Healing Asian American Trauma with Soo Jin Lee

Jennifer Norman:
Today, I have the privilege of speaking with a remarkable woman whose work in the mental health and Asian American community is absolutely game changing. My guest is Soo Jin Lee, co director of the Yellow Chair Collective, a healing space dedicated to helping individuals address trauma and reclaim their identities. Soojin co authored the powerful book Where I Belong: Healing Trauma and Embracing Asian American Identity. In this episode, we'll dive into her insights on trauma and the importance of embracing one's Asian American identity in a world that often marginalizes it. Soo Jin is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with years of experience supporting individuals in their journey of emotional healing. As as the co-director of Yellow Chair Collective, she's deeply committed to addressing mental health within the Asian American community. Soo Jin combines therapeutic expertise with a deep passion for helping people heal and reclaim their voices. Through her work and the book Where I Belong, Soo Jin is giving voice to those who have often been silenced and she offers tools to help them heal.

Jennifer Norman:
This episode will be an enlightening conversation about about the intersection of culture, identity and emotional healing with practical advice for anyone navigating their own healing journey. As always, this episode is not intended as a substitute for professional therapy or medical advice. Please consult a licensed mental health professional for personalized support. So let's dive in and discover how healing can lead to a deeper sense of belonging and a more empowered, authentic life. Welcome to the show, Soo Jin.

Soo Jin Lee:
Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Jennifer Norman:
Now it is such a pleasure to have you on the show. First of all, can you share a bit about your personal journey and what inspired you to focus specifically on trauma healing within the Asian American community?

Soo Jin Lee:
Yeah, I really feel like the subject found me more than me founding it. I come from a lens of being an immigrant myself. I identify as a 1.5 generation Korean immigrant Korean American, which means that I came to the States when I was very young with my family. I came to the States with my parents and my younger brother. The four of us, we settled in LA, in the Koreatown area. And at the time, even between within, yeah, even within the Korean American identities, there was so many polarizations around if I am Korean from Korea or if I'm a Korean that was born in America. And that identity struggle was really real.

Soo Jin Lee:
And so I've always had a difficult figuring out what that really means for me to identify myself as a Korean American. And then in the context, wider context of being an Asian American and identifying myself as one too, I've always felt like how come I am being grouped with folks that I really don't have A lot of similar interests with. They may look similar to me in terms of skin color per se, but that they don't share the language or culture. I don't understand some of the things that they refer to in the beliefs that they have either. And so coming to terms with what it means to be Asian American has always weighed on my mind now as an adult and after I became a therapist, I quickly realized that the world of psychology comes from a very white lens. Now, if you think about psychology, the first person that most people have in their mind is Freud, who is the father of psychology. So it comes from a very, very white lens where mind and body are separated. And so we want to think about psychology as an internal dialogue which has nothing to do with our bodily well being, really.

Soo Jin Lee:
However, I realized that through conversations with my mom and our community members, there's so many ways in which our practice of bodily wellness and traditional medicine has a lot of impact on our mental health. And so I wanted to have those kind of conversations with people in the world of psychology. And it was very stigmatized. It was also very much put down upon because in the world of psychology, they wanted to be a medical model.

Jennifer Norman:
Right.

Soo Jin Lee:
And that means that you have to have what's called like an evidence based practice. And now there is plenty of evidence based practices where mindfulness practices and all of these that has always existed in our culture is integrated into the well beings of mental health. But when I was studying at the time, it really was not. And so we wanted to combine all of these different types of practices in a way that makes sense for our identity.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow. And so I think based upon your own personal experience, it just felt so right for you to maybe integrate that into your own sense of healing and purpose and then also present it to other people who were going through similar feelings and emotions in perhaps feeling that their minds and their bodies were separated due to the way that society had pretty much conditioned us, and then find a place for them to say yes. Oh my gosh, this feels so right because of the way that I was culturally brought up in an environment which may not necessarily reflect who I am.

Soo Jin Lee:
Yeah, absolutely. And then the other portion that is so important to us is community care. And so for us to really adapt that, community care means that we're gathering people together as a way of finding healing. And so things like cooking together, eating together, all of those are actual sources of healing for our mental and emotional well being. But we don't really think about that in the world of psychology. Right. We think about Sitting in an office with a therapist and just talking our feelings out, which those are very, very important and diagnosis is really important. All of those treatments is very important.

Soo Jin Lee:
However, it's not the only solution and it can't be the only solution for mental well being.

