In this episode, Fiona sits down with Dr. Jenny Wang, clinical psychologist and author of Permission to Come Home: Reclaiming Mental Health as Asian Americans — a compelling and courageous exploration of identity, healing, and mental health within the Asian American experience. Drawing from both personal experience and professional insight, Dr. Wang shares her journey through intergenerational trauma, cultural expectation, and the quiet grief of belonging in-between worlds. Through her book and her platform Asians for Mental Health, she is helping to dismantle stigma, amplify underrepresented voices, and create space for healing. For practical takeaways from the conversation, scroll down through the show notes.
The Story Behind the Book
Cultural Nuance in Mental Health Care
A Journey of Resilience and Defiance
The 10 Permissions We All Need
Intergenerational Trauma & Healing
Why Play Matters—Especially in Adulthood
Grief, Migration, and Identity
Redefining Home
This episode is a heartfelt, illuminating conversation that touches on themes many of us carry but often don’t have words for. Whether you’re exploring your own identity or supporting others on their journey, Jenny’s insights offer a gentle but powerful guide.
These takeaways can help individuals develop more compassionate, balanced, and fulfilling lives across various cultural backgrounds.
If this episode resonated with you, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with someone who might benefit from the conversation.
See you next time on Dot to Dot, where we continue to explore the patterns, insights, and human stories that connect us.
Fiona
Today I am joined by Dr Jenny Wang from Houston, who book permission to come home reclaiming mental health as Asian Americans is incredibly powerful and is worth reading. I believe whoever you are, it's got messages that will resonate. I think depending on your own personal experiences and life, there are things that will resonate. And I think the reason it's important that they resonate is not only to help yourself, but to also try and understand another culture and another people's experience of the world and how how life is lived. So Jenny, this book is incredibly personal, but also has a huge amount of practical exploration in it. What initially made you think about writing it.
Dr. Jenny Wang 01:46
So it was over pandemic, which I feel like lots of people wrote books over a pandemic, but I was running an Instagram account called Asians for mental health, and just creating content that resonated with my story or the stories of my community, and found that people were saying, I've always felt this, but never seen it written out before. And in the comment sections, people would say, I feel the same way. I have such a similar story, and people would be responding to each other in the comments. And I thought, there's something here, you know, and at the time, there was not a mental health book for Asian Americans. And so when I was approached by a literary agent and he said, Have you thought about putting this content into a book? I said, I have, but it's scary, and I've never written a book before. And how do I do this? And I think it was through a lot of encouragement from the social media community as well as my clients and just people who were in my life who said, I think this could really help people, at the very least, destigmatize mental health in a community that still struggles to break the silence around it. And so the book emerged out of just being consistently willing to to name things that our community tries to shroud in secrecy and silence, out of shame. And I think realizing that shame and silence creates many of the mental health struggles that we have, but if we break the silence, that shame can be disarmed. And so that was that was the intention and the drive for the book,
Fiona 03:39
and it must have helped so many people, because there is that community. And the reason I believe you started that was because you saw that there wasn't a voice for people having that experience. But there's also this. One of the things that I find really bothersome as a psychologist is psychology, whether it's clinical or organizational or whatever it is, predominantly the research exists on a white, American or UK or European based population, which is incredibly narrow and also excludes anyone within those populations who are different have different intersectionalities. And I think what you were seeing was people coming to you who'd seen other therapists who had potentially labeled something as a condition, which actually wasn't a condition, it was more an experience or something that was commonly held within the experience of your community, which can be incredibly damaging. Actually,
Dr. Jenny Wang 04:45
yes, absolutely. I think I've heard so many stories of either clients or even friends who have pursued therapy with a clinician that did not understand our cultural nuances and. Felt judged, they felt shamed, they felt as though somehow there was something wrong with them, and that's why they were struggling. And so I think you know, when I talk about cultural humility or cultural reverence, those are things I really try to embody and also to share and teach when I talk to other clinicians, because there is absolutely potential for harm, and it could turn people away from experiencing mental health support, you know, and that's the opposite of what we're trying to achieve. So I think, you know, one of the things I've had to somehow, you know, decolonize in mental health provision of services, is to say I'm not the expert, right? And that's very different than traditional Western models of psychology, where it's You're the doctor, and then you have your patient. My goal is to bridge the gap so much that the client feels in full empowerment and control, because as a person with a marginalized identity, we often feel out of control in our environments, and often we feel lesser than and so if we maintain that dynamic in the therapy room, then how much healing can happen. You know, how much authenticity is possible if they feel lesser than and disempowered.
