Jade Zhang
Seattle, WA, USA
Certified UM Trainer/Teacher
I started meditating on the conjuncture of a Divorce, Post Concussion Syndrome and Lyme disease. Migraines and fatigue took over my life. I lost my job, I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t be around anyone and couldn’t be “smart” anymore (Ha! How I was raised to equal my worth to that one!)
Guilt, shame, anxieties, depression, loneliness, oh all the miseries… That started in 2015 and I started my quarantine way before Covid. When I was about to come out of the isolation in 2020 after years of recovery work, I joined the rest of the world for Covid.
My new therapist recently told me she saw this great capacity that I have to differentiate myself from my culture and my family. I think that’s her way of saying I’ve been recognizing my patterns of all kinds. “How did that happen?” she dropped the question. I told her, “I’ve been at this for a while now. When you’ve lost everything, that’s an opportunity for rebirth. When you rebuild yourself up, the pain lowers your threshold. You get burnt out easily, which becomes a gift that tells you what works and what doesn’t. This lower threshold supports you to rebuild something that is good for you, good for life, vitality, joy, passion! Post Traumatic Growth, I think that’s the buzz word!
So I get burnt out a lot, hopefully I’m integrating the lessons I’m learning from them.
I’ve been in expansion mode trying new things, challenging my anxieties. My therapist asked me, “How did you get here? What changed?” I listed a few things during our meeting together, but the next day, I had this profound clarity. What really changed is that I’m getting off my mother’s program and I’m getting on my own program!
I grew up in China in a dysfunctional family. As my recovery unfolded over the years, I started to understand, just like all generational traumas, what happened to my parents in the Great Famine and the Communist Culture Revolution didn’t end so easily. My own recovery work is an ongoing shedding of the anxieties, shame, fear, and the feelings of unworthiness that have been in my family for generations… I do not want to carry them any longer because they weren’t mine to begin with.
Of course, history has repeated itself in my life. I was married to an alcoholic. All the men I’ve dated are unavailable one way or the other. The pattern mistakes trauma and abuse for love. The danger and confusion that unavailable men provoked was the same danger and confusion that I felt when my Dad was in the room when I was a child. Can I say No to abuse? No, I couldn’t, because I was conditioned to be such an obedient girl. That same obedience that my grandmother was trained to have when they broke her feet and put them in a bind. I forgot that my feet were not bonded. I forgot that I could walk on my own. I forgot that I could say No to abuse because I can just walk away in my healthy, unbroken feet.
So how did I get here? Digging deeper and deeper into my patterning. Other than all the life support, therapists, movement, noble friends, I found Mindfulness and Psychedelics are a game changer for me.
I love hiking, dancing. I’m a mother of two dogs and two cats.
I offer one on one and group coaching.