Jennifer Norman:
It seems that yours is more of an integrated approach where it's more how do we build in a healthy lifestyle, a cultural community of socialization as well as these trad that we hold true and sacred and really respect and honor the whole person and how they they are showing up in the world.

Soo Jin Lee:
Absolutely. How do we honor ourselves is one of the biggest elements of us figuring out our identity.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, I wanted to hark back on my own personal story. Obviously people who know me know that I am also Asian American. I am 100% Korean. I have a very different story from Soo Jin in that I was adopted at the age of two. So I was brought up in a white household in a white community with very few elements of Asian American culture in my life. I think that the only thing that I can probably remember when I was young is going to a local Chinese restaurant every now and again.

Jennifer Norman:
That might have been the only way that I had gotten any kind of Asian American culture. And talk about not really understanding why I didn't feel like I belonged, why I didn't fit in and like I felt like a fish out of water. I felt like I was being brought up in a society, society where people just didn't understand what I was going through. I didn't know how to express it as a young person. And it led to me feeling like I was supposed to be a certain way, but I could never feel like that was really natural for me. And so it ended up where I went through decades of feeling like this internal turmoil, like I was fighting myself. And it actually led to quite a lot of self loathing where I didn't like though I was ashamed of my looks, I was ashamed of who I was and how I was. And I just felt like no matter where I was, I was uncomfortable, I was insecure and feeling just that I had no confidence at all.

Jennifer Norman:
And so then I learned a very, I would probably say as like an a young adult how to fake it till I made it. And I went and got the MBA, I did all the things, I became an overachiever, a perfectionist. And I really tried to like fight my way and claw into my way of feeling like I could be validated and have success. And many of you on this podcast who are listening know my story and that it just led to this massive crash where I just had this big divide. It led to depression, it led to a whole lot of relationship issues and ultimately it took a lot of work for me to finally be okay with myself. Yeah, it took years and years, like way into adulthood for myself to finally say, you know what, I love how I'm showing up. I love me. I actually really enjoy my own company and getting to know myself and to honor and respect everything that I am and how I'm showing up in the world.

Jennifer Norman:
And then choosing how to manifest from a place of love rather than a place of hate and self loathing.

Soo Jin Lee:
Good.

Jennifer Norman:
It's such a different experience going through life where you are just feeling like every day is a fight and a struggle versus flowing and feeling natural and feeling open and curious and welcoming of what the world has to offer.

Soo Jin Lee:
Absolutely, yeah.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

Soo Jin Lee:
Like you mentioned, when we're fighting with ourselves, there's so many ways and we're just in that survival mode and trying to live the day to day, try to survive through the day to day. And there is no room for what you had mentioned about curiosity, about creativity, about things that we could actually enjoy in life. Right. And so then we get into this pattern of just fighting over and over again and then it results into so many things that you have mentioned and you have experienced in your own life too, like depression and anxiety. So many of us suffer internally with so much high functioning anxiety, is what we call it, where in the external world it seems like everything is perfectly good. We're like perfectionist, we're putting ourselves to the highest standards of things and that is being praised and rewarded in the workplace even. Right.

Soo Jin Lee:
And so that cycle goes on and on and on where we're fighting within ourselves, but then in the external world that is being rewarded. So then I'm also more confused about how we should behave and how we should navigate the world. And those are the questions that a lot of young people are coming up with nowadays.

Jennifer Norman:
Let's talk about the intergenerational aspects of the Asian American experience, let's call it. And I can imagine to your point of feeling like you've been brought up, you come into a new culture for a new life, a new opportunity, and a whole lot of hope these days that is really being dismantled. Absolutely. Oh boy, oh boy. And I can imagine the great divide that people have trying to cling on to their culture and yet seeing that it is continuously now being alienated and vilified and people feeling even more othered than ever before. What are you seeing?

Soo Jin Lee:
Yeah, exactly what you had mentioned. It's our experiences feel like our world is getting smaller and smaller. Right. People are feeling threatened with their identity because that is explicitly being told now that you do not belong. And whereas we had already internalized so many Asian Americans and so many immigrant families have already internalized that narrative from the get go. Whether you were born here or whether you're an immigrant. Right. Whatever the status is, you know, if you do not look in a certain way in America, it seems that you already feel like you're a perpetual foreigner.

