Sandra Pham: Hey y'all, I'm Sandra Pham.
Minh Vu: And I'm Minh Vu.
Welcome to Asian in Austin.
All right, so I think as soon as we created this podcast, it's been
our goal to try to do an episode dedicated to mental health, especially
in our community and knowing how it's kind of a taboo subject.
At least growing up for me, it was a taboo subject and it probably still is.
My parents, if I'm being honest probably don't have the most
modern take on mental health.
I've definitely seen them evolve a little bit around it, but like going to
a therapist is kind of a still, you know, hand over mouth, gasp type of moment.
Sandra Pham: Stigmatized for sure.
Yeah, I think you and I on a personal level have a lot of these conversations
around mental health and I think we've definitely struggled on navigating how we
want to talk about it on this podcast and so why we've waited until season three to
really talk about it, I think, formally on an episode and bring on this guest.
But I'm so thrilled and excited that we have a lot more to talk about.
I think there's Subject is just so interesting to me and so intricate, but
I'm glad we're finally just doing it.
Minh Vu: What a cool opportunity to because earlier this year you hosted
this amazing panel was very strong women in the community for SXSW.
And that's, that's kind of where actually, yeah, SX, I remember I going
to like a meeting or the organizers who had sessions or panels right?
SX put on this like orientation and I saw our guest speak at this session and
I was like, Sandra, I think we found our person we should bring on the podcast.
And then another opportunity came where we were trying to help support
a panel and you reached out to her.
And yeah, no.
How was that?
Tell me more about that.
Can you tell our listeners more about that?
Sandra Pham: Yeah, I think it was a little bit of kismet.
We were really fortunate.
I think we had through hearsay have heard of our guest here, and I
was fortunate enough to moderate a panel where our guest was also on.
Really impressed and just interested in her story.
So I'm feeling very fortunate that she was able to make time and join us today.
And I think our listeners are really going to resonate with
some of the topics we dig into.
Minh Vu: Yeah, so we keep on saying our guest.
Our guest is Dr.
Pooja Lakshmin and yeah, I think let's get into her bio and then
we'll get into the interview, but Dr.
Pooja Lakshmin MD Is a board certified psychiatrist, author, keynote speaker,
and a contributor to the New York Times her debut book, "Real Self-Care:
Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Bath not Included", is an NPR Best Book
of 2023 and a national bestseller.
"Real Self-Care" has been featured by Good Morning America, NPR's
"Code Switch," the New York Times, the Ezra Klein Show, the Guardian,
and translated into 10 languages.
She lives in Austin with her partner, Justin, their toddler,
and their two cats, Kitty and Fifi.
Needless to say, we're so fortunate and feel so humbled that Dr.
Lakshmin Shared her time with us to be able to talk more about her
book and even her story with us so I'm really excited for you all
to listen in and let's get into it
Hey, Dr.
Lakshmin, thank you so much for joining us today today on
the Asian in Austin podcast.
I know you've got a super busy schedule.
You've been all around sharing some more of your story in your book, and I'm just
really appreciative that you've been able to share some of your time with us today.
So welcome.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here with both of you.
Minh Vu: Yeah, so we start our episodes off by giving our guests
an opportunity to share a little bit more about their identities.
So I'm wondering if you could share with our listeners your ethnicities,
pronouns, any other identities that you'd like to share with us.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah, absolutely.
So I am South Asian American.
I go by she, her, I, my parents immigrated to the United States, so
I am second generation slash first.
I always get confused.
I feel like it's like one and a half generation, but yeah, so kind of a lot of
the typical tensions and struggles that come with being the first generation that
is grown, that's born here and growing up here, which I'm sure we will dive into.
That's it.
Minh Vu: Yeah.
Appreciate it.
And yeah, that definitely resonates.
We, Sandra and I have definitely discussed a lot, some of the pressures
that can sometimes occur or, you know, get brought up when you're kind of
the first to navigate a lot of, in this case, like the American systems.
So I know you've had quite a year, but how's 2024 been treating you so far?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: 2024 has really been off to a great start.
I, my book "Real Self-Care" came out last year, last March, and so the book launch
kind of took me all over and it really, it really changed kind of the trajectory of
my career and what I do for work in some sense, because before the book came out,
it did not used to travel at all for work.
