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About Our Guest
Anthea Ong served as a Nominated Member of Parliament from 2018–2020 in the 13th Parliament of Singapore. As a self-described “full-time human being, part-time everything else”, she is a mental health advocate, social entrepreneur and impact investor, life and leadership coach, strategy consultant, yoga and wellness instructor and author, amongst many other roles. She is never seen without headgear to match her multiple hats.
She divides her time, energy and love across many different communities and has founded or co-founded several initiatives in her main focus areas of migrant rights, mental health, environmentalism and social impact, including SG Mental Health Matters, WorkWell Leaders, A Good Space Co-operative, Hush TeaBar and Welcome In My Backyard. She also served and serves on several boards and committees in these fields, including Unifem (now UN Women), Society for WINGS, Daughters of Tomorrow, Social Service Institute, National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre and the Tripartite Oversight Committee for Workplace Safety & Health. Prior to devoting herself to civil society and social impact work full-time, she spent over 25 years in the corporate world as a C-suite leader. Her new mantra, as a former banker and reformed business leader, is “why start a business when you can start a movement, or two?”
Hi, it’s me again, Kai Xin, joined by my cohost Cheryl, and today we have a very special guest, Anthea Ong. So welcome to the Handful Of Leaves podcast where we bring you practical Buddhist wisdom for a happier life.
So today we are gonna talk about a really special topic on vulnerabiliy, and we can’t think of anyone better than Anthea Ong because she has quite a huge track record. At first, she would introduce herself as a full-time human and part-time everything else, which is very humble. I think this entire conversation is gonna help us unveil what the human behind Anthea Ong is because her long track record involves nominated member of Parliament, social entrepreneur, impact investor.
She’s the founder and co-founder of many different companies. One of the really special one, it’s called Hush TeaBar, where she provides space and opportunity for people who are deaf in order to make a living. And a very special concept around how people who are deaf can help to lead silent tea appreciation and tasting. And they are also people who have lived through mental health issues. Perfect for today’s topic on vulnerability. So, Anthea, thank you so much for coming on this show.
[00:01:18] Anthea:
Thank you, Kai Xin.
[00:01:19] Kai Xin:
And being open to share. I think both Cheryl and myself, when we look at your track record, it’s like, you’re so successful. But before we hit record, you were sharing a little bit about the challenges that you’ve been through. I think you can share more with our listeners. It’s so important for us to talk about vulnerability and to also destigmatize it, especially in the Asian context. So really looking forward to this conversation.
[00:01:44] Anthea:
Thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to this chat. Let’s just see how it flows.
Amazing. So just to kick things off. Vulnerability is a very big word. Everyone will have different interpretations and different definitions of it. Can you share with us what does the word vulnerability mean to you and how has it evolved?
[00:02:02] Anthea:
I think what comes up for me immediately would be that vulnerability actually means love. Love is not romantic love only. It’s love that comes from within yourself. Therefore, you’re willing to be vulnerable to the other because clearly there is a piece of yourself that you’re putting forward.
Usually, it’s when there is love that you are willing to do that. You’re also willing to do that when the other person has in some way demonstrated or earned even trust, and therefore there’s love there for you to feel safe enough. Kai Xin started this conversation talking about a topic needs to be destigmatized and it’s true.
We think of vulnerability as a lot of things, but one that we clearly associate vulnerability with is pain and suffering. I think it’s true that if you don’t have vulnerability or you don’t wanna show vulnerability, either we are avoiding or not talking about pain or not wanting to bring ourselves forward with the pain we have. But I’m pretty sure that that would mean we’ll also get a lot less love.
And so for me, vulnerability, I think it’s very intertwined with the concept of love. I wanna emphasize again and repeat myself that when I talk about love here, I’m talking about love in the broadest concept. It could be compassion, it is kindness, it is empathy. It is not just romantic love or the kind of love that we feel for family members. I think Sigmund Freud was the one who said something like, we are never so vulnerable as when we love.
I think vulnerability also calls up the emotion and the experience of relief for me. If you are a leader, then vulnerability has in some ways been so associated with weakness. And on the positive side it means that if you’re not vulnerable, you’re strong, you’re resilient, you’re stoic, you have it all together.
And the reason why I say relief is that when I went through my colossal collapse of a broken heart, a broken marriage, a broken business, a broken bank account 17 years ago now along with a lot of pain and suffering, because I was vulnerable, a lot of people come forward to show love for me.
I have to also say that I felt a deep sense of relief that now I don’t have to be seen as this person that is never going to be in a challenging situation or has all the answers. So, I think two big words, love and relief, based on my own experience.
Thanks so much for sharing, and I think it’s almost as though vulnerability is the ability to love yourself enough to let love come to you. When you were sharing on that sense of relief that you were experiencing as you allow people to come shower love and you don’t have to feel so alone. I was thinking probably the opposite of vulnerability is a sense of shame. And that’s why when you’re feeling that shame. You’re holding everything in, and then you’re burying yourself under all of that. And the moment when you’re able to let that go and just show the world. I’m imperfect! That’s it! Then, you get that sense of relief.
It’s relief. It’s liberating. It’s freeing. But most of all, it was very human. I think for the first time in the long time, because of the way my life trajectory was going up to that point of my colossal collapse, it would be seen as almost picture-perfect. It followed a very conventional trajectory of what success looked like. But of course, through that seemingly successful trajectory that was such a Midas touch at every point of my life, there were lots and lots of vulnerabilities. Just that I’d never showed them, because I never felt faith, I never felt like I should because I had a completely different notion of what being human was about. Along the way you held imposter syndrome, particularly as a woman leader in the 90’s. You also held shame when you did not do something well. But all of these are just kind of swept under the carpet and that make you then put on a veneer.
Because there is a public identity that we have to uphold and that really doesn’t allow us to be human. We go around living life feeling rather unsafe, almost as if we are constantly towing because we don’t wanna be vulnerable. We keep towing all the time. It can’t be good for anyone’s mental wellbeing or mental health, but to your point about the opposite of vulnerability, it’s likely shame.
I think absolutely. And actually one of the world’s most well-known vulnerability experts who would also call herself the shame expert is Brené Brown. When I went into the deep dark place 17 years ago, what actually propelled me on this really dangerous very scary downward slippery slope into that deep, deep, dark place was shame.
I actually hid it from family in terms of what was going on with my marriage and all of that for a good year. And that whole year was when things just progressively went down the slippery slope. And I think it’s because of shame that I could not allow myself to be vulnerable, to share, even to my nearest and dearest.
Well, we’re kind of living in a society where blaming and shaming, the cancel culture and all of that. It’s really making it so unsafe to be vulnerable. But yet, if are not vulnerable, then how can we ever really build real connections? How can we truly be human and to truly love and receive love? Therefore, how can we be well? Mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
I think the biggest irony that everyone, or at least we humans face, is that our deepest desire is almost to be seen, to connect deeply with another person. But at the same time, we are so afraid to be vulnerable, to do the exact thing that gives us that sense of wellbeing and connection.
[00:09:10] Anthea:
You just said about this paradox, right? We are biologically, emotionally built to wanna connect. But yet in the way we live, especially when we lived intellectually. And allowing ourselves also to just go along in a sort of autopilot mode without that sense of awareness of who we are, what’s around us. We then hold back our vulnerability and our humanness and therefore that actually doesn’t let us connect. And so we are constantly in this tension all the time. And you can understand why there is suffering. There will be suffering until we actually find a way to see this paradox.
That’s so beautiful. And the word that came out is authentic. Like what Cheryl has mentioned, we don’t necessarily have to feel the pressure to be perfect all the time. We don’t have to figure out everything in life. And sometimes that’s okay. We are all work in progress.
I do have this thought about the balance. Because I think a lot of people might associate vulnerability to sharing your fears, your deepest, darkest anxiety, the thoughts, et cetera. But how much is too much and what is considered a safe context and space in order to share that?
The reason why I ask is also because I have my own fair share of going through all these difficult emotions and sometimes it’s quite tempting to indulge in them, which is not healthy. So maybe you can share some experience in terms of how you draw the line.
[00:10:56] Anthea:
It is a great question. But I would say that in terms of my own experience, being vulnerable is not without boundaries, that’s not being vulnerable. That’s just being foolish. In fact, I’ve just had an experience with a teammate who was going through a challenging time and because there was no boundaries and self-restraint – it can become self-centered because you’re downloading on someone else, all of what you’re feeling. This is too much for the other person. Especially when the other person in this case is actually going through so much as well himself. And yet because he was kind and he wanted to be a listening ear, he then lets this completely unrestrained, unfiltered download to happen. And when I heard about it and I had to step in.
I shared very gently that when we are being vulnerable, we also have to be kind and being kind is not just saying, “Hey, I wanna be self-compassionate, and therefore I’m gonna just not stop myself from sharing what I’m going through, just let myself indulge, embrace these emotions.”
But what are you doing with those emotions? Saying you’re being vulnerable, embracing these emotions, but you are actually just projecting and transferring all of that to another person. And so outwardly it might seem like, “Oh, this person is being very vulnerable and sharing all that he’s going through. But if you look at the content of the sharing there’s actually a lot of shadows, projection of his own challenges that he’s not able to deal with.” And that’s giving him a lot of suffering, that he’s then transferring to this other person and actually even making this other person feel terrible about himself, in addition to having to be there to hold the space for the first person.
So I don’t think it’s vulnerability if there’s no boundaries. I don’t think it is vulnerability if you are not continuing to be kind to others and the people around you. I also don’t think it’s very kind to yourself if your vulnerability means you’re just beating yourself up in your own self narrative. I don’t think that’s vulnerability. I think that’s why, for me, vulnerability has to come from a place of love. Otherwise, it’s actually emotional vomiting as well.
You are complaining, you’re whining, you are also self-victimizing. You are getting yourself into a victimized mode to allow yourself to not be confronting what you really need to confront with yourself too. It’s not to say that you can’t feel bad about what you’re going through, but I think it is, “Are you ready (for change)?” Because I think vulnerability is the greatest measure of change. Brene Brown said this about vulnerability as the truest gauge of courage. And so it’s the greatest measure of courage and change.
Being vulnerable is such an opportunity to come so close to yourself and I speak from my experience. If I was not broken into a million pieces 17 years ago, I don’t think I would have confronted and given myself the biggest act of kindness of actually connecting with myself. My truest self and my true nature. The million pieces I thought was me broken became a million pieces, a million seeds of love that I could now spread.
That’s powerful. It almost feels like what you’re saying is to allow your emotions to come up to face them, but it’s also not to indulge them. I mean, in Buddhism we have the 4 Noble Truths, right? So it doesn’t just stop at, okay, there’s suffering and then keep saying, life is terrible, it’s unfair, et cetera.
But what is beyond that?
And I think the first step, of course, it’s not to push away just because the feelings are unpleasant, but to allow yourself to say, Hey, this is difficult, it’s a little bit shitty, et cetera. But also having boundaries.
[00:15:43] Anthea:
You have to see what is. You’ve gotta feel what it is. And that’s suddenly a big part of the Buddhist practice as well. What is the point of awareness? If you don’t go to the next step of knowing why this exists, right?
It’s for you to then put in the effort to move yourself along the path and actually in doing so, you are able to then see what the pain was for. It wasn’t for us to indulge and self victimize. That was not the purpose of the pain.
The pain was for you to see, this is always gonna be part of what life is. I mean, we cannot learn about life and this human experience if we don’t feel life. But then when you feel what life is, what do you do about it? I think this is the part of becoming a better human. And I believe this is also a part of the Dhamma.
