Welcome to the blog!
I started this blog to describe the internal experience of me going through therapy and learning to meditate independantly following several Buddhist lineages.
When I first started my journey inwards, I had no idea what the goal was, and I had very few people to talk to about it, and couldn’t find any writing about the nitty gritty every day experience of doing therapy. I hope that by sharing my experiences, I can even minimally relieve the epidemic of loneliness, suffering, and trauma and inspire even one person to look inward with me.
A bit about me
Due to the detailed nature of what I will confess, I prefer to remain in relative anonymity. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood, with highly educated first generation Chinese immigrant parents. In my teenage years, my mother developed schizophrenia, due to which my parents divorced. I lived with my mother, who was already strict, but now delusional and hallucinating daily, for 6th – 9th grade. The main trauma I experienced from this that comes back to haunt me in relationships is an intense irrational fear of abandonment; this is because she would use the threat of leaving me to my already overburdened dad (an intricate guilt trip that worked and I can’t explain). Using this threat on a daily basis, I would be subject to hour long delusional lectures or angry rants.
Then, I lived with my father, whom I know loves me deeply, and undeniably provided for me well financially, but lacked the life experience to be emotionally present for, or intellectually curious about, me. So, the issues that come from emotional neglect are present in me, but thanks to my dad I’m in a privileged position to work this out in therapy now in my twenties.
Nowadays, I’m a PhD student at a well known university in the USA. Until recently, I existed almost completely in my thinking mind – analyzing my hobbies, relationships, and career. In regards to emotional intelligence and awareness, I’m very much a child. Due to some recent events that I might not disclose, I started going to therapy and learning about childhood trauma, meditation, mindfulness. This blog then, documents my internal experience in, I hope, the next several years of this journey. Inquiries are completely welcome.
My main influences
- Therapy: my lovely therapist is trained in somatic experiencing and internal family systems. They are well known for being effective ways to cultivate self awareness and being effect for people who have gone through some form of childhood trauma. I think they’d be good for anyone who wants to develop emotional intelligence, or isn’t sure what that means or would feel like.
- Gabor Mate:
- Compassionate Inquiry Self-Study Course
- Youtube interviews/talks/videos
- Pema Chodron’s very approachable books on Tibetan buddhism for normal people
- Places that scare you: a book that outlines several forms of meditations for various emotions. This one requires the most effort to understand – and I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re going through a rough time and don’t have the space to implement a practice or think hard
- When Things Fall apart: a book of talks given by Pema. These are helpful and comforting to read when you’re really in the dumps
- The Pocket Book: a tiny booklet of 108 of Pema Chodrons best excerpts. This is the first book by her I bought, at the peak of my mental breakdown
- Lesser influences:
- Daniel Mackler on Youtube
- HealthyGamerGG on Youtube: yogi and doctor turned to twitch mental health proponent
- dhammatalks.org: a website with teachings from Buddhist lineage called the “Thai Forest Tradition”. It’s much more formal, monastic, and incompatible with daily life than Pema’s writings. I’ve been very into this since 2024 but I am personally still working out how to integrate it with daily life. I won’t comment more on this as I feel unqualified
- Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach: a very very digestible take on buddhism in the modern environment. I think this is a must read for anyone.
Contact
Feel free to reach out to me for any reason you like at holdingmyheartblog@gmail.com
Much love, Anonymous PhD student 🙂
Holding my heart 