Now, since I'm being asked to bring "Real Self-Care" to all these
different organizations and schools and places, I'm on the road more, but
I think I have come into 2024 kind of feeling like I'm hitting my stride.
My son just turned two last weekend, and so I also feel like me and my
partner Justin are kind of like hitting our stride as parents also now that
we've been doing this for two years.
So yeah, I can't complain.
I mean, I guess the only thing I can complain about is the heat.
Because it's so freaking hot right now, but that is Austin in the summer.
Minh Vu: I know it's starting.
I can't believe we're already here with that heat and also happy
belated birthday to your son.
That's so awesome.
Really excited and happy to see the book launch and this new chapter of your
career has really kind of rocketed off.
So congratulations.
Sandra Pham: Thank you.
Yeah, so I want to jump in and I want to go back a couple, a few years and
kind of talk about Pooja growing up and taking a look at, you know, something
I know that you've mentioned before on the panel and something that resonated
with a lot of folks is just your upbringing, you know, addressing the
patriarchal South Asian culture, how you navigated that, this perception of
you needing to be a good Indian girl.
How did that all really shape you in adolescence or even managing
early stages in your career and then wanting to pursue where you are today?
I'd love for you to dig a little bit further into that.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: I think that, like I mentioned earlier, being kind of the first
generation that's born and raised here.
We are kind of the holders of this assimilation process, but
also the tension that inherently comes when you are spending.
Much of your time in a new culture, quote unquote "new", you know, American culture.
And then there's the quote unquote "old culture" at home with your parents.
So for me, you know, my parents are from South Asia.
They came here, my mom was in her twenties.
They had an arranged marriage, and my dad had gone to medical school in India.
And past all of his, you know, the extensive licensing examinations and
things that foreign medical graduates have to go through and was able to
get a residency in Philadelphia.
And he used to practice as a physician.
So my dad was a doctor.
My mom stayed at home and raised me and my sister.
My sister is nine years younger than me, so I kind of feel like we were both, to
some extent, only children because by the time she was born, I was in such a
different life stage and you know, then when she was sort of like growing up for a
lot of it, I was kind of out of the house.
I guess that model minority myth definitely was strong in my family.
You know, it was kind of like studying was the most important
thing and getting good grades.
And it was just sort of expected.
It wasn't necessarily that it was praised.
It was just sort of expected.
There wasn't like, there was no question about it.
You know, it was just, well, that's...
and looking back, I think it's, that's interesting because I do feel like
friends that I had that were not Asian...
it just felt like their childhoods were more well, well rounded and there was
more of an opportunity for them to be children in a way where I think for
first gen kids, we do bear this burden of becoming parentified more quickly, like
having to grow up more quickly because you're also serving as a translator
to some extent, sometimes in families, like literally as a translator and then,
you know, also kind of metaphorically.
So, you know, I went through all of the sort of typical struggles that a
lot of Indian girls went through in the 90s and 2000s and still go through.
I hated that my skin was darker than everybody else's.
I desperately wanted to have blonde hair and blue eyes and white skin.
I was you know, kind of embarrassed about the food that my family
ate, and I didn't understand why.
I remember I was saying, like, we had to eat two dinners, we had to eat the roti,
and then we also had to eat the rice.
And I was like, why do we have two dinners?
You know?
And at that time, Indian food was not cool, like it is now.
So it really was, like, weird.
Like, I didn't want to talk about it with friends.
Like, I wouldn't have friends over for dinner or anything like that.
And yeah, so I, it was a really...
and I grew up in, in a predominantly white area of Pennsylvania, about an
hour and a half outside of Philadelphia.
And it was once I went to college at University of Pennsylvania
at Penn that I kind of found more of my community, I guess.
But even, it's interesting because I think in some ways I always
felt like I was too white to fit in with the super Indian folks.
And then I was like, not.
I was not a white person, so I was brown and didn't fit in with, so I
always kind of fell in between because at Penn there is a very strong Indian,
South Asian community and lots of different interest groups and, you know,
dance and all these different things.
And I'm a terrible dancer and I remember trying to, trying out
for, at Penn it's called PENNaach.
I tried out and it was horrible.
Like, you know, so I just kind of always felt like, oh gosh,
I'm not even doing that right.
