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I Just Want To Be Myself with Sharon Kwon · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
0:11
Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
0:14
Speaker 1: Five or three, two and what our folks. Welcome back
0:18
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Very excited to have his make us today.
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Speaker 1: Sharon Kwan, Sharon, welcome.
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Speaker 2: Hi, Thank you so much for having me awesome.
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Speaker 1: Sharon is a co founder of Joyous PBC and the
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Speaker 1: founder of body Aware Therapy, where she works as a
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Speaker 1: psychotherapist specializing in immigrant and bipoc individuals, couples and families
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Speaker 1: cognitive psychologists. She develops successible, innovative mental health solutions while
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Speaker 1: maintaining a ground at the clinical practice focus on identity,
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Speaker 1: cultural simulation, spirituality, religious trauma, and relational dynamics. Her work
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Speaker 1: also centers on helping clients build boundaries, communicate effectively, and
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Speaker 1: live more authentically. All right, Sharon, just a little bit
0:59
Speaker 1: about you before we get going. Share with the listeners
1:01
Speaker 1: where you're from originally and where you are currently.
1:05
Speaker 3: I was originally born in South Korea and right now
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Speaker 3: I am based in Los Angeles where I grew up.
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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so let's get into this. How the
1:14
Speaker 1: heck does this all start for you?
1:17
Speaker 2: So it all started for me.
1:20
Speaker 3: I went to therapy finally, and it really changed my life.
1:25
Speaker 3: I think I grew up just feeling very different from
1:28
Speaker 3: my peers. And you know, my friends, they're amazing. They've
1:32
Speaker 3: always been like, you should really try therapy. I think
1:34
Speaker 3: it would be really helpful for you. But I always
1:37
Speaker 3: I've just I always thought that it was for like,
1:39
Speaker 3: rich white people. I didn't think that it could be
1:42
Speaker 3: for me. I didn't think that anybody really understand the cultural.
1:46
Speaker 2: Context of my trauma.
1:49
Speaker 3: But I finally got to a point where it was
1:51
Speaker 3: like rock bottom and I needed help. I think I
1:53
Speaker 3: was around twenty five and I sought a Korean American
1:57
Speaker 3: therapist and immediately just felt so seen. She was such
2:02
Speaker 3: a kindred spirit. She really understood just all the religious
2:06
Speaker 3: trauma that I grew up with. Is Korean's like, there's
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Speaker 3: two million Korean Americans in America.
2:14
Speaker 2: And most of them a lot of them.
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Speaker 3: The biggest population of Koreans outside of Korea is in
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Speaker 3: la and sixty percent of Korean Americans identify as Christian,
2:26
Speaker 3: and so I grew up in this tiny like it
2:29
Speaker 3: felt like a Christian Korean bubble. It almost felt like
2:32
Speaker 3: just like being raised in a cult. And my father
2:35
Speaker 3: is a pastor, and so there was a lot of
2:38
Speaker 3: layers of just enmeshment and wanting to please and having
2:42
Speaker 3: a hard time just being myself. And so this therapist
2:46
Speaker 3: she got it right away, and right from that moment on,
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Speaker 3: I stopped wanting to run away and you know, hi,
2:52
Speaker 3: hide myself, and it became all about becoming the most
2:57
Speaker 3: authentic version of myself and really living life the way
2:59
Speaker 3: that I wanted, which I just never thought was possible.
3:03
Speaker 1: All Right, you jumped over the whole portion of your life.
3:09
Speaker 1: What the hell was going on.
3:13
Speaker 2: Like growing up?
3:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you said a couple of things that
3:16
Speaker 1: really stood out to me. You felt different, You couldn't
3:19
Speaker 1: be yourself. All the stuff going on with the enmeshment.
3:25
Speaker 1: What what? How was all? What was it? And how
3:28
Speaker 1: was it impacting you specifically?
3:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, being the daughter of a pastor, there's always
3:36
Speaker 3: just a lot of pressure to be a certain way.
3:39
Speaker 3: It felt like I was sharing my life with church,
3:42
Speaker 3: I was sharing my life with God and my parents
3:45
Speaker 3: for my parents that was their biggest.
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Speaker 2: Purpose in life.
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Speaker 3: It was God was number one, and then me. You know,
3:51
Speaker 3: it was never like me first, and so all of it.
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Speaker 3: Everything just became about Sundays like how can how can
3:59
Speaker 3: we all show up Sunday? And church was kind of
4:02
Speaker 3: it was an everyday thing. It was just such a
4:03
Speaker 3: daily part of my life. And you know, when I
4:07
Speaker 3: was little, like, yeah, I would go, I would follow.