Soo Jin Lee:
And so that narrative has lived with us through generations, and now it's being more explicitly told that we do not belong here. And so that that sense of belonging is being pulled. And that creates so much anxiety, that creates so much fear.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

Soo Jin Lee:
When you feel like you don't have a home, when you feel like your home is also telling you that this isn't your home, then how are you supposed to deal with that?

Jennifer Norman:
And not only that, I think that it's a part of certain Asian American cultures where if you feel stress or pressure or any kinds of impingement on your mental health, it's not necessarily the right thing to talk overtly about it. It's pretty much stigmatized. Like, you know, just kind of buckle up, things are okay. And I can imagine the conflict and the constriction that people feel when things are getting worse. They feel so much more pressure and anxiety and stress, but they don't know who to or how to talk about it.

Soo Jin Lee:
Yeah, absolutely. We see so much of, especially the older generation, they really have lived through so much. A lot of them through displacement, war, refugees. They've gone through a lot and to get to where they are today. And they have had to internalize everything. They have had to fight through everything and not externalize any of their emotions. They saw mental and emotional expression as a weakness.

Soo Jin Lee:
And so those narratives have also been passed down through generations, too. Now we see a lot of young folks feeling like they can't also express themselves fully. There's also, because the previous generation has lived through so much displacement and war and violence, and that because they know that context in which that they have grown up, the younger generation tends to also internalize their narrative and dismiss their emotions because they compare it to the previous generations. Right.

Soo Jin Lee:
They'll often. I hear the words, like, but I don't deserve to. Like, I don't deserve to be sad, or I don't think I should be sad at all. This isn't a sad situation in comparison to what my parents have lived through. This shouldn't be a traumatic situation. What trauma looks like is the violence that my parents have gone through. And so they tend to dismiss a lot of their emotions.

Jennifer Norman:
So how do you see the trauma showing up in, like, what is like a natural state of what, I don't even know if there's such a thing as natural, but, like, how are people feeling? How are people manifesting what this suffering looks like now? What are you seeing?

Soo Jin Lee:
Yeah, so I talked a little bit about the mind, body connection, and that's really important for us to recognize. And we have this in our book, the Four Fs. And this is very basic, basic way of categorizing all our reactions to trauma. Of course, there's plenty more out there, but just basics. What we can think about is the fight, flight and freeze. That's the three that most people are aware of. The fourth one that people aren't very familiar with is called fawning. That's why it's the four Fs.

Soo Jin Lee:
And for a lot of Asian Americans, I see that fawning is one of the biggest response to trauma, actually. So fawning is where you, exactly what you had mentioned, Jennifer, when you were in this state of, like, trauma, traumatic and anxious and depressive moods that you were pretending you were faking it until you were making it. And that is exactly the response of fawning is we pretend we do anything to please, people please, and we please the situation to ease whatever situation it is so that we can just move on through the day, move on through the relationships, move on through life, essentially. And so people pleasing is one of the big things that we suffer as Asian Americans.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, it's true. I think that people think of us as like a submissive type of society, of just being very subservient and helpful and caregiving and all of those things. But the tendency can be to deplete ourselves because we give so much and we forget to take care of our ourselves. And as a matter of fact, we think it's almost holy if we don't take care of ourselves. And if we martyr ourselves for another, it's part and parcel of religion and just being of service in general is that I'm always going to think of somebody else before I ever think of myself. And that is, you know, seems like it's something sacred. Whereas if you continue to do that too much, then what are you left with? You're completely empty and depleted.

Soo Jin Lee:
Yeah, exactly. We really don't know how to have an identity outside of taking care of other people very often times.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes. So let's talk a bit more about your book, because it does go into Asian American identity, and this is not necessarily just for Asian Americans. It really is something, I think, that a lot of other cultures can really understand because there are a lot of very broad stroke themes here. However, certainly your work does really have a beautiful emphasis on the Asian American culture. Tell us about your book, why you wrote it, and then some of the things that people can expect in it.

Soo Jin Lee:
Yeah, absolutely. So the book is called Where I Belong: Healing Trauma and Embracing Asian American Identity. And we have centered the voices of Asian American experiences of all different backgrounds. And so we have this broad stroke of a term, Asian American, and people have really grouped us together in a way that is so stereotypical. And we wanted to destigmatize that. Right. Demystify that and really diversify all of the different experiences and understand how all of these different diverse experiences are also coming together in a way that we're fighting this intergenerational trauma. Pieces, like I had mentioned, we come from a lot of Asian countries, come from war and displacement and so, and living in the predominantly white communities and cultures and trying to adapt to that.