Fiona 06:27
I do find it deeply worrying, because it not only turns people away from mental health, but it actually adds another layer of complexity to that mental health, feeling more judged, feeling more unsafe, and actually causes people to lock away those emotions more than they were already. Becoming a clinical psychologist is a hard route, full stop, but then you take in the other levels of complexity that you've had to go through. Can you explain to people what that process was like? Because in the book, you explain being a minority within that population.
Dr. Jenny Wang 07:12
Yes, you know, when you think about pursuing, you know, a professional degree like that, it to be able to do so takes privilege, you know, in the sense that I didn't, you know, necessarily, have to come out of undergraduate, you know, training and go straight into getting a job because my parents were depending on me, or I needed financial I could go into schooling and delay wage earning, Right? And that's a privilege, right that not everybody has. And so I think about, you know, the ability to move forward and pursue a high level degree and to have the freedom of time, energy resources to do it. You know, of course, took on tons of student loans in order to make it happen. But, you know, because of that, and you know, my mom did not get to go to college. She was the youngest of three. All of the resources for advanced education went to her brothers because they were male. And so navigating getting into college was already a lift, and then you try to get into graduate school, which is even more mysterious, even more confusing as a process. And I think about all the mentors, my graduate student advisor, all those people who were kind enough to say, Hey, let me help you, because you have no idea how this process works, you know. And so because of those lucky, you know, interactions, caring people, I found my way into a doctoral program in psychology. But that took a lot of just saying. I believe I can do it. I'm going to try. And I have no idea how this is going to turn out. And I think I talk about in the book, you know, one of my advisors in undergrad said, don't apply to doctoral programs. You're not getting in. You're an untraditional student. You are also studying business. What does that have to do with psychology? And really made me feel as though, you know, I was trying to reach for something that could not be possible for somebody of my experience and identity. And I tell that story now, and I it makes me, you know, it makes me remember my anger after that, you know, meeting, and I remember thinking he would never say this to a classmate, who was a white male student, and I remember being filled with so much rage that I was like solely focused on proving him wrong. And so in many ways, I can say I'm grateful for him and I'm grateful. Bowl for the fire he lit under me. But I think that has always been an experience that I've had to overcome as people saying, No, it's not you're not enough, you're too quiet, you're too this, you're too that, and therefore those paths are not available to you. And I think in my own journey, I've had to push through that again and again and hitting doors that were closed, and not letting that be the end all be all of my story, but realizing that that meant I had to find a back door, or I had to find a different way. And that is the story of many people with marginalized identities because we don't fit the mold that people envision, and so we're dismissed, we're overlooked or passed over. And I guess my my hope is anybody who's listening to this who feels that way, I hope that lights a fire under you, and I hope that helps you realize that what you're pursuing actually is worth all that effort and energy, because there's something really lovely, really amazing waiting for you on the other side,
Fiona 11:14
amazing story and an amazing level of resilience to be able to persist with that. So the way you've written the book, if we come back to the book, we've got 10 chapters, permission to question, permission to feel, permission to rage, permission to say no, permission to choose, permission to take up space, permission to play, permission to fail, permission to grieve and permission to come home, which I think it's a beautiful way of ending it. I found I was moved the whole way through, but particularly on the last two chapters, permission to grieve and permission to come home. Now just to say what you spoke about, there was partly the permission to rage, and I think you describe that experience within that chapter is also the permission to take up space. And within each chapter, you unpack what that looks like for your cultural identity, how that's experienced, and even the way you write it is not prescriptive, because I think the way you were saying that there's a, as we might call, adult to adult relationship, an equal relationship with you and your clients. You've also written it in the way of saying, this is the experience I have had, and my many of my clients have had, and many of the community on Instagram that you have, but yours may be slightly different, and you've given that space. The book must have been incredibly hard to write. There's a lot of you in there in a good way, in a great way, but if you come back to permission to take space that goes against what you've described, even of yourself growing up.
