My courageous friend wrote a book called The Dinh Legacy: Transforming Resentment Into Love
If you want to check out the book, click on this here.
These were my favorite passages from the book that most resonated with me.
“Once my mom said yes to buying the business, she created a new future for our family. It became a family business, and we all contributed and worked there for years. After ten years, my parents sold the business. My mom retired, and Dad created a new job for himself.”
“As I spoke to my colleague, I was sure to emphasize how my mom didn’t have any money, never owned a business in the U.S., and how the business was in a high crime area and not safe. Yet, she saw a new future for our family and her doubts and concerns didn’t stop her from fulfilling the future she saw for our family. Van was in awe and remarked, “Wow, your mom is brave.” I realized that Van was right. “Yes, thank you for allowing me to share my mom’s journey of being fearless in the face of such circumstances.” By sharing, it became real and alive for me. Then Van said, “My family is out to create financial abundance, and we have been saving money.” I stated, “It takes being bold in the face of uncertainty, and that’s what my mom did.” After sharing with Van about my mom, I became present to our family: my mom’s trust for me, my trust of my brother, and all of us working together as a team to create financial freedom.”
“She offered amazing advice: “Start with why you’re writing your book.” Later, Why Write This Book? I’m writing this book first because I have this story about myself, even though I’m not a good writer. I had thoughts and talked about it, and I just could not see myself being a writer. Writing this book meant letting go of the view I had about myself and fulfilling a dream. It was a couple of months ago that I created a breakthrough for myself and picked up the phone and reached out to my friend Gloria and allowed her to contribute to me. She got me to write and since then I have been on this wild and adventurous ride of writing my first book ever. It really is a dream come true. I’m having a great time connecting with my mom, dad, aunt, brother, and other people in my life writing this book. All I want is to honor, celebrate, acknowledge and heal my family and for all families to thrive.”
“Next morning, I woke up, looked at my emails, and saw a really long one from Ed. “I’m breaking up with you and here are the conditions for me to consider you to be my girlfriend.” I no longer have that letter. I wish I did as it would have been great to look over after my transformation. I don’t remember exactly what it said, and I remember how awful I felt reading it. At the time, I didn’t see that Ed was committed to me having a great life and for me to see what’s holding me back from having a working relationship with men. At the time, all I could see was he was creating these obstacles for me to jump through. Ed writing me that email was the turning point of my life, and I couldn’t see that at the time. I was trying to talk him out of his request for me to go to a personal development course, so I’m really happy that he stood his ground. It transformed my life.”
“But at that moment, I was completely upset, sad, and heartbroken. I wanted him to take me back as his girlfriend without having to attend a course or fulfill all these other conditions. I was skeptical about the course and didn’t want to do it. I went and asked around and got agreement with friends on how I didn’t need to do anything and that Ed should forgive and take me back as a girlfriend. Of course, this didn’t work with Ed. I finally gave in and registered for the personal development course in Houston, Texas; I was living in Austin at that time and wanted to do an early course. My intention was to get this out of the way and also get back in a relationship with Ed.”
“Suddenly I was in Houston for my three-and-a-half-day course–not sure what I said yes to and nervous about the whole thing. I admit now that Ed was amazing to also put himself in the course with me. I assumed he did that to make sure I didn’t skip out and leave in the middle of the course. Soon enough I was sitting in my chair in the course. There were thoughts in my head, like how I wanted to say something, yet I was too afraid to raise my hand. What if I raised my hand and I messed up? There were about one hundred and twenty people in the course. The person leading the course asked, “Who would like to work with me in an area where you have a persistent complaint, and this complaint has been around for a long time?” I was relieved; I was glad she didn’t just call on people because I wasn’t going to raise my hand. The leader scanned the room to see who to call on to work with her. A woman eventually volunteered. “You come up here and work with me,” said the leader. “What is the area that you have a complaint about?” The woman replied, “I have this complaint with my father that he’s not available, and he doesn’t call me.” “What are you getting out of this complaint with your father?” “What I’m getting out of this is that I get to be right and blame my father for being a jerk and that he doesn’t care.” The leader asked, “What is it costing you by being right?”