4:10
Speaker 3: I believed, because you know, kids, that's what they do.
4:13
Speaker 3: They believe with their parents want them to believe. But
4:16
Speaker 3: as I got older, I started finding myself drifting away.
4:19
Speaker 3: I started wanting to get out of the tiny bubble
4:22
Speaker 3: that they wanted to keep me in. And that brought
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Speaker 3: up a lot of shame and a lot of hiding myself,
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Speaker 3: Like I really feel like I had to kind of
4:31
Speaker 3: I grew up in the closet a little bit of
4:34
Speaker 3: not really being able to be my authentic self and
4:37
Speaker 3: really having to compartmentalize.
4:40
Speaker 1: All right, So you've mentioned several times your authentic self.
4:43
Speaker 1: What what was it that you couldn't be or who
4:47
Speaker 1: you couldn't be?
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Speaker 3: I honestly, I couldn't be myself. I had to be
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Speaker 3: a representative of God. You know, I had to be
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Speaker 3: a representative of my parents, and that was dressing a
4:57
Speaker 3: certain way, acting a certain way, leaving certain beliefs. Yeah,
5:04
Speaker 3: I really felt like I had no freedom to be
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Speaker 3: curious and make mistakes and do the things that normal
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Speaker 3: kids were doing. You know, like as a kid, I
5:14
Speaker 3: couldn't even dress up for Halloween, you know, we couldn't.
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Speaker 2: I couldn't.
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Speaker 3: I wasn't allowed to go trigger treating until I was
5:19
Speaker 3: old enough to go by myself. There were a lot
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Speaker 3: of restrictions, a lot of surveillance, surveillance, and just a
5:26
Speaker 3: lot of what felt like it really just being in occult.
5:33
Speaker 1: So as you're growing up, how was this impacting you symptomatically?
5:40
Speaker 1: What's going on? If anything?
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Speaker 3: A lot of anxiety, you know, a lot of hypervigilance,
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Speaker 3: walking on eggshells, hiding myself. You know, I really felt
5:51
Speaker 3: like I had so many different identities. I couldn't be
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Speaker 3: my who I really wanted to be around them, you know,
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Speaker 3: I had to hide all these parts of me. You know,
6:01
Speaker 3: I had to hide relationships. They were very strict about
6:04
Speaker 3: you know, boys, I couldn't. I couldn't like have any boyfriends,
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Speaker 3: like literally just friends.
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Speaker 2: Were boys there were so many normal.
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Speaker 3: Parts of life that I feel like had to be
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Speaker 3: so hidden, and it turned into me, really I got
6:21
Speaker 3: really good at lying, so much so that I feel
6:23
Speaker 3: like I was just constantly lying to myself and I
6:28
Speaker 3: really just created a world that in a sense of
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Speaker 3: self and identity that I didn't want.
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Speaker 2: I wanted to just be able to be open and free.
6:37
Speaker 3: But yeah, I always had this like heightened anxiety because
6:41
Speaker 3: there was always going to be something to hide.
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Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, So how do things unfold as you're growing up?
6:48
Speaker 1: Getting into school?
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Speaker 3: School became a big source of It was a big
6:55
Speaker 3: outlet for me because I knew that was one way
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Speaker 3: that I could earn my freedom, that was something that
7:00
Speaker 3: was parent approved. You know, Koreans really stress education and academics,
7:05
Speaker 3: and so I was like, well, I can't be that
7:09
Speaker 3: Christian daughter for them, which you know, I kept a
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Speaker 3: secret the whole time. I was just I was acting
7:14
Speaker 3: like I believed, going to church, going through all the motions.
7:19
Speaker 3: But so but I knew, like deep down, that was
7:23
Speaker 3: not something that was in my heart, like you know,
7:25
Speaker 3: that was something that I was faking for them. But
7:27
Speaker 3: with education, I knew that that was something that they
7:29
Speaker 3: could be proud of that I could also get along with.
7:32
Speaker 3: And so I really poured my all into it. I
7:35
Speaker 3: was very much a high achiever, very much just wanting
7:38
Speaker 3: to get into the best and furthest school from them
7:42
Speaker 3: so that I could finally be free and so and
7:46
Speaker 3: that's what I did. So I ended up going to
7:48
Speaker 3: school in Chicago. I was like, I have to put
7:50
Speaker 3: at least a plane distance between us. And that's when
7:54
Speaker 3: I really feel like my life started.
