EPISODE 76: [PERSONAL ESSAY] WE’RE BACK! WHAT’S TO COME FOR SEASON 3
SHOW NOTES
Hello, beautiful people! We are back for season three! I’ve missed sitting down to a microphone and having meaningful conversations with you. In this episode, we'll talk about what's to come for the third season of F*ck Saving Face.
This season is going to be a special season for me because it's parallels so perfectly with this sort of coming-of-age-moment I've had in my recent life. I've already felt so encouraged talking to all our amazing guests while navigating this discomfort of growth, and I know you will too. Tune in to learn more about what exactly that is and more details about what's to come!
We also explore:
FULL TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
life, book, people, daughter, learning, divorced, Taiwan, season, work, read, moment, Taipei, navigating, feel, grateful, opportunity, friends, parents, called, share
SPEAKERS
Judy Tsuei
Judy Tsuei 0:07
Welcome to the fuck saving face podcast where we're empowering mental and emotional health for Asian Americans and beyond by breaking through taboo topics. Life may not always be pretty, but it is indeed beautiful.
Judy Tsuei 0:19
Let's make your story beautiful today hello, hello, hello. Welcome to season three of the fuck saving face podcast.
Judy Tsuei 0:35
If this is your first time here, welcome if you have been joining me for the last two seasons, and I'm so so grateful. In Season One, we explored personal essays, interviews and mindfulness practices around a lot of things that I traditionally saw as taboo growing up, and I wanted to kind of dispel the myth. So we explored everything from sexual somatic healing, the different types of topics that Asian Americans explore in therapy, including the number one emotion that most of us battle with, which is shame. We talked about psychedelics, there was a lot of stuff that we covered in season one, that I'm really grateful for all the guests and everyone who's been reaching out and sharing how much you like the mindfulness practices and listening to my voice. So thank you so much. In season two, we
Judy Tsuei 1:20
began to broaden the spectrum of it. And so we started bringing in different voices from more cultural backgrounds. We had really exciting guests, like Natalie Molina Nino who has recently launched a company called known holdings to really support the new majority, which in season three, you'll hear one of my interviewees talk about how a lot of us as marginalized populations make up the global majority, but we are not seen for systemic reasons. As part of the, you know, majority, that was really exciting because Natalie was voted one of the top Latina personalities of the year, according to People Magazine, and she's been all over the media for how outspoken she is about how much we need to have greater representation, especially when it comes to the financial services industry. We covered a lot of other financial topics like venture capitalism, startups, and how to kind of pave your own path of the different ways in which we can hopefully reflect upon our biases, and have a bit of the intellectual humility to look at how we perceive things, how even, you know, for me, as someone who feels like I have been able to, quote unquote, benefit from being the model minority, I've also experienced the other side of that coin, which is all the pressure, all of the microaggressions, all of the outward aggressions that I just didn't speak up about. And so season three, for me personally, in my own life, is going to be a lot more of speaking up and not being so afraid of what's going to happen when I do. Growing up, I had a very volatile childhood, there was a lot of anger that was not expressed in healthy ways, there was physical discipline. And so it really trained me to be afraid to use my voice. And it wasn't until college that I even started raising my hand and asking questions, and now I built a whole career around it, interviewing people all of the time hearing their stories. And because of the upbringing that I had, I think that there are always shadow sides and light sides. So you know, it illuminated for me how to really read people how to see the subtle nuances. It's how I'm able to draw out the personal stories, because I have so much empathy and compassion and depth for people who haven't had a platform haven't had a voice. But then at the same time, it's also caused me to be quiet when I could speak up more. And so I'm really excited for the guests that we have in season three who are very outspoken, who are sharing, unapologetically about their viewpoints. And it's really inspiring me to be in that discomfort of growth. And so I see it happening now in my personal relationships, my intimate partnership, I'm seeing it, even as you know me with perfect strangers and going out there and just not worrying so much about what people think and not worrying so much about, you know, this potential backlash for what someone's going to do or say as though I couldn't handle it. Because frankly, I've started to realize now really stepping into my power that I can handle it that I have handled every single one of the hardest days of my life up until this moment. And so, you know, I'm not just paving the path for myself, but