“The volunteer replied, “It’s costing me my love and happiness”. Now it was the time for honesty. “You have a choice now. You can keep being right and you will have what you have for being righteous. This is your life. What are you going to choose? Being right or happiness and love?”. The answer was clear. “I choose happiness and love”. “Get on the phone and have a conversation with your dad to clean up the messes with him that you have been making him wrong,” the course leader directed. “Create a new possibility for your relationship.” The woman was grateful as she said, “I will, and thank you.” I was sitting in my chair hanging on to every word of that conversation. Right there, I mapped what the woman shared and matched it with my life. I too have been making my father wrong. All of a sudden, I was back in an incident that started this resentment towards my father. I was at my parents’ home. My mom was furious as she ranted, “Your dad is blah, blah, blah, and I want a divorce. I’m fed up with your dad. I’m at the end of my rope with him.” This resonated with me, and I said to myself, “I agree with my mom that my father is a problem in the family.” I was ten years old. From that point on, I decided to protect my mom and started becoming distant with my father. Anytime that my parents would have heated conversations and arguments, I would defend my mom and would be angry with my father. This would go on for years. I grew further and further away from my father. Conversations with my father would be superficial and business-like.”
“Then another participant added, “Yes, give your dad a call and restore your love for him.” Though I was stubborn and very justified about how wrong my father was, something shifted as people kept asking me to call my father. Next thing I knew, I had stepped outside to get on the phone with my father. “Dad, I’m in a course in Houston, and I have been blaming you for our family not working and I’m done with that. Can you forgive me? I want a loving relationship with you.” He replied, “I have always loved you; since you have this wall up between us, I kept my distance and stopped expressing my love. Can you forgive me?” I said, “I forgive you, Dad.” At that moment, my dad got his daughter back, and I got my father back. As I hung up the phone, I looked up and outside – the tree in front of me seemed so much greener, and I never felt so much joy and peace.”
“I was having lunch with my parents. My mom and dad were an amazing team as they made really healthy and delicious food. I found myself over-eating when I visited them! “When I started school, the teacher would punish me and hit me if I wrote with my left hand. In Vietnam, people considered it wrong to be left-handed and believed that you needed to be corrected. I ended up correcting myself in school to write with my right hand. I don’t agree with how they see that there is something wrong that you are left-handed,” my dad shared. “That’s terrible that you were punished and had to practice writing with your right hand,” I replied. This was something interesting that I discovered about my dad that I never knew about.”
“I opened the door to my room and discovered that Dad and Mom worked together and set up this beautiful space for me to work while I was visiting them. I was reminded that my dad loved me as he fulfilled my requests. I experienced both my parents’ love, and they wanted to make sure I have a great space to work and a great experience while I was here.”
“Dad is now 73 years old and dealing with being diabetic, interrupted sleep, tooth loss, and low energy. I can see that though his body is aging, his spirit is still loving and joyful. He loves to create and build. “Dad, the garden looks great. Everything is so organized and in its place. You and Mom did an amazing job with the gardening this year,” I said. “I used recycled materials to build this entire garden. I had time during this pandemic to upgrade our garden. Your mom and I have been working on the garden together,” Dad said. “I’m innovative and good at coming up with new ideas. I’m also good at the details. I do things slowly and patiently. I’m analytical and can fix and resolve difficult situations.”
“This is who I know my dad to be; he’s so disciplined to practice meditation and find alternative ways to heal his body. He’s a spiritual man and a long-time practitioner of Buddhism. I respect my father and his commitment to living a peaceful and great life.”
“There was actually a point in my life when I had decided that my dad’s family was bad, and they were a problem. Ever since I made this decision, I hadn’t been interested in connecting with them, creating distance with them. My mom said what she said. The relationship between my mom and dad was theirs, and I could create a new future with my dad’s family.”
