save US.

First, listen to: Save Me by Noah Kahan.

A little less than 10 years ago I felt this way. Broken, unfixable, a burden. I was so ashamed that I completely avoided my true struggles by acting out with impulse, seeking external validation, and coping through numbing and false control. And although I knew that the ones I loved were the ones I was treating the worst, that pain and guilt was so strong that I completely avoided that understanding as well, and in fact subconsciously made it worse. Thus, continuing a cycle of shame, poor decisions, bad behavior, pushing away purposefully the ones that I loved some of which I’ll never get back, and ultimately ending up with a lifelong battle against my own thoughts.

I taught someone about about shame vs. guilt the other night. I enlightened him with this spark-note version that guilt is “I made a mistake, take responsibility, and will learn from it”, while shame is, “I am the mistake, I am the problem, I will never been enough.” I’ve lived in shame since I was a kid. Many of us do. My shame led me down a path of low self esteem, abusive relationships, depression, pain, and then halted as it nearly took me off the edge of a cliff to die, from an eating disorder.

When I heard this song last week, a new release from one of my favorite artists, it all came flooding back. I work daily to combat the negative thoughts inside my head, something I teach my clients to do everyday. For me, its more of an understanding… I’ll always have them, but I can learn to retaliate. And today I live in a world of strong, brave retaliation, and I am okay with that. I am the best I’ve ever been. But I realized when listening to this song— after a week of some deep humbling gratitude from my clients culminating in a conversation with a dad of one of them, who called me a guardian angel for his daughter, and my response was, “I do this because someone else, at some point, did it for me” — something that I knew before and suddenly made such tangible sense in the moment… we are healed because of each other. We save each other. There is no healing alone, there is no gratitude without gratitude, there is no insight without insight, no strength without support. Even in our despair, our brokenness, our healing, we are connected and WE are the answer.

Yes I may have done a bit extra in a small way to support this father and this girl… but the truth is I love her. I care about her well-being and that extra time and care I gave to them outside of our weekly sessions was just the reality of caring for people, for me. I don’t know how to do the one without the other. When he thanked me for that 5th time that week, and I responded with the now conscious understanding that I do what I do because of what has been done for me, I thought about a few things…

I thought about my friend Heather. She has literally known me at the worst times in my life. My darkness, the world’s darkness, she’s seen it all and lived it all with me, we’ve struggled and we’ve come together. Despite the darkness, she loves me unconditionally. She literally would praise me for taking a poop I think, if I told her it was an accomplishment ;) . She loves me with what might look like blind love and support from the outside, yet she’s not blind at all- in fact she’s got 20-10 vision into my life.

I thought about Andy who reminded me all the time how proud Petey (my dad) would be of me. I thought about how he had been the one thing that was constant in my life and needed at the time, and not part of my controlled chaos. It was his acceptance that allowed me to exercise that chaos and he even joined in on it, on our adventures. He climbed five 14,000 ft peaks with me in the first year I lived in Colorado, not against his will per se, but it was an amazing way he loved me through compromise and sacrifice. And I would argue, that some of that adventure and chaos rubbed off on him.

I thought about my badass friend, Brooke. She’s an FBI agent. A later in life friend, she has challenged me and loved me, and jumped in when my world came crashing down around me. We literally argue over which one of us is prouder of the other. And let’s be real, her accomplishments blow me out of the water. Our friendship is so fierce and raw, it’s all-empowering and without her I wouldn’t own my confidence the way I do. Every woman should have a friend like Brooke. (And for the record… I’m prouder ;) ).

I thought about the women in my life- my sister, my mom, my grandma, my godmother. My awesome crew of moms. They’ve ALWAYS been in my corner, and despite at times sitting on the sidelines to the once Daddy and Daughter team, they filled in, played strong, lifted me up, no questions asked.