I'm also paving paving the path for my daughter. It's not easy, it requires so much growth and just straddling that line between, you know, how do I encourage her to grow up to be an independent thinker with a free spirit who's brave and courageous, and global citizen and really conscious and conscientious of the people around her and not sacrificing herself in any way and yet at the same time, being respectful, knowing you know that there are elders that's one of the things that I really loved about growing up with Asian cultures that I loved my having my grandmother around, I love this intergenerational living. And thankfully for me, I have an amazing community of fellow mothers and surfers and you know, people who really help raise one another's children. We just got together this last weekend, six of us mom's sitting at this restaurant planning all of the summer camps for children. And I was looking around thinking how lucky our children are that they have these parents who are so you know, putting so much effort and work from a monetary standpoint from a time and energetic standpoint, to really provide the best opportunities. And I know how lucky we are to be able to do that. No one's sitting there planning summer vacations for us as moms. But, you know, it also has been such a remarkable journey to hear the moms talk with one another about like, the challenges that we're experiencing the ways that we've, you know, potentially not shown up in the ways that we wanted to, and then how to help raise one another's children, the kind of watching out the kind of boundary setting the kind of just, it takes a village kind of ideology. So, you know, I've been really grateful for that. But we are all making missteps along the way, we are all figuring it out, you will not go through this life unscathed. So season three is going to be an exploration, all of all of that. And it's really exciting because this podcast is launching at the same time that my first book with an independent publishing house, Ulysses press, which is distributed by Simon and Schuster, is going to come out. And I have to be perfectly honest with you, when I took on this project, my viewpoint was that, you know, I wanted to have a book that was published so that I could then go out and pitch my own personal memoir, and it would give me more validity to say like, Look, I'm a published author. And so I approached the project with conscious thought with intention. But with also that in mind, as a business person, as a strategist, as a marketer, you know, here are some of the things that I'm thinking about. And so the opportunity also came easy to me, I am in different writing groups, I saw this opportunity come up, I reached out to the editor, they really liked me. And so it felt so easy, that I think we often disqualify the things that we are blessed with, because it feels so easy. So for example, for me, writing feels like breathing. But for someone else who writing is not their forte, it's a struggle. And so there have been times that I feel that I've discounted my gift, because it's just come so naturally, it does not mean by any means that I have not spent 1000s 10s of 1000s, you know, for since as long as I was in elementary school, so however many hours that is of perfecting this skill, and being able to continually utilize it and enhance it and, you know, do the learnings and the trainings, and all of that kind of stuff. But I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for all of the ways in which we show up. So one day, I was writing this article for the expat magazine in Taiwan that I used to contribute to when I was living there. And I was Googling because I had to write a bio. And I kind of had to add some things to the story of you know, this book coming out, I hadn't had all of the details, because the publication date had continued to get pushed back a bit. And when I did, I found out that it was going to be carried at Target, that there is an audible version of it, that is going to be at Barnes and Noble, all of these huge distributors. And I totally had this freakout moment where instead of joy, I felt complete and utter terror that, oh my gosh, I should have spent much more time and energy on this, I should have approached this project differently. It's going to be so shitty, you know, all of the doubts and the concerns that were coming up, because now here's this thing that's been birthed into life. And so I happen to be at my partner's house, and I was like, Alright, I need to get out, I need to go for a drive to like, clear my head. And he had his kids with him. So they were in the living room coloring while I was personally freaking out. And they kept inviting me to go color, which by the way, if you have not colored with gel pens, let me tell you is going to change your life. So I finally joined them. And the older daughter who just turned eight was talking to me about the book, you know, she was showing me excitedly these books that she had written herself. When I first met them, I gifted them the children's book that we wrote, when we were living on khoy, the Kickstarter campaign that we had done. And so she was so excited to find out that, you know, this book that she was holding in her hands was something that I had written. So