Definitely. It’s like a purposeful use of pain or like vulnerability with purpose. Otherwise, it can just spiral into complaining. Actually, I was thinking also about personality. So for me, I’m quite the opposite instead of sharing everything in the open to say, Hey, you know, these are some of the fears, these are what’s bothering me. Because there need to be boundaries, right? So at the back of my head, I would think that I should be kind and compassionate to my friends. They are already dealing with a lot of their own struggles, so I shouldn’t burden them with my own challenges and problems.
So I would suck it in and try to solve them myself, but that’s also not very possible because I need to lean on somebody when my capacity is limited. Do you have advice as to how people of my personality or character can be vulnerable with purpose.
[00:17:39] Anthea:
My goddaughter, she’s 27 and a beautiful, beautiful human being. And that’s exactly what she said. She was sharing a little bit of the challenges she was going through and how she was feeling. And then she said, it’s fine. Compared to so many people, I’m in a so much better position and situation and I certainly don’t wanna download and make them feel even more challenged because I have to share my issues with them.
So this is what I would say: I’ve got so many resources. I’m actually in a very privileged position. So there shouldn’t really be a need for me to either transfer, download, or share this with people around me when they are seemingly in a more challenging set of circumstances.
But, suffering for the person who’s experiencing it is absolute. It’s not relative. It’s only relative when we bring in all of this social conditioning and intellectual abstraction of it all. Then we start to have a comparison and relativity to it. To say that I don’t think I should be sharing because I don’t wanna burden them, especially if they’re also going through challenges themselves. But then we all know that everyone has a story.
Everyone is struggling. First and foremost for me, the suffering of the person experiencing it is absolute to the person and anyone who’s going through suffering deserves compassion, including from ourselves.
And secondly, I don’t think we are allowing ourselves to explore the richness and the depth of our relationships with people around us if we hold back our troubles from them because then they only know you at a certain level. They’ll never know all of you. And even if it comes from a place of kindness or your personality type where you try to keep this to yourself and try to work things through on your own, the other way to reframe it and to look at it is, Hey, do these people mean enough for me to want them to know more of who I am, the layers, the texture, the richness of who I am, which comes from my own experiences. We do think that they mean enough to us that we want to let them in so they know all of us in all our richness as a human.
The other question to ask would also be, Have I given them opportunities to show and demonstrate their love for me? Because if I’m constantly being okay. And this is what was said to me, Kai Xin, when I was going through the colossal collapse, a couple of my friends actually came out to me to say, Oh, now I can finally come forward and say, Hey, this is where I can support you. This is how I can help you.
Because you were always able to solve every problem of yours and on top of everyone else’s problems as well. So there’s just no way in to you so that I feel I have contributed, to having supported you, to being part of your life. In a most authentic, vulnerable, very beautiful, very human way.
So I think that would be the two parts to look at it actually. I hope that was helpful. But that was what happened with me.
Side trivia, I remember there was someone without meaning to, after I shared my story of what happened she said something like, “But Anthea, of course, you’re gonna always be able to come out of it. I’m sure it was painful, but I’m sure you’re gonna come out of it. I mean, look at you, you were a CEO before the collapse. Your family’s very supportive and all of that.”
I had to turn around gently said to her. I thank you for having such an amazing impression of me, (even though she didn’t truly know me, but just cause of my CV maybe), I said, but can I just share with you that I didn’t feel that way? I actually did not think I was gonna come out of it. Because the suffering at that point in time for me was excruciating and was absolute.
“But I must say it was because I was willing to allow myself to be human. That’s one part. Because of that coming out and reaching out for help. That actually allowed me to start to climb out of that deep, dark hole.”
Initially, I felt a bit affronted. What do you mean? I shouldn’t be allowed to feel terrible because of my background?
[00:22:51] Kai Xin:
Or you have to quicken the process and come out faster.
[00:22:56] Anthea:
But your pain cannot be so… because I mean, look at you. What you were before? I think we sometimes forget that. We think that just because you are CEO, you don’t have a dysfunctional family, then whatever life gets at you, you can just sort of shield it off. That’s not what the human experience is.
[00:23:17] Kai Xin:
Even spiritual practitioners. You meditate, you can do it. You feel bad, but I thought you meditate.
[00:23:25] Anthea:
Exactly! Oh, it has happened to me when I do some posting and I talk about, feeling a bit spent, very challenged by this and all of that. And people would be also wondering, well if you do this, you meditate so much, every day for the last 16, 17 years, and you still can’t feel at ease. Then the rest of us have no chance.
And I would always turn around and say that, imagine where I would be if I haven’t meditated. It’s not as if I’m meditating to get some sort of results from it. Not at all, right? I mean, that’s not what it is. Every time I meditate, it’s that moment’s experience rather than think I’m meditating so that I will, I will not (achieve something.) It’s not a means to an end, it’s an end in itself for me. But when I was asked that question, I then said, imagine what could have happened to me. The same thing with, oh, you’re vegan. How come you can get sick? Imagine if I wasn’t taking care of health. So I think, some of these are just very normal because of the social conditioning and certain intellectual ideas we have.
I just love the discussion that we were all having just now. It’s like peeling the layers of the onion. At first, we come with, okay, vulnerability is this, vulnerability is that. Now I realize vulnerability is so many things.
Just to summarize, firstly, it’s about understanding that vulnerability is inclusion as well as exclusion. You’re setting the boundaries in terms of what to share, what to not share, and who to share with as well.
And then secondly, vulnerability is not throwing the responsibility to others, but you owning it. But at the same time also allowing yourself to feel the shit that you’re feeling. And the last thing is that, vulnerability as we often forget, could also be a gift to other people, to love us and to let us lean on them as well.
Just to move the conversation forward as well, I’m just curious, how can we help people to feel comfortable in sharing their vulnerable side?
I think it’s a great question and actually this is a big part of the work that I also do with Hush Tea Bar, but also with Workwell Leaders. How do you create that space? To help people feel comfortable in sharing their vulnerable side, there has to be a safe space. And what do I mean? I mean, a lot of people talk about safe spaces. Actually, the most important descriptor of a safe space is trust.
So first it has to be earned. So that space is not automatic. It has to be earned. And it doesn’t mean that it’s only with friends you have known for a very long time. And when I say earn, I mean that if we truly wanna hold a space of trust for another to share, then I think it’s really important for us to not expect them to be vulnerable with us if we are ourselves not vulnerable.
So I feel like to create and to earn that trust, it’s so important for us to disarm ourselves first. So that another person, as you talked about Cheryl, how do we help people feel more comfortable? How do we go to all the communities, all the spaces we are in, all the relationships we have. What do we do to help people around us feel comfortable to share their vulnerability. It’s not about what we can give to them, but it’s how do you show up? Do you show up armed? Because if you show up armed emotionally, then it’s very difficult. You have not earned the trust of the other to be vulnerable.
And this is especially important for leaders, which is the work at Workwell Leaders. It is to bring together CEO’s of largest employers in Singapore together to look at how do we become more human-centered leaders. And to do that, especially when it comes to championing mental wellbeing at the workplace. You have to walk the talk first as a leader, you cannot just say, Hey, just talk, tell me what’s going on. If you have not created a space of safety and trust because you haven’t even put yourself forward yet. You haven’t given a piece of yourself in this space yet. The moment a leader can be vulnerable, to say that, Hey you know, I just went through a really difficult challenge, I needed help, and all of that, even just something like that would already change the energy and the kind of narrative within the workplace or the team.
I don’t have to feel ashamed that I’m feeling so down because my grandma just passed on, right? Because my C.E.O. Just talked about how he lost his loved one, and he’s also struggled. I think that’s really important. I mean, Gandhi said this, right? We have to be the change we want to see in the world. We can’t just go and tell people, Hey, be vulnerable, tell me. But it’s not gonna work. What are you bringing to the space? And so I think this is really important. We have to earn their trust so they can be vulnerable. That goes to the same thing, right?
Don’t just share with everyone. There’s also a need to say, is this a safe space for me to be vulnerable too? And we often say that it’s not vulnerability if you don’t have boundaries. Those boundaries very often is along the values of trust and respect. And empathy and compassion. And if you feel that, then I think you are more likely to feel comfortable with being vulnerable to your question.
But also at the same time, I feel that it can be quite challenging to be vulnerable in the corporate setting because you don’t know what this information that you are divulging might be perceived.
[00:29:53] Anthea:
And the reason I initiated Workwell Leaders back in May, 2018 is that it then has to come from the top right, unless you have a cultural shift. Unless it’s a workplace culture that from the very top is encouraging this kind of conversations to be had. And because it’s actually directly gonna be affecting business outcomes and business performance. It’s directly gonna affect the employee’s mental health.
If we don’t have this kind of conversations, we don’t have this kind of culture that we built that’s inclusive, that is creating psychological safety, at some point, entire world economy is gonna hit the ground. Even with the whole AI thing, we’re not gonna be able to survive because the culture has become so toxic that you are just constantly just dealing with all of this. I don’t wanna say what I wanna say. Therefore, there’s no creativity or innovation and no new ideas.
You feel like if you say this, you don’t get promoted. Then that’s silly because then you might leave and then the company is actually losing good talent. So all around it’s just not a very smart thing to do, that we continue to sweep these conversations under the carpet or saying that in the corporate world, this is really not the place. But it’s not easy for employees to just say, Hey, I wanna talk about this. It needs to come the top to say that this is the safe place and then it has to be demonstrated. They must walk the talk. It must go all the way down to team managers to say that, Hey, you must intentionally create spaces for this kind of conversations. Make sure you talk with your team members and ask, how are they doing? Hey, I understand you just lost a family member. How are you doing? Is there anything I can support with? So, it’s very hard from the ground up to change the culture.
When you don’t have the power, of course you’re always gonna not risk it. At the same time, I must say though, Cheryl, that it’s important to also bring the awareness into your workplace, right? And so the practice of mindfulness is helpful to let you know that, I am aware that this person I can share with, this team manager I can share with, right?
So there’s also the need to be looking at context, people and not just say, oh, as long as it’s the workplace, I’m not sharing anything, it’s also not gonna be helpful because then you are not also living intentionally. It needs to be a cultural change. It’s also why with Hush Tea Bar, when we bring the experience into workplaces, cause we are a mobile tea bar.
The idea is that then we will create that space amongst all of the colleagues, including their bosses and their managers, come together to go through a silent experience, get them to learn how to sign emotions. To acknowledge emotions have a place. And emotions include negative emotions that we get them to sign, and then they have to go back and sign with each other. And then they go through the silent experience, and then they actually share. Going back to what Kai Xin said, then there’s the authentic conversations that you have as humans and not just as colleagues. After such a profound experience. The workplace is always gonna be a bit more challenging for sure.
[00:33:40] Cheryl:
And thanks for giving us hope that as long as we still look for the people who we can feel safe, we still can embody that side of vulnerability. And I think little seeds, that we plant can hopefully create a ripple of change.
[00:33:56] Anthea:
Yes, absolutely. Also, rest in the hope that there’s a lot of effort to try to make this change happen at workplaces from the top. Workwell Leaders is not the only one, but because we are targeting the CEO’s at the very, very top. But there are also many efforts trying to look into how HR policies can change how team management practices should embrace diversity and inclusion and stuff like that. And you are right Cheryl, it’s just different seeds that we plant with what we have, where we can. Never lose hope.
