Stay Soft, Stay Open

This episode is about driving down from New York to Virginia for our family's first official 설날, and the thoughts and feelings that come up for me when I'm in Virginia with 엄마, without 아빠.

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In this episode, I read, unpack, and explore a newsletter I wrote and published called:Reclaiming our Lost Holidays: 설날. I talk about the grief that comes with reclamation, the things we lose when we leave our homes, and the painful and beautiful experience of being an immigrant.

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This episode is about my wins of the week, relationships as art, my first show since 아빠 died, and singing and teaching 아리랑 to the next generation, to keep our culture alive.

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This episode is about being exiled from a friend group and community, being verbally assaulted by someone I considered to be my friend, and being abandoned by my friends who watched in silence.

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This episode is about trying things, changing your mind, the anxiety character in Inside Out 2, the grief that comes with accepting disappointing realities and unmet expectations, and the permission to leave things and people instead of working overtime to fix them.

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This episode is about feeling an 8/10 hopelessness about my own personal life, the state of our country, and the state of our world, and the incredible courage of Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde today, who looked the beast in the eye and pled for mercy for the marginalized, with an unshakeable peace, humility, and power, at the presidential inaugural prayer service.

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This episode is a dispatch for a very dystopian day. It's about our need for hope in the face of despair. Today is a day of mourning. Today is a day of grief. We have permission to feel all of our feelings. Dissociation, rage, hopelessness, despair, numbness, helplessness, powerlessness, fear, devastation. All of our feelings are valid. Although we can barely see it, there is hope. There is a light at the end of this seemingly endless tunnel of darkness. There are people fighting for justice within the corrupt system of the American government. Our small, medium, and large acts of kindness and love can change the world. I will create art, I will build communities, and I will hold onto my dreams, despite how "unrealistic" they may seem sometimes. One day at a time. We have survived this. We will survive this. We will survive this together.

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⁠This episode is about our third Asian American Art Club gathering and how much these meetings are expanding my mind and shifting my perspective on social norms and my art practice.

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⁠In this episode, I read a newsletter I sent on November 28, The National Day of Mourning. I talk about the ongoing genocide and alleged ceasefire in occupied Palestine after 15 months of brutality, and how history continues to repeat itself. Our small act of boycotting the fourth Thursday of November is an act of resistance. This act of resistance matters.

Read on Substack: https://jieunandgreg.substack.com/p/today-is-a-national-day-of-mourning?r=27xxpf

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This episode is about how doing things we don't have the capacity to do, doing things that don't align with our character or our values, and doing things we don't want to do, lead us to feeling resentment. Resentment is just information to us — a white flag from our body, saying, "Help! I don't want to do this anymore..." Resentment is our body's way of alerting us to change directions and get back in alignment with ourselves and our values.

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