“Dad said, “You’re very much like your grandmother. She’s fearless and brave. She would go on these food gatherings and catch snakes and really scary places to find food.” Dad was smiling as he shared this, the memories coming alive for him. Seeing my dad’s joy brought me tears of joy and happiness. I started connecting deeper with my father, and together we were healing. I wanted to honor him and show how amazing he was as a man, Navy officer, father, son, brother, and husband.”
“I couldn’t wait to uncover what else there was, especially since the healing didn’t stop with him.”
“By letting go of my resentment with my father, I restored my relationship back with him. From there, we kept deepening our relationship over the years. Just yesterday, I sent my father his favorite snack- nuts gift box. I love my father because he is smart, courageous, generous, and a great contribution; he created the future of our family in the U.S. There is more for me to discover about my parents, and I’m not willing to regret not celebrating them when they are no longer here. I’m celebrating them now.”
“So, Dad, what do you think about Vietnam, and what’s happening now?” “I see that in Vietnam, there is no freedom of speech,” my dad noted. “If you speak out, there will be major consequences. And it’s great to see Vietnam is opening up to the world. People there do good work, so I can see companies will build manufacturers there.”
“As I listened to my dad share, I thought to myself, my boyfriend Ali is very similar to my dad in the sense of being smart, contributing to others in passing their exams and being likable and a leader. This is very interesting.”
“She said, “I don’t know if you’re getting older or your personal development work, and for the first time I get that you really got me. That you got what it is for me to be a mother and love you. I’ve always worried about you living alone, dating different people and moving to different places. I wanted for you to be happy and safe. I know you don’t have kids, so you don’t get a mother’s love for her kids. I’m happy to hear you are getting my love.” I affirmed, “Mom, I love you for being interested in my life, and for caring and loving me. There are parents who don’t care about their kids. And you care.” She acquiesced that very few parents didn’t care and most loved their kids. Then she continued to share, and we ended up speaking for over an hour.”
“Being able to let go brought me to my resentment of the communist government in Vietnam. I was there for vacation and at the airport. I witnessed my mom give the worker money to bribe them to let us pass through security quickly, or else we would have to wait for hours before we could leave the airport. I immediately grew to hate the communist government and saw them as bad. The whole vacation I would gather evidence of how bad and wrong the government was; you can imagine I didn’t enjoy my vacation there. It was painful for me, and all I wanted was to go back home to America. I would resent everything about the Vietnam government for years before I learned to let go.”
“I’m constantly reminding myself what it is to be free from resentment. After letting go of my resentment towards my father and restoring my love back with him, it seems like a domino effect. I’ve restored my love with mom, friends, exes, family members and Vietnam.”
“I have always admired him for being smart, great with people, and compassionate about people. “I love working with your brother. He is available for you, and he’s there when you need him,” his Real Estate Agent once said. “Your brother is so loving, generous and caring,” another family member said. I have not met anyone in my life that would say anything negative about my brother. They all say that he is loving, kind, honest, generous, and great with people. What I want people to know about my brother is that he is a loving and extraordinary son, brother, husband, dad, friend, entrepreneur, and leader. He is amazing at everything he takes on. Writing this, I am present to how blessed I am to have an extraordinary brother. “I want to have a brother like you,” my colleague once told me.”
“Once he got married, we became distant as we went about our individual lives. Even so, I continued to be judgmental and doubt his ability to choose a wife. When I began to do the work in personal development, I saw that I was judging my brother, believing that he was weak and needed my help. The impact of me being an overbearing sister and judgmental was that it created distance between us. All the negative thoughts that I had about my brother were quite the opposite, while in fact my brother knew what he wanted and was very successful at having what he wanted. “I acknowledge you for being an amazing husband and dad,” I said one day. Now I admire him and just love him for being a loving and kind brother to me. Our sibling relationship is now stronger than ever!”
