self to say, the most beautiful or loving thing I can do for you is to let you make this journey and discover in your journey with God, what it means to be you.

[00:30:36] Right, and I can share, and I can be around, and I can give my opinion, but not in a way that tries to bind you, not in a way that makes my love conditional to you, not in a way that makes you feel punished if you don't follow what I say you should be doing. In order to do that, we need to be our own person.

[00:30:58] If we are not our own person, if we are not differentiated, if we are very enmeshed, or we are very hyper independent, we won't be able to do that, right? So, I'm talking a lot more about the scenario of being enmeshed because that's the context in which I am in, I mean, the culture I'm in. And also, because that was the question that was given to me, you know? Is there specific challenges of being Asian or being Chinese and Catholic in the interior journey?

[00:31:22] But the message really is that we need to be our own person, our true self in order to mature in love or else what we think is loving - and I think a lot of us, we want to love. I haven't met anyone in the context of making this interior journey who isn't interested in becoming more loving. So, sometimes when I hear people being concerned about, oh, am I getting very selfish? You know, you see your concern is being selfish, right?

[00:31:48] Your concern is not that you're going to be too loving. You want to be more loving. You're concerned that you're being selfish. You're concerned that caring for your own needs or discovering what is it that you want is something that will take away from the world or the people that you love.

[00:32:05] But the deeper truth is in order to be more generous, in order to have more abundant gifts to give those that you love, you need to make the journey into being who you are. And just to close this sharing for the input part of today, there is the journey. This journey takes time. So, don't be stressed or worried or anxious.

[00:32:36] If at this moment in your journey, it looks like you're being weak and you're being selfish and self-centred, we can only go through something. We can't skip the stage. If your whole life, you've been very enmeshed and you've been pleasing others in order to feel safe, then until you experience what it's like to so-called break away and find who you are - and there's no such perfect solution - that the purpose that the breaking away becoming differentiated is going to be all very nice and peaceful. And nobody gets upset and nobody gets offended. There's no such thing, okay?

[00:33:10] And that's why it's also part of the cost of discipleship. We have to choose. Is it important enough for us to make this journey to become more loving and authentic even at the risk in the short term of breaking, hurting some people or getting misunderstood?

[00:33:27] You know, there's a saying, you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, right? You want to have the omelette; you're going to have to break the eggs. It takes time to make that journey.

[00:33:39] THE OTHER AND THE SELF
If you want to ask any questions, you can send it to me in a DM and I can respond to it another time. Let me just see if there's any point that I missed.

[00:33:53] Okay, yeah, so, one final point, why it is that it's so important for us to become our own person is where there's no freedom, there's no love, right, and freedom comes from that space to also be able to attune to both myself and the other person. Then there's a real relationship. Love can cycle between me and the other. I need to be present to myself and to the other.

[00:34:18] When we are very enmeshed, we have no sense of being attuned to us, ourselves. We are only very hyper attuned to the others because our identity is fused to the collective, or to the other person, or in the relationship. If I'm hyper detached, then I also cannot really attune to other people.

[00:34:39] I may be hyper attuned to myself, my wants, my needs, right? Even then, it tends to be a bit of a dysfunctional kind of attunement because you know what? What all of us really need, we need to be in relationship. Alright, so, if we can really attune to the needs that we have to be in loving relationships with people, then we need to always have this both end. So, the way we need to mature in love requires us to become our own person.

[00:35:11] QUESTIONS
Okay, I see a question come in.

[00:35:18] How do you draw healthy boundaries between parent and child when becoming your own person? Parents usually play the head of the household card.

[00:35:26] Ooh. Yes. Okay, well, very good. Very real question. And okay, I'm guessing this is also within the context of our discussion today of being an Asian family, right?

[00:35:39] Because I mean, for example, in the Western families you know, when you're 18, you're out of the house, you're your own head of your own household, right? So, it's also something contextual to our culture, Asian culture, where even adult children, I suppose. I don't know whether this is also when you're living under the same roof with your family.

[00:36:00] Okay, so, I need to break down my response to this question, I think, in a couple of segments. So, the question is, how do you draw healthy boundaries between parent and child when becoming your own person? Parents usually play the head of the household card. Okay, so first I'm going to assume you're talking about an adult child.

[00:36:16] Because this differentiation, becoming your own person, is a gradual thing, right? Ideally, if your parents are enlightened, at different stages of the child growing up, they will already be negotiating this process of letting the child become his or her own person. But, if you're talking about, you're already an adult, and your parents are still playing the head of the household card, I don't - I think it's also very contextual to what you're talking about.

