Hellooo after a long hiatus of holidays, family, and celebration!!
Over the weekend, one of my best friends sent me an article from The New York Times called, "To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This", with the teaser: "What happens if you decide that falling in love is not something that happens to you, but something that you do?" The author talks about her own experience testing out what happened in a lab when psychologists tried to make complete strangers fall in love (the answer: be prepared for weddings!)
The study is fascinating in and of itself -- essentially consisting of 36 questions designed to do for intimacy what the boiling water does to the frog: you don't realize you're being intimate with a complete stranger until you're already well past that line (link to these 36 questions here).
But for me, what's even more interesting is the element of choice in an area that we presume "happens" to us, like falling in love. The NYT article ends with: "Love didn't happen to us. We're in love because we each made the choice to be."
When I started meditating seven years ago, a big "a-ha" for me was this concept of choosing to be happy (not that this is a lesson that I learned once and had it stick; here's my current phone wall paper:
To me, this was about having the agency and making the choice to be happy / grateful / joyful, regardless of the external circumstances. It's about purposefully choosing our own internal world.
But what I started thinking about since the new year is: what if this internal world actually influences and changes our external world? Amy Cuddy, an HBS professor, talks about this in her TED Talk, "Your body language shapes who you are". In this talk (which is one of my favorites), she talks about the interplay of external and internal perceptions -- using one's body language as a type of cognitive "short-cut" to not only have external people view you as more confident, but for you to also feel more confident as a result (what I like is that it's really less about confidence, though that's certainly part of it -- but about making you be more you by stripping out all the fears and doubts; author and coach Tara Mohr has a great new post on this here called "The Confidence Myth and What it Means for Your Career").
So let me explain what happened to me. On December 20th, I left for the Philippines to meet my parents and family for the holidays. The weeks leading up to that were among my worst weeks here in Korea (which is likely why I wasn't posting quite as much). One of many un-written posts swirling in my head but never quite making its way on the page (which I may resurrect in the new year) was around not feeling at home anywhere -- not in the US when I came back for a short work trip; not in Korea when I came back here. Every day seemed like a small battle, with strangers shoving and pushing me on the subway (sometimes involving elbows and most always involving old women, called "ajummas"). While I was connected to plenty of people through facebook and kakao (which is what everyone uses to text here), I felt like I had few friends and certainly no community.
I returned to Seoul on January 2nd (in time to meet Giselle here on January 3rd!). The ten days since being back have been the polar opposite of the weeks leading up to vacation. It's a bit like the Matrix in some ways. Same place, but somehow it's now been flipped upside-down. Or maybe I have. Starting at the airport (which I raged about on both my trips from India and the US in the fall/winter), everyone was so incredibly nice and everything was just working. When I went to my usual pho lunch place to pick up some takeout, as I was leaving, they ran to my bag and placed my favorite shrimp spring rolls -- just 'cause (I hadn't ordered them this time). Even though I'm now overly cautious on the subway given my new camera -- oops, I mean i-phone -- no one has pushed me. In fact, the ajummas now beckon me to sit down in the seats reserved for them! In transferring all of my kakao contacts from my old phone to my new phone, I realize that I have a ton of friends -- multiples more than in India and some who I feel incredibly close to already.
Sure, this could very well be that I'm still on a high from an incredible trip to the Philippines or that one of my very best friends came to visit for four days or that the city is in a great mood from new years. AND it might also just be that what's inside all of us reflects back to us externally like a mirror. If I'm feeling angry and angsty inside, that's sure to be reflected externally. Something happened during my trip that was like a switch. I chose to (re)-claim my happiness and joy and gratitude, and like the universe winking, it's now reflecting back onto me.
I decided not to make resolutions this New Years. It's the type of thing that generally makes me stressed in the new year ("what's the perfect resolution??") and stressed at the end of the year ("I have one month to accomplish this!!"). One of my mentors establishes three goals (including professional and personal) every year, and she's one of the most successful, inspiring people I know. So perhaps I'll go back to that next year.
But for now, what I've done instead is choose a theme. 2015 is the year of creating. It's the year of purposefully creating what I want in my life, both personally and professionally. Just like the NYT article, it's about getting beyond the thought of things/events just happening (forming a community, starting a family, launching a business) and deliberately choosing to create the life I want to live -- not in three years when we leave Korea, but right now, just where we are right here.
And you know what? I have a feeling this approach of creation and creativity will be a lot more fun as well. After all, Einstein knows what he's talking about.