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Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, so what happened.
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Speaker 3: I got to be who I am, I got to
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Speaker 3: be free, I got to dress how I want, I
8:07
Speaker 3: got to be who I want.
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Speaker 2: It was so cathartic and such a.
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Speaker 3: Release to not have to be so hyper vigilant and
8:17
Speaker 3: walking on eggshells all the time and kind of like
8:20
Speaker 3: like living life with you know, looking behind my shoulder.
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Speaker 3: It was truly just so life changing and like I said,
8:31
Speaker 3: just the start of a new me.
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Speaker 1: Really was it impacting your physical health?
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Speaker 3: I mean I think in terms of like the anxiety, Yeah,
8:44
Speaker 3: like panic attacks for sure, you know a lot of
8:49
Speaker 3: just every mistake was such a big one, you know,
8:52
Speaker 3: and it's like I can't even I can't get anything
8:56
Speaker 3: less than an a you know, it was very very stressful.
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Speaker 1: In that respect, it sounds very stressful. So you get
9:03
Speaker 1: to Chicago, your life changes, you can be yourself. At
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Speaker 1: what point did you see that therapist who was just like,
9:09
Speaker 1: sounds amazing.
9:11
Speaker 3: Honestly, it was after It was after colleges, when I
9:15
Speaker 3: was around twenty five. It took a while because even
9:19
Speaker 3: then I think I was still kind of just avoiding trying,
9:23
Speaker 3: and I was like, this is a new chapter.
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Speaker 2: I'm away from them.
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Speaker 3: I can just be myself, you know, I can do
9:27
Speaker 3: all the things that I wanted to do that I couldn't.
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Speaker 3: So it was a lot of just being. I think
9:34
Speaker 3: I got a lot out of a lot of healing
9:35
Speaker 3: out of that. But then I got into a really
9:39
Speaker 3: bad car accident, you know, a taxi ran over a
9:43
Speaker 3: red light and hit another taxi that ran into me
9:46
Speaker 3: and sent me through the liquor store behind me. I was, yeah,
9:49
Speaker 3: it was very bad, and I was in the hot
9:53
Speaker 3: I see you for a couple of weeks. I had
9:56
Speaker 3: to get surgery.
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Speaker 2: Under my eye.
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Speaker 1: Was this in Chicago?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was in Chicago.
10:01
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because yes, that is the most traumatic,
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Speaker 3: clearly the most traumatic event in my life. When I
10:09
Speaker 3: think back of all the things that have happened, but
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Speaker 3: I feel like the complex trauma that I endured living
10:15
Speaker 3: with my parents was so much worse. Like if I could,
10:18
Speaker 3: if I compared the two, I would much rather get
10:22
Speaker 3: hit by a car than like have to relive the
10:24
Speaker 3: first eighteen years of my life like it was.
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Speaker 2: It's interesting how.
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Speaker 1: Trauma talking about like psychological emotional some might say abuse.
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Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, I mean it feels very restrictive and oppressive. Yes,
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Speaker 1: at what point did you seek help?
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Speaker 3: So I ended up going back to Korea actually and
10:49
Speaker 3: reconnected with my family there, and that was the first
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Speaker 3: time I was really able to experience being a Korean
10:55
Speaker 3: without the religious piece, because Korea is actually kind of
10:59
Speaker 3: the opposite. It's more like sixty percent of people over
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Speaker 3: there are non religious compared to in America where sixty
11:05
Speaker 3: percent are and my family they're not Christian, and so
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Speaker 3: I got to re examine this cultural lens without a
11:14
Speaker 3: Christian lens, and that was really life changing for me.
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Speaker 2: And now I love being Korean. I didn't before. I
11:21
Speaker 2: used to hate it.
11:21
Speaker 3: I used to feel like all Koreans are Christian and
11:23
Speaker 3: they're going to evangelize me and judge me. But I've
11:27
Speaker 3: come a long way with that. And so after I
11:30
Speaker 3: lived with them for a bit, I came back to
11:33
Speaker 3: the States because I got a big settlement from that
11:36
Speaker 3: taxi cab and I wanted to buy a house and
11:40
Speaker 3: I was staying with my parents while I was looking
11:43
Speaker 3: for a place, and things just really escalated. I think
11:50
Speaker 3: at that point it was just really hard to keep
11:53
Speaker 3: up with all the compartmentalization and the separate identities because
11:58
Speaker 3: there was such a big part of me that just
12:00
Speaker 3: was like, oh, I just want to be able to
12:02
Speaker 3: be myself, Like I don't want to have to hide
12:04
Speaker 3: this anymore. Like I hate that I have to hide
12:07
Speaker 3: my tattoos around them, you know, I was wearing sweaters
12:09
Speaker 3: around them in California. I hate that on Sundays I
12:13
Speaker 3: have to like go to church and pretend that I.