then, over the last couple of years that I've gotten to know her, you know, she seen that I'm a writer, she shared with me the books, she just read to me stories that she's created in different, you know, books that she has on her shelf. So I mentioned, you know that I'm really nervous because this book is coming out. And she asked me, wait, don't doesn't the publisher want the book to do? Well? I'm like, yes, they do. And she's like, so then, you know, don't you think they would want a product that's really good. And like, Yes, that's true. And she's like, so then doesn't that mean that probably your book is pretty good. And so it was such a wonderful, you know, I'll reframe for me an opportunity to be reminded that I'm still very hard on myself. And it's kind of that recovering perfectionistic attitude, and how wonderful it was to have her tell me that and then subsequently, my daughter's godmother, I called her was freaking out while I was trying to drive and process. And my friend Lisa said to me, you're the only person that I know who would have a book coming out and be freaked out and worried that it's not good enough or that, you know, you failed somehow, instead of just taking a moment to celebrate the fact that you've made this huge accomplishment. So I'm now getting increasingly excited. You know, sometimes it just takes a little while, it's similar to how when I had my daughter, my ex husband's sister told me, It's okay, if you don't bond with your daughter right away. For some people, it happens immediately. For other people, it takes a while. So, you know, she had an instant bond with her son, and it took a bit longer for her to connect with her daughter. And I'm so grateful. She said that, to me, this motherly wisdom, because I had that same experience too. And had I not had someone on the path before me sharing, it's going to be okay, you know, that's also a normal response, I would have felt so much guilt and shame, because that's not the story that we're sold in the media, and we're sold, like you immediately cry when your baby's like, put on top of you, or whatever, whatever. So I'm here to say, in season three, I also hope you take an opportunity to dispel any myths to really be able to take these stories that I share from my own personal life that you know, I have these experts, and these interviewees coming on and sharing, to give yourself the opportunity to reflect and see does this fit for me, does this not fit for me, if it doesn't fit, let it go. If it does, then maybe it's an opportunity to make a slight pivot in your life, I thought it would also be nice to start season three, with a the exact magazine article that I was referencing,
Judy Tsuei 11:54
I again, was self conscious about sharing this, you know, when I posted on Instagram, I took some screenshots and like the font is so miniscule tiny that unless you like held on to the screen and tried to maximize it or take your own screenshot, would have been really hard to read. And I think that there was a reason for that I was, you know, I'm still in this space of navigating co parenting with my ex husband. I'm still learning that the way that I show up and the stories that I share, someone else may have had a very different lived experience, even if they share that experience with me. And also I want to be cognizant of what it is. That's my truth that I think is helpful and healthy to share. And then what is going to be protective of my daughter, or you know, of even myself in the future. Because I remember, as blogging started becoming a big thing, people kept reminding other people that when you write something and you publish it, it's going to live out in the ethers for eternity essentially. And so I think having the grace to be able to know that you're showing up with the best of your knowledge and your wisdom and your insights and consciousness at the time. That's all we can do is just show up with what we know here and now and to give ourselves the space and the grace to know that as we evolve and grow, you know, that perspective might change and things might shift. So I'm doing the best that I can right now with what I have what I know. And hopefully as I continue to grow, and you know the years to come that whatever wisdom I gain along the way, I will be able to look back upon this space and this person here myself right now, with just a lot of love and compassion. And I'll share one more story before I read this article from centered on Taipei, which by the way, has the most amazing editor Her name is Sue Babcock, she is probably in her late 70s I'm not quite sure when I met her. She just had so much love for me at this lowest point of my life as I knew I had to get divorced. And she is an American who had been living abroad for a couple of decades. She'd also gone through her own divorce, you know, her own custody battles, her children are now grown adults. But she just had so much space for me to hold and to champion me when I could not believe that I could not that I couldn't get through it, but that there was anything worthwhile and left in me to cheer on. And so she really believed in me and this is one of the reasons she asked me to write this article because she's watched my journey since I moved back from Taiwan and just