Soo Jin Lee:
There's a lot of historical context in which that shapes our narrative about who we are and how we have internalized that. And so we bring you the book as a resource to put context into better understanding about our identity, but also to go through the healing journey of what it means to carry this intergenerational trauma. What do I do about it? How do I understand it? How do I move on from it? How do I build new narratives around it? How do I commit to having more community care? And so the book comprises of multiple things. One is storytelling. Storytelling is so important to us and being able to hear our own selves and be reflected of our own stories amongst other people's stories. And then the second part has the psycho education and so putting the context and words into our experiences. And then the third has the actual grounding exercises and journaling prompts so that you can actually go through the journey of healing.

Jennifer Norman:
That's beautiful. It seems that there are a lot of Eastern practices that are actually filtering into Western culture. You know, when you talk about breath work or yoga or meditation, a lot of these have pretty much been from the East. And so I think that maybe like a typical American might think that Asians are much more Zen, much more subdued, and really have a little bit more peacefulness and harmony to themselves. Is that just a myth as well?

Soo Jin Lee:
Well, I would say it is because we all carry our own personalities. Each individual one of us carry our own personalities. We each carry our own stories. We each carry our own trauma and healing. And the way in which we find that healing process can integrate more Zenness. And whether you're Asian or not, I think that's always a very helpful way to find our healing.

Jennifer Norman:
It's so true.

Jennifer Norman:
And a lot..a big part of your book is about food, as I hear it. Tell us about food. What's so important about food?

Soo Jin Lee:
Food in the Asian American culture, food is so important to us and everyone listening. You can all think of, like, your favorite food or moments in life. You have shared memories, and most of the times they involve sharing a meal with somebody else. They bring so much comfort for us. You know, when I think about my mom's recipes, they just bring so much joy in my life and so recovering part of our identity.

Soo Jin Lee:
Healing has a lot to do with reconnecting the things that bring us comfort and food brings us comfort. It literally fills us physically. Right. And it has an impact emotionally and mentally as we're filling ourselves.

Jennifer Norman:
And I think to that end, because food is very emotional, then you start thinking about people who consume. They're trying to fill a void, and they'll do it with food when there's really an emotional issue that they might be trying to soothe underneath that. And so really kind of understanding how we are soothing ourselves and getting past or having a coping mechanism, as it were, for stresses that we might feel.

Soo Jin Lee:
Absolutely. So for any kind of coping mechanism, we want to be intentional. And food is another one. Any kind of addictions can be also a sort of a coping mechanism for people. Right. However, if you're intentional about the way in which it is helpful and harmful to our bodies and minds, then you will know and you will know that that is a better coping mechanism or not for yourself.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes.

Soo Jin Lee:
Yes.

Jennifer Norman:
So aside from food and coming back to comfort, what are some other practical things that people might look to if they're going through a hard time, if they're feeling a bit of stress, if they're just overwhelmed? What are some things that you might say would be helpful for them to maybe start or incorporate into their routines?

Soo Jin Lee:
Absolutely. The first primary thing. And this is gonna be like, what. It's so easy. But the first and primary thing is going back to, like, what our body's needs are. What our body's needs are really basic. Am I being hydrated? So am I drinking enough water? Am I filling ourselves right with intentional food that is actually nutritious for my body? And so what is my diet looking like? And then am I getting enough sleep? Right. And what kind of quality of sleep am I receiving? Are the very primal, right.

Soo Jin Lee:
Basic needs that we want to assess ourselves for. Because those, all of those things, it seems so basic, but they impact our mood on a day to day basis. And so you want to assess for those first. And then once you have those routines back on track, then I would say start your day with a very quick affirmation, mindfulness activity. Because that brings you back to the other basic thing that we don't think about very often is how am I breathing? It's the most needed thing in our human survival is breath. And if we could just breathe through the morning for just one minute, just one minute practice of mindful breathing will rewire your brain for the rest of the day for you to be able to have space and capacity in your brain to receive more information, more curiosity, more creativity.

Jennifer Norman:
Beautiful. How does one go about mindful breathing if they're not familiar with how to do that?

Soo Jin Lee:
So mindful breathing exercise. And I can teach you one that is very easy to do. It's called square breathing and one that we also introduce in our book as well. And so imagine in your head that you're making this little square, right? And so you can also follow and make this square with your finger in the air as well. It's this imaginary square in each side of the square. You're counting to four as you're drawing it. And as you count to four, you breathe in. As you count to four, you hold.