And I guess the other piece and sorry, this is a very long winded answer, but
is that I spend a lot of time in India growing up probably every other summer.
My mom and I, and then when my sister was born, she would come
to, we'd spend the whole summer at my grandmother's house in India.
My mom has two sisters.
And so my aunts would be there.
My cousins would be there.
And it was always so fun.
I loved being in India and getting to have that relationship with my cousins
there, but I did always feel like I, Was missing out on summer here in the
States and all my friends were, you know, go to the pool and doing all sorts
of summer things and I was kind of off.
I guess we had a, I feel like this happened even before AOL and AIM.
You know, so we had to write, like, I remember writing letters to my
friends, and sometimes it would, the letters wouldn't even arrive
until we got back from the trip.
Just thinking about it is wild, because now, you know, it's like,
we have WhatsApp, you have social media, it doesn't really matter.
Minh Vu: Yeah, there's so much there that you shared that resonates.
Also, I feel like being in the in between is something that a lot of
people in the Asian community can feel.
I'm curious, since you did do the summers in India, was it
ever jarring for you coming back?
Like, did you feel did that just accentuate that in between
feeling a little bit and how did you feel even in India?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah, it was always an adjustment on both sides.
I specifically remember maybe this was in like fourth or fifth grade one
summer when I came back before school started having this long conversation
with my best friend at the time where she caught me up on every single song
that was popular now that I had missed and I remember this is very this dates
me this song that was popular at that time was it was right when Brandy and
Monica that song came out The Boy Is Mine
So, yeah, so I didn't know what was cool so she had to kind of catch me up.
People in India always knew that I was American.
I speak Kannada, which is the language that my family speaks,
but even still, obviously a huge accent and just the way that I did
my hair and the clothes that I wore.
But I think it was some of the things that stand out there as being kind
of setting me apart is like clothing.
You know, I would always have to kind of wear more conservative
clothes in India, like no shorts, longer skirts, things like that.
No tank tops.
And it was kind of like this in between of always sort of having to
navigate and figure out where you fit.
And I think that to some extent, that's still something that I am constantly
navigating and I've been become a lot less insecure about it and now I know that I
have this tendency and I can catch myself when I'm wanting to sort of be part of
the club or whatever it is and pull back.
But I think a lot of that stems from the childhood experiences that I had.
Minh Vu: Yeah, in retrospect, I mean, do you feel like those summer trips to
India also had like positive effects?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Absolutely.
I have so many just wonderful memories and I love that I have this connection
to India and that it does feel like a place that is a version of home for me.
My parents are retired now and they actually they have a condo in
Bangalore and they spend a couple months a year there and I have cousins
that are there, my aunts and uncles.
So it's, it's definitely, I think it was a net positive, but then, you
know, there's just these bits that,
yeah,
Sandra Pham: yeah, yeah.
As you think about your son, do you consider that you would want
him to spend a significant amount of time or summers in India?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: I don't see him spending some whole summers
there in the way that we did.
But I do want him to visit India and I want him to know that this is part
of his culture and his identity.
My partner is white, so he's, so our son is, you know,
half white, half South Asian.
And, yeah, I want him to know that, It's a place that he has roots.
So we're kind of in the process of navigating when that first trip will be.
We have not yet taken him on an airplane.
So that's the limiting factor of just how long it takes to get there and the travel.
Sandra Pham: When I was reading the book, and this is kind of in the
early chapters and you kind of bring this up, I definitely, this was a
moment of like, did I read this right?
So I want to talk about it.
So before you arrived where you got today, and again, it's, you know, you have
this amazing career, this amazing book, you talk about navigating your career
early on and you kind of had a pivot.
And so in your late twenties, you dropped out of a very competitive
residency program and joined a commune that taught orgasmic meditation.
And that's the first time I've ever heard that term.
How did that get on your radar?
And more, what I want to dig into, how did your parents take that?
How did they react?
How did you explain that whole pause?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: I decided to include this part of my story right in the
introduction of the book because I wanted my readers to know that I was coming to
real self care, not just as a psychiatrist who takes care of patients struggling
with these things, but also as a human myself who has made mistakes and kind
of went down the rabbit hole of extreme wellness and came out the other side.
So that was kind of a decision that I made because it definitely is a pretty wild
story and people have reactions to it.