12:15
Speaker 2: Believe in this.
12:17
Speaker 3: And we got into a lot of fights and I
12:23
Speaker 3: actually I did. And yeah, so we got into a
12:26
Speaker 3: few fights, and I got to a point where I
12:31
Speaker 3: because with my dad is it's always just been a
12:33
Speaker 3: very difficult relationship.
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Speaker 2: You know, he's a pastor and.
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Speaker 3: He you know this is this is the way, and
12:39
Speaker 3: you know, as in a very patriarchal culture.
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Speaker 2: You're supposed to just respect him.
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Speaker 3: And but I always had a hard time with that.
12:48
Speaker 3: And yeah, we got into a really big fight that
12:52
Speaker 3: finally caused me to seek therapy and reach out to
12:56
Speaker 3: a Korean American therapist. And kind of right away that
13:00
Speaker 3: first Consule we talked, I cried, and she was just like,
13:03
Speaker 3: just come, just come to my office, let's let's talk.
13:07
Speaker 3: And yeah, the rest is history. I never I never
13:11
Speaker 3: looked back since then.
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Speaker 1: Now, what were you doing for work during that time?
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Speaker 2: I was not living my best life.
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Speaker 3: Honestly, I was kind of I was waiting around for
13:23
Speaker 3: my settlement money and I was managing social media. It
13:28
Speaker 3: was a job that I found in New York. It
13:30
Speaker 3: was remote and so it allowed me to travel and
13:32
Speaker 3: that's how I got to go to Korea and travel
13:35
Speaker 3: around Southeast Asia and do a bunch of remote work.
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Speaker 2: That way.
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Speaker 1: You said you were not living your best life?
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Speaker 3: No, No, I mean I guess they could argue that
13:46
Speaker 3: I kind of was. Okay, I wasn't living my I think,
13:51
Speaker 3: up to my best potential, Like I wasn't self actualizing
13:55
Speaker 3: at that point.
13:56
Speaker 1: Okay, So how do things unfold such that you do
14:01
Speaker 1: start to live your best life? You do say I'm
14:03
Speaker 1: want to start. I want to get into what psychology,
14:06
Speaker 1: become a therapist. How does that happen for you?
14:09
Speaker 3: So yeah, I feel like, up until then, my life
14:13
Speaker 3: was all about running away, running away from my parents,
14:16
Speaker 3: running away from this just bubble that they kept wanting
14:22
Speaker 3: to keep me in. And when I first tried therapy,
14:27
Speaker 3: I loved it and I was like, oh, I feel
14:29
Speaker 3: like I can do this because people have been telling
14:32
Speaker 3: me their problems my entire life, and you know, unsolicited,
14:35
Speaker 3: and so I was like, oh wow, there's like a
14:37
Speaker 3: way to make a living off of this. This is crazy,
14:40
Speaker 3: and so I kind of I started looking into programs
14:43
Speaker 3: and I found this like cultural psychology program in Amsterdam,
14:48
Speaker 3: and I told my therapist my plan. I was like, Okay,
14:51
Speaker 3: I'm going to do this program. I'm going to buy
14:54
Speaker 3: an apartment here, I'm going to rent it out. I'm
14:56
Speaker 3: going to go to Amsterdam and then I'm going to
14:59
Speaker 3: come back. But I'm I'm not going to tell my parents.
15:01
Speaker 3: I'm going to pretend that I'm still living abroad and
15:03
Speaker 3: just come back secretly and like start my life here
15:07
Speaker 3: without them knowing, because it's just still felt so unimaginable
15:12
Speaker 3: being able to like live in la right next to
15:16
Speaker 3: them and not go to church.
15:19
Speaker 2: And she kind of right away was.
15:22
Speaker 3: Like, hm, so you say you want to work with
15:24
Speaker 3: Asian Americans, but you want to do this program in Amsterdam.
15:29
Speaker 3: You know, I don't like, I don't know how the
15:31
Speaker 3: credits are going to transfer, Like it doesn't really make
15:33
Speaker 3: that much sense, Like what what is your rationale around this?