[00:36:42] Let me think, how do you - okay, oh, okay, there's another message. Okay, so, yes, still an adult. "I'm an adult child still living under my parents’ roof". Okay. Yeah, okay. So, yes, it is tricky, right? Because I would concede that, especially in a very Asian kind of context - even in Western context sometimes, it's kind of like as long as you're living under my roof, you play my by my rules because I'm the head of I'm the head of the household.

[00:37:19] It's such a difficult question to address briefly because I think I want to say pick your battles first. Because I'm sure there are some smaller battles and there's some larger battles, right? And you have to kind of - you have to choose where you want to begin to experience like being your own person. Maybe easier to start with things that won't cross that boundary where your parents will kind of like try and put that stamp on you.

[00:37:49] I don't whether I can give an example of a one such boundary that you're trying to draw and then, you know, it's like head of the house - they kind of like use that line on you.

[00:37:57] But because this journey of becoming your own person is such a, it's a very long journey. And if you don't already have like someone like a spiritual director that you're seeing or a counsellor that you're seeing, I would suggest that you consider one because having someone else help you look at your specifics.

[00:38:16] It has to be your specific situation, what you're grappling with, and maybe finding where a window can be open, right? Even if like there's not much space, but that usually can be space that can be found, you just need someone to know the specific context that you're in. But you know, more clearly, and then help you to maybe look at your situation with a different perspective.

[00:38:35] And then there are levels in which we need to build up. Levels in which we need to build up our resilience and our strength to be able to assert being our own person. So, just for example also because now if you're living in Singapore, I also have friends who are kind of like single and there's this question. Not should I get my own place even if I'm not married, right?

[00:38:53] Cause in the past it's almost like the only way to leave your parents’ house, is if you got married. And even then, I would say even for people who are not living under the same roof as their parents, a lot of them still can't be their own person. That's how powerful this dynamics, this enmeshment is.

[00:39:08] You don't even have to be in the same house. Okay, but it helps. It can help if there's more physical distance. So, whether you can consider how you can have more space. I know people who have maybe decided to live abroad for a short while, maybe take up like a job stint or studies or something like that for a while just to have some space, to recalibrate and kind of like find out who they are.

[00:39:34] And there are people that I know who actually ultimately do choose to get their own place if they're able to do so and move out. And of course, even doing so requires them to really have certain kinds of boundaries because I also know people - I know someone who is trying to work up her courage to that point to tell her parents that she wants to have her own space as in she wants to have her own place.

[00:39:54] Right, so, she has to build smaller steps first, before she can get to the point where she can have that conversation with her parents that she actually wants to move to her own place. All these are, I mean, it's hard to discuss without knowing the specific context and also the point of the journey that you're in.

[00:40:12] Okay, but I acknowledge that it is hard. And healthy boundaries can maybe begin first by - I don't know - like your room. Do you have your own room? Hopefully, you have your own room and what is okay or not. Okay, like whether or not you let your parents come into your room when you're not around, it's tricky.

[00:40:31] Okay, it's tricky because in Asian families, a lot of times, like, you know, love is also shown by, let's say, physical caretaking, which includes sometimes, let's say, cleaning, right? So, maybe if you're someone who, those parents, or one of your parents still want to clean your place. I tell somebody else that I know, you can't have it both ways.

[00:40:48] Sometimes, if you want to begin to assert a bit more independence and boundaries, that would mean also not getting some of the benefits, the benefits of having those enmeshed or blurred boundaries, right? Like, so, if you're not okay, this other person, if you're not okay with your parents feeling free to just drop in to your place anytime, or even asking for a key to come into your house when you're not around, then you may have to reconsider letting them always be the one to come and help you do things in your home when you're too busy at work to do it yourself.

[00:41:21] I hope you can understand what I'm saying. It's that you can't have it both ways. Boundaries, there are two sides to it. So, choose something at a step where you are ready to begin to draw that boundary, but be consistent. I hope that helps. I'm sorry I can't be more specific because I really don't know more of the context that you're in.

[00:41:40] These things have to be very concrete. But I hope you continue to ponder that in your own situation and look for like I said, if you don't really have like an SD or counsellor or something, consider that. We really can't do this journey on our own, really, really, okay? And don't wait until you're in crisis. Although if that's also what it takes, that's what it takes. All right, so, I think that's it for today's Live. Thank you all who joined me and for asking questions. And I will see you again tomorrow. Bye!

[00:42:11] CONCLUSION
[Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

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