“I will forever thank Ed for his stand for me to go through my transformation. The hundreds and thousands of lives that I made a difference with that all came from his stand for my life. I acknowledge his love and courage. One by one, I contacted my exes and restored my relationship with them. They all are awesome and have contributed to my own personal development.”
“At that moment, I got my friend back, and she got me back. Love was restored. I acknowledge Liana for her love, generosity, and openness. She didn’t have to forgive me, yet she did. Liana later explained to me that if something came up and I couldn’t organize the party anymore all I had to do is to tell her and she would’ve understood. The impact of me not keeping my word and not following through created a rupture in our friendship caused by a break in trust in me. I gave her the impression that I didn’t value our friendship.”
“By cutting corners and complaining, it cost me so much suffering rather than doing the work. I went back, did thorough work, and got peace of mind. I’m mastering catching myself faster when I’m cutting corners so that I could end the suffering.”
“Mastering my humanity and owning up to my mistakes allowed me to be happy with who I am. I’ve learned to listen and not give people advice, recommendations, or coaching unless I’m asked or paid to do so. This practice has deepened my relationship with people.”
“Through my work in transformation, I made a list of everything that I have lied about, where I have not kept my promises, or where I lacked integrity. I went through one item at a time and cleaned up the messes. Doing this work, I restored love with myself and others. This process has allowed me to restore my power in all areas of my life and create a space for me to focus on making a difference.”
“Being righteous is another way that keeps me from living a great life and having a loving relationship. By being responsible when I go into this place of being right about something, I can choose to let this go. I can choose love or peace instead. As I’m writing this book, I’m working on my relationship to jealousy.”
“Ali is so great with me, and we created a safe space in our relationship where I can express my jealousy. As soon as I can express my jealousy, it disappears. I’m continuing to transform myself and take on having working relationships with others.”
“To me, passion comes from an authentic and high-stakes commitment to make a difference. We are alive when there is passion. This can be expressed in our relationships, work, family, communities, and what is most important to us.”
“It was really dangerous and had a low chance of survival. I did it because I wanted more for my family. I wanted to live in a free country,” Mom confided in me. I acknowledge my parents for living life by giving a commitment bigger than themselves.”
“Think BIG When creating your commitment, think big! It should leave you with an experience of being uncomfortable. If you have any thoughts that you have already done this or know you could do this, take a look again.”
“I shared with my ex-boyfriend, Dominic, and told him about my book–this very book! Soon enough, he texted me: “How is your book going?” I thought to myself: Now I’ve put that out in the world, people are holding me accountable! Oh, boy. “I want a copy of your book,” Dominic said. At that moment, I made a vow: Chi – you must make this happen and not quit.”
“I accept the job,” I replied. I created a future just by opening my mouth! Then I spent the next five years being on the most fulfilling, exciting adventure of my life! I had the genuine privilege of making a difference with hundreds and thousands of people. When I said yes, I had no idea I said yes to such an extraordinary life and the difference that I made. My purpose is to empower people to share and create an extraordinary life, and it requires sharing and being in a dialogue. I’m creating being a force to be reckoned with and being in demand and sought after for the difference that I make for people; I want to grow in this capacity.”
“Mom – I love you,” I said. It was the first time I ever said it to her. In our Vietnamese culture, we express our love through action rather than saying it. It’s amazing to express my love to my mom by words and action. I started with my mom then my dad and brother. It wasn’t comfortable for me to share my love with my family verbally, and they were not comfortable hearing it from me for the first time.”
One of the best things that’s ever happened for myself and my mom/sisters is when we started saying I love you to each other. I’m so proud that we have a pretty awesome relationship with my mom now and it wasn’t always that way.
“I will contact each person and restore my word and promises and clean up the messes,” I vowed. I couldn’t recognize myself for saying yes to this!”