Perhaps, beyond just getting the leaders to set the tone, employees also have control in terms of asking their bosses how they are and making the effort to see their bosses beyond just performance and how they show up at work. One specific incident, which touched me very much. One of my colleague, usually we do quarterly reviews and I would ask what else can I do to support you in both your personal life as well as at work?
And then we went off the conversation. And then, the colleague asked. Boss, you always ask how you can support us, but how can we support you? I mean, even as I’m saying this right now. I feel so teary-eyed. Finally, people actually do see the human side and they care.
It’s kind of linking back to how we started a conversation about being vulnerable, sharing openly with love. I think it goes both ways. So if the employee can also disarm themselves a little bit, but of course with boundaries and lean in with curiosity, then the connection can happen.
[00:35:41] Anthea:
That is so beautifully said. I’ve had those experiences too. Many a time. And I join you in being teary-eyed when this happens. But it also speaks volume of how often we also think of our leaders and our bosses as superhumans. But actually they’re just humans, like all of us. And especially through COVID everyone goes to them, right? The workers go to them, they ask them how to deal with all of these challenges. The suppliers, the clients. And so in fact, studies are showing that there’s a significant level of burnout at the leaders’ level.
If we are always anchoring ourselves in love and compassion, then it’s never about how change should be made for me, but I should be part of that change as well. And if all of us think about it that way, then there’s no reason we shouldn’t show up with compassion for people who traditionally, we think they will always be fine. I mean, like the story I said about earlier, right? I think all we’re saying is, bring our humanness to every relationship, every space that we are in, because at work it’s actually a collective of humans coming together, right?
So that shouldn’t be any different to any community that we’re in. And if we can change the way we see workplaces where most of us spend most of our waking hours, it’s gonna have such a direct impact on who we are in our family and community lives as well.
[00:37:27] Cheryl:
That’s so beautiful. Thanks for sharing, Kai Xin. And thanks Anthea, for chiming in. Really helped me change my perspective as well. Because I guess I always feel intimidated if they’re the Senior Director or Senior VP or whoever, and I forget to see their humanness behind their titles, and their roles and all that.
Cool. So we’ve chatted a lot, I wish we could go on, but if we were to wrap up this episode and chat, I have a question for you because you have two books actually. One is “50 Shades of Love”, and another one.
[00:38:06] Anthea:
It’s “The Nominated Member of Parliament Scheme: Are Unelected Voices Still Necessary in Parliament?”
[00:38:15] Kai Xin:
And if you were to write a new book, hypothetically, on vulnerability, what would the title of the book be?
[00:38:24] Anthea:
It’s a good question. I sort of feel though Kai Xin and Cheryl, that “50 Shades of Love”, it’s so much about my vulnerability because I shared so much of when I was the most challenged in so many of the shades, the chapters. This is a great question. So if you’ll indulge me, I think one would be “Lost and Found”.
I was certainly in some way lost in the social conditioning of that trajectory I talked about. But also I was suddenly very lost when I was dealing with the collapse in the first instance. I felt lost because, who am I now if I’m not a C.E.O., I’m not a wife. And interestingly, my vulnerabilities across the decades of my life, especially the last colossal collapse has allowed me to find my “why”. Who I’m not and who I am or what I am? It’s not about the public identity anymore, but just allowing me to go back to, that I am a human being above everything else. So that’s one that just came up. I have always been very taken. I don’t know whether you both know about the Japanese art of Kintsugi.
[00:39:49] Cheryl:
Kintsugi.
[00:39:51] Anthea:
And I actually have a cup behind, which is a Hush tea cup that was broken, and then it’s patched obviously with the golden thread, and the golden paint. That image has always been one that I associated a lot of what I went through. And now I feel like my heart is definitely scarred. But now it’s enriched because of the scarring, which is vulnerability with so much more light and awareness and love.
I don’t know what I would call it. Maybe “My Kintsugi Journey” or something, “My Kintsugi Life”. The last one I’d like to bring up, because I know your project, it’s called a Handful of Leaves. What just came up to me is, we talked about vulnerability as being so important in that connection that we long for as human beings. So maybe it could be saying that I’m giving a hand of connection, I talked about my vulnerabilities.
And that I think can only come in the truest way and the most authentic way if we are actually able to sort of feel safe, included, belong enough to want to share our vulnerabilities and then therefore get the connections that come with it.
[00:41:15] Kai Xin:
Beautiful way to wrap up the episode. So we have three book titles in the making. Yes. And thank you so much Anthea for this chat. I’ve learnt so much from you. So I think at the end of the day, it’s really about being true to oneself, having love, and it goes both ways. And to all our listeners, hopefully you can take this all in and learn to be a little bit stronger by showing your vulnerability. Until we meet again the next episode, may you stay happy and wise. Thank you so much, Anthea.
Hush TeaBar – HUSH started in 2014 as a volunteer-run groundup initiative before becoming a social enterprise in 2016 where we have mostly given employment and empowerment opportunities to Deaf persons and Hearing persons in recovery from mental health conditions.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Buddhist Youth Network, Lim Soon Kiat, Alvin Chan, Tan Key Seng, Soh Hwee Hoon, Geraldine Tay, Venerable You Guang, Wilson Ng, Diga, Joyce, Tan Jia Yee, Joanne, Suñña, Shuo Mei, Arif, Bernice, Wee Teck, Andrew Yam, Kan Rong Hui, Wei Li Quek, Shirley Shen, Ezra, Joanne Chan, Hsien Li Siaw, Gillian Ang
Editor and transcriber of this episode: Tee Ke Hui, Cheryl Cheah, Koh Kai Xin
Hey friends, this is Kai Xin, and you’re listening to the Handful of Leaves podcast where we bring you practical Buddhist wisdom for a happier life. If you’re going through a rough patch, this episode is for you because we’ll be unpacking lots of practical tips to deal with difficult emotions in our lives. Unless we’re saints, whenever we meet with life challenges, negative emotions will inevitably rise to the occasion. Fear, anxiety, sadness, and worry. These are the usual suspects. In fact, these emotions creep into our everyday life in one way or another, and oftentimes make us feel terrible. If you’re like me, you would rather feel positive rather than negative, or you would rather feel happy rather than sad. As a result, we end up running away from these emotions unconsciously or subconsciously and miss the vital lessons they have to teach us.
Kai Xin 01:10
In this episode, we have our special guest, Ratna to share with us how to anchor our life with positivity while mindfully embracing negativity. Ratna is a living example of how best to use one’s vulnerability as a strength. Her personal journey is inspiring. She migrated to Singapore at a young age. She wasn’t proficient in English, and struggled with low self-esteemed. Then, during a public speaking engagement, she blanked out and froze. That’s pretty traumatic and totally crushed her confidence. But she picked herself up. And today, she is an esteemed coach in mindfulness and public speaking, and has even become a TEDx Speaker! Ratna is truly an inspiration and I’m thankful to have witnessed her rise in popularity and success over the last decade. Want to know how she did it? Tune in to the full episode. Right now, she is truly an inspiration. And I’m so thankful to have witnessed her rise in popularity and success over the last decade. Want to know how she did it? Tune in to the full episode as she shares how to use positivity as a superpower, and how to leverage negative emotions for growth. Finally, the ABC guide to dealing with difficult emotions. Now, let’s jump right in.
Cheryl 02:32
To kick things off, Ratna, what is your superpower?
Ratna 02:36
My superpower is positivity. I strive to have optimistic outlook in life. As much as possible, for my friends and family I try to offer them genuine encouragements and also at the same time making people feel a bit better about themselves. So I think that’s one of the superpower that I have.
Cheryl 03:02
And why do you consider positivity a superpower?
Ratna 03:06
In a world where we have so many negativities we face so many challenges in our life, I think it’s so important to have these qualities of positivity. Not ignoring the negative part of our emotions, but really having the positive thoughts and emotions as an anchor in our life that whenever there are any challenges any thing that we face in our life that may not be favourable, we can always use this qualities to be able to help us navigate challenges and changes in our life.
Kai Xin 03:45
Currently, you’re a mindfulness and wellbeing coach, and I think people can really benefit from your positivity. Can you share a little bit about some recent challenges that you face? And what are some of the steps you took to overcome them?
Ratna 03:59
In fact, for the past few months, navigating the uncertainty of solopreneurship (was challenging). It was just like a lot of things that were going through my mind, from ‘what if’ scenarios where certain things may not go according to my plan, and to like the feelings of fear of choosing the wrong path. Having different expectations from my parents to some family members and facing financial instability as I navigate this solopreneurship myself, it was quite a lot of things happening at the same time. It was kind of overwhelming for me. There were lots of uncomfortable emotionsthat I experienced, from feeling confusion, anxiety, as well as fear. I just felt like “I’m not sure if this is something that I really wanted to do.” At the same time also, there were a lot of things that were not within my control. So it was quite tough to actually go through that period for the past few months There was a time that I couldn’t hold it anymore, so I cried. And I should say it was a good way of releasing my emotions and the tension that is being stored in my body.
Ratna 05:27
For me, I took some time to actually unpack my emotions, and process them sharing this with the people that I trust, they are my mentors, as well as my trusted advisors who have my best interests at heart. So by sharing it with them, and listening to what they have to offer, from their own perspective also helps me to open up a different perspective about things in different ways as well. But at the end of the day, I have to make a decision for myself, and what really helps me a lot was the practice of mindfulness meditation practice, to actually come down my emotions, my thoughts, and it helps me to also quieten down the noise and silencing that inner critic to also bring my attention back to the present moment to really focus on what really matters the most. One more thing that really helps a lot is the journaling practice. So every day, I took some time to basically just journal my thoughts and my feelings kind of like just put my thoughts and feelings on paper, and not to overthink too much. So that really helps a lot in navigating all those uncertain moments that has been happening for the past few months.
Kai Xin 06:51
Wow, thanks for sharing this very vulnerable journey, it’s definitely not easy being a solopreneur. And I hear you mentioned a few things that are helpful, of course, your superpower came in very handy. And then beyond that, it’s also not suppressing it too much. Because to a point when you’re holding back, then you have to release. And after releasing your consult others, and you also notice your inner critic, then you take time to reflect. I’m just trying to expand on this inner critic part a little bit, because I think some people can find it challenging to balance, sometimes we can be overly positive, we call it toxic positivity, where we misjudge the reality, and everything feels like rainbows and sunshine, when actually it’s not. On the other hand, we are overly critical to a point where it’s not constructive. So to you based on your experience, how do you know when to release your emotions and when to hold it back and just be positive?
Ratna 07:48
I think for me, I kind of took quite a bit of guidance from my body. So whenever I feel a certain emotion, will come back to my body and really feel ways this emotion resides in my in my body. By having that, it helps me a lot to release a lot of tension, especially the negative emotions that is being stored in my body. Gounding exercises, such as, the breathing and all that helps me to recalibrate myself to the baseline, in a way not to spiral down into a much one negative emotion. And knowing that whatever I’m experiencing right now might not be really real, like what we thought it is, because our feelings and emotions are sometimes are just guidance or compass to what we are experiencing right now, but still have the power to choose whatever we wanted to experience in our life or whatever we wanted to create, to have a different kind of outcome in whatever situations that we experience as well.
Cheryl 08:56
I really appreciate the fact that you say that our body is a guidance to our emotions, and at the same time you say acknowledge that we have the power to be able to decide how we want to deal with these emotions. And it’s so true, right? Our body holds all our emotions. If we feel stress, we feel it in the stomach area that we feel angry, it’s in the chest area. And once you’re able to learn how to kind of, I think be comfortable or accept the sensation to able to move on. I was wondering if you would be able to maybe share what exercise helped you to be in tune with your body in a way and respond appropriately after that?