Dr. Jenny Wang 13:07
Yes, I would say it was terrifying to write this book, because I think we always have an image of ourselves that helps us maintain our self concept or self esteem, you know, and in writing this book, I had to tolerate the discomfort of being vulnerable and to say, these are my fears. These are the things that I struggle with. These are the inner thoughts that I don't tell anyone else, that I felt so convicted that this was necessary for our community, because there's so much that often is left unspoken. And in eastern kind of cultures, and especially in my cultural background, a lot of things are never directly spoken between people, like, if you have a request, it would be perceived as disrespectful to ask for what you want, you kind of have to dance around it and allude to what you want, and so to be so upfront meant that I had to, one, bear my soul, but then also bear the soul of my family. You know, I talk a lot about my grandmother and my mother and my father and in many ways, we are trained at a young age that we're responsible for protecting the reputation of all these people. So to expose our family stories. In this way also felt really scary, because it meant that this could create negative perceptions for everybody involved, you know, and yet, I think if we're honest with ourselves, we all share those experiences. We all have felt what it was like to experience pain or trauma or heartache and disappointment. But. And also feel as though we cannot reveal that. And so I remember asking myself the question, How can you ask your community to do this and be vulnerable and be open and not model it yourself? And so in many ways, this book became a way that I modeled what it looked like to be vulnerable and to still be able to say I see myself as a good person, as a loving daughter, as a good mom, and I think holding all of those opposing ideas together is the essence of a healthy mental well being. And so I think my hope is, when somebody picks up this book, they can see themselves in parts of my story, but they can also fill in the gaps of their own story and realize that we are much more similar than we are dissimilar.
Fiona 16:02
My experience, as I said, before we began, was definitely that there are lots of bits that I am coming back to now before we speak, but I'm definitely going to come back to again afterwards and to another point there. I think being a psychologist, I personally have not got to where you have I will say to my clients sometimes, you know, I don't do this myself, and it's not good modeling. And I have written a book on role modeling, so I should be doing it. So I read your book with so much awe, because you were navigating a great deal of complexity that went beyond yourself. Can you tell the story of your mother playing when she was a child?
Dr. Jenny Wang 16:57
Yes, so it's the beginning of the chapter. And, you know, it's, it is. My mother recalls this story, and she tells it to us. Remember as children, we would hear it every few years and and it was almost like a lament as she told the story, because she remembers as a child, you know, and they were they were impoverished, they didn't have many resources. But somehow she got her hands on a toy, and it was this rubber ball. And she remembers the sense of Glee, the sense of excitement that she could just be outside bouncing this ball, you know, all around the courtyard, and there's this moment where she notices that my grandmother comes into the courtyard, and she has this look on her face and she is just beyond pissed, because the sound coming from the courtyard was disruptive. And, you know, it was, it was just not acceptable. And so my grandmother grabs this rubber ball and cuts it up and starts to shove it into my mom's mouth. And there are moments where, when I think about the story, I like, still get emotional, and I'm feeling that even as I'm telling it, because you just think about, you know, what was my mom thinking in that moment? Right? About herself, about her own mother, about her ability to play, which is the most basic human and child, right, right? And it was taken away from her in that moment, and she was punished in such a shame based way, you know, and it is, it is to me, when I think about intergenerational trauma, that's what that is, that it wasn't about the ball, it probably wasn't even about my mom, but It was this rage from my grandmother from her experiences and from the few stories I can gather about my grandmother's life, it was harsh and it was hard, and they had many children, and they were an agricultural family, and there was no love in that Home. And so while my heart breaks for my mom, it also breaks for my grandmother, because she had no frame of reference of what it could look like to loving baby with your own child and to give love. And so I think that that stays with me as I'm with my own children. It stays with me when I'm frustrated and tired at the end of the workday, I have to think to myself, we have to change those cycles, or we are at risk of passing them on to next generations. So yeah, thank you for inviting me and sharing. In that slide,
Fiona 20:01
it is emotional, very emotional, and you describe through the journey of the book, while taking other people's adeptly, through exploring their own journey, what it's really been like to come to a place where you can accept that lovingly of your grandmother as well, because it's a hard thing to do. There's a piece right at the beginning. So what if our community invested in the individual transformation that give way to the communal, collective healing to transform generations after us, which is incredibly beautiful and pertinent to many, well, all of humanity, actually, and unpacking and getting to the permission to grieve. Can you explain that and where things were broken by your mother in terms of passing on certain trauma.