And yeah, I, as we had talked about, I'd kind of gone through
my childhood and teenage years and early adulthood, sort of striving
to be the good Indian girl, getting good grades, going to good schools,
becoming a doctor, getting married.
And I found myself in my late 20s in my psychiatry residency, just completely
burnt out because I had not taken a break.
I just gone from undergrad to med school to residency and also really disillusioned
with medicine and psychiatry at the time.
You know, I just kind of felt like the image that I had of
being a doctor was very different than what it was on the ground.
And, um, I kind of, I had an extreme reaction that I do not recommend to
other people, but I blew up my life.
I left my marriage, I moved into this commune in San Francisco, left
my residency, and I went really down this rabbit hole of alternative
medicine, like all of the "woo" stuff, like the meditation, the
spirituality, like all of that.
And, um, I realize that also is not the answer to life's problems, and
there's just as many contradictions and hypocrisies in the alternative
medicine world as there are in mainstream medicine, and that you can't
just outsource your decision making, basically, that you need to really,
that real wellness comes from making the hard decisions in your own life.
And I always like to share that when I talk about this, that I was
extremely privileged to be able to even blow up my life like blowing up
your life is for sure a privilege.
And one of the reasons that I could is because I did not have loans from
medical school because of all of the sacrifices that my parents made and
all of their hard work as immigrants in America gave me the luxury of being
able to have an existential crisis.
So I just want to acknowledge that and Sandra, your question
of how my parents react.
So it's funny because I, a couple of months ago, I was on another podcast
that talks about, it's called the Mashup Americans, where they talk about sort of
like the mishmash of cultural identities.
And I realized that I actually didn't tell my parents.
I actually, I just did it.
I just was doing it and it was only after the fact that I told them that
I had left medicine and that I was with this group and I was exploring
these other modalities, meditation.
And it was tough, you know, that I didn't talk with my parents for a while,
like maybe a year or so, like that we were just not really in contact.
And I think we needed that space or I needed that space to set that boundary
after kind of going so hard for so long to kind of meet certain expectations.
You know, again, when I talk about this, I don't mean to...
I think my parents did the best that they could with what they knew.
And you don't have to set such a traumatic or violent boundary...
like that was definitely a big rupture.
But it was the only way that I knew how.
The other thing I want to add is that now, 10 years later, I'm 40 now.
This happened in my late twenties.
I think that it's so interesting because I don't think that our parents, I say
our, like being model minority Asian, I don't think they're wrong with steering
us to things like medicine or law or engineering, like these careers are...
very secure.
Uh, they offer a level of, um, respect prestige that actually-- We live in a
capital society for better or worse, and you do your life is better when you have
some money, I would not be able to have the career that I have now as a thought
leader and to be able to write a book and all the things that I've done if I
had not, after that period of my life, gone back to residency finished and
become a board certified psychiatrist and all those things, even though it
felt like at the time, oh, my gosh, like, why did I, you know, kind of lose
my twenties to school on the other side?
Now?
I do think it was worth it.
Yeah.
Minh Vu: And I think it does...
I agree.
It does make sense for parents of children who strive to be like model minorities
or how that ends up happening to what I, what we've said a lot in the past
is just that like, they want safety and security for their kids, especially
juxtaposed to maybe the lack of safety and security they had growing up.
And so what is a surefire way to ensure that, and it's these types of careers,
playing the game the way it needs to be played so that you don't get
tripped up and have those other things.
So I think, yeah, that that does make a lot of sense.
And I think there's like, still this weird tension to honor, giving
the children an opportunity to find that security on their terms.
And I think, you know, what you described in a more, I don't know
if extreme is the right word, in your way, you had to do that the
way that you needed to at the time.
And I'm really happy to hear that you were able to come
out on the other side as well.
I think so often people who kind of get into these types of groups, kind of
get stuck and I'm just curious for you, like what gave you the will to leave
and the like encouragement or, you know, courage to, to go ahead and say this
actually isn't what I thought it was and to kind of go into another direction.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah, you know, I'm actually still kind of
working through how to talk about that time and kind of processing
for myself how to talk about it.
But I guess one thing that I can share now is that it was definitely
not any type of like hero's journey.