Ratna 09:36
I do quite a bit of grounding and breathing practice. For example, if I wanted to relive whatever events that is happening not according to what I expect it to be, and then you will kind of like probably come up with all sorts of emotions that might not be really pleasant. Because of that, then I will ask myself, “Where is this emotions residing in my body?” Sometimes it can be around my shoulders area or my chest area, and I can also feel a tingling sensation in certain parts of my body. When I felt that way, I will take a deep breathing, and then I’ll just release my breathing into the areas where I feel the most tension in my body to help to ease the tension. And one more practice that I also use is to use humming. Basically, I take a deep breath, and as I breathe out, I will hum into that part of my body that feels that tingling sensations or elevated emotions. And other practice that I do is walking in nature. So as I walk it, it really helps me to feeling much more grounded, you know, connecting to the nature, and all that. So it really helps to, in a way, bring that more positive emotions as well.
Kai Xin 11:06
I’m quite curious, what if you do all that, but you still feel very tense?
Ratna 11:09
I think another practice could be sharing it with others as well, like, you know, sometimes by by just sharing it with others. It’s to process our feelings and thoughts, and then having a sounding board helps you to probably give some kind of suggestions or good advice helps to, in a way shift our emotions or feelings into a more empowering one. One of the thing that I also felt was really important is to have self acceptance, because a lot of times when we feel unpleasant emotions, we want to resist it, because we just don’t want to feel it. But the more we resist it, it keeps persisting. What I find it useful is to really acknowledge that, hey, I’m feeling a certain way, I’m feeling anxious, I’m feeling this way, you know. And to label the emotions and observe it as the third party. So not saying that, “Oh, I, I’m angry,” or “I’m, you know, I’m feeling fear, but to distance ourselves with the emotions itself, and looking at it as a third party. I can say, like, you know, I’m experiencing this anxiety in my body, I’m experiencing whatever feelings in my body. By doing that, it kind of like helped us to detach from the emotions and feelings itself.
Kai Xin 12:46
And I think it also goes to show that it’s not always the solution to run away, because I mean, based on experience as well, if I feel very tense, I feel frustrated, I want to meditate it away. And then if I don’t feel that I have become more at ease, I get even more frustrated. So I think it’s kind of a combination of the feelings are signs to tell us that we need to act on it, and it’s also a clue, it’s serving a purpose in telling us what exactly is the underlying cause that I’m feeling frustrated. One thing I also found really interesting from one of the retreats is, oftentimes we get too caught up with the intense sensation. But we can, let’s say in our body, right, we can draw a line and say, “Where does the tense sensation stop?” So if I feel very tight on my shoulder, then I can draw a very tight, they’re getting less and less tight, and probably my fingers are relaxed. And it just opens up possibility that the whole situation isn’t all that bad. There is still some goodness within sight. Personally, I found that to be very helpful.
Ratna 13:53
Yeah, exactly. I do agree with that as well. I always find the self awareness will set us free, you know, when we are being aware of like, hey, this emotions, what is this emotion trying to tell me? It also gives us a clue into what we are feeling what we are feeling right now.
Cheryl 14:11
Just going back to what you shared just now. I think there were two points that caught my attention. I think the first was share with a trusted friend, how you feel and to kind of have a sounding board. I think that is very interesting, because for myself, at least, I tend to close up or isolate if I feel like I’m in a bad space. And the last thing I want to do is, is to show like the super ugly side to my friends. That’s why the second thing that you mentioned about you know, distancing yourself from the emotion and depersonalising it is so powerful because it then takes away some of the shame, or the power of guilt that I’m feeling to just say, “Okay, this is just an experience that I’m having. That is not the whole of me and it’s just a part like, you know, the what Kaixin mentioned as well, it ends. Certain sensations end at a certain part of your body. So I would like to ask how can we make it easier for us to open up and have that courage to reach out to our friends for support when we’re in a very tough space?
Ratna 15:15
For me, instead of keeping it to myself and feeling helpless, not being able to find solutions to the challenges that I face, I might rather reach out to people, especially not to everyone that you probably don’t trust, because you want to ensure that it is a safe space for both of us to really share whatever problems that we have. I think it’s also very important to really choose whoever, people that you wanted to share. And knowing that, you know, they also have our best interests at heart and knowing that they wanted to help us to be in a better space as well.
Kai Xin 16:03
It reminds me of a book called chatter. It’s by this author called Ethan Cross. So you know, we all have those narrative and voice in our head. And in one of the chapters he actually mentioned, it’s so crucial to pick the right friends, because there are some friends, when you confide in them, they will reinforce that negativity. So let’s say if I complain that my boss really is terrible, or my situation is terrible. They’ll say yeah, your situation is terrible. You should blah, blah, blah, blah. And it just makes you feel worse. But I think a good friend is someone who knows when to listen, when to ask the right questions, so that you use that as a way to clear your thoughts or when to just be a sounding board. And yeah, I think it’s really important to reach out.
Ratna 16:48
Yeah, as what Brene Brown said, right, and vulnerability is not weakness, it is actually strength. Because the more we actually share, whatever we experience, with courage,, it actually helps to open up a certain part of us, that helps to heal as well. Take, for example, I’ve always shared one of my biggest challenges in my life, which is my fear of public speaking. When I was young, I was afraid to really share that, but as I get older, and I also have to overcome this traumatic experience I have, I need to slowly open up myself. So, I kind of like started to share my own personal story with a small group of friends. And then of course, I also seek for help, with the practice of mindfulness in managing my speaking anxiety. When I do that, it actually helps me to open up my own personal scars. It’s not comfortable sharing that, but as I open up myself, and when people actually resonate with my own personal stories or struggles, it helps me to heal from within as well, because it’s not that I’m asking for validation, but it helps me to connect with others. I’m sharing this because I’m just a normal human being, you know, who wants to be happy, who wants to be free from suffering. By sharing this personal experience, it helps me to open up myself and heal at the same time. So that really helps a lot for me.
Kai Xin 18:36
I’m wondering where you are now, in your journey of healing.
Ratna 18:40
I think the journey of healing is a never ending journey. It’s always a continuous journey and progress. I will really credit my own personal journey of healing through the practice of mindfulness that has really bring so much courage for me to be able to really face that fear. That is really, quite big to face. Because when I faced that during my teenager days, it was so big to the extent that it literally crushed my self confidence. Yeah. So because of that, I was also looking out for ways to help me rebuild that confidence back and to really face and embrace that fear because it’s something that is so uncomfortable for me.
The practice of mindfulness has helped me a lot in that healing process. So I always call this ABC of mindfulness. The first one is awareness. The awareness part of it is that it helps me to just be aware of the things that I’m afraid of. Knowing that hey, if I keep doing the same thing, keep feeling the fear I’ll end up not being able to really move forward. So, the awareness part really helps me to, opens up that willingness to be able to take the small steps to be able to change my life. In order for me to be able to improve my life for a better, I need to make a change so it helps to open up that self awareness part and take that small little steps to be able to face my fear. Because of that, I started to join a Toastmasters community to be able to help me overcome my fear. And eventually, it slowly built up my confidence as well.
The B part is our balance. It’s really finding the balance between embracing the feelings and emotions itself, not resisting it, but at the same time to also knowing how to take action, despite feeling a certain way. In the early days of my healing journey, the first part of it is to really accept that, “Hey, I feel a certain way because of that past, traumatic experience I had in the past, I’m feeling this way. I know it’s not comfortable, and I wanted to, you know, take the steps to help me improve myself and become a better speaker.” And because of that, and when I came into the acceptance part of it, I slowly move into, taking some steps to actually also help me to to do better. So I do a practice called incantation. So basically incantation is like, you know, reciting an empowering mantras or empowering sentence or whatever it is to help me feel better. For example, “yes, I can!” That also helps me a lot. So I did that quite often during my run in the mornings. As I run, I keep repeating the incantation part of it, that really helps a lot. Yeah, so that’s the second part of it.
And then the third part is curiosity and compassion. So, you know, whenever I felt fear or whatever emotions that I’m feeling that might not be comfortable, it’s always an invitation to kind of like also ask deeper what are these emotions or feelings are trying to tell me. Are there underlying emotions that we are trying to solve right. So, I think that asking, having that curiosity, approaching that emotions with that curious mind also helps to opens up and helping us to be a bit more comfortable with the emotions itself. The last but not least, which is the compassion part is also because a lot of times when we feel when we have friends who is like feeling a bit down, we will have a tendency to kind of like you know, console them and all that. The compassion part of it is also the compassion that we have towards the feelings and emotions that we are experiencing as well. Treating them as a kind friend, you know, like knowing that “hey, I know that these feelings or emotions exist because there is a certain kind of needs needs to be met, right?” So really being a kind friend and having that compassion to really self soothe myself whenever that feelings and emotions appear.
Ratna 18:51
I really love how you share you know, the process of ABC in terms of transforming and healing yourself. But, you know, let’s dig a little bit deeper into facing the demons. Right and going back to the traumatic experiences, where, you know, the inner critic was the winner. So what what are some of the things that you were saying to yourself and how did that in a way suffocate you?
Ratna 24:15
Whenever I felt negative emotions or even that self talk, I’m not good enough. I’m stupid, or or I’m probably not as good as someone else. It makes me feel guilty makes me feel shameful, it makes me not taking action. So whenever I felt that way, right, they always felt disempowered. So I couldn’t, you know, do anything because of that kind of like negative self critics and it was definitely not helping me a lot to improve myself as well.
Kai Xin 24:55
It is like going back to asking how do we find that balance? So if the inner critic is our friend, we use it to get better and improve. But the moment when the inner critic put us down, and we start falling apart and we don’t perform well, we can’t function, then that’s where we have to put a stop to say, hey, what exactly am I doing right here? And I think at the end of the day, whatever anxiety, fear that we are feeling, it’s all trying to protect us in some sense. So it’s having that mindfulness and reminding us over and over again, what is it trying to tell me? How can I make it useful? With regards to Cheryl’s question on how the inner critic has kindled your potential? Now with mindfulness, how did your narrative change?
Ratna 25:45
I think probably in the past, when I experienced failure, I noticed there is like, inner critics that is popping up and all that, it kind of like made me feel, oh it I’m not good enough to do something about it, right. And so it makes me feel afraid of making mistakes and made me small. Yeah. So with mindfulness, it really helps to change the narratives like, “Hey, this is probably something that I’m experiencing currently in my life. But what is this event or situation trying to teach me? What’s great about this? It’s really taking that opportunities to also finding the goodness in whatever I’m experiencing the failures that I’m experiencing right now.
Cheryl 26:35
I think the cool thing that I am taking away here is that the inner critic is not necessarily an enemy, and learning how to befriend it can help you to go towards your goal be it self improvement, or growth in a more skillful manner, right in a way that actually helped propels your journey rather than, you know, just throwing stones at yourself and making your journey a little bit harder. And I think a lot of times, you know, when people approach this topic of inner critic as well, it’s always on the, on the kind of topic of like, an inner critic is negative. Let’s just do away with it, just push it away. But I think there’s value in seeing what is it really trying to inform us and and how can we tap into curiosity, as you’ve mentioned, many times and really get the good value there.