Dr. Jenny Wang 21:05
Yes. So if that chapter was the hardest for me to write, actually, and I remember delaying it and for months because I could not, I could not confront the parts of myself that were actually very upset at my mother in this story and and I didn't want to harbor those feelings of rage and also grief, you know. But you had asked, you know, the parts of the cycle that my mom had broken, and I always say it feels like a miraculous act that she somehow did not find herself pulled into the same impulses as my grandmother. You know when, when you were taught that anger and rage can be displaced, physically or emotionally on to other people. It almost becomes your pattern by which you displace anger. And you know, we had, like a middle class life, and it was, it was great in the sense that we were safe, we were healthy, we had our new basic needs met, but it was stressful. And I remember there were times where my mom would feel the financial stress and would, you know, argue with my dad, and she, you know, would pack my sister and I in the car, and she would just start driving, and she would be in tears, and we had no idea what was going on. We were just sitting in the back, and that was one of her coping skills, you know, and she had to find new ways of coping to replace the ones that she had seen in her own mother. And so though, you know, she ran a tight ship and kept us disciplined, and all of that. She never displaced anger in a way where it destroyed her self esteem. She I remember, you know, when we were kids, she would use, like a wooden spatula. And if we were in trouble, she would like spot my hand. And I remember,
Fiona 23:17
sorry, because that's what my mother in law would do, a wooden screen. She would use,
Dr. Jenny Wang 23:22
yes, those are painful, but, you know, but I remember distinctly, it must have been first or second grade, where, as she hit us, she was crying. I'm getting emotional just thinking about it. And I remember after that incident, she was like, I'm not doing this ever again. And when you know, as a parent, you care so much about your children, and when you are saying, I'm not going to discipline my kids in the ways that I was disciplined, or try to raise them up well in the ways that I was treated, it's an act of courage, because oftentimes I work with clients in present day and they say, Well, my parents think that I'm too soft on my kids, because many of us don't adopt kind of the more old school ways of discipline, and it is an act of courage to trust that the new, more loving and compassionate and yet firm ways of discipline are going to keep our kids Right, good, moral citizens are going to teach them well, and in that generation, that's how people disciplined and kept their kids in line, was to, you know, like spank them or to hit them with a wooden spoon. And I remember she said, I'm never doing that again, because it hurt her probably more than. Heard us, and so I think about those moments where she actively chose to move away from her upbringing and to just experiment, because there were no parenting books at the time. There were no podcasts or Instagram accounts that talked about parenting. It was just you go by feel and you trust that somehow what you're doing is going to be effective for your kids. So those are the things that she did, I think, to really break the cycle. She's always been an emotional and loving mother, and I think that's that protected us against the backdrop of my father being the more traditional, stoic father, and so I think we always were able to move in and out of that warmth knowing that it was available to us. And it's interesting, because I think about the skills that she used. You know, I remember when I broke up with a long term boyfriend, and she just sat with me, you know, and she didn't try to fix it, and that's a psychological skill. She just didn't know, right? And so, like, even without training, even without books, there was a wisdom in her, and I think that was those were the ingredients that led to us having a childhood where we now as adults, still go back to her as a safe place. We confide in her. We want her in our lives. And I think it's because she took a risk and essentially said, I'm not doing it that way, even if it's against my culture, even if it's against my upbringing, I have to trust that there's a better
Fiona 26:57
