My 2023 summed up in ONE word
For days, I've been wanting to share my heart with you, balancing family time and my own battles with procrastination. Today, I'm finally sitting down to tell you about my recent journey healing my relationship with my mom, and in the process, myself.
Every year I have a WORD for that year.
2022 my word was 'GROWTH', after experiencing severe burnout from removing a 13cm fibroid tumor from my uterus and working myself so far afterward that it led me to a great awakening and how generational trauma has impacted my worthiness. (read about my journey here)
2023, my word this year was 'SPACIOUSNESS'.
I wanted to lean into feeling worthy of receiving relaxation, abundance, and giving myself space.
I tried to feel good about taking baths and watching Netflix at 2 pm on a Tuesday afternoon, and although I did succeed a few times, it felt like this goal was short-lived.
I did slow down a bit, between my workouts, breathwork, and somatic therapy, but before my recent trip taking my mother to her dream destination of Vietnam, "spaciousness" was something I wasn't 100% sure I had experienced.
I still have so many thoughts about 2024 and our growing business, with lots of changes and areas of improvement I want to make.
But something happened during my 3-week trip with my mother, who, if you know anything about me, then you'd know we have only spent 8 years of our lives living with each other and, because of this, and our different cultures, we have never been close.
My mother is a strong-willed, animated woman with a continuously activated nervous system, and has endured so much as a young widow, divorcee, immigrant, and provider for her family who grew up in communist China.
She overcame the greatest of odds to come to the U.S., to have her only child be raised there while she was largely in China, and with all this change and trauma, she never had the chance to process these emotions and deal with what this all did to her.
Being with my mother caused so much mutual anger, resentment, guilt, shame, and intense feelings that never seemed possible to de-escalate.
Usually, spending anything longer than 4 days with her would cause all hell to break loose, with both of us storming out of restaurants in tears shouting at each other on public street corners for everyone to see.
But this time, something shifted.
Between our hotel breakfasts and long walks exploring markets, and even highly sensitive and usually triggering conversations about anything related to the past, I found myself not as reactive as I normally would be.
Usually, we both trigger each other because of our own narratives about what happened in the past. These individual and often competing narratives of 'who did what and why' kept both of us in our separate corners of the world, safe from judgment and self-punishment.
But this time, when my mother brought up 'my selfish decision' to leave China, leave her side at age 13 so I could continue high school in the U.S. while living with my best friend's family, I felt a pause before being triggered by this all too familiar topic.
This pause was the tipping point that prevented this usual topic from being combative, emotionally activating, and helped me to just nod and look at her with a smile, without feeling resentful for her not being there for my adolescence (or blaming me for deciding at 13 to pursue a better future).
Then something miraculous happened.
That afternoon stroll continued WITHOUT us both in tears, without us covered in sweat, shouting at each other because we both felt like we didn't get "our ideal" version of our past.
We continued the rest of the trip as "normal" mother and daughter, despite both of our vast differences and time apart.
We found common ground about our tumultuous past, and agreed to "disagree" on our own perspectives of what happened.
One day while holding hands with her as we walked to a nearby flower market in Hanoi, she turned to me and said "I've waited 37 years for this day to come, where you are not against me and can truly see me and what I did for you."
Holding back tears, I hugged her and we finally felt decades of pain and trauma slowly wash away.
I realized that trauma and its triggers are like waves. They never really "go away", and usually keep coming, but you just get better at riding these waves without being knocked down and choked by the water every time.
Gloria, me and my mother still have our own baggage from the past that overshadows our current journeys, and we are nowhere near "fixed" or "perfect".
But now that I am on week 3 with my mother, the longest continuous time we've spent together in the last DECADE, I am finally realizing that I did, in fact, choose the word SPACIOUSNESS for 2023 for a good reason.
Sometimes, without us knowing it, our intentions get fulfilled in ways we don't realize until it happens.
It was only through reflecting on our conversations that I realized, by allowing a pause before reacting to my mother, I was able to truly lean into a compassionate SPACIOUSNESS.
That spaciousness was the love and validation and acceptance I never truly gave my mother, until now.
So, as I type this on the last day of 2023, I am happy to report that the word I had for this year was fulfilled, although in unexpected and truly profound ways.
What is YOUR word for 2024? What are you calling IN and letting GO of?
Sending you love and light as we head into 2024--it's gonna be a wild one.
And I will be here for you, cheering you on and supporting you every step of the way, through our Small Business PR program, weekly podcast, and our FB community.
PS: Here's a photo of me and my mother meditating this morning to a YouTube video. Sitting still in full presence is something I am trying to be better at. But I am slowly making progress day by day.
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