15:37
Speaker 2: And I was just like, you're right, it doesn't.
15:40
Speaker 3: Like here, I am just like doing all these mental
15:42
Speaker 3: gymnastics and physical gymnastics to avoid this problem that I
15:47
Speaker 3: just can't seem to figure out how to address and
15:51
Speaker 3: like can't seem to figure out like a happy.
15:55
Speaker 2: Answer for both of us.
15:57
Speaker 3: And but it really bothered me to be confronted with, Wow,
16:02
Speaker 3: I'm just making my life so much.
16:04
Speaker 2: Harder because of this, and so.
16:09
Speaker 3: Like, having been confronted with that, I was like, oh,
16:12
Speaker 3: you know what, You're right, I'm gonna take the harder
16:15
Speaker 3: route now so that my.
16:17
Speaker 2: Life can be easier later.
16:20
Speaker 3: And she actually she finally helped me, like especially come
16:26
Speaker 3: out to my parents and tell them, you know, I'm
16:28
Speaker 3: not a Christian. I don't go to church anymore, and
16:33
Speaker 3: so that I could just honestly and authentically be here
16:37
Speaker 3: and like fully commit to just being here and go
16:42
Speaker 3: to grad school here in LA and become a therapist here.
16:46
Speaker 3: And you know, my dad he was not pit he
16:48
Speaker 3: was he was not happy about it. You know, he's
16:50
Speaker 3: still not happy about it, and my mom either, But she,
16:54
Speaker 3: my mom actually did show me some of you know,
16:56
Speaker 3: God's grace. She told me that she would still love
16:59
Speaker 3: me anyway and thought it was okay, and that really
17:02
Speaker 3: set me free.
17:04
Speaker 1: Just wow, hang on a second, Sharon, that sounds amazing.
17:07
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine you're painting this picture of
17:15
Speaker 1: again just such oppression, right and restriction and this inability
17:23
Speaker 1: to just just be yourself, and here you are finally
17:29
Speaker 1: able to, like you said, come out to your parents.
17:33
Speaker 1: How did you muster up the courage to do that?
17:37
Speaker 2: It was really hard.
17:39
Speaker 1: How did you do that? How did you do with
17:41
Speaker 1: that in person? Over the phone?
17:44
Speaker 3: It was in person. It was one of the hardest
17:47
Speaker 3: things that I've ever had to do. And I honestly,
17:51
Speaker 3: I don't even know if I like did it in person.
17:53
Speaker 3: I don't even know if I did it with my dad,
17:56
Speaker 3: Like I feel like for so long, I've kind of
17:58
Speaker 3: communicated with him through my mom because she is definitely
18:02
Speaker 3: the less intense one. And so I remember just with
18:07
Speaker 3: my mom that conversation. You know, I cried because she's
18:11
Speaker 3: also the breadwinner of our family, and she's worked her
18:15
Speaker 3: entire life.
18:15
Speaker 2: She's a nurse, she works very hard, and so.
18:18
Speaker 3: I think I felt so much guilt about letting her
18:21
Speaker 3: down because this is the one thing she wanted for me.
18:24
Speaker 3: You know, she didn't ask for anything else, just one,
18:27
Speaker 3: which was my spiritual freedom, which is kind of a lot,
18:29
Speaker 3: but you know, for her, it was just like this
18:31
Speaker 3: one one thing.
18:33
Speaker 2: And I told her this.
18:34
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, I have I feel so
18:37
Speaker 3: guilty about this, and she was like, you know, that's
18:41
Speaker 3: that's something that only God can solve for you. And
18:45
Speaker 3: I was like, no, no, I don't feel guilty towards God,
18:48
Speaker 3: like I feel guilty towards you.
18:50
Speaker 2: I feel so.
18:51
Speaker 3: Bad for letting you down that like I can't do
18:53
Speaker 3: this for you, and something in her just like opened.
18:58
Speaker 3: I don't know, I think that really hit home for her.
19:00
Speaker 3: But she was just like, you know what, don't worry,
19:04
Speaker 3: like if it's about me, like you don't have to
19:06
Speaker 3: feel guilty, like you don't have to go, It's okay.
19:11
Speaker 2: I'll love you anyway.
19:12
Speaker 3: And yeah, that was just such a beautiful moment. You know,
19:18
Speaker 3: my mom and I, she she she was always working.
19:23
Speaker 3: We didn't really spend that much time together. And I
19:27
Speaker 3: think just affection with Asian parents.
19:30
Speaker 2: Is it's they don't really say it explicitly they say.