I thought about Greg, my brother in law. He let me invade their newlywed home and be his and my sister’s roommate during a very dark time in my life. He supported my dad and boyfriend at the time- during an intervention moment where my family decided to get me help with or without my will or permission. He took a step into a storm that wasn’t his even close to being his own. Who does that?? He did, without hesitation. He is one of my biggest fans and I run most of my big decisions in life by him, and he listens and approves, because he believes in me inside and outside of the darkness.

I thought about all the teachers, mentors, supervisors I have had throughout my career and journey, who have told me it’s OKAY to be unconventional. It’s OKAY to love the way I love, AND because I do, I must take extra care of my heart and my soul, and consistently learn to refuel. They were the ones that didn’t tell me I was crazy or too-outside-the-box, or marching down the wrong path… but who got to work and put some streets lights up for me along the way.

I am where I am now because of all those and so many more little big things that people have done for me throughout my life. I am saved because of the millions of moments I’ve shared with others. So maybe it’s not about us being broken, or unworthy, but it’s about knowing that we all are broken and thus all worthy. And that all of us are meant to save each other- with a smile, a hug, a hope, a hello. I can’t tell you how many first responders or survivors come into my office and feel unworthy- feel as those their problems aren’t worth my time or support- they feel silly, weak, guilty. And the reality is, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The realization we must make as a society is that we are all worthy of love and support, and what we must do in receiving it, is learn to give it. The greatest gift a client ever gives me is teaching others what they have learned.

I might be a therapist and my life might revolve around empowering others to save themselves. But there isn’t one person on this earth that isn’t capable of doing the same thing. Maybe our wounds are made for the purpose of healing other wounds. Maybe we struggle so that when we survive we have the ability and insight to help others through struggle- we end up replacing the ones who helped US survive. And the circle of life continues, the broken to the saved, the wounded to the healer. Pay it forward… because in the end, we either have pain or we have purpose.

“The analyst must go on learning endlessly… it is his own hurt that gives the measure of his power to heal” - Carl Jung.

“ A psychotherapist’s own experience of being wounded is what helps her face the suffering client in simple relatedness. So, what does it mean for us to resonate with the archetypal energy of the Wounded Healer? As clients make their way to my psychotherapy office with their dreams, confessions, and tears, it is almost as if there is an alchemical foot-washing taking place. I am washing their feet, not out of a sense of superiority and perfection, but rather from an energetic field of having my own feet washed as well. The primary requirement for becoming a psychotherapist is not the intellectual training. It is not the methods and techniques. It is simply the willingness to kneel and be washed” - Kathyrn C Larsey.

Mr. C.

Has a stranger ever walked into your life and changed it forever? Have you ever had a real, true soulmate? One in which your thoughts and messages were so interconnected that being with them made your heart laugh? Have you ever had a best friend that was 3 generations older than you? Have you ever loved someone who possessed all seven intelligences? Had a conversation with someone so thoughtful and life-changing, but they spoke a different language than you? 

I have. Except not all in different circumstances... all of those things describe one man in my life... I’ll call him Mr C. for short.

And. I just recently found out that he is dying. 

So, in utter sadness, shock, fear, and worry I must process this news....

It’s difficult to me to find a place to start this story, similarly, it’s difficult to explain quite how Mr C. became not only my soulmate, but my family, my grandpa, my hero.

I guess the easiest place to start is with him. His story is one of true epic proportions and how he came to be all those things to lil’ ole’ me still baffles me and leaves me in awe.

-The spark notes summary of his life- Born in China, he was an industrious child, learning new ways to make money through acquired skills and street knowledge. He was a child performer and crafter at a very young age, sculpting, photographing, and being onstage. He traveled hundreds of miles ON FOOT across the mountain plains of China to escape military persecution and war, and to reunite with his family when he was just a teenager. 

He later became a chemical engineer inventing personalized soaps. But he loved theatrics too much to stay settled in factory life, so he started learning videography. 