I thought at the time that I was letting them down by leaving and I
felt a lot of guilt and shame and it was not until years and years later
that I found out kind of how dark the story was inside the group and had a
better understanding of what was going on that I wasn't aware of previously.
But I think in a lot of ways, it probably resembles to some degree,
maybe when people leave a religion and you really do feel like you,
you feel like you're letting them down, as opposed to feeling like it's
something triumphant at the time.
Minh Vu: I appreciate you sharing that.
Yeah, I can't imagine how difficult that must have been, but again, glad
that you are here on the other side.
Sandra Pham: This next section here will shift gears.
We love that you're in Austin.
We're all here Austinites.
You're relatively new to the city.
I'd love for you to share what kind of brought you down to Texas?
How's the reception been?
And when you look at the other places that you've lived throughout your life
and career, how does that compare?
You know, the good and the bad?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah.
Yeah.
So my partner, Justin and I moved to Austin in December 2020.
So really, in the height of the pandemic, he grew up in Texas, he
grew up outside of Dallas, and he went to UT Austin for graduate school.
He went to the LBJ school.
So he had lived in Austin about a decade ago.
We met in Washington, D.
C., and we had been living together.
And in this little apartment, and then the pandemic hit, we were both
working from home and we realized that we just wanted more space.
We wanted to get out of DC.
We wanted to leave kind of the East coast grind.
And so Austin was where we decided to come.
And so we packed up our car and our two cats.
We drugged our two cats, I should say, for the long drive
and we were really lucky too.
It was before housing.
Prices got like super, super wild, so we were able to buy a house and for, you
know, a reasonable price, whereas in D.
C.
you'd have to pay a million dollars for like a row home that still needed
to be completely gutted and renovated and the first year or two, I didn't
get out much because it was still kind of the height of the pandemic.
It wasn't until really like 2023 that I started to feel like I was getting to know
Austin and I have to say that I love it.
I love it.
I actually, I've not missed D.
C.
once.
I mean, I miss my friends, but I do not miss D.
C.
I think that Austin has the perfect combination of the culture and
amenities of being in a big city while feeling like you live in A medium
sized town, maybe everyone we know our neighbors, we hang out with them.
I was invited to join a dinner club, maybe like a couple weeks after I moved in.
So like I kind of was locked into this great group of women who have been
meeting once a month for like a decade.
So that.
Was amazing luck.
And when we had our son, we were able to find a daycare close
by that is affordable, which is another thing that is not would not
have happened on the East Coast.
And then what else?
I love the food.
I love queso.
So that worked out.
Minh Vu: Had you had it before?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: I've had it once or twice at Justin's, but
not to the level of, of here.
Being able to have it like anytime, like as an appetizer at any
restaurant, basically that you're at.
It's a food group in itself.
And I like barbecue too.
I love, you know, just the different like beer gardens and things like that.
Just the vibe of being able to be outside and having food trucks.
And I really like that it's so much more laid back than
other places that I've lived.
Yeah.
One thing that is very different, though, is that Austin is much less diverse
than other places that I've lived.
It feels like, and I, this is true, there are very few Black people in
Austin, and I think, you know, as Asians, like outside of Latinx folks,
I feel like we're kind of probably the most significant other minority, and it
does feel a bit very segregated too, so that's something that feels different.
So those are things that it's definitely been an adjustment on that side.
I'm hoping it feels like Austin is moving in the direction of more
diversity, especially with the influx of people coming from Texas
and Colorado and the East Coast.
I know people in Austin are not happy about that, but
Minh Vu: Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of this, you know, conundrum
that Austin faces a little bit.
The charm is we've heard it described or have described in the podcast.
It's like a, you know, like you said, medium, small to medium town pretending
to be a big city, but like has both.
So that's what makes it really appealing.
And then there's all the other stuff that also provide some challenges
that you mentioned as well, too.
And, you know, hopefully, I think there is a lot more conversation happening
around it and hopefully a lot more action too, but yeah, I think Austin,
even for Austinites, there's like a love hate relationship with it.
So, I think you're naming all the right things as someone who's been
here for a couple of years now.
You're catching it....
so,
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think maybe the other thing that's different for me is just
driving because other places that I lived, I was more reliant on the
Metro or the subway and here having to drive everywhere is different,
but I actually, I thought that would bother me more, but it actually hasn't.