has continued to be an integral part of my life has continued to participate in the different offerings that I've put out there. And just really cheered me and wilder on and so I'm so honored and grateful that she asked me to write this article for International Women's month to be able to hopefully provide some faith and support to someone else who might be just losing their belief that it's all going to turn out okay or that if it's not okay, it's not the end. So I'll share one other story before I read that article. But I was recently in Vegas my partner and I took a trip we are I have divorced parents. So we have different custody schedules, which makes it challenging for us to have one on one time. And that's been a learning in of itself. And so we had this opportunity in Vegas has not been my favorite city historically, because I feel like it's a city with no soul. But we went there, and we're able to go to shows and go to food, you know, I don't gamble, but I love to learn. So he was teaching me about how to play blackjack, and just, you know, all these different things, we drove to Arizona, we went kayaking, it was a wonderful opportunity. And there was one night where we were in this condo. And he was sharing this really sweet story about a moment when he was sensitive in junior high. And I just looked at him and I said, I wish I could go back in time and tell that younger you, then in a couple of decades, you're gonna meet someone who's so in love with you, who just is cheering you on, and so happy to know you and just You're such a wonderful person. And now it's become a little bit of a joke where,
Judy Tsuei 15:54
you know, when I'm feeling insecure, or whatnot, I asked him, can you go into the future? And go check it out? And tell me if it's okay, and then come back? And let me know at this moment right here right now. But I think that, you know, if you needed to hear that message, then perhaps there's a younger version of you who could use that reassurance. Or perhaps there's a younger someone in your life who could use the reassurance and I found that over the last eight months, I would say, of mentoring different writers on my team. And being a mentor with the founder Institute here in San Diego with a bunch of entrepreneurs at different levels of their startups. It's been such a remarkable opportunity to feel like, oh, I can give back I do have wisdom and insights and experience that are going to be beneficial for you. You know, in a way, Natalie, as I mentioned earlier, talks a lot about shortcuts in her book leapfrog, where you can leapfrog towards your dreams by skipping over certain things that you don't need to struggle with, because you can benefit from the knowledge base of other people around you, or the network, or the community and the connections that you might have. Already, so I'm going to read you this article, I'm not going to be embarrassed about it, I'm gonna be standing in my voice in my power to write to share with you this piece that I had written. I'll also say that, you know, centered on Taipei is this magazine that started because of this expat organization called the center. And it was started because as expats started coming to Taiwan to live there decades ago, you know, there weren't any resources necessarily. And so then there was a crime that was committed by these young boys. And it became clear that mental and emotional health resources were essential, and that they needed to be offered. And so they offered, you know, an array of mental health services, which I took advantage of when my marriage was at its complete end. And there was no communication with my ex husband, we still needed to figure out what was next. And, you know, they also offer cultural, different classes from all sorts of backgrounds. So whether that's featuring things in Taipei or all of the different expats expatriates who live there, from all different backgrounds, cooking classes, you know, art classes, all these kinds of things. And it's just a such a wonderful resource to have there. So if anybody's traveling to Taiwan, you want to check it out, you can go look up the center. And if you do stop by, I hope that you will go say hi to sue, because I love her and I miss her. So here is the piece. It's called from the end to new beginnings. And if you were to read this online, you would see a photo of myself and my daughter, which was taken during a trip that we took to Austin to reconnect after we had moved away from Austin, the last stateside place we had lived before we moved to Taiwan, at the age of 43. I'm in the healthiest relationship of my life. I built a company with six team members, I have a book debuting on March 22 2022, which by the way, it's 322 22. Which for me, this part is not in the article. But anytime I see repetitive numbers, I always feel like it's a nod from the universe and I'm on the right path. And so I just wanted to throw that out there and say thanks universe, and I have a view of the ocean from my bedroom. But if you told me two years ago, I'd find myself here. Now I would have told you that this life you're talking about the one I'm living now couldn't possibly come as I was in the midst of navigating a divorce from an incredibly unhealthy marriage, with a five year old in tow.