When Russia invaded, he was just a student cameraboy but was favored by the regime and he was quickly promoted to a Director under their control. This opportunity gave him the ability to learn the trade and flourish as a film director. He later wrote, produced and directed many films and also dabbled in the world of opera and theatre. 

Then he fell in love, got married, and when the Cultural Revolution fell upon his country he was separated from his family and had to survive in a rural labor camp. He is the patriarch of a beautiful family and has literally survived the most difficult tribulations one can experience in a lifetime.

Despite a tedious survival of political and social upheaval of his country, he somehow found time to become a Grand Master of Qigong and a cherished artist of Chinese Painting. He later traveled the world teaching Qigong and his most recent artworks, created in his late 80’s, were showcased in a downtown cultural art gallery in Chicago. 

A genius. The man is a genius. So when this 87 year old Grand Master came to me as an intern on my very first week at my first practicum site, requesting art therapy, it would be an understatement to say that I was intimidated.

As I mentioned, his English was spotty and broken to say the least but at our first meeting he trudged confidently, with help from his daughter, through his entire life story... bits and pieces of which I would hear more about as our time together went on, and bits and pieces I would sit quietly listening to in astonishment digesting his movie script life and heroic resilience. ‘How on Earth could I help him?’ I would think... and quite frankly why me???

Not only was I brand new to practicing therapy with clients, but this age gap and cultural gap seemed incredibly daunting and almost silly to attempt to close. But it’s funny, after day one... we were locked, on each other. Our journey was just beginning and as he left my office, I knew that something magical was going to happen.

Mr C. was facing a existential crisis. For the first time in his entire lifetime, his mind had taken a backseat to the ailments of his body. No longer able to fight his age, his heart was beginning to die and he was losing control. He had sunken into a deep depression and his family was worried about his lack of interest in his usual painting, reading, community. All Mr C. wanted was to feel happiness and light again, and so he looked to me for that spark, that youth, that acceptance of reality. He needed a reminder, an acknowledgement of his ability to still be present, to show up, and to feel LIFE again.

So we painted.

He called me Teacher. And each time he referred to me as that, he did so with his thick Chinese accent, an excited inflection, and a point upwards to the sky. His sounds were some, are some, of my favorite sounds in the world. Our language communication was broken between bits of English, and words of Mandarin and Cantonese, but mostly filled with sounds of hmmms, ahhhs, Ahas!, yesssses, and never ending belly laughter followed by deep sighs. I’ve never communicated better with anyone in my life. We had intense “conversations” filled with eerie coincidences, unexplainable themes and similar contemplations, and our relationship mirrored our souls and also resembled the transference of a granddaughter, grandfather relationship. He imparted wisdom, I imparted life. A granddaughter myself, of a hardcore resilient and wholeheartedly loving refugee, my grandmother is like a alternate-dimension-version of Mr C.. Thus, we understood each other with an understanding so deep and strong that at times it felt we were moving together on a transitory path.

Our art spoke to each other- I taught him watercolor, collage, acrylic, mixed media expressions, “western art” as he called it, and through it we told each other stories of triumphs, defeats, crisis, concerns, existential questions and contemplations, political and socioeconomic worries, traumas, grief, loss, death, life, victories and legacy. We shared, we learned, we questioned, we contained, we processed, we accepted. And Mr C’s heart healed, and mine blossomed. 

As our therapeutic relationship grew to an end, my closeness to his family developed. I became an advocate for them in their communities- supporting moves, financial issues, mental health struggles, medication needs, and with his grandchildren in their school systems. And as I moved on from that job site shortly after, my role shifted from professional advocate to friend, helper, supporter. Our cultural norms and guidelines here in the West don’t always apply to the world at large. As Mr. C had put it, I had saved his life and his soul, and to his family that meant I was family. If I were to abandon my relationship with them the moment I left this agency and we ended therapy, not only would they have been utterly confused, but I would have dishonored them, and they would have felt shamed and hurt. 