“One by one, I started to reach out to each person on my list. Many were really great with me and forgave me. “Many years ago, I stole things from your store and I want to repay for what I have stolen. Can you tell me how I can do this? I apologize for doing this and the impact on your store that I did this,” I said. “I really don’t know what to do here. You can contact our Headquarters,” the Store Manager said. I ended up sending a letter and writing a check to repay what I owed.”
I went through a similar process of cleaning up things in the past and it gave me a tremendous amount of power. I’m happy that I did it even though it was scary to confront things where I knew I left on rocky terms.
“As I started to clean up the broken promises, lies, and messes in my life, I began to know myself as someone who valued my word and my commitment to a life that worked. “This work of transformation is not for the faint of heart,” my coach advised. I completely agree. It took me being in the unknown, uncomfortable, and courageous to reach each person one by one to clean up the messes that I’ve created in my life.”
“I said. “I invite you to come with me to Houston, where there’s a personal development course translated in Vietnamese. Will you go?” My mom said yes though it took a while to have my dad on board. I was jumping up and down when both of my parents said yes. My dream was coming true. “I came to attend this course because of my daughter, Chi. She invited me many times, and I said no. She is standing in the back of the room, and I want to apologize to you for not saying yes right away,” Dad said. “No problem, Dad, you’re here now. Thank you for allowing me to contribute to you,” I replied. “I haven’t been my word as a husband, and I want to apologize for this,” my dad said to my mom. “I promise to create happiness for you and our family.”
“You have apologized many times, but this is the first time your apology is authentic,” Mom said. Looking at my mom, I saw how moved she was by my dad; she even started to cry. I was so happy seeing both of my parents being really great with each other. I was present to their love and generosity for each other. I didn’t know exactly what my parents would get out of participating in the course, so I was beyond happy for them.”
“Before I went through my transformation, I had resentment towards the communist government because of what my family had gone through. Up until I was about 35 years old, I kept my resentment; I wanted to punish the communist government for what they did to my family and others after the Vietnam war. Even though I love my country, I wasn’t looking forward to going back. “We need to pay the people who work here, so they won’t keep us here for hours at the airport,” Mom said. This was when I first went back to visit Vietnam since our family escaped in 1984. When my mom said that, it reminded me that I was no longer in the U.S. I made the communist government wrong at that moment since I saw them as corrupted and bad. My whole trip became about how terrible the communists were since they kept the country poor and slowed economic development. As you’ve probably guessed, my whole trip to Vietnam wasn’t fun or joyful, and I was looking forward to returning to the U.S.”
“Then, I’m reminded that if I could let go of 25 years of resentment with my father, I could do the same with the Vietnamese communist government. I couldn’t make a difference when I hung on to resentment. These two can’t exist in the same space of resentment and contribution. In 2013, I let go of my resentment with the communist government in Vietnam. Once I did, I was open to visiting in 2016. “How do you like your visit here in Vietnam?” my Uncle Cu asked. “I’m loving my time with our family, eating my favorite foods and the beach is beautiful,” I said.”
“The last time I was in Vietnam, I spent time gathering evidence of how bad and wrong the communist government was. The impact of that was I had a terrible time and was exhausted when I got back, and I hadn’t wanted to return. Last time I was in Vietnam was 2016, and it seemed like the country was opening up to the world, expanding export and import. Vietnam was developing fast and embracing capitalism. Unfortunately, even with a fast-developing country, the quality of life was still low; during this pandemic, many didn’t have access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Vietnam still has a long way to go and is far from having a country that works, but it’s a lot better than how it used to be.”
“I’m really thrilled to return to my love and passion. I trust that the universe has my back. *** “We are offering a job in DC and for you to fulfill your commitment to be of service,” said the HR Representative of a personal development company I was working for.”
