What if you don't have the words?
Guest podcast interview; new course BUS 88; short essay reflecting on parents and language
Things I’ve launched:
First ever guest podcast | Sometime last year, I did my first ever podcast interview with a childhood friend who is a licensed therapist and coach, for his new podcast, “The Art and Science of Difficult Conversations”!
The episode featuring me went live last Tuesday - check it out here or or wherever you listen to podcasts!
I talk about my family of origin, the dynamics that led me to seek out better approaches to big emotions, and a few tips on how to have better conflict. If you listen, let me know what you think!
New course | I’m about to launch my second class this Thursday for Stanford’s Continuing Studies program, on feedback and goalsetting for teams! Read more or sign up here!
Quick ask: Can you like/share/repost this LinkedIn post about the class? Or share it with someone you think could benefit from a structured class on feedback and goal-setting? Thank you!
Things I’m working on
There’s a lot. Genuinely, there’s way too much to list and there’s a separate essay on how my childhood aspiration to be valedictorian has probably shaped my ability (and addiction) to juggle many plates simultaneously…
Things I’m thinking about
I’m working on a much longer essay reflecting on being the child of immigrants, but for now, a short snippet on language and self-expression.
What if you don’t have the words?
Around the same time I started learning French last year, I was teaching my class on mindful management, and in module one, I teach them about the feelings wheel. We start in the center with the basic feelings - angry, sad, happy, disgusted, bad, fearful, surprised - and then I encourage them to push themselves to the outward edge of the circle to get more specific in their descriptor for their feelings.
There’s something powerful about being able to name your feelings with specificity; being able to say, “I’m frustrated” versus “I’m upset”.
Or, if you’re a language nerd like me, being able to say “I’m incensed” instead of “I’m mad.”
And suddenly, I’m thinking about my dad -
My dad, who won an essay-writing contest in junior high in Taiwan.
My dad, from whom I get my poetic and writing instincts.
My dad, who worked blue collar jobs for most of my childhood and adulthood.
I’m wondering, when would my dad have learned or been exposed to someone using feeling words like, “dismayed” or “disillusioned”, “ridiculed” or “infuriated”, “horrified” or “perplexed” in English?
At the gas station? At the Chinese restaurant that flopped? While showing people houses around Long Island? On the night time shift for the US Postal service, sorting mail in bulk boxes?
What happens if you don’t have the words to describe your internal state?
Just “good”, “bad”, “angry”, “sad”.
And as a 38 year old, I realize for the first time that maybe, part of the emotional “stuntedness” I see in my parents isn’t a lack of feeling or capacity, but a lack of words to describe their inner reality.
I think about how few emotion words I know in Chinese.
And I feel ashamed and grieved.
That I don’t know more Chinese; that my dad likely had big feelings that he couldn’t express in English and didn’t have close friends who spoke Chinese that he could share these emotions with.
120 days into learning French on Duolingo and my entire emotional vocabulary in French is three words: contente, amusante, gentille.
I don’t even know the word for angry or sad yet.
I can order water in a glass (or coffee in a cup), say that I’m American, and that there are cats in the garden, but I cannot express a person’s state of being (much less my own) beyond “happy”, “funny” and “nice”.
What would my life be like if I couldn’t express my emotions with words?
—
Part of the trauma of immigration is the truncation of my parents’ emotional development in relation to their own parents.
My parents immigrated in their mid-twenties, and the exorbitant cost of phone calls and plane flights back (in the 70s, 80s and 90s) meant that my parents grew up and parented us without the benefit of their parents.
While immigration is the expanding of economic opportunity and many possible new lifelines, it’s also the severing, the truncation, the grief of losing a community of adults and older adults who have lived more years that you; who have words for the feelings and the complex journey of adulthood.
There’s more to this essay - stay tuned!
Things I’m reading/listening/doing:
Listening | I’ve listened to a bunch of books on Audible recently. Of the 4, I’d recommend Will Smith’s for universal entertainment value (The first chapter is slowest and it picks up from there.) and Indistractable because we could all use someone inviting us to be more present and less distracted!
Will Smith’s memoir (would recommend!)
Jada Pinkett Smith’s memoir (good but I preferred Will’s memoir)
Kevin Hart’s “Monsters and How to Tame Them” (relatable, moderately entertaining)
Indistractable by Nir Eyal (would recommend!)
Random Factoid | https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/15/us/antique-dress-maine-encrypted-message-cec/index.html
Doing | I’ve been thinking about getting better at specific things over the span of decades (vs my usual quarterly/yearly goals), and so I’ve started cello and French! I’ve loved the timbre of the cello from childhood, but the switching costs from violin was too high! (and being petite, lugging around a cello daily seemed like a waster of energy) And being goal-oriented, I’m currently addicted to maintaining my 125+day streak of daily Duolingo practice!