19:34
Speaker 3: They show it more so in their actions and you know,
19:37
Speaker 3: in providing and caring for you and so to actually
19:40
Speaker 3: have that in words like oh, I it's okay, I'll
19:44
Speaker 3: still love you anyway, it was. Yeah, it was really
19:47
Speaker 3: big for me, and I think it really just gave
19:51
Speaker 3: me permission to just be myself and be okay with it.
19:56
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I can feel the relief in the room. Really.
20:02
Speaker 1: All Right. So you what, you start studying in LA
20:07
Speaker 1: to become a therapist, okay, and when you get into
20:12
Speaker 1: your program, what are you thinking, if any, are you
20:14
Speaker 1: thinking about a particular specialty or what you want to
20:17
Speaker 1: work on or who you want to work with?
20:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I really want to work I really
20:23
Speaker 3: wanted to work with Asian Americans. You know, there's so
20:26
Speaker 3: many in Los Angeles that struggle.
20:30
Speaker 2: With these cultural dynamics with parents.
20:34
Speaker 3: Oftentimes they come from very collective cultures where family is first.
20:37
Speaker 3: There's a lot of filial piety, there's a lot of
20:39
Speaker 3: guilt and shame if you don't do what the family wants.
20:43
Speaker 3: And so I really wanted to help people kind of
20:47
Speaker 3: figure out a life that works with them, where they
20:50
Speaker 3: can balance these different ideals cultural and individualistic. And then
20:54
Speaker 3: I also really wanted to work with specifically folks who
20:58
Speaker 3: have experienced religious trauma.
21:00
Speaker 1: M all right, so let me just remind everyone was
21:05
Speaker 1: speaking with Shower and Kwan, co founder of Joyous PBC
21:09
Speaker 1: and the founder of Body Aware Therapy. So let's talk
21:13
Speaker 1: specifically about the work you do, who you're working with,
21:17
Speaker 1: how you're doing that work, and even before that, how
21:23
Speaker 1: did you get to this point where, all right, I
21:25
Speaker 1: want to start my own thing, my own company or whatever.
21:33
Speaker 3: I mean, it was just all the healing that I
21:35
Speaker 3: had done, and I think, I mean, I always wanted
21:38
Speaker 3: to just work for myself. I've you know, in my training,
21:42
Speaker 3: I've obviously I've worked with a lot of people. I
21:47
Speaker 3: worked at another therapy group, Yellow Chair Collective, where we
21:52
Speaker 3: worked where they specifically served Asian American communities and did
21:58
Speaker 3: a lot of intern ships with you know that focused
22:02
Speaker 3: on Asian populations, and so when I started, you know,
22:06
Speaker 3: my private practice, I really wanted to.
22:09
Speaker 2: Kind of bridge both worlds.
22:11
Speaker 3: And that's kind of how Body of Wear therapy happened,
22:15
Speaker 3: where you know, Eastern philosophy meets this Western psychology, and
22:20
Speaker 3: I really wanted to kind of bridge both worlds.
22:24
Speaker 1: Is there a stigma towards therapy to we're seeing a
22:29
Speaker 1: therapist in the Asian community. I mean you said there was, yeah.
22:33
Speaker 3: Experience one hundred percent definitely, especially among like older generations.
22:42
Speaker 3: But I do think that younger generations have come around.
22:48
Speaker 3: But it is interesting how and I think this happened
22:52
Speaker 3: a lot during COVID because there was a lot of
22:54
Speaker 3: the rise of anti Asian hate crimes, and so you know,
22:58
Speaker 3: our community was directly being impacted and it was a
23:03
Speaker 3: direct trauma. It wasn't like invisible complex trauma. It was
23:08
Speaker 3: like fear, and you know, visceral fear, like we had
23:12
Speaker 3: we had people, you know, our elders being attacked, you know,
23:15
Speaker 3: young women being attacked. So there was that led to
23:19
Speaker 3: I think a huge increase in Asian Americans seeking therapy.
23:25
Speaker 3: And oh yeah, and but What I found interesting was
23:32
Speaker 3: that even still a lot of my clients then we're
23:37
Speaker 3: keeping it a secret. They weren't telling their parents about it,
23:41
Speaker 3: about the that they know that they were in therapy. Yeah,
23:46
Speaker 3: so the stigma was still very much there. It was
23:49
Speaker 3: just like this is not this is shameful, or like
23:53
Speaker 3: my parents won't understand and they're going to think that
23:56
Speaker 3: I'm being ungrateful, or like they're gonna dismiss me, like trauma,
24:00
Speaker 3: what mental health?