Kai Xin 27:21
Yeah, and I think it does require a lot of self love, not in a sense that, you know, everyone is bad, and then we should just love ourselves and not improve, everything is okay. But I think self love to know when to be kinder, and then when to be tough. And I’m wondering, how do you offer yourself some compassion? Is there any advice you can give to our listeners to do the same for themselves?
Ratna 27:48
We are our own biggest critics, right. And sometimes, you know, we probably beat ourself without realising it. And I think, instead of comparing ourselves with others, it’s also having every comparison in terms of like, our own personal journey, and how much we have grown. It helps us to looking at our own personal journey as like a journey of growth, instead of I am not better, I am not as good as compared to the other person. Yeah. So I think that also helps a lot to give ourselves more loves and self compassion towards our own personal journey to be a better person.
Ratna 28:29
At the same time, self Compassion is like a continuous journey as well, for me is also to understand ourself a lot more better, by also understanding our own personal boundary. What are the things that makes us happy? What are the things that probably doesn’t serve us well, and having the courage to also say no, to the things that don’t serve us? Well, another tip will be taking ourselves less seriously. Because sometimes we take ourselves too seriously, we probably get offended if someone says certain things or have things not meeting our expectations. So I think learning to really take ourselves less seriously and just having fun really helps a lot to also cultivate a self compassion.
Cheryl 29:20
If there’s one question that our listeners can use to reflect on a daily basis, what would that be?
Ratna 29:29
Some of the questions that I use on my daily journaling will be what are two things that I’m grateful for today? The second one is “What are the things that I wanted to let go of today?” That practice really helps me a lot to let go of whatever things that doesn’t serve me because a lot of times, we always think the letting go part is like such a big thing. But I think is that in the daily practice of letting go really helps us to ease a lot of tension as well. And the third one is “what are the things I’m proud of?” It helps us to also remind our own personal growth and milestones every single day. A lot of times we forget to really remind ourselves about what are the things that we have accomplished. Last but not least, is the fourth question that I always ask myself is, what are the things that I wanted to focus on today? So, that really helps me a lot to really focus on what truly matters today. Those are the four questions that I always ask myself every day during my daily journaling.
Kai Xin 30:34
Thank you so much. I thought those are really helpful. And to wrap up, I think we can talk about some of the common themes that we have been discussing, I think it comes back full circle to really identifying what serves us and what doesn’t serve us, whether it’s the voice in our head, or whether is it finding friends so that we can move ahead. Inner critic isn’t all that bad if we use it correctly, and also to not take things too personally to see from a third person’s perspective, so that we don’t feel so much shame. Shame is not ours. Fear is not ours, but it is us who experience it. And those are very transient as well. So thanks a lot for helping us to reframe our mindset to overcome our negative self talk.
Cheryl 31:17
I really love how throughout the episode, sister Ratna always shared about how mindfulness is really the anchor point, and it’s really the foundation in which these transformations and this reframing of perspectives and narratives come from. It’s a good inspiration and a good reminder to always use mindfulness as a foundation, and more importantly, apply to the challenges that you’re facing. And I think with that, we could wrap up today’s episode.
Kai Xin 31:46
Thanks for being here. Thank you. And that’s a wrap for this episode. If you’d like to stay inspired by Ratna, you can follow her on IG or Facebook. Links are in the show notes. And if you’ve benefited from this episode, do share it with your friends and leave us a five star review wherever you’re tuning into this podcast to the next episode. May you stay happy and wise!
Hi there! It’s mental health awareness month. So here’s a reminder that you have to take care of yourself well in order to have the capacity to take care of all other aspects of your life. If life is quite smooth sailing for you. I hope it stays this way. And if you’re going through a rough patch, may you have the mental and emotional strength to overcome all difficulties.
In this episode, we will be talking about empathy. We all know that having empathy creates better relationships with others and is a tool for us to alleviate the suffering of others. But do you know that developing empathy can also improve your own mental health? But how exactly can we cultivate empathy?
Hi, I’m Kai Xin, your host for this episode and you’re listening to the Handful of Leaves Podcast, where we bring you practical Buddhist wisdom for a happier life. The path to happiness isn’t a smooth one. We’ll definitely meet with setbacks and challenges around work, relationships, mental well-being and many more. In this podcast, we discuss these realities of life and explore how we can bring the Dhamma closer to home, so that we can navigate the complexities of life just a little better.
Besides this podcast, we also share resources and insights on our Instagram, Facebook, and Telegram channel. Subscribe if you haven’t already done so!
With my co host, Cheryl, we have the pleasure to speak with Gwen Yi, the founder of Tribeless, to teach us how exactly empathy can be cultivated and learned. Gwen is an amazing and highly accomplished woman. Her work has received recognition from TED, Obama Foundation, and The World Economic Forum. Six years ago, Gwen started Tribeless as a social movement for strangers to skip the small talk and to create deeper connections over dinners, one conversation at a time. So heads-up, this conversation with Gwen is going to be a deep one! Tribeless movement has since evolved into a training company.
Gwen and her team developed a structured framework & curriculum on how one can cultivate empathy to improve relationships at home, at work, and with oneself. Their proprietary methodology is used by thousands of people across 30+ countries. Stick till the end as Gwen unpacks the 5-part approach for us. Besides all the practical tips Gwen shares in this episode, she also pulled back the curtains and let us see the version of herself that not many know about.
Gwen identifies herself as a perfectionist. And it’s interesting how she was so candid about her imperfections in this episode. And her being an expert on the topic of empathy, you would have thought that she knew everything about that subject matter. But it seems that she’s constantly unlearning and relearning. And I just find that so inspiring. If you think you know the topic well already, also join us in this episode to unlearn and relearn, and reevaluate different aspects of your life. Now, let’s dive right in.
Cheryl 02:59
Super excited to have you on the podcast today. When you first started Tribeless dinner gatherings, the only rule there was ‘no small talk.’ Let’s use the same theme to start today’s conversation. I think you can give a quick introduction about yourself and then you would have to answer two questions.
Gwen 03:46
Hi, everybody, my name is Gwen Yi. I’m a writer, facilitator and also the founder of Tribeless. We are an empathy training company that operates out of Malaysia, but we service clients and organisations around the world. And our dream is to create a world where everybody has the tools and skills to have empathetic conversations in their lives.
Cheryl 04:07
Thanks for sharing Gwen. So let’s get to know you a little bit deeper. The first question I have is, if the world were to end tomorrow, what would you do on your last day?
Gwen 04:18
Based on how I feel right now, I think I would spend it in nature. I’ve recently been more, I guess, into the idea of being in nature. I feel a calling to be outdoors more and more these days. So, I will be in nature and I will also hopefully take the opportunity to be in conversation with friends, surround myself with my loved ones, and also be outside.
Cheryl 04:51
Would there be any one in particular that you would like to have your last conversation with?
Gwen 04:57
Probably just my partner, Shawn. I learn so much every time I talk to him. He’s such a deep well of wisdom, empathy, and kindness. And I feel like every time I talk to him, I gain (new) perspectives. And if I consciously or maybe unconsciously knew that was my last day on earth, I probably would take a lot of comfort from his companionship and his words.
Cheryl 05:19
That’s so sweet! Why I asked that question is because understanding how you would like to spend your last day really helps us understand what you really value in life. And from the things that you’ve shared, it seems that, finding serenity on your own and with others is important to you. And even till your last day you still want to build relationships with people, and to have that connection.
Kai Xin 05:40
(Second question:) I think a lot of people see the very extroverted side of you. Example: Gwen is so successful, she does so many things, this and that. What do you think, is something people don’t necessarily see, but is what you value very much?
Gwen 05:40
Oh~ Wow, there are two layers to that because I feel like in recent years, I’ve also been less vocal on social media. So, I share less of myself with the world. And it was only recently that I started to think or feel that the idea people have of me is somewhat crystallised four or five years ago. (But) They (probably) don’t know the me now. And only recently that bothered me. I was in the phase of not even caring that people didn’t know who I am or how I feel. It is only recently, that I feel that I’m ready to share myself with the world again but in a more authentic and vulnerable way. Last time, I felt my my vulnerability was maybe a little bit performative. I would say things because I knew that it would resonate with people. And of course, it was my truth. But it wasn’t the full picture. I wasn’t ‘soft’ in it, if that makes sense. I feel like that, in a way, is also indirectly answering your question. These days, I feel like I’m more me than I’ve ever been. I love spending time with myself. I’ve been exploring more into my spirituality, my individuality, all those things. And I think that also necessitates stepping back from social media. Because if you’re constantly sharing about your journey, then you may start to wonder if what I am going through is actually real. Or am I just saying things because I want to share them with the world? So I would say that’s probably one thing that people don’t know about me is that I actually prefer my own company to the company of others these days. And I’m really going deep into my journey with spirituality.
Kai Xin 07:33
So would you say spirituality is something that you are focusing on this year, or in the next few years?
Gwen 07:39
I don’t like the term focus. Because I feel that it implies that every year, I will have that few things that I care a lot about, and everything else I don’t care. I know, that’s not what it means. But I don’t know why I get that feeling. I feel like I am trying to be very conscious about being an embodied human being. And what that means is, every aspect is important to me. So I think particularly spirituality, it has been neglected or even abandoned for many, many, many years, probably my whole life. So yes, it might seem that that is more of a focus these days, simply because I’m starting basically from zero. But that’s just like anything, right? When you’re doing something for the first time, you tend to spend a little bit more energy on it. But I definitely wouldn’t say it’s my sole focus, or the main thing in my life, because everything has equal importance to me. I work a lot on my health (because) I’ve a lot of chronic health issues. I work a lot on my business, obviously, I work a lot on myself, I work on my relationships. So I feel like all those things are all very important, and a part of being a full human. And that would be my focus. I guess.
Kai Xin 08:55
That’s an interesting perspective to look at. Because sometimes we get very narrow-minded by looking at one thing, and everything else is being compromised. Thanks for sharing that.
Cheryl 09:06
I think it also shares the perspective that you’re actually expanding your life to be more embodied. And I am curious to know when you started on the spiritual journey. You mentioned that you’re only just really looking to see the importance of spirituality. What the biggest learning been for you?
Gwen 09:29
I feel like the biggest learning these days has just really been to, pardon my French, take note of my own bullshit. Genuinely, I really had no idea how much, for example, my past trauma had influenced the way I see the world. Through meditation, through going inward and understanding all of that, I realised that a lot of it is not real. So, I need to sift out what is true — true in the universal sense, but also true for me. What is the baggage or things from the past that are actually not true that I’ve been carrying around with me like a ball and chain that is actually holding me back from expansion and living up to my full potential. So, I would say that’s the journey I’m on. And those are the things that I’ve been unpacking recently.
Kai Xin 10:27
Could you share an example?
Gwen 10:29
The one that comes to mind is the belief that nobody likes me, this is a very vulnerable piece for me, because I still don’t know where it came from, and actually makes no sense, yet it makes a lot of sense in terms of (explaining) my actions in the past. Shawn likes to call me “try hard.” And in a lot of ways I am… I was. I feel like the idea that I couldn’t be me, and I always had to only show a certain side of me, or I can only show me in a PR and packaged manner and be presented in a certain way, and that the truest, most authentic expression of myself wouldn’t be accepted. That was a belief I carried for a very long time. And I’m actually in the process of very, very intentionally dismantling it now. It’s been a very interesting process for that.
Kai Xin 11:27
Thanks for sharing that vulnerable aspect. Can you walk us through how you’re trying to unpack that belief to show up as who you are and what does authenticity mean to you?
