Stay Soft, Stay Open

This episode is about my latest newsletter: I’m ironing the distance between you and me, and my reflections on the piece.

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This episode is about the challenges of saying goodbye to 엄마, sending 감자 to Virginia with her, saying goodbye to two family members, and the grief of saying goodbye.

*Apologies for sounding like I’m calling from the inside of a toilet. I think I recorded this episode from the bathroom, hence the massive amount of natural reverb.

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This episode is about performing for the first time since 아빠 died. We played at Yu & Me Books’ monthly open mic, and we played Don’t Wait To Say I Love You (할머니).

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This episode is about my second termination appointment with my very problematic therapist. I can trust myself. I don’t have to trust other people to make decisions for me.

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This episode is about how my critical voice gets loud when I do vulnerable things, like submitting my writing for the first time ever. It’s about my thought process when I write, and how writing feels a lot like painting on a blank canvas.

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This episode is about submitted my writing to a magazine for the first time ever, and the loud voices of criticism that come up when I do courageous, vulnerable things. I submitted most of the letters I’ve written to 아빠 since he died.

Also, this was Haejoon’s 7 month birthday. <3

Learn more about choa magazine.

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This episode is a reading and reflection of the newsletter: Grief, motherhood, and mandu. It’s also about 엄마’s spring break in New York.

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This episode is about the challenging side effects of weight gain that I experience when I take SSRIs. It feels like I have to choose between gaining weight and feeling emotionally stable.

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This episode is about going to therapy, leaving therapy, and coming back to therapy, and looking at therapy as an opportunity for me to practice individuation. If I don’t receive an attuning response from her, can I remain in my own body? Can I not internalize the invalidating and minimizing way that she’s treating me?

*Looking back on these episodes as I upload them later, I wish I left my therapist sooner, and stayed away from her. We can trust ourselves. Stay away from bad therapists.

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This episode is about how making my podcast paid makes me feel protected. It’s about how moving my podcast from Spotify to Substack felt like moving from the “cool kids’ table” to the “nerd table,” or the “Asian table.” It’s about how much I hate capitalism’s infiltration into the podcast world through ads, and how I don’t want to sell anyone anything, or make billion-dollar corporations more money.

People don’t want to pay for things that they can get for free. Even for myself, this is true. And — artists deserve to get paid for their work, just like everyone else.

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