“It seems to me that when I have my attention on being of service to others and creating a commitment bigger than myself, all the other parts of my life just work. I have less drama or no drama at all. Someone once shared with me that nothing gets lost in the physical universe; every time I can’t find something, I always remind myself of this. Once I’m present, I end up finding what I’m looking for. We are only a few conversations away from having our dreams fulfilled. There are people we know that can be a resource for us to fulfill what we want or know someone who can connect us to others.”
“I was devastated to hear those words and be fired. The job was challenging and I wasn’t getting the work done, so I knew why I was fired. I was at a crossroad as to be great with my boss and the HR Director or be a jerk as I’m being fired. I chose to be great and packed my things and headed home. As I was walking home and had the experience of being a failure. I reminded myself that I took the leap to come to San Francisco to fulfill a dream that I wanted and that I can be proud of that. When I got home, my phone started ringing. “This is Chi,” I said. It was the HR director. “Would you be interested in coming back to work with our VP and turn your performance around?” “Yes, I would love to,” I said. I couldn’t imagine that I could be fired and rehired in the next hour! I was clear that I was being great with everyone and that what had them want to rehire me for another opportunity. “You have one month to turn your performance around,” said the HR director. “I will do it,” I promised. I worked diligently that month to keep my word. “You have met your performance requirements, and we are sending you to New York,” the HR Director said. I was offered an opportunity to be a Program Manager in the New York office, which is one of their biggest offices in the U.S.”
“You have been approved for the penthouse! Congratulations!” After receiving the news that I have been approved to move into my penthouse, this reminded me that my circumstances are my circumstances and to be unstoppable. Miracles do exist! Even now I continue to share this miracle often. This experience reminded me not to settle and there are miracles on the other side, even if that means asking what more I could do. I have to thank multiple friends who coached me; because of them, I have a great life. I’m a miracle magnet! I have my breakthrough, and I empower others to have that kind of breakthrough.”
“I truly see that both my parents were committed to having a better life and a future of living in America. I just can’t imagine how risky, courageous, vulnerable, and crazy that was for them. I know my mom did it multiple times before she succeeded. What courage both my parents had! My parents are a true demonstration of courage. “I wanted freedom and for our family to be together. The choice for me was to escape Vietnam,” my mom said. Both of my parents had commitments that were bigger than themselves. I began to follow my own commitments.”
“I also confessed how I let my fear of being in trouble and thoughts of how I was bad stop me from coming to her. I know my mom would do anything for me and that she loves me. I forgive myself for being afraid of coming to her about my failures. In that conversation, I discovered how amazing, loving, and accepting she was being with me. I felt that I could come to her, and her communication was coming from love. However, it seemed like a mistake at times when it was not. This was just how she expressed her love.”
“There was another time where I was on the phone with my coach. “What’s next for you is to look at your life, and write down all the areas where you have lied, stolen, withheld, and incompleted.” I started to do the work and wrote down everything. However, she threw me for a loop. “I want you to send everything to me.” I was taken aback. “No way, and I’m quitting.” I did quit my participation for a month, miserable the entire time and afraid that I would be found out–found out that I was bad. Then I eventually found my courage, turned myself in, and sent the file to my coach.”
“even in a money course, and I discovered my inauthenticity with money. Money doesn’t solve problems. You have what you have, and you don’t have what you don’t have.”
“As soon as we got back to Da Nang, your dad was arrested and taken to reeducation camp since he served as a navy officer. During this time, I had to provide for both you and your brother. It’s really hard for me to share since it brings back so much pain and those times were really difficult, challenging and I dealt with so much. I couldn’t turn to my family for support since they were also going through challenging times; everyone was also poor and didn’t have much money or resources to share. The country went through a devastating war.”
“I later called my father and heard his side of the story. “I had to swim out to the boat, and it was in the evening about 8 p.m.,” my dad began. “The water was deep and came up to my chin. Your mom, brother, and you could not go with me on this escape. I had to swim quite a distance to get to the boat. It was dark and the current of the ocean was rough.” After hearing what my parents went through, I began to see them as heroes and how courageous they were and still are. Writing this book allowed me to discover more about my parents and became an opportunity to connect deeper with them.”