It is inspirational, and it's really an act of trusting that inner wisdom and which, as you say, had so many forces against it and no light to guide the way. It's quite incredible. Um, thank you for sharing that you also talk about a very moving conversation you had with your mother in the permission to grieve. And I believe, if I remember correctly, that, as you said, it was one that was hardest to write, but this was about intergenerational understanding, and I'm I will phrase it wrong, but of understanding your your cultural background more in terms of who you are and what that meant, and your ancestry and where you came from, and All of those hugely complex aspects, and your grandfather, who you describe as someone that you love dearly. Do you mind showing that, not wanting to bring him to a place that's uncomfortable? I mean, maybe we should move back. We'll come back to that. Let's talk about the one of the areas which is, I think, really interesting. And I spoke to Rory keys, who did the work on languishing that was written up by Adam Grant in the New York Times for during the pandemic. And he spent his whole career through having experienced quite overt trauma as a child, exploring Well, what is okay and what is what are the continuums of flourishing and languishing as well as mental health, one of his key things is play. And it's interesting because I know from what I understand of Asian families, and this is, I'm not saying it from any expertise. I'm talking about it just from my my in laws, there is an incredibly hard work ethic, and I believe that is instilled even more for the way you describe the path being kept safe, so permission to play, and also reflecting that moving episode you described with your grandmother and your mother. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Because I think a lot of people don't really know how to play.
Dr. Jenny Wang 29:42
That's true. I think it is a lost art form, especially in adulthood, you know, because they think as children, we are given permission to play frequently, right, freely, and then we move into, you know, middle, middle grades, High School. College, and suddenly it's almost like, oh, that's enough play for your life, right? You're done. Time to work hard. And I think, you know, there is a, you know, for some immigrant families, you come into a country, you're often looked down upon. You're excluded from opportunities. So there's this idea of meritocracy being the path, right? If you just work hard, if you just prove that you are good enough, then you will have a place, then the door will be open, then you might be accepted, you know? And, and I think there's so many narratives about like, just keep your head down. Don't work hard. Don't make a show of how hard you work or how successful you are. Never celebrate the success. Just keep going, you know. And I think the never celebrate the success came out of fear if you were to celebrate, if you were to make yourself visible in a society that largely sees you as invisible, now you might become a target. Now you might engender jealousy. You might bring about other people's negative emotions. So make sure you protect yourself, yeah, and so when play one is just not seen as valuable by society and the allure of achievement and advancement and hard work, right? Because you get outcomes from those things, right? You get degrees and you get fancy awards and you get promoted. So then we end up feeding the beast, right of that mechanism, and now I'm in middle age, and a lot of my clients are also in their 40s, and then we're saying, Wait, is this it? Is this the point of my life to have climbed all these ladders and realized I'm no happier at the end of it. And when I think about this idea of play, I think of it being fuel, and I think of it being sustainability. So if the model is work hard, don't acknowledge your success, and work harder than right. Play is seen as laziness, shirking responsibility. You know, a sense of, oh, well, if you play too hard, you won't know how to go back to working hard, right? All these myths around play, and there's no sustainable model for you then, right? And it's easy to work hard in your 20s, relatively easy to work hard in your 30s. You hit your 40s, 50s, 60s, when you have a lot of mounting pressures now, of families, mortgages, aging parents, and you realize that those old ways of doing things, your body can't keep up, your mind can't keep up, your relationships cannot keep up. So play as it's integrated into our lives. And I'm still working on this, and I think I will, for my whole life, becomes the way to make the work sustainable, and maybe I argue enjoyable, right? My husband, I always talk about how life is all about contrast. If you were on vacation for a full month, some of us might get kind of bored at the end of that month, right? But it's the act of moving from relaxation into engagement and discipline and structure, and that sometimes feels good, too. And once you've done that, then moving back into rest recuperation. And it's that contrast that I think keeps us flowing and feeling good. So any state for far too long, I think, is actually problematic, and that's why the injection of play is so intentional in that chapter. And then I think play as fuel. I always thought play used to be the reward. If I work really