Over the weekend, one of my best friends sent me an article from The New York Times called, "To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This", with the teaser: "What happens if you decide that falling in love is not something that happens to you, but something that you do?" The author talks about her own experience testing out what happened in a lab when psychologists tried to make complete strangers fall in love (the answer: be prepared for weddings!)
The study is fascinating in and of itself -- essentially consisting of 36 questions designed to do for intimacy what the boiling water does to the frog: you don't realize you're being intimate with a complete stranger until you're already well past that line (link to these 36 questions here).
But for me, what's even more interesting is the element of choice in an area that we presume "happens" to us, like falling in love. The NYT article ends with: "Love didn't happen to us. We're in love because we each made the choice to be."
When I started meditating seven years ago, a big "a-ha" for me was this concept of choosing to be happy (not that this is a lesson that I learned once and had it stick; here's my current phone wall paper:
To me, this was about having the agency and making the choice to be happy / grateful / joyful, regardless of the external circumstances. It's about purposefully choosing our own internal world.
But what I started thinking about since the new year is: what if this internal world actually influences and changes our external world? Amy Cuddy, an HBS professor, talks about this in her TED Talk, "Your body language shapes who you are". In this talk (which is one of my favorites), she talks about the interplay of external and internal perceptions -- using one's body language as a type of cognitive "short-cut" to not only have external people view you as more confident, but for you to also feel more confident as a result (what I like is that it's really less about confidence, though that's certainly part of it -- but about making you be more you by stripping out all the fears and doubts; author and coach Tara Mohr has a great new post on this here called "The Confidence Myth and What it Means for Your Career").
So let me explain what happened to me. On December 20th, I left for the Philippines to meet my parents and family for the holidays. The weeks leading up to that were among my worst weeks here in Korea (which is likely why I wasn't posting quite as much). One of many un-written posts swirling in my head but never quite making its way on the page (which I may resurrect in the new year) was around not feeling at home anywhere -- not in the US when I came back for a short work trip; not in Korea when I came back here. Every day seemed like a small battle, with strangers shoving and pushing me on the subway (sometimes involving elbows and most always involving old women, called "ajummas"). While I was connected to plenty of people through facebook and kakao (which is what everyone uses to text here), I felt like I had few friends and certainly no community.
I returned to Seoul on January 2nd (in time to meet Giselle here on January 3rd!). The ten days since being back have been the polar opposite of the weeks leading up to vacation. It's a bit like the Matrix in some ways. Same place, but somehow it's now been flipped upside-down. Or maybe I have. Starting at the airport (which I raged about on both my trips from India and the US in the fall/winter), everyone was so incredibly nice and everything was just working. When I went to my usual pho lunch place to pick up some takeout, as I was leaving, they ran to my bag and placed my favorite shrimp spring rolls -- just 'cause (I hadn't ordered them this time). Even though I'm now overly cautious on the subway given my new camera -- oops, I mean i-phone -- no one has pushed me. In fact, the ajummas now beckon me to sit down in the seats reserved for them! In transferring all of my kakao contacts from my old phone to my new phone, I realize that I have a ton of friends -- multiples more than in India and some who I feel incredibly close to already.
Sure, this could very well be that I'm still on a high from an incredible trip to the Philippines or that one of my very best friends came to visit for four days or that the city is in a great mood from new years. AND it might also just be that what's inside all of us reflects back to us externally like a mirror. If I'm feeling angry and angsty inside, that's sure to be reflected externally. Something happened during my trip that was like a switch. I chose to (re)-claim my happiness and joy and gratitude, and like the universe winking, it's now reflecting back onto me.
I decided not to make resolutions this New Years. It's the type of thing that generally makes me stressed in the new year ("what's the perfect resolution??") and stressed at the end of the year ("I have one month to accomplish this!!"). One of my mentors establishes three goals (including professional and personal) every year, and she's one of the most successful, inspiring people I know. So perhaps I'll go back to that next year.
But for now, what I've done instead is choose a theme. 2015 is the year of creating. It's the year of purposefully creating what I want in my life, both personally and professionally. Just like the NYT article, it's about getting beyond the thought of things/events just happening (forming a community, starting a family, launching a business) and deliberately choosing to create the life I want to live -- not in three years when we leave Korea, but right now, just where we are right here.
And you know what? I have a feeling this approach of creation and creativity will be a lot more fun as well. After all, Einstein knows what he's talking about.
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