While I had no intention of doing so, my ethical guidelines as a therapist had to and have to be adapted and applied appropriately and thoughtfully as I cross cultural barriers and norms, something I’ve advocated before professionally as a culturally competent and diversified Art Therapist. The words we hold ultimate here as rules and regulations, are at times, disrespectful and inapplicable in other cultures around the world. I’ve worked with diverse populations for many years both here in the US and abroad, and the most valuable thing I’ve learned is that you must learn to adapt to maintain integrity, rapport, unconditional positive regard and safety, AND to move with your clients and relationships, and not against them. You must be human, real, AND then professional.

And so, as the few years continued on and I was far separated from being a professional in their lives, they later became my family. 

It was an extremely hard day for me, three years later, when I had to say goodbye to Mr C. He and his wife had decided to move back to China to spend the rest of their elder years in their home country.

I never quite realized the vast extent of his influence in my life until I looked back on our story. He not only touched my life, but my family’s. My grandma, mother and sister shared a Christmas brunch with his daughter and grandchildren, his daughter shared healing energy with my mini nephews, my grandma and mother visited his gallery in Chicago and his daughter’s Chinese New Year’s performance, and my husband and I immersed ourselves in his culture when we decided to visit him in Shanghai. 

One of the most amazing trips of my life was spent with his family in Shanghai. We visited rural art villages and water cities, we ate fancy Chinese meals with him after ‘kidnapping’ him from his senior living center in the hospital, as we rolled his wheelchair across the busy city streets. We laughed in his small room where he refused to eat the provided meals and ordered from the Chinese version of Grub Hub everyday on his phone. I cried next to his bed where he keeps a picture of the two of us smiling brightly as we proudly hold pictures of our artwork up to the camera.

That trip changed my life. It changed Andy’s life- it was the first time out of the country for him. I was anxiously nervous and curious for his reaction. Yet, he was the most at home and calm I have ever seen him to be. One of the only white men for miles, literally at times, in a sea full of people and a culture so drastically different from our own, he broke out of his shell and I saw him change right in front of my own eyes. By the end of day 1, he was endearingly referred to as 哥哥 gòhgō (brother) by Mr. C.’s granddaughter. He ate all the food, talked to all the people, tried all the things. And that new life I saw inside him...I owe that to my friend, Mr. C..

This last week Andy has checked in on me, asking me if I was okay.... I’ve been in my “mood”, I like to call it. My depression. And he always does a good job to notice and remind me so that I can take action and sort through what it is a need to move through it. And sometimes I don’t know where it comes from or what triggers it... but after reflecting today on all this, I know exactly what it is… part of my soul is dying. More grief is headed my way and I’m preparing, I’m aching, I’m scared. Part of me is hurting because he is hurting. Once again, I will be faced living in a world where one of my heroes no longer exists and I needed to release that fear. And yet I must also contemplate how lucky I am to have a relationship so special, so strong, so invaluable that I am un-separated from Mr. C. so much so that as he begins to leave this world part of me is leaving.

The point of this sharing moment... well, it’s selfish mostly... it is an externalization for me to process the loss I am experiencing and to address my “mood”. But there’s more. There’s the reminder that strangers can be our next best friends, that our own self doubt shouldn’t stop us from the ability we have inside to CONNECT us to one another. That is our human gift. Mr C never made me feel inferior, he reminded me that my tiny light had the strength to save his superior heart. There’s the resilience, and the idea that his pain is what brought us together. His final struggle in life is what allowed him to truly process his life’s journey, his legacy, and to heal and transcend from the inevitability and finality of death. There’s the culture, the significance that all of our stories and lives and ways of life are beautiful, and when we are open-minded and share in our vulnerability and different experiences, together we become closer as individuals. The misguided disparity of the world shrinks. And then there’s Mr C.. He is an open book and has always allowed me to share his story because if it was up to him the world would listen and love. So maybe it’s just that simple... his story is part of my purpose, and I must simply share HIM.

We love you 公公 gung gung (grandpa).

Listen to: Everglow by Coldplay