“I got married at the age of 39, and your grandfather would yell at me for my challenges being married or finding a husband. Now I’m married with two daughters. At one point I didn’t want to live, and my brother, Muoi, encouraged me to keep living. Now I’m free to live. I can appreciate what I have, my health and family.”
“She said, “I have gone through so much, and my experience is that I continue to deal with challenges with my relationship with your father. Since I have practiced and taken on Buddhism, I have let go of my resentment and created peace for myself. The awfulness of escaping from Vietnam, dealing with your father’s family, and coming to America and dealing with my relationship with your father have created so much anxiety and stress in my life. Once I began practicing Buddhism, I have brought peace and happiness to my life.”
“One of the areas that I was constrained was being casual with my word. I would give my word to people, yet I wouldn’t follow through. The impact of me not following through was that people didn’t trust me. My words had no power. “Chi, you would make an appointment to meet and then wouldn’t show up. I couldn’t trust or count on you,” said my friend. It was eye-opening in my transformation, and it opened me up to restoring my trust with my friend. “I apologize I didn’t follow through on my word. I didn’t value integrity then, but I do now,” I said. Integrity matters to me because it’s important to me that my life works and that I have a shot at living a life that works and making a difference.”
“I was always early or on time. I let go of my view that I wasn’t a morning person and created that I was unstoppable. There were definitely days that I didn’t want to get up, yet did so anyway. There were days that I snoozed my alarm many times and got up anyway.”
“As soon as I received my second COVID vaccine shot, I got on the plane to see my parents for three weeks, standing in my commitment that I can have it all work. At the beginning it didn’t work so well since I didn’t communicate with my family about all my commitments, which would sometimes require me to get on Zoom calls. The impact of not communicating were thwarted expectations and upset. Once I realized this, I immediately got in contact with my family; I let them know that I still needed to work while I was visiting them. Once we talked about this, they were understanding and workability started to happen.”
“Also, even when I was going through one of my worst days, no one in my team would know since I would hold it together. I would withhold sharing and being vulnerable with my team; they never knew what I’m dealing with.”
“Joy, thank you for not letting me get away with doing incomplete work or cutting corners. I apologize for being a jerk to you and fighting with you. You’re an amazing coworker. Please forgive me.” She gave me a big hug, and we became close friends after that. It took me cleaning up the mess with her and forgiving me. I acknowledge both of us for being great with each other.”
“By participating in coaching programs, I discovered that I didn’t listen to people, only through my filter where I was judging and waiting for them to stop so I could speak. All this was hidden from my view that I wasn’t listening at all. When people were speaking, I would have all these thoughts going on so I wasn’t present to what they were saying. Also, I was only reacting to what they were saying most of the time. I was rarely heard or listened to.”
“It seems like being listened to is a rare commodity these days. I have many practices when it comes to communication, and I’m seeing which practice is my favorite and powerful to share here. The most powerful communication practice for me to share here is to listen and make sure that whoever you are with, that they are heard. Don’t give them advice, recommendations, or coaching unless they ask for it.”
This definitely cuts deeply, so many of us have been guilty of giving unsolicited advice. Working for companies such as LinkedIn and TriNet I have been fortunate to receive so much feedback sometimes when I don’t feel like it but I know its done in good taste because it will make you a better person but with our friends we often should ask them, would you want me feedback on this? Instead of assuming that’s what they need. Sometimes, people just want to be listened to especially with your spouse 😛
“For example, there was a time when my mom was upset with my dad about something I can’t remember. However, I knew that she just wanted to be heard. I listened to her and gave her space to communicate. I didn’t coach, recommend, advise, fix, or change anything about my mom. This seemed to be just what she needed. “Thank you for listening to me; you are amazing,” Mom said.”
“I was exhausted when I was working on my own and doing everything. It was just crazy that I did that without a team!”