hard, then I've earned it, and then I get to cash it and play. And the thing is, right, and I'm sure you've seen the data, Americans don't use their vacation times. We do not actually right. Utilize our time to rest. That's not the way we orient our lives. We're to think Europeans are much better at this. They take off for a lot of August. They enjoy, they travel, right? And so, you know, play really changing position as the fuel by which then I have. The energy to engage in meaningful work that has really shifted my permission to allow play, because now it's not just a Oh, wonderful byproduct of working hard. It's a necessary ingredient to climb the next mountain, to build the next thing to write, the next book, without the play. None of those things are as fruitful. Neither am I as engaged, you know, because I'm burnt out, likely, and so I'm trying to practice that. I struggle with it very much so, but I've seen that. Know, a lot of times people ask me in session, how do I disentangle identity from achievement? Because it's the beast. You have to feed the beast. And I say you engage in the practice of slowing down productivity and tolerating the discomfort that that brings up. And then you realize that that achievement, though nice and lovely at times, is not necessary for you to be worthy or valuable. And I think when you can unhook from some of that, then you have a chance of having identity that is free from all of those social constructs,
Fiona 36:30
beautifully put. And it's fascinating from, I think, all different perspectives, and obviously that cultural layer puts more on top of it, but I do work, a lot of work with leaders and a lot of work with medics and surgeons, and they have always been on that treadmill of achieve, achieve, achieve, and you'll know as much, if not more about this than me, but for emotional resilience to actually work and be helpful. And part of the element that's most powerful is having fun and having a sense of humor. And that's the same with high performing teams. Yes, you need to build that trust, psychological safety, get to know one another, but then that sense of fun and play creates, as you describe it, a far more sustainable outcome. But that's the same for any of us, and to different degrees, I think we all find that difficult to understand, and also how to understand to play for play's sake. So taking away some of the frameworks, but it will allow me to do this and actually just saying, I mean, that's a hard place to get to, but ultimately, that's what we should be aiming for.
37:59
But that's such a good really?
Fiona 38:01
I mean, every single chapter is so so interesting, so powerful and so relatable, regardless, as I said, of cultural background, if you wouldn't mind now, if we briefly touch on the conversation you had with your mum about your grandfather. You
Dr. Jenny Wang 38:47
Yes, I think what's unique about you know this book is that it is written from a Asian diaspora perspective. So children of immigrants, immigrants themselves, and I think something that we perhaps didn't recognize, or maybe didn't name for many, many years, is that in migration, there's loss. You know, we always think, oh, America, this place of amazing opportunity. Of course, it's better there, right? That narrative, and we forget that there was so much beauty in our homelands. There was so much beauty in our cultures and our language and our food, the beauty of being connected to relatives and to our lineage. And so part of the grief is this idea that, you know, I don't know much about my family beyond my grandparents generation, even my parents. They'll they'll say, oh, yeah, you know, these were your great grandparents, but we hardly knew them really. And so there's a loss of these stories of. Three dimensional people you know, that lived and breathed and really paved the way for me to become who I am today. I don't know them. I don't even know the names of my great grandparents, honestly. And so I think the grief around, you know, feeling like I'm constantly in between worlds. Now I'm not fully Taiwanese, but I go back to Taiwan because everybody can pick me out of a crowd, right? And then I'm also not really seen as American, at least not American enough. And so there's grief that exists in living in the margins, not really being accepted, perhaps in any place that I might call home, there's also the grief of language being lost. You know, I'm grateful that I can speak in Mandarin Chinese to my parents, but my kids do not speak Mandarin Chinese, and so I get sad. I get panicked that my kids will not feel that connection to their heritage because they don't be Chinese. And yet, I've also had to make peace with the fact that they own their own stories, and I wasn't going to force them to attend Chinese school like I was in order to maintain that link. And so that is