Soo Jin Lee:
As you count to four, you breathe out. And as you count to four. And so it's a repetition of this cycle of breathing in, holding, breathing out, holding. And you keep doing that. And what your brain is doing is it's refocusing from all the different mess that is going on inside of our head about what am I going to eat, what am I going to make today, what are we going to do today, what is all the work, the list and the list, right. That is inside of our head. Instead, it is refocusing on the most primal thing, which is breathing.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, that's beautiful. For people who are listening today, especially Asian Americans who might be struggling with their own trauma or their cultural identity, what kind of advice would you give to help them take their first, first step toward healing?

Soo Jin Lee:
Yeah, multiple things. One of the things that I really love is being able to explore your own personal history. And so I love starting from a place of you exploring, going back and asking your parents or grandparents, relatives, whoever you're related to. Right. Or whoever is around you about your personal history. And if you don't, then if you don't have access to that, then just learning about the general history of where you come from, too. I think that's always very helpful for us to come from the lens of, wow, I come from a line of so many badass people. And putting myself into that lens, too, of that ancestral history really helps us to situate our sense of identity and belonging now more than ever.

Jennifer Norman:
And that gets to the point of feeling a communal relationship with your heritage as well as with the community at large and feeling a sense of connection, feeling a sense that you do belong. And I think that that becomes so important when we talk about the loneliness epidemic and people feeling isolated and they can't talk to anybody else. Having those safe spaces where you can openly discuss these. If it's not necessarily with a parent or somebody in your family, it could be with somebody that identifies with your situation, certainly. And the Yellow Chair Collective has so many beautiful groups of community activities and exploratories within the Los Angeles - Orange County area. And I'm sure that there's others. I'm going to put into the show notes a number of other resources where people can go and check out and see that there might be these wonderful communities that you can just try on and feel for size, see how. How you feel that they might benefit you from just feeling uplifted and that you're seen and you're heard for being you.

Soo Jin Lee:
Yeah, absolutely. Another fun thing is if you have a hard time finding people around you or have a difficulty just talking to new people, then you can start to identify activities that. That maybe come from traditional lens and try to get into a game or learn a new game or learn a new song, if you're into music, or learn, like artistic skills. And then that alone also brings a lot of community of people and also find your own grounding, too, in your identity. And so, for example, I know that a few folks have found calligraphy as one of the new things in their lives because that is also of tradition to us. And mahjong is a game that, yeah, people have been really, really blowing up and getting into that finds that sense of tradition and cultural heritage within their identity again, too.

Jennifer Norman:
So how great sujin can people get in touch with Yellow Chair Collective and learn more?

Soo Jin Lee:
So the Yellow Chair Collective you can find us on most of the social media platforms. Our website is yellowchaircollective.com it has lots of different resources, resources, blogs, podcasts about anything and everything. Asian American mental health. Of course, our book Where I Belong can also be found on our website, yellowchartcollective.com as well. And then we are on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, TikTok, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. All of those platforms are accessible. It's just Yellow Chair Collective.

Jennifer Norman:
Soo Jin Lee, everyone. What a delight. I am so pleased that we have been able to talk together today and not only that, to have actually partnered on some work for the Asian American community within the Los Angeles area. And I do encourage everybody to look up Yellow Chair Collective. They are really the preemptive place to go for mental health support, community, just wonderful, wonderful feelings of family within the Asian American culture and you know, just a wealth of resources. Particularly now when things are really coming to a head.

Jennifer Norman:
We just want everybody out there to feel that you do have a safe space to be, you do have a safe place with us. You do have people who really, really care for you and want to ensure that you are safe and well. And with these small things that you might be able to incorporate in your day. Also it might help to just give you a little bit more strength and resilience to get through your day, whatever you might be facing. No matter how tough it gets, remember that it's always important to seek help. Don't feel that you need to go it alone because you know, certainly help is, is available to you and very cost effectively as well if that's an issue for anybody. So certainly look up Yellow Chair Collective. Look up all of the resources that I'll be putting into the show notes and I want to thank you.

Jennifer Norman:
I want to thank you Soo Jin, for being my guest today. You are such a beautiful human.

Soo Jin Lee:
Thank you so much for your platform and being able to speak openly about our mental health services.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever ustream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.