“The gift of nothing”

Back in May this year, amidst all the hustle-and-bustle during the graduation season, I finally had some time to keep my head above the water and to reflect on what and how to situate myself in this world, when my partner told me about Yinuo’s workshop. I was curious. I signed up right away and was happily “hooked” since then. This is the best gift I gave myself and let me tell you about my journey.

I was born in the 80’s in Shanghai. I grew up between Anhui, where my parents spent majority of their best years during and after cultural revolution, and their hometown Shanghai. I went to Fudan for medical school and then came to the US for PhD 16 years ago. Now I am a cognitive neuroscientist and faculty member in a university located in Boston, directing a developmental psychology lab studying language, social cognition, learning, and memory. Besides my work, I wear many hats like everyone else: a mom, a wife, a daughter, and a friend to my favorite people. Same as every first-generation immigrant, I struggle to find peace in between the two cultures and two countries.

I was a workaholic academic. I was always on the run. On the surface, I was doing okay, or even more than okay. I quote a kind senior colleague at my annual review meeting: “you are doing too much”. But my work during the past year was no longer motivated by my curiosity. Rather, it was driven by the urge to prove myself, to impress my new colleagues, and to “establish” myself at the new workspace. The long working hours into the late nights and weekends did not lead to satisfyingly creative scholarly work. Instead, my mind was dull and distracted all the time. All I saw is the daunting unknown and undone. I knew I was supposed to plan and look at the big picture, but I was too absorbed by my day-to-day mundane pain.

I was a people pleaser. This was my biggest strength and weakness. I am sensitive to others’ intention, preference, wants, and needs. When I have a capable mind, I can put my compassion into mending and volunteering. But when I am overwhelmed, these traits become my enemy. I could not say no, I lost control of my calendar, and I ran around trying to meet my promises. My mind was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I was so anxious about disappointing others that I had little time listening to my own mind or sparing time for self-care.

I was an exhausted and often unhappy parent. I have a three-year-old girl, who is an energetic and fun character! She is a blessing and the joy of my life. But I was constantly living in guilt, because I have been too busy planning and preparing, worrying and self-criticizing. I love hanging out with her, but also dreaded those times at the same time, because I found it energy draining to set boundaries, to constantly react to her needs, and most of the times, naturally, she cannot be reasoned…

I had a dystopian view of the world. I was angry towards the mess in the world, even obsessed with negative news. But the more I read, the less motivated I felt. It was the learned helplessness all around.

I also have lost my superpower: lucid dream. Since I was a child, I was often aware of my dream and could sometimes control my dream like in the movie Inception. I learned the best strategy to escape from a nightmare: I would first give in and then consciously take a backseat in the dream. When I succeeded, I could see the terror dispersed and I regained the control of my dream. However, as I grow older, lucid dreams visited me less frequently…

Three months after I started taking the journey with Yinuo and all the other friends in the workshop, I have been able to do all the following with less effort:

● taking active control of self-care.

● saying no with confidence, and importantly, with compassion.

● accepting changes and adjusting plans.

● becoming a patient listener.

● staying informed but optimistic about this world.

● searching for spaces where I can make meaningful contributions.

I also see the world around me differently. I noticed that:

● working can be a constant joy, as long as there is an on/off button.

● everyone is a child deep inside and learning takes place at its own pace.

● conflicts are different view points from people who are more similar to than different from each other.

● the only certain thing in this world is uncertainty. You cannot control uncertainty, but you can control your feeling of insecurity.

● the world is still a mess. But human civilization has been making steady progress.

Most dramatic of all, my lucid dreams came back to me! I surprisingly realized that the kind of “superpower” I mastered in my dreamland is the same meta-cognition ability Yinuo’s workshop teaches us to heal our waking mind and to understand the real world.

This new image of myself is not a stranger. Instead she reminded me many role models who I had the fortune to know. This past Monday was Jewish Rosh Hashana. Years ago, when I still shared an office with a dear friend of mine, she would remind me to take a walk in the middle of the day to reflect and to think on this day. She would spend time working on her art project no matter how busy she was as a neurologist. I admire her and we were close friends. But I also felt foreign to her spirituality experience. At that time, I mixed memory retrieval with reflection. Now I felt even more connected to her though we live in different countries and have not seen each other in years.

You might say this all sounds great! But maybe your life is just easier during this time. Maybe you just have more time doing soul cleansing. Or maybe this is a cycle. You will be destined to go back to who you were.

I think this has been my journey towards greater clarity and there is no way back. But to prevent myself from slipping back to who I was, I added a control experiment and “schemed” to involve my partner on this journey. He is, in many ways, the opposite version of me already. His brain is wired differently. He did not have imposter syndrome to start with. He accepts himself and the choices he makes. He seldom feels anxious or afraid. He gets things done and switches quickly between tasks without wasting much mental energy ruminating or worrying. But I think all of this is out of habits. He, too, needs more clarity, so that compassion, not efficiency, is engrained into his habits. He actively participated in the second workshop as one of the few male members, while I was watching happily from the sideline. I can see the gradual change his confident mind is going through. From my observation, he is now a better listener with more patience, more curiosity, and, more interesting ideas to share. As this is not a treatment study but simply an observation, it is possible that we are growing in tandem and Yinuo’s workshop serves as a facilitator rather than the only driving force. But I think there are similar changes happening to him, even though they are not explicit.

In August, on the day my 3yo left her daycare classroom, she brought each of her little friend a lotus seed as goodbye presents. The lotus seed is just the package for the real present inside: nothing. She learned from a story that nothing has the greatest power in the world because the circle of the life is originated from the space inside of the seed. She immediately fell in love with this story and insisted sending nothing as the present. Similarly, I think what Yinuo’s workshop gifts us is truly invisible but powerful.

Here, please accept my gift of nothing!