Judy Tsuei 19:31
When my daughter and I first arrived back in California after living in the beautiful mountains of Bayto, I was trying to navigate how to establish immediate residency so that I could begin counting the clock to officially file for divorce. I didn't know how I would find the money to pay the deposit and first month's rent of our apartment. My credit had been demolished thanks to the debt that accrued during the time I was with my husband and I had yet to secure a new full time job given that my confidence was also bruised from being with someone who told me While standing outside of the senator's office after a therapy session, I can't wait to have nothing to do with you ever again. What have begun as a seeming fairytale romance on the island of Hawaii, Hawaii, quickly devolved into a nightmare that would meet its end on another island across the club in Taiwan before I finally called it quits and clawed my way to a new beginning. Six months ago, my business mentor suggested that I consider hiring a team to start my own branding and marketing agency. Throughout my 20 plus year career and branding, strategy and content creation. Many people had suggested this, I was resistant. I had raised my three younger siblings from the age of nine, I bade them I pack their lunches, I provided feedback for my parents about their education, their futures, I protected them against traditional Chinese Tiger parents who use physical discipline as a way to keep us in line. After a lifetime of doing this, I didn't want any more adult responsibility yet, over and over again. Colleagues, friends, clients suggested I pursue this path. Finally, I listened. three short months after I made this decision, I hired two new writers on my team less than six months later, and I have a staff of six and counting. We're a tiny mighty boutique agency now working with health, wellness and innovative tech clients aiming to do good in the world. We're tender hearted individuals creating change through our zones of genius, and mentoring others has become one of the greatest joys of my life. This month, I have a book called The Little Book of Tibetan rites, simple practices for rejuvenating the mind, body and spirit coming out with an independent publishing house affiliated with Simon and Schuster. I was preparing marketing material for a speaking engagement and Google links for the book, shocked to discover that not only would it be carried at Target, but there would also be an audio book on Audible, I have another book proposal I worked on throughout the pandemic, which highlights the stories I've shared on my podcast fuck saving face, where we're empowering mental and emotional health for Asian Americans by breaking through taboo topics. We've explored everything from sexual somatic healing to psychedelic medicine. So the number one emotion Asian Americans grapple with in therapy. Our guests are notable figures in their respective industries. And we're about to launch season three, which by the way, is right now, my daughter is now seven years old and attends a Waldorf School, which underscores social emotional learning. The other day, I brought her to Disneyland with her friends, and my friends, a community of fellow mamas who all serve and have children the same age. While our modern lives may be isolating. I'm beyond grateful to have found a cohort of exceptionally talented and strong willed women navigating parenting together and supporting one another in raising our children. While they're my daughter began to express to me, her feelings about how much more she liked to connect with me how she'd like to block out days at a time where we can truly be with one another. Her ability to read emotions to express her needs, and to stand up for herself give me faith that there is a beautiful world being built by conscious souls coming into this planet. She spends a week with me, then a week with her father, as other friends of hers are witnessing their parents also separating and getting divorced. She told me, I should talk to them about it. Since I've been going through this longer than they have, I can maybe help them. I met my new partner on Bumble of all things. A friend of mine in Los Angeles asked when was the last time you went on a date? And I responded with how long have I been divorced, he was astonished and immediately gathered two of my other friends to put up a profile. I brought my Asian work ethic into the mix and thought fine, if we're going to do this, we're going to do it right. I signed myself up for two other sites, yet swiping through the options only disheartened me. Thankfully, I didn't need a partner, I was only giving it a go because it was time to write a new chapter of my life. And I was unattached to the results, especially when I discovered my ex husband on one of the apps, which the algorithm unfortunately matched me to my new partner is also divorced. He also has children about the same age as my daughter. He is the one and only person I met in quote unquote, real life. After being on the app, I'm the only person he met in real life to it's been a year and a half of being together and I continually marvel at our communication, how we learn all the mistakes and missteps in our marriages to be able to create a new type of relationship where we're very honest with one another, we're still learning how to navigate the complexities of single parenthood, different custody schedules, distinctly separate careers and personal pursuits. Yet every single experience or challenge has brought us closer together, we've learned how to be better individually by being together. At the core of our relationship is a deep and mutual respect. I said to him, you're the first person I've ever been in a relationship with where I truly want