Gwen 11:45
The more I go into this, the more I realise authenticity is probably my number one value. When I see people not living authentically, or not living in alignment to their integrity and their truth, I actually get very triggered. That is how I know authenticity is important to me. I actually don’t think I can define it. But I tend to see it as living in alignment to your truth. You can define truth as your intuition, your gut feeling, your values, your principles, all those things. I feel like all those make up our truth, so to speak. So, for me, living authentically can go from having a conversation about how I feel about something instead of just swallowing it , all the way to knowing that I want to do something. For example, if I want to write more, not living authentically would be using all the 5 million excuses to not do it. But living authentically is to lean into that fear and say, ‘Yes, I’m afraid, but this is important to me.’. Doing this is actually the most authentic expression of myself. So, I will do it. Hence, to answer your question, the way that I’ve been doing it (be more authentic) is to embark on a 100-day creative project. And the goal for this project is to create one tiny, beautiful thing every day, which can look different day to day.
For me, because I can’t just focus on one thing, I’ve been doing so many different things. I’ve been having conversations with friends, and conversations are actually creative, right? For example, this conversation we’re having is actually creative because it’s generating new ideas. I’ve been through, you know, all the usual suspects, like writing, painting, you know, taking walks in nature, like all these different things. But the biggest hurdle I’ve had to overcome is actually to share it with the world. So, I’ve been expressing it more on social media. I have a sub-stack where I publish short blogs and things like that. And it sounds silly, because, like you mentioned at the beginning that I used to live so publicly, so it might be a shock to people. They might wonder if it is hard for me to post a blog because in the past I blog and people read it. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s different now. I almost had to relearn how to show myself from scratch, and that’s the journey I am now on. And it’s been amazing and it’s been so fulfilling. Obviously, it’s been hard, and so, so scary to express myself in different mediums and to try different things. I am really grateful to have committed to it.
Kai Xin 14:30
It’s interesting. You mentioned how people might comment on your current journey and go ‘what’s so hard about posting?’, but it’s all internal, right? We feel different. And it almost seems as though we need to fit into a kind of mould to say, what should you be doing to be considered as hard? And I don’t know whether you feel like there’s a tendency to downplay your own struggles?
Gwen 14:56
100%. This is also something I’m learning in this journey. It’s very funny actually, like sometimes Shawn sits down in front of me. He says, I think you don’t think you’re human. And I’m like, Yeah, I think you’re right. What I mean by that is the expectations that I have on myself, I’m only now learning are inhuman. I don’t see myself as human because my expectation are inhuman. And I think a lot of people can probably resonate with this because if you’re a perfectionist, your expectations of yourself are already inhuman. Because you know how we always say no human is perfect. So, the fact that you think you can be perfect is actually already an inhuman expectation. That has been something I’ve been really trying very hard to unlearn.
The reason why I struggled with that for so long is because when I was younger, I had to suppress a lot in order to show up as a ‘normal’ human being. I went through a lot, but I didn’t want to show the world that I was going through a lot. I don’t know why I had that mindset, and I think that carried with me into adulthood, to the point where now, I’m almost 30, yet I still need to unlearn all those things before I go any further into the future so that I know that, in reality, it’s okay to not be perfect all the time.
All those cliches are true, like “Done is better than perfect.”, “Getting things out there, is better than not getting it out at all.” This project has really just helped me to keep getting out there. This is just part of the process and it’s okay to go put yourself out there. It’s okay, if you feel it’s a failure. It’s just a part of the process, so just keep, keep going.
Cheryl 16:58
Thank you so much for sharing. And I think when you are able to embrace your imperfections and put it out there, it has ripple effect where people will say, she has so much courage, let me try something new too! I’m super curious, in your journey from being someone who’s super perfectionist and trying to then now be a little bit more comfortable with your imperfections, was there a turning point that you realised that being perfectionist is unsustainable?
Gwen 17:30
I feel like it was just a lot of little, little moments that built up over time. My colleague is actually on a sabbatical for her mental health, and that was actually a catalyst for me to look at myself and the way that we were doing things. For example, the way I lead, the way our team works. It was like a wake up call. And I guess if you had to attribute it to a particular moment, it would be that moment, right? Because this was a few days after my birthday, actually, that’s how I remember it very well. I’m like, “Wow, best birthday present ever. Haha. Sarcastic.” That was when Shawn decided to like dump it all on me and say like, “These are things that you know, you’re doing that weren’t so great, that actually like contributed to this.” In a lot of ways, it was that thing ( the feedback) that catalysed me to actually make a change. And like, that wake up call that things can’t continue the way that they are. And at the same time, it was also because of the environment that I could not be as controlling anymore because we were one man down, and things still needed to be done. And so I couldn’t be as perfectionist as we needed to get things done. So I think it was both of those things combined that really catalysed that that process too.
Cheryl 18:58
How I understand your journey from becoming a perfectionist to being a little bit more open is kind of forced you were forced into it. And then you are then forced to adapt to opening up your way of doing things.
Gwen 19:24
I love that, “opening up your way of doing things.” I feel like that’s all we ever need to do, right? Like we all have certain ways that we show up in the world that we do certain things. And all we need to do is learn how to open it up. And I feel like that also comes back in a very strange way to what we were originally talking about, which is like being with ourselves right? Because if you don’t feel safe in yourself, because safety is the necessity for that openness, right? If you don’t feel safe, you’re not going to open yourself up to anything. You’re not gonna open yourself to change. You’re not going to open yourself up to wake up calls or to anything. So I felt like, that safety that we need to develop in ourselves is so important as the precursor for everything else, because otherwise that growth is not sustainable.
Cheryl 20:09
Can you help me to understand what it means to feel safe within yourself?
Gwen 20:13
I’ve always felt like I wanted to jump out of my own skin. I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe it’s anxiety, maybe it’s depression, maybe it’s the mental health struggles that I grew up with. But I never felt settled in my own body. I never felt settled in my own mind. It was always racing a million miles a minute. I probably have undiagnosed ADHD, I don’t know. But I think through a combination of like, all the things we talked about, like meditation, spiritual practices, solitude is a huge thing, right? Just learning to be with yourself, take yourself out on dates, you know, eat by yourself, not with your phone, but like by yourself, and then just learning to just be in that state of solitude. And I will even say, of ‘connection’ to yourself and also to the world around you. I feel like that for me is that practice.
Kai Xin 21:07
I understand that you took a while, I think last year to recalibrate and find that internal alignment. does it connect to what you’ve just shared with us?
Gwen 21:18
I think yes, and no. I would say my spiritual journey really just started last year, but not really as well, like I did have coaching with a friend who’s also a practising spiritual coach. That was since 2019, but I would say it was only really like last year, that I paid for a self paced course with a yoga teacher that I really admire. And just doing that course, on my own time, also, in a way forced me to build that habit, or that sadhana, of having that daily practice with myself. But it’s not that I purposely took out a break or anything, it was an ongoing process that I integrated into my everyday. And I think that’s actually what’s needed to be sustainable, as opposed to, you know, going on some retreat or whatever, and then coming home, and then needing to figure out how to integrate it. It was really integrated from the start.
Kai Xin 22:09
And how has that spiritual practice, change the way you lead your team, show up to the world, especially with the perfectionist tendency? Have you seen any changes?
Gwen 22:20
Yeah, it’s so interesting, because my friend who’s a spiritual coach, she said to me, ‘I really hope that one day you would be able to bring these practices into your work.’. And I couldn’t brain that. But now, looking back, I feel like I have been. And I think it’s just simply because your spiritual practices or your personal practices affect who you are. And obviously, who you are affects your team.
For example, I have a racing mind. I’ve tried everything in the morning, I’ve tried journaling, I’ve tried walking, and so on. One thing that made the biggest difference for me was meditation. So, just 10 minutes of sitting with a guided meditation, it grounds me and it sets me up for the whole day. And because of that, I actually get to almost see, in real time, when I’m being extra controlling, it’s almost like I can see myself doing that. And I’m like, oh, okay, I understand what I’m doing wrong now, then I will stop, and be quicker to build that awareness. Because it’s the first thing I do every day, it actually creates that awareness already. So, it’s easier to tap back into that awareness when I’m at work. I guess that in and of itself has already created the cascading effect to improve everything else and for how the team shows up. Because in general, my team is very vocal, they would call me out if they notice things. Sometimes I don’t listen because I’m too into it. But this (awareness) allows me to step back quicker. I can actually notice, ‘ Oh, you’re right, I am doing that’, versus in the past, I would rebut and say ‘oh my god, I got do that meh?’. Yeah, now the cycles are faster.
Kai Xin 23:57
You are in the business to help people to be more empathetic. Would you say that meditation has helped you increase your empathy quotient? And now that you have the situational and self awareness, how has that changed the relationship between you and your loved ones or your colleagues?
Gwen 24:16
I feel like there’s a lot to unpack there. I’ll go with the first question, which is, does meditation or basic self awareness practices actually contribute to your empathy quotient? And I would say, yes, because the way we look at empathy, there’s different levels of empathy.
The first level is empathy to yourself, which is the basis of all empathy. You can practice the act of empathising with somebody else, but if you don’t actually have that self empathy, which I only just recently discovered for myself, you’re not actually empathising with the other person. It’s more of an intellectual exercise rather than a full embodied actual empathy.
Level two is also interpersonal. You know, when you’re in a conversation, let’s say like with your mom with your dad in that one on one space, then there’s also a level of empathy.
I would say the third level of empathy that we work with is almost a systemic level of empathy, which is a group dynamics level of empathy; how to empathise in a group.
So that was the work that Tribeless was doing for a very long time. We didn’t realise it, but through our stranger dinners, just naturally, by gathering a group of strangers, we were already creating group level dynamics at an almost systemic level. So in a way, we’ve been trying to like reverse engineer it back down all the way to how can one practice empathy towards oneself, and how can you practice empathy between two people? I’ve been developing that empathy to myself.
For example, perfectionism, when I’m not perfect, empathy to myself would be realising that I did my best, because at any given moment, I am doing my best. (Because) if somebody else had gone through self-doubt, how would I react? I would already naturally think of all the different reasons why they did not achieve what they wanted to achieve, and I would be understanding and compassionate to them about that. So, why can I apply that to myself?
So, I think meditation, and just through that process (of developing awareness) has enabled me to be more open to the idea opening up myself. And slowly, slowly, slowly, it has been seeping into my everyday life.
Cheryl 26:38
I’m just curious, in your own words, how would you define empathy, Gwen?
Gwen 26:44
I have the Tribeless definition. What is my own definition? I’ll just say the Tribeless one. We think of empathy as the ability to see parts of ourselves in everybody else. What that means is, all of us have emotions, dreams, fears, challenges, all those things. And those are the points of connection that we can use to build empathy, and also relationships with other people. If you see someone, they look so different from you on the outside, because we’re only focusing on our differences. Empathy is looking for those points of commonality. And it’s because of those universal points of commonality, that we can tap into our shared humanity. And it’s through that process, that we can start to develop our empathy muscles and our empathy quotient towards other people, and therefore the world. I know, it sounds easier said than done. And the way we do it, (plugging Tribeless) is through conversations, because there’s actually no other way to do it.
While there’s a lot of research out there that says that you can build empathy by reading books, watching movies, but we feel like it’s a very one-way approach. The former would suggest that if I watched a movie and cry when the character cries, that’s empathy. On another hand, we feel that if it’s in a form of conversation, you can build your empathy muscles by actively try to understand what they’re saying or when they show you something. If after you understand what they’re saying, you look for those points inside of yourself that you can resonate with, that’s what builds that connection.