24:01
Speaker 2: Why would you have any issues? We've done so much
24:04
Speaker 2: for you.
24:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so who's obviously I'm sure there's a wide
24:12
Speaker 1: variety of people who are coming to you, But is
24:15
Speaker 1: there a theme? Is there a common denominator? Are younger
24:19
Speaker 1: people who are maybe becoming comfortable with the stigma getting
24:26
Speaker 1: rid of the stigma? Are they coming to see you?
24:29
Speaker 1: Who are your clients? Yeah?
24:31
Speaker 3: I would say it kind of ranges anywhere from like
24:35
Speaker 3: mid twenties to mid forties right now for me, women
24:41
Speaker 3: and men, And a lot of the themes among my
24:44
Speaker 3: Asian American clients have to do with family and parents
24:48
Speaker 3: and boundaries, a lot of childhood trauma, a lot of
24:52
Speaker 3: things that they feel like parents continue to dismiss and
24:56
Speaker 3: invalidate and like they will never understand, and so it's
25:01
Speaker 3: a lot of grieving. Like I feel like I spend
25:03
Speaker 3: most of my time with my clients grieving with.
25:05
Speaker 1: Them and grieving specifically what lost experience, lost time.
25:13
Speaker 3: What grieving the loss of the ideal parent, you know,
25:18
Speaker 3: the ideal parents that they never got and probably won't get,
25:25
Speaker 3: you know, because it's a lot of kind of accepting
25:29
Speaker 3: our parents' limitations. You know, they also grew up with
25:32
Speaker 3: their own traumas and their own hardships, and you know,
25:36
Speaker 3: with the stigma and mental health, like it will likely
25:40
Speaker 3: be very hard for them to ever really understand and
25:44
Speaker 3: accept the things that we experience, especially when a lot
25:48
Speaker 3: of times their trauma was way worse, it was a
25:51
Speaker 3: lot harder. And you know, I don't want to I
25:55
Speaker 3: don't want to turn it into like the oppression Olympics,
25:58
Speaker 3: but sometimes that's just kind of how.
26:01
Speaker 2: It goes down.
26:02
Speaker 3: And so yeah, I really focus on helping my clients
26:10
Speaker 3: grieve that so that they can come out on the
26:13
Speaker 3: other end of just accepting that, Yeah, it sucks, you know,
26:17
Speaker 3: it's not perfect, but you know, we do the best
26:22
Speaker 3: we can.
26:24
Speaker 1: Your story, Sharon, is very powerful. This need to be
26:32
Speaker 1: who simply be yourself. You would think it's not that hard,
26:40
Speaker 1: but it's hard for so many of us. And that
26:46
Speaker 1: just keeps coming up and coming up throughout your life.
26:49
Speaker 1: And I can imagine you sitting there with your clients,
26:53
Speaker 1: many of whom, right, they just want to be myself,
26:57
Speaker 1: but all these other it's like these upt hands, these
27:00
Speaker 1: puppet strings are coming pulling them. How do you begin
27:04
Speaker 1: to work with your clients in that capacity?
27:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's just acknowledging the grief, acknowledging all
27:14
Speaker 3: the lost experiences, and working with them to reparent and
27:19
Speaker 3: healed that inner child, you know, the chat the little
27:22
Speaker 3: kid in them that's still there, that still wants that
27:27
Speaker 3: ideal parent to just love them unconditionally and you know,
27:32
Speaker 3: want the best, want what they want, you know, want
27:35
Speaker 3: them to.
27:36
Speaker 2: Just be happy.
27:38
Speaker 1: And that sounds easier said than done, of course, right.
27:42
Speaker 1: I mean for a lot of us, we never get
27:48
Speaker 1: that we've never had that is this Is there a
27:53
Speaker 1: whole new language that Korean Americans have to learn to
28:00
Speaker 1: even begin to sit with you.
28:03
Speaker 2: For sure?
28:04
Speaker 3: I mean it's this language of compassion. I think that
28:08
Speaker 3: is so hard. I really feel like a lot of times,
28:13
Speaker 3: you know, we feel so grateful for our parents' sacrifices,
28:17
Speaker 3: but that gratitude very quickly turns into guilt, and it's
28:22
Speaker 3: very difficult, I think, for people to hold these two
28:26
Speaker 3: feelings together. Of like, I feel grateful for my parents,
28:30
Speaker 3: but I also feel resentful for my childhood. You know,
28:35
Speaker 3: both of these things can exist at once, and we
28:38
Speaker 3: have the capacity to hold space for both.