what's best for you. Your joy makes me happy. Whether or not I'm attached to the experience of the outcome. He tells me all the time, I still pinch myself that you're real, that you love me. I'm so grateful to be your partner. Together, we've healed myriad dynamics from our past. Together, we're learning to be present in the ways the other person needs most. Together. We're discovering how to build a future moment by moment, wherever the journey takes us. So much can happen in a couple of years, or in a couple of days. The many pivots that I have had to make since leaving Taiwan have created pivotal moments. If you find yourself in a space where your heart is breaking, or your faith is dwindling, where you're unsure of what the future will hold, take a moment to remember that you have made it through every single one of the hardest moments of your life. Up until now, one of my favorite quotes comes from the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which says, everything will be alright in the end, if it's not alright, it's not the end. You have greatness within you, every single woman does. And if I can go from not knowing if I would have enough money in my checking account to pay for groceries
Judy Tsuei 25:45
when I got back to the States, to restart my life, worrying about what would happen with my daughter in custody, healing my mental and emotional state after trying marriage, to owning an agency, having a book published, meeting a remarkable man, building a phenomenal community of friends who have become like family, and living by the ocean, just to list a few blessings than you can to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep breathing in, keep breathing out. Don't give up on yourself or on life. I've always believed that luck favors the prepared. And in this new lunar year be fierce like a tiger. Let us hear you roar. Alrighty, so that was my article that was published in the centered on Taipei magazine, which you can pick up if you're in Taiwan, or you can read online for this upcoming season three, I'm excited because we'll also be diving a bit into crypto web three, Blockchain, technology, all of these things that I'm super passionate about now, mostly because you know, this whole idea of decentralizing power of giving power back to marginalized populations of giving the voice back. And yes, there are all sorts of challenges and nuances and pitfalls of this new economy, this new development, this new technology, and it is truly living that statement, drinking through a firehose, there's just so much to learn, it's unreal. And I highly encourage you if you're going to get into the space, to really be mindful of your mental and emotional health, because there can be so much FOMO there can be so much of needing to constantly be on consuming information. I mean, if you've been on Discord or Twitter, it's overwhelming. And I just want to caution that you're not going to get it all right. And I think that that's something else that I'm learning now that I'm really coming to terms with as a business owner, as well with a team of people who work with me and who I'm managing that there will never be this perfect finished moment or product, I mean, not until you die like that's it along the way, you're just continually refining and iterating this journey and so to think that I was going to get to someplace over there and to keep pushing off my life and you know, pushing off enjoying the moment I very much enjoy my life but just constantly being hard on myself because I wasn't over there and instead was over here I just realized it's gonna make a terrible feeling in my life. It's it was causing me to be stressed and grumpy with my daughter and just never feeling like I was accomplishing anything. So thankfully I've sounding boards in my life and people who really keep it real are like, What are you saying what are you doing, you're killing it in all aspects of your life but you're focusing on these minor things that are maybe not working out so well. Or even just peeling back the curtain hearing all of everyone's story of people that you see right now who seemed like they have it all and then you get to know them a bit better and then you get to know what they're really struggling with what they're really dealing with, you know, the medication that they're on all of these different things is just helped me to realize that we truly need to define our own success metrics our own whatever is going to bring us contentment in the moment I you know, you might have seen on social media, I got a peloton. And one of the things the instructors say is you can be a work in progress and a masterpiece at the same time. So I'm truly learning how to live in the moment to know that the rainbow is the gold, not the gold at the end of the rainbow. And to just be here now with all the imperfections, really giving myself that kind of ease to be human and to continue to strive and move forward. So thank you for being here on this journey with me we shall see where season three goes.
And as always, if you had feedback, if you want to hear something if you want to connect, you can find us on all the social channels fuck saving face, and you can reach out at Hello at flex saving face.com And if you have suggestions for guests or want to make connections, I'm always available reading every email being here President participating building community and you know just showing up authentically to let you know that you're not alone. And there's so much that I wish that we could be more honest and open and upfront about and to speak up about because the world needs know for sure. And so I wish you the best. I hope you have a wonderful week and I will see you in the next episode.
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