So, for me, for us at Tribeless, that’s how empathy contributes to building relationships. Because it’s in those conversations, that instead of bringing your own ideas and mindsets into your conversation and shutting down what the other person is saying, you’re listening and understanding what they’re saying, make sure you understand it, then look for those points of connection and resonance in yourself to build that relationship.
Cheryl 28:50
I had an alternative view. So I think a lot of empathy comes from understanding and also seeing the commonalities that is on the assumption that people are on the fundamental level, similar to what extent, is that true? Are we really similar at the fundamental level?
Gwen 29:09
I get what you’re saying. To clarify, what I’m saying is not that we are similar as in, my dream is to have a family, and your dream is also to have a family, then we are similar. What I’m saying is, at the fundamental level, what are the emotions that would build a common ground. For example, every single human being on Earth experiences sadness, anger, pain, joy. We can build common ground on those instead of building common ground on opinions. For example, wanting the others to vote for the same person as you did. Those are the things that eventually can become divisive rather than to unite.
Here’s an example of how understanding through differences can look like: Shawn is in a very bad mood. The first thought is to try and understand why. Perhaps he went through X. I may not have gone through X, but if I know the underlying emotion of X is (let’s say rejection), then, I can relate that I’d also be in a terrible mood if I experienced that. I can start to empathise on that level. Of course, I won’t go up to him and say, ‘why did you feel rejected, I also feel rejected before.’. Instead, it’s responding in a way that takes their feelings into account. That’s why empathy is so nuanced, and it’s really hard to explain it fully. I know that, for example, when Shawn feels rejected, he would like to be left alone. That’s actually empathy towards him, because I know that he really appreciates his own time and space to process things. Whereas for me, I love it when someone sits down with me and talk to me, and make me feel better when they noticed that I’m feeling rejected. So it’s the total opposite of what he would want.
A lot of people think that empathy is to see the same emotion, then do what makes them feel better. But that’s not true. In a relational context, the true empathy is knowing the other person, understanding them, knowing their preferences, and how they like to be showed up for. Then, after they are done and feel more settled, to be open to them again if they need a space to talk on their own terms. We have so many different relationships in our life, we have so many different people who will respond in different ways. So, empathy is being able to be observant and understand the relationship and respond accordingly in that context.
Cheryl 31:51
The takeaway that I have is that, in a way, empathy is also very egoless. Because it’s not so much about what you want, what you think would be fantastic for the situation, but rather, tuning into the suffering that the person is experiencing, as you have had, and seeing how you can show up best for the person and make the situation a little bit better. I too think empathy is so nuanced. And I think your company has done an amazing job in creating a very structured way of teaching people how to develop and cultivate empathy. Do you want to walk us through the steps?
Gwen 32:29
We do have something called the empathy box. And it’s interesting that it emerged from those stranger dinners. So, it’s not that we have PhD in empathy that we developed this tool. What is that anyway? The empathy box came from, I think, hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours of conversations with people on the ground every every month. Through flying to Singapore, flying around the world, talking to people, we realise that the way that people respond fits into a few categories. For example, if you’re ever wondering, how can I verbally show empathy to somebody in that moment, these are the five steps or the five categories of responses that you can take.
First one, is to show some love.
I feel that this is a step that we tend to forget or neglect because we are embarassed to do it. We don’t know how to show love. When we say show some love, what we mean is to appreciate, to validate, and to find something in what people say to resonate with. So, if you cannot find anything at all, you can just say something as simple as ‘thank you for sharing, I really appreciate you opening up to me’, or, ‘I really appreciate you sharing that. I didn’t know that about you, that gives me a better understanding about you.’. These really simple sentences can help make the person feel safe.
Because topics on “suffering” or negative feelings makes one feel very vulnerable, and it can make one feel very scared to open up, especially in our Asian society. That’s why we tend to keep it inside right instead of sharing. So, if someone does share with you, it’s a huge act of courage. And so the first step is to show some love.
The next step is to help me understand.
To help me understand is essentially asking questions and leaning into curiosity. Instead of assuming that we know exactly what they’ve gone through, make sure you actually know what they’re saying. With your eyes, you’re seeing. For example, the way that they are behaving. Let’s say, if Shawn tells me that he feels fine, I can that I noticed that he looks a lot sadder than usual. So, you’re just calling out certain observations. Or in another example, in the case of my team, where we talked about me being over controlling, that’s an observation; they might call out that I’m trying to change things or control things that are actually not within my scope of influence. That’s how observations can be used.
Let’s use the the Shawn example again. If he says like, ‘oh, yeah, I’m not feeling too great.’. I should say, ‘oh, yeah, I knew it, something happened, right?’, because that’s not a question, that’s a leading statement. Curiosity is to ask them what happened and to invite them to share more about how they are feeling. Usually at this point, you can see, the curiosity is giving permission for that person to keep sharing if they wish to. But probably at that moment, you can also tell if they don’t wish to share anymore. Sometimes when we are asking too many questions, and if the other person doesn’t seem very responsive, they’re may not want to answer you. That’s also when we can stop and save the conversation for another day, and let them know that they can always come to you. But if they are willing to share more, that leads into the later categories, which are sharing an observation and offer an alternate perspective.
I’ll talk about observation first.
Observation, is observing the person you know and understand what’s going on.
In a way we call it listening with your ears as well as with your eyes.
Next, offer an alternate perspective.
This isn’t advice but it’s a different way of looking at it. It’s just like how you said Cheryl, “I had a similar experience, but in a different way.”, one can say, ‘I really resonate with what you’re saying. This is what I went through.’. Normally, after you’ve gone through all the other steps, that person is already in the space of listening and learning. So, when you do bring in your own perspective and experience, it’s not stealing the spotlight from them anymore. But it’s really just giving them extra ways to look at their situation, which for some people, is useful. If not, these are just categories to inspire, as it’s what you feel that person would really resonate with most.
Last but not least, is the wild card. The wild card really is, if your responses do not fit into the first four categories, then you can use the wild card.
So, these five response cards were really developed for groups, because I believe that in a group, when we’re having a conversation as a group, it’s a collaborative process. It doesn’t mean that one single person needs to use all four cards at once to respond to the person. It depends on what the storyteller in the situation is sharing.
So let’s say in this case, I’m sharing something and both of you also had those five cards. I’m pretty sure Cheryl and Kai Xin would respond with different kinds of responses.
For example, Kai Xin has been using a lot of questions. Perhaps that is your preferred way of empathising, leaning into your to your curiosity and asking more. For Cheryl, you seem to be really good at sharing observations. You would sum up what I’ve said, and then offer an alternate perspective, or you would rephrase what I said for me to look at what I’ve shared in a different way. I appreciate both very much. So, it really depends on what your personal style is, and of course also realising what the other person likes to receive.
For example, I like to receive love and perspective. I love getting perspectives, because that’s how I process. I like to look at things in a different way. It’s very interesting to know what you like and what other people like. Especially in a group setting, everyone gets the chance to try it out and to see what their preferred style is, because it will become very obvious when you tend to reach for that particular card more than the rest. From that, you would realise what your style is, and that process is a visual way of learning and practising empathy.
Cheryl 39:09
The five steps that you walked us through, is really like a muscle where the more you do it, the more familiar you are with your tendencies. It also allows you to learn how to flow through the conversation in a very natural way, rather than being systematic going from first step, second step, third step, etc.
Gwen 39:27
Yeah, exactly.
Cheryl 39:28
So, you have covered the do’s of empathy. But what about the ‘don’ts’ of empathy?
Gwen 39:32
That’s a good question. I feel like these are maybe very obvious, but maybe not so obvious as well. Obviously, don’t interrupt what I say. I tend to interrupt a lot, as I get too excited. That ties into the second thing, which is don’t assume. A lot of times, especially if we know that person very well, someone we’re very close to like our family, we tend to naturally assume what they are going through based on things that have happened before. For example, let’s say that person has ongoing mental health challenges. If that friend comes to you and tells you that s/he had a bad day, our brain may very naturally jump and assume that it must be their mental health acting up again. So, don’t assume, and don’t advise.
This might be a good time to bring it up another point: Empathy is not only about suffering. A lot of times, we may think that to empathise is to take somebody out of their suffering. Yes, it might be true that if you have empathised successfully with someone, it can lessen their emotional burden a bit. So, in a way it can seem like we are lessening their suffering. But in reality, empathy is to journey with someone through whatever they’re going through. It may not be suffering, it may actually be joy. Have you ever tried empathising with somebody’s joy, when someone is celebrating something, and you have also felt that joy of success, and you say to them, ‘ oh, my gosh, such a great job, I’m so proud of you.’? That’s actually empathy as well. So, we can actually use empathy on both sides of the spectrum.
Those are the three main things that I could think of right now: (a) don’t interrupt, (b) don’t assume, (c) and don’t try to save them, or fix them.
We do that because we feel uncomfortable with their feelings of sadness. And that actually comes back to what we said earlier in this conversation about that self-awareness and that self-empathy. A lot of times why people don’t like empathy as a concept is because they see everyday people burn out from their empathy. We hear about this a lot: mental health professionals burnout, nurses burnout from the empathy because they’re giving too much of their compassion and their empathy. But the thing is, true empathy comes from a place of non ego, meaning, you’re actually not giving off yourself, you’re simply creating that space to understand what the other person is going through. And if you notice, in that moment, that you are not in a good space to hold that space for the friend, then that’s your chance to hold empathy to yourself and to say, “Hey, I’m really sorry, but I’m actually not in a space to listen right now. Could we talk about this later today? Could we talk about this tomorrow?”
Sharing that compassionately is creating that understanding of the empathy for yourself, but also your empathy for that person. Because even if you try to listen to them at that moment, you’re not actually present. And that’s also not true empathy. If we’re not honest with ourselves and with that person, it might end up being detrimental to the relationship in the long run, and causing resentment to build up.
So, I really believe that empathy is not just about suffering, it’s also about joy. But it’s also about knowing your own boundaries. And being able to communicate that in a compassionate way.
Kai Xin 43:15
I picked out a few things. First, the tendency of wanting to fix other person could be a reflection of how we want to be perfect. Just being able to sit with our discomfort of seeing other people suffer or being with our own suffering, I think that’s so powerful. It takes a lot of courage to say, ‘I don’t have to do anything, I just can watch it, observe and let it pass.’. And that’s holding space.
The second thing I picked up is that in order to connect with others, we first need to be able to connect with ourselves, to know how am I feeling right now. Do I have the capacity, and understanding where the giving is coming from? Is it from a place of ego? Am I trying to trying to give so that I feel empowered, like to feel like I’m more helpful? Because I noticed this sometimes in me as well, I feel good helping people. But it doesn’t come from a place of selflessness. And that’s where the compassion fatigue kicks in. It would be very different, if it’s just me being here and that I don’t have to hold any expectations of what I should do or what the outcome of the conversation should be. I’m just here. The feeling is very different.
Gwen 44:35
100%. That is so true. And the irony is that the people who tend to want to empathise more, who tend to be there more for their friends are those who might be falling into that trap without them realising. I say this because that was the role I played for my friends the whole time growing up, and that’s how I completely burned out in terms of empathy. Because I will always be the one to listen, and to hold space for them, I didn’t have that capacity to also share and to be vulnerable myself.