a journey that's part of the story that they need to figure out for themselves, you know. But there's grief, because I know how integral that was for me to stay emotionally connected with my parents, because we could speak the same language. So the grief comes in so many layers, you know, I think my father did not return home when his own father passed away. My mother also did not return home when her own father passed away. There are always these complexities of space, time, finances and also that even my parents are somehow seen as second class citizens in their own family, because they were the ones that left, so they weren't there to care for my grandparents when they were aging. So what say do you have to now come back and want to have some say in the funerary funeral rights? Right? It's very complex, and relationships change with space and time. So I think in many ways, it is a constant sense of breathing because, you know, there's something that you will never fully understand about your homeland and the life that you could have lived. We recently went back home to Taiwan to visit, you know, my grandmother and my cousins. And I remember having this weird, like, sliding doors moment, watching my cousin and she had her own baby, and she had her own family in Taiwan. And I was like, that could have been me, right? Like I could have been living in Taiwan, surrounded by our other relatives, you know, speaking Mandarin perfectly, like this could have been my life. And there was a sense of bitter sweetness there, right? And yet at the same time, you know, like I I'm very grateful that my story came here to the United States, and I can own that, but there's never a sense of perhaps that pure joy. There's always a layer of sadness that shrouds in,
Fiona 43:33
yeah, it's incredibly difficult to understand for anyone who's not been there. But there's also the difference of every experience, even if you're talking to someone else who's got the same background, because did their parents go back for their parents funeral? Right? Were they, you know, and there this, I think, comes back to your point of holding space for someone and allowing them to explore their own journey and their own relationships to all this complex layering. But if we just close on the chapter, which personally means a lot, the permission to come home.
Dr. Jenny Wang 44:24
Yeah, so I think, you know, all of us, I think, are searching for home. You know, physically, psychologically, relationally, communally, I think that is if you want to speak in an attachment language is the secure base, right, the one place where you can enter into and not be judged and feel fully accepted and loved and valued and protected. And so I wanted to end on that idea, because I think as an immigrant, home is very elusive. Of, you know, and as a human being, in a world that's complex and sometimes scary and overwhelming, home is even harder to find. And so I wanted to invite us into kind of like, how do we turn on our radars for being able to sense where home might exist, you know, between two people and a group of colleagues, right, with a trusted mentor, with your nuclear family. And so I kind of talk about these four conditions that I look for, you know, in defining home, safety, belonging, authenticity and compassion. And I talk about how those are in some ways, step wise, right? I have to first feel safe, to then feel like I can belong, to finally, be able to reveal who I am, and then to also feel and give compassion towards others. And so I wanted to bring us back home, because it is something that we can co create, you know, as individuals, as people who share space on this universe that you and I are fully capable of creating some of these conditions with people we can touch, and so that informs our individual relationships. It informs our advocacy and activism. It informs our involvement in our communities, of the spaces that we care about. And I do believe that if we can each experience those four conditions and then also provide them that I do think we will become much more healed moving forward. And so I hope people do pick up the book after hearing in this conversation, and I hope that you do find space to cultivate those four ideals, because I think they do ultimately lead us home.
Fiona 47:08
What an amazing conversation. Thank you so much. I really, really, greatly appreciate it, and I appreciate what it gives to others too. I think you've done an incredible thing, and I will continue to follow your work, even if it's not soon, that's fine. Take your time, play, be with your kids. So I will put your website on, I will put the community, your Instagram community, on to the show notes, and I will also put a link to your book into the show notes. Thank you so much, so much.
Dr. Jenny Wang 47:47
Oh, it was lovely to be in conversation with you.