Are you ready to claim your true identity and evolve against the grain? Today I'm talking with Johnson Chong, the award-winning author of Sage Sapien: From Karma to Dharma, a shamanic energy medicine practitioner, and yoga and meditation teacher in Sydney. He specializes in the use of alternative modalities and tools to help people remember themselves. Johnson has worked with people of all backgrounds, and in 2021 he aims to focus more on the LGBTQIA+ community and really hone in the concept of working through the unconscious karma where we often carry unresolved emotional trauma, conditioned patterns of beliefs, fears, guilt, and shame. Not only will we be discussing Johnson's work, but also the incredible journey that brought him to this work: from growing up in an emotionally suppressed household to a career in acting that helped him evolve into the person he is today. 

What to Listen For: 

Where it all began - a look at Johnson's childhood

"I think there was always something innately within me that questioned everything my parents said and did, and everyone around me, I think part of that was also my environment.

I grew up in New York City. I was actually born and raised in New York and, and then in Brooklyn. There are just so many cultures. You have so many different sounds and accents and subcultures. I lived in a very mixed neighborhood."

Growing up as the child of immigrants and feeling different

"I think young children that come from immigrant families grow up with this sense of, oh, I'm different, I'm other, right away. And so I was very aware of that at a young age. And then throw in the sexual orientation later on and then realizing, oh, I'm even more other than these other cultural things.

Not only did I realize I'm this Asian-American kid, but I'm very aware of that when I step into a room. And then wait, now I'm gay as well. I'm attracted to boys. So there has always been this shield that I put up whenever I would walk into a space because I didn't want to be found out, and that led to some very unhealthy patterns growing up."

Knowing his parents would not accept his sexuality

How his parents' violent pasts led to his tumultuous upbringing

Discovering our gifts in our otherness

"I think every queer person's journey is a little bit different. Some are more fortunate and they have a very accepting family, and others are less. Then there are those who are experiencing even more otherness because they fall into some other subcategories. 

I don't think it's about comparing whose journey has been more difficult; it's really just recognizing that in our otherness and what makes us very different or what makes us feel separate from the mainstream, that's where our gifts lie."

Knowing his story is his alone and finding peace in that

Putting the barriers up to survive his competitive household

His first attempt at trust and how he found common ground to build this

Trusting is not the same as commiserating

Learning to share how you authentically feel

Developing an understanding of what intimacy really is and separating from unhealthy relationships

"I started to notice that the friends and the people that I keep around share a more common understanding that we are having these human experiences—energetic beings, spiritual beings—and that there are certain things that just don't have a grip or pull or importance even. 

And so it doesn't make sense for me to keep people around that still put certain weight on dramas because then it brings me back into old patterns, and it's not a better than or worse than; it's just this evolution of who we are as people."

A history of having a tricky relationship with trust and intimacy 

Keeping a tight group of people who have an understanding of where he is energetically

The expectations of his household growing up

Understanding from a young age that his parents had been hurt deeply and that pain caused th...