Exercise #3/ creative writing

 Write about a challenge you faced and your reaction to it. 

I could write about so many challenges I face. Life is suffering. Managing to stay and feel alive every day is challenging. However, the writing block was like a rock in front of me. Nothing came out. 

Then I decided to come inward and listen to my heart. I knew I always felt something there if I tried to listen. 

Since the last few days I have been unpacking my past and writing about my memory of my brother and sister. I miss them so badly. My anxiety is high. My mood is down. Feeling and emotion are mixed up and out of control. 

I got home from work and texted my sister. I asked if the three of us could take a trip together so we could spread our mother’s ashes. My sister said, “Mother‘s urn is at the pagoda. Let Mother be there to listen to every Buddhist chanting and pray is a good thing.” 

I said, “I just want the three of us to spend time together for a couple days."

She said this year won’t work because the children will be busy preparing for school exams. 

Yes, I remember they mentioned that my nephew will go to university and two nieces will take entry exams to high schools. 

She then told me that 2025 would be better when they will have more free time. The conversation ended. It always ends like that but today, it left me with a hole inside my heart. My eyes teared up. 

Can I say my challenge was I miss them very much and I could not say so. I could not say that I was crying, because they would ask why. They would be worried about me. 

I took my notebook out and started writing while shaking and crying. I found myself in the middle of my dinner alone, eating, crying, writing, drinking, and listening to Pitbull’s 3 to tango, it takes three to tango. The music helped to remind me that I am not in the past anymore. But the lyrics make sense at this moment. It takes three to tango. For some reason, I did not know why.

My husband was not home so I had the freedom to cry and yell out loud. I was pleased that I was alone. No one would want to see me like that last night. 

Things came out as I wrote. 

I miss the time we were all together when we were little. When my mother was hospitalized for straight 6 months because of her leukemia, we stayed at home by ourselves. 

At night, I slept with my sister and brother side by side. My sister was barely two years old. She was tiny. She was sick a lot.   She was supposed to sleep with my mother, and she could not. She was supposed to be taken care of by her parents and she was not. 

She slept with me and had to touch my arm so she could fall to sleep. I was a 12-year-old. I was a child myself. I remember that many times I got sick and tired of it. I wanted to stay up a little bit later to do homework. 

She called me from the bed, “Chau, please come to bed. I cannot sleep.” 

I felt sick and tired of it. But I had to go to bed so she could sleep. 

In my mind, I wished I was not a big sister. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to have no adult responsibility to take care of my two little siblings. 

 I did. I moved to the US so I could live my own life. 

Guilt is what I have over time. I left my mother, sister, and brother in Vietnam. 

After my mother died, I could not come back home for the funeral because I could not afford the ticket at the time. 

Guilt! 

A few weeks after she passed away, I had a dream. In the dream I saw my mother in her 40s with her short curly hair. Her shirt was brown. She wore wooden shoes. She loved to wear high heels with flare pants. She was with my 7-year-old brother and 2- year- old sister. My brother wore a short T shirt and a short same dark purple color. My sister wore a white dress that my mother sewn for her. Both of my siblings wore brown sandals. Three of them stood there looking at me. The background appeared from the dream was a vast ground of white snow with no horizon. I thought their clothes were not good for this snowy weather. Then I heard my mother say, "We are waiting for you,  Chau.” 

I heard myself answer, “I love to come with you mom. I am sorry I have to come back to class. I have to go to school.” 

Then I woke up, and cried my eyes out for the rest of the night. 

Guilt! 

Guilt has been eating my soul up! 

Guilt cut a big hole inside my chest! 

Guilt makes me feel so sad! 

Overcoming my inappropriate guilt is my challenge. Writing it out crying is my reaction to it.

Exercise # 2 / Creative writing

 Who/what is your inner critic/tame your inner critic

Here is my first answer. 

Surprise or not, this is the first time I learned the word, " inner critic" from the workshop. 

I thought my inner critic would be my mother.  When I was little, my mother was the one who read my essays. When I went to the US, I created a blog written mostly in Vietnamese so I could write every day for my mother to read. When she passed away 12 years ago, I found myself writing less and less since no one would read it anymore. If I need to write, in my mind, I think about writing something for her to read as an old habit. Last night, I wrote a poem in Vietnamese, and I had a conversation with her. My inner critic gave me the freedom to write whatever I wanted with no filters. Right now, I am writing in English, and my inner critic has been asking me the question, " Will English readers understand what you mean? " 

1/25/2024

Here is my second answer. 

This morning, during my morning meditation I had an epiphany. I found out who/or what my inner critic is. 

This is not my mother like I shared my thought last night (1/24/2024) but the tiny little voice from my back kept saying, “Since you are writing to your mother, do not write it. Do not ever mention it.” 

My inner critic is my 12-year-old self, invisible and hidden somewhere inside my head to keep all secrets and shame to herself. A little girl who was scared to death of losing her mother to leukemia. That inner critic was so insignificant and almost invisible that I did not notice. 

Apparently, my inner critic never gives me the freedom to say whatever I want as I thought!

Today I realized that my inner critic was a 12-year-old girl who had grown so strong and powerful. This inner critic became a big thick-walled prison that was built with hate, secrets, shame, anxiety, insomnia, sadness, and guilt. The prison was built over time to keep a 53-year-old woman locked inside.   Whenever I want to unpack the deep side of the past, thinking about saying it in Vietnamese is impossible. 

The voice in the back lately is getting louder and louder. 

“Do not reveal it. Your mother passed in peace, let it be. She already suffered too much as a divorcee, as a single mother, and person who lived with leukemia for 20 years. She was strong enough to stay alive to bring you, your sister, and your brother up. Do not ever think about telling her things that absolutely hurt her again”. The louder voice says, “I warn you. You do not want to do it because you will hurt your brother and sister. You will destroy your sister and your relationship with your sister. You love them dearly. You must protect your siblings. You never say anything, why just keep silent.”

The concept of “inner critic” came from this workshop that helped me to identify my true inner critic.

It is not the voice that says, “Will English readers understand what you mean?”

It is not true when I say that I do not know how to start. Deep down I know that I have a whole volcano with boiling lava waiting to vent. The inner critic shut me down so quietly 40 years ago that I didn't even know.   

My inner critic is sneaky. It masked my laughs, jokes, and anything that prevented me from telling the truth. 

No wonder I behave the same. I quietly plan to write in English so my mother cannot read it!

Once I can hear clearly my inner voice say, “Don’t do it,”

I will separate myself from the voice of my inner critic in the back of my head. I know the more I write the louder my inner critic would be.  

 I was successful in identifying who/what it is, my inner critic. 

Taming my inner critic will be difficult.