28:41
Speaker 2: But I think that a lot.
28:42
Speaker 3: Of times, you know, they come in seeing me being like,
28:45
Speaker 3: I can't feel this way, Like I have to just
28:47
Speaker 3: be grateful, and that's when and when you when you
28:52
Speaker 3: reject that resentment and you know, letting yourself feel that anger,
28:56
Speaker 3: it really it stops you from being able to fully grieve,
29:00
Speaker 3: fully accept that this this is where your life is.
29:04
Speaker 3: You know, this is this is what your relationship with
29:06
Speaker 3: your parents is like. And I think a lot of
29:09
Speaker 3: people just get stuck there.
29:11
Speaker 1: Mm hmm yeah. I mean, as you're speaking, I'm thinking
29:14
Speaker 1: to myself, you know, you had this, this this continued drive,
29:19
Speaker 1: this uh propulsion to to be your authentic self, and
29:24
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't or they have it, but
29:26
Speaker 1: it just stays buried right buried inside, locked away. What
29:33
Speaker 1: allowed you to continue to be drawn to that.
29:38
Speaker 3: I think I'm stubborn, a little bit of being stubborn,
29:43
Speaker 3: and I think the car accident, actually, it really did
29:48
Speaker 3: kind of change. It changed my life in that I
29:51
Speaker 3: I almost died and I feel like this is my
29:53
Speaker 3: second chance in life. And I really I woke up
29:56
Speaker 3: from that accident feeling like somehow I was bird and
30:01
Speaker 3: I have to make this life worth it.
30:03
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, Wow. So you were hit, thrown into.
30:09
Speaker 2: The window of a liquor store, trapped into the car.
30:13
Speaker 1: Oh my god? Were you unconscious?
30:17
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I don't remember.
30:18
Speaker 3: I just I have a flash of myself in the
30:20
Speaker 3: er screaming at them to put me under.
30:21
Speaker 2: Because I was in so much pain. And then I
30:23
Speaker 2: woke up in the ICU.
30:26
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
30:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you wake up? At what point were you?
30:32
Speaker 1: Were you?
30:32
Speaker 2: Like?
30:32
Speaker 1: Okay, things have to effing change in my life. When
30:36
Speaker 1: did that happen to you?
30:38
Speaker 3: That didn't take I mean I don't think I really
30:40
Speaker 3: that hit until a few months later, you know. I
30:43
Speaker 3: think at that point I was just like trying to
30:45
Speaker 3: heal and sure.
30:47
Speaker 2: Really pissed off, like why did this happen to me?
30:51
Speaker 3: Like? What did I do to deserve this, which felt
30:54
Speaker 3: like a constant theme in my life anyway, like in
30:56
Speaker 3: my childhood, what did I do to deserve this? And
30:58
Speaker 3: so for then some like that to happen really set
31:03
Speaker 3: me back. And then because that was when I was like, Oh,
31:05
Speaker 3: I'm free, I have all this freedom.
31:07
Speaker 2: This is great. I'm living my life.
31:08
Speaker 3: And then that happened, it was almost like it was
31:10
Speaker 3: like am I being punished by God for this? Like
31:12
Speaker 3: what's going on? Like if God really exists, why did
31:15
Speaker 3: he do this to me?
31:17
Speaker 2: And now I see it.
31:19
Speaker 3: You know, it took many years, but now I see
31:22
Speaker 3: it as like one of the best things that ever
31:23
Speaker 3: happened to me.
31:24
Speaker 1: Wow, Wow, Sharon, you're inspiring? Really are my God? All right?
31:31
Speaker 1: How do people learn more about you and the work
31:33
Speaker 1: you're doing.
31:34
Speaker 3: What's the best way you can reach out on my
31:37
Speaker 3: website Sharon Kwan dot com. That's kwo n And if
31:42
Speaker 3: you want to learn more about the Korean American religious
31:45
Speaker 3: immigrant experience, I have a podcast out It's called two
31:48
Speaker 3: Pks in a Pod.
31:50
Speaker 1: I love it, Love it all right. We'll have all
31:52
Speaker 1: that length up here at the show notes page at
31:54
Speaker 1: the Trauma Therapists podcast dot com. Appreciate you, Sharon, thanks
31:58
Speaker 1: so much for being here.
31:59
Speaker 2: Thank you all right, take care, take care,