“What I’ve discovered in my personal development work is that I don’t trust men. As a result, I lose sleep because I was always listening for anything he could’ve been hiding. I felt like I had to protect myself. The impact on Ali was that he’s up late with me and losing sleep too because he was frustrated with me.”
“Before I went through my transformation work, I would avoid going on vacation with my family. I dreaded them because I resented my father and avoided being around my mother. I would judge my parents when they would argue and fight. My vacation would then become about judging my parents with how they should be and how I knew better. I also avoided being dominated by my mom. She would tell me to take care of my health, exercise, and eat healthy. All the things that a mother who loves their kids would do, yet I resented her for doing that. This created distance between me and my mom.”
“Let’s have a family trip to Florida to be on the beach and visit our family, too,” Mom said. “Ok,” I said with little excitement. I said yes because I felt like it was my duty and the right thing to do. It wasn’t coming from genuinely wanting to spend time with my parents.”
“It’s really magical when we live from a commitment bigger than ourselves. After all, the universe has our back when our attention is on serving others and fulfilling a big commitment. This is what I discovered living from a commitment.”
“It is so incredible that I can listen and understand how massive my mom’s love is for her family and for people. I really do not have words for my mom’s capacity to love and forgive. She was tortured and beaten by the communist government and even family members, but she still forgave them and later supported and contributed to them.”
“Miracles For the longest time, the word miracle wasn’t present in my life. It was all about surviving and making it in life. I was suffering rather than being present to miracles.”
“One of the things I discovered through my transformation was that I stopped honoring and being Vietnamese. What I mean by this was that I wanted to be like my new home, so I did everything to assimilate into American culture and let go of many of my Vietnamese traditions. I wasn’t proud of being Vietnamese. To me, being Vietnamese was being a minority. I dealt with being liked and fitting in quite a bit moving to America. I lost who I was authentically as a Vietnamese woman. During my work in transformation, I discovered that I haven’t been honoring myself and culture. Once I discovered this, I embraced being myself and celebrated my ethnicity as Vietnamese. I’m really proud that I was born in Vietnam. Vietnamese food is my favorite. I have been doing work with a team to bring transformation work to Vietnam.”
I’ve been guilty of this myself being Vietnamese and comparing myself to others when I was younger I was always envious how could other families had so much more money and resources. Now that I am older, I have the context of having one of the best work ethics because I grew up with limited resources I’m much more grateful and aware of the privileges I’m presented with today.
“This is what it looks like for me to upgrade my effectiveness and success as a powerful and loving partner in a relationship. I have to say that I have gone on about 50 dates and have been in over thirteen relationships to practice. It seemed like this is what it took. I made myself wrong quite a bit throughout the journey and now I know what it looks like when it is working.”
“How many of you love to be of service to others? How many of you avoid asking for support from others? For me, I love to contribute to others, yet I avoid asking others to contribute to me. I have to practice allowing others to contribute to me. I have this thought that people don’t want to contribute to me, and this puts me in the victim circumstance and that I don’t have to be responsible for creating a team and teamwork with others. I practice noticing when I’m avoiding or resisting being contributed to and then create fearlessness.”
“It seems like I had been on at least 100 dates before I met Ali. I heard someone say to me that she went on 100 dates before she met her husband, and I thought that was a lot of work at the time. Now the journey and adventure has been absolutely worth it for me.”
“Soon, I let go of resentment towards my exes and took responsibility for all the messes that I’ve created in the relationships. It took being forgiving, fearless, and loving for me to let go of resentment with all these men in my life.”
“As I’m sharing about Ali, what I love about him is that he’s committed. I’ve done twenty-one live Facebook coaching sessions where he was right there with me every session. Who does this? Ali! Partnership in action. He loves seeing me in action and making a difference with people.”
Overall, what a wonderful book about vulnerability, courage, healing, and transformation. It takes a lot of work to write about these things so openly for the public to be with all of that is incredible. I’m grateful for our friendship.