So, empathy is a two way street. It’s not only about giving empathy to others everyday, but also realising that in that relationship, we need to be able to be vulnerable as well, and to share and to lean on that person, which is so hard for people like you and me, because we are so used to being the one helping to being the strong one. It’s so hard to be the one to tell someone that you need their shoulder to cry on, and ask if they are okay with that.
Kai Xin 45:40
Speaking of that, because I think we have similarities in a sense, where maybe some people would see us as quite independent. I’m just wondering what it means for you to take a step back, and to be a little bit more vulnerable.
Gwen 45:58
I think to be vulnerable, is to be honest, without necessarily knowing how your honest feedback will be received.
Kai Xin 46:10
Can you elaborate more on that?
Gwen 46:13
This is definitely personal to me, I don’t think this is the official definition – but I feel like vulnerability to me comes back to what we talked about this a lot in this episode: The self-expression and the embodiedness of being. I felt like for me, as I’m on this process, I think I always know what I want, it’s always in the back of my head. But whether or not I actually have the courage to share that either out loud, or on social media, or to the person that I need to talk about that, the act of choosing to do that without necessarily knowing how it would be received from that person (is a form of vulnerability). For example, let’s say for social media, sometimes when you want to share something that’s true to you, but you’re not very sure how people will receive it or how they react to it. Or let’s say you want to give a feedback to a friend or to a loved one, and you’re not sure how they are going to receive that feedback. So, that’s kind of what I mean by not being sure how it would be received, but choosing to do that anyway. Choosing to lean into that courage, and to still take that step, to me, that’s vulnerability.
Kai Xin 47:31
It seems like a very internal perception rather than external because I personally observe and notice the typical definition of vulnerability is based on what you manifest externally. For example, crying is a form of vulnerability. Being vulnerable means you don’t have to always put up a strong front. It’s okay to cry on people’s shoulders, it’s okay to feel a little bit sad. It’s okay to express that you actually do not know what you’re doing in life, you don’t have everything figured out. And it’s very expressive. At least that’s what I thought. And it’s quite interesting that you brought about another angle: it’s more about how you internalise it, how you hold that truth, without us needing to compromise it (our truth) just because of our fear of judgement.
Gwen 48:24
That’s so good. Because I feel like that’s actually what I meant when I said, my vulnerability was performative earlier in this episode. I felt like sometimes, when I did all that, I thought I was being vulnerable. And yes, I was being vulnerable to maybe like you said, society standards, or to the external standards. But after going through this process for so many years, I realised now that it’s actually more of an inside job, right, rather than an external show of it. Because some people might not find that vulnerable at all. I can speak for myself. I find it harder to reach out to a friend or to somebody that I don’t know and speak to them one on one as compared to speaking on stage, or to speak on this podcast about my struggles. For some people, they cannot comprehend that at all. But the thing about vulnerability is that just like human beings, every single one of us have different fears, a different (types of) vulnerability, a different whatever, right? So that’s why we can’t just say if you’re doing X, it means that you’re being vulnerable. It’s more of that feeling that you get from taking risks, taking chances, and putting a piece of yourself out there, in whatever way.
For example, it could be me reaching out to a friend, or putting a piece of myself out there. Similar to how somebody’s speaking on a podcast and feeling afraid about doing that as they are putting a piece of themselves out there. All of us have different vulnerabilities, but it’s about that process, and you recognising what that means for yourself. It is about saying to yourself that “I am being vulnerable right now. And, I should step back to evaluate if I am okay with that. Is this something I actually want to do, Or am I doing it because x reason? Am I doing it because nowadays society says that everyone must be vulnerable.”
Cheryl 50:15
You know, it has been really interesting and really insightful to discuss and dissect some of the things that we thought we already knew: empathy, vulnerability. It’s interesting to gain new understanding. Moving forward, what’s next for you in life and at work?
Gwen 50:37
I’m just taking one day at a time girl. I think what’s next is definitely finishing that 100 Day project. Keep your fingers crossed, for me. I’m also doing my best to expand the team at tribeless role in a more ’embodied’ sense. And I guess, to keep leaning further and further into my purpose, every single day.
Cheryl 51:00
In conjunction with world mental health day, any advice that you would have to give to our listeners in terms of how they can show up to be better people to themselves and to others. So just one practical thing that they can do?
Gwen 51:17
I’m always all about that practical life. The thing that comes to mind now is to take yourself on a solo date, I feel like it’s something that might be romanticised these days, and good that it is, because that actually make things more palatable, and socially acceptable. Don’t overthink it, it can be anything that brings you joy, it can be a day in nature, it can be a day at a cafe, it can even be a day at a theme park. But it has to be alone, and it has to be something where if you can, you can hear your own thoughts. Because I felt like for me, that was when I started to taste the flavour of my own companionship by going places alone: driving there alone, or taking public transport alone, and making an adventure out of it.
It could even be that the journey is the destination kind of thing. For example, walking without any plan. You don’t have to reach somewhere, it could also be just a walk. And at the end of your solo date, record some sort of reflection. It could be a journal, scrapbooking, photos, or a video if you’d like to talk, but to capture what that feels like- capture what it feels like to have a friend that is you.
You know, let’s say we hang out with our friends, we take pictures, right? And then we would post on social media and mention that hanging out was very nice because ABCDE. We could do that because we know what our friends’ company feel like. But if you are not used to your own company, you actually don’t know what your company feels like. So yeah, the practical step would be to just take yourself on a slow day and reflect on it. If you enjoy it, plan another one, and another one and another one. The possibilities are endless. You don’t have to occupy all your free time with other people. I feel like the most important relationship we can have is the relationship with ourselves. And this is one of the fun and easy ways to do it.
Kai Xin 52:47
Thanks for sharing. I think that’s a good closing. Could you share with the listeners if they want to find more about what you do your work? Where can they go?
Gwen 53:38
So you can go to www.empathybox.co to learn more about the empathy box. That’s where we also have our blog that we’re trying to grow with a lot more articles on how you can practice empathy and self compassion and all those things in your life. And if you are looking for connection activities and different ways of like team building and virtual workshops, then you can go to tribeless.co, and that’s where you can learn more about the things that we do at Tribeless as a company.
Kai Xin 54:20
I believe everything is done virtually now. So, whether you’re dialling in from Singapore or Malaysia or any parts of the world, you can check out some of the events. Thanks once again, Gwen. It’s good having you.
Gwen 54:32
Thank you so much, Kai Xin and Cheryl. Really enjoyed this conversation.
Kai Xin 54:36
Thanks, listeners for tuning in. I hope you got as much value as with it. What is your biggest takeaway? Do share with us on our telegram chat. And if you’ve benefited from this podcast, remember to give us a five star review. If you have benefited from this episode, do share this and tag a friend. This episode is such a great reminder to connect within in order to be able to connect with others. Through the process, we learned to be at ease with our own thoughts be observant and curious about our habitual tendencies, and to learn and appreciate every aspect of ourselves.
One of the best ways to get in touch with our own thoughts and emotion is meditation. In conjunction with the month of Vesak and the Mental Health Awareness Month, we started a 30 days meditation challenge. The challenge is to form a daily practice for a month. You’d receive daily prompts and suggested guided meditation tracks.
And in our next episode, we will be chatting on the topic of romantic relationship and a popular question, “Is it okay for a Buddhist to have pre marital sex?” Definitely a juicy topics so stay tuned.
Meanwhile, stay happy and wise!
Special thanks for Siau Yen Chan, and Alvin Chan, for sponsoring this episode.
TLDR: In this world of dating apps, from Bumble to Tinder, there is a push to create the best profile. What lessons can we take away from Netflix’s Love Hard?
Love Hard is Netflix movie about a young woman who travels to her online crush’s hometown for Christmas, but discovers she’s been catfished. Tears are shed, lessons are learnt.
“… But then the insecurities creep in, and you start with a slight exaggeration. Still you, just a shinier version. But you like it. So, you tweak it just a little more until the real you, which was probably pretty great, to begin with, is unrecognizable.
But here’s the thing. You’re not just fooling yourself. There’s someone else on the other side of that lie falling in love with a version of you that doesn’t exist.
And that’s not fair, because the only way it ends for them is disappointment. And the only way it ends for you is heartbreak. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that love doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be honest.”
Image Credits: Netflix
[After the movie, everyone probably just goes back to sprucing up their own dating profiles]
For most of us, we are living in a physical world that has two extended worlds:
1) A digital world we create to show the best version of us (including the ideal version we paint for others and ourselves that doesn’t exist) to impress people who don’t matter.
2) And a visceral world we avoid from accepting and embracing; a world of imperfections and mistakes that we beat ourselves into numbing and escaping.
We all seek the perfect partner whose conditions and features tick all our checkboxes. But do they exist? Well, we all know the answer deep inside of our hearts.
I’ve never tried online dating but my recent experience on Bumble and CMB dating platforms gave me a deeper realization especially after watching this never-too-far-from-reality and meaningful movie.
Everyone is trying to make the best impression and show the best side of themselves. In a stereotypical society, everyone tries to play their roles well like a grand theatre. For example, the ‘best’ side for a man could be the money, career and the lady he gets, the lady shows her ‘best’ facial or bodyside (sometimes her backside as the best side). The law of procreation never fails us, isn’t it?
That the man gets the best pool of genes for his offspring while the woman gets the security. Even I fall for that. Damn.
Nothing seems wrong with that. However, when we take away all the shine and glimmer, we are left cold and dark to the side we never dared to face or even have a look at. The side of vulnerability where our deepest fear and darkest history lie; the societal, family and peer expectations or bitter experiences we had while growing up. Acknowledging that we may not be the smartest son that our parents wanted us to be or to get that dream job that everyone talks about, shines a tiny light of growth for us. We step out of our pursuit to be ‘perfect’ and instead shift to be ‘better’.
While seeing things as they truly are exposes our vulnerability wide open, it also gives us a brief moment to gain confidence in who we are.
Without acknowledging our inner vulnerabilities, it is a vicious cycle that people continue covering instead of excavating the reasons for their vulnerabilities that keep their social anxiety escalating.
Even pretty girls and handsome boys that get all the fame and gain fear losing what they have gained at the first place. The eight worldly winds are in play all the time (Pleasure & Pain, Gain & Loss, Praise & Blame, Fame & Disrepute). The girls will ask “What if I lose my beauty as I age?” and the boys are not spared from “What if one day I lose what I’ve built and gained?”
Perhaps, we should come back to knowing and loving ourselves before knowing and loving others.
Perhaps, we should be honest about being ourselves before wanting others to be honest about themselves.
But what if people run away after you show them your vulnerabilities?
Well, I don’t have answers for that.
I’ve tried using the wrong ways, weird ways, not-following-the-sequence ways, you name it. And I still fail. The fact I can write these proves I’ve mustered enough courage to show my vulnerabilities to the world, thanks to this movie.
‘Setting my standards too high’, ‘don’t sacrifice the whole forest because of a tree’ and ‘belum try belum tau’ (Malay for “Never try, never know”) are the usual responses I hear, even for those who are close to me and know me well.
I don’t have answers for that, too. I guess time will tell.
Perhaps, the best way is if I love myself enough, I’ll make decisions that will make myself loved, by myself. Yeah, easier said than done, but let’s learn to do it anyway.
At the end of the day, if we love ourselves enough, I believe we don’t have to find love the hard way. It comes to us the right way.
Wise Steps:
When using dating apps, pause and ask ourselves if we are creating a profile that portrays the ideal or real versions of ourselves
Reflect on the ways we can share and be comfortable with our vulnerabilities (height, weight, hobbies)