Minh Vu: I don't mind a commute.
I live like way South Austin and I used to live like way North Austin.
So I'd like go down to UT and like a podcast jamming out to music or even
like, we'll talk about self care here in a second, but like being able to be
in the car just alone with myself and like, it's a space it has been in the
past, a space for me to really be able to just decompress in some ways and
like, yeah, feel, feel like I can be alone with my thoughts in a good way.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah, well, it's a transition space that when you don't have
it, yeah, it's like abrupt, the change.
Minh Vu: Yeah.
Sandra Pham: Yeah, so you mentioned kind of the pandemic was a big catalyst for you
and Justin to kind of move down to Texas.
To me, it seems like the pandemic really also shifted a lot of things for a
lot of folks because we had a lot of time that we were spending at home.
Self care definitely has really shifted.
Really grown into a buzzword.
A lot of folks are like, really trying to figure out and define what that means.
A lot of your work is really again, researched around redefining wellness.
What is faux self care?
Why do you think self care is resonating with so many folks right now?
Was the pandemic a big catalyst in all of this?
Or do you think it always existed?
And now we're just spending more times investing in ourselves?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: So, you know, when I was writing the book, I was
researching the term self care and I found that an interesting statistic that
Google searches for self care peaked the day after Donald Trump's election.
Of course, the pandemic impacted it for sure, and definitely has put mental
health, I think, more at the forefront of people's minds, but I also think
that the upheaval that we've experienced collectively in the United States from
a political standpoint and also all of the, you know, racial reckonings
that have happened, you know, after George Floyd's murder, like, I think
that all of those different pivotal moments are the type of thing that
does sort of define a generation.
And I think that and you know, we see in Gen Z in particular being so open about
mental health and guarding their peace.
So I think all of that comes into play.
I will say, though, even before I would say like I graduated residency in 2016.
And so I think even then I would have patients who were coming in
and they were saying, you know, "Dr.
Lakshmin, I'm stressed out.
I'm burnt out.
I'm not sleeping well.
I'm not eating well.
And I feel like it's my fault because I have the meditation app
on my phone that I could be using.
I just can't motivate myself to do it."
So I think that's been there.
It's probably just proliferated as people also were spending more and more of
their lives in the digital world too.
Minh Vu: I just had a question come up in my head, but like this idea of like
holistic medicine integrating, I feel like I've heard a lot of conversation around
what is defined in within insurance that's covered versus like some of the other
practices that people might put self care or like wellness or other things into it.
I'm curious if you have any like reactions or thoughts to that as a concept or
practice or like medical evolution?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah.
Well, maybe I'll answer that and then I can talk about the difference between
faux self care and real self care.
Yeah.
Tied together.
Yeah.
I mean, I think there, there definitely is a lot more of like holistic
medicine, integrative medicine, and then all of the kind of complimentary
modalities, like things like, you know, like yoga, meditation, breathwork,
craniosacral, reiki, like all this stuff.
And, you know, that was one of the reasons, like kind of feeling
disillusioned with psychiatry was one of the reasons that I fell so deep into the
wellness world, sort of exploring all of these different alternative modalities.
And I think what my take is that there are some things that are evidence based.
You know, yoga definitely has evidence.
Like, exercise in general, movement, diet, nutrition has an evidence base.
Meditation, too.
But all, none of those things singularly, is going to treat a major
depressive disorder or a diagnosis of PTSD or obsessive compulsive disorder.
They will help as part of your overall program for having a healthier life,
but they're not going to substitute for taking medication if you have
moderate to severe depression.
Psychiatric conditions, and I think that we lose that nuance, right?
Like people want to just kind of have it be one or the other.
And there's a lot of polarization and, you know, demonization of different things.
I think also that, you know, holistic and integrative medicine came about
because people feel like mainstream medicine is not serving them.
In particular, women, they feel dismissed and they feel like their concerns are not
being properly addressed or they're being brushed off or, you know, they're just
kind of being told, Oh, no, it's fine.
It's just anxiety or whatever.
And maybe there is anxiety too, but that doesn't mean that you should be dismissed.
So I think it's important to keep in mind that these alternative meds.
Practices come up because of a need.
And then the last thing I'll say is that from what I've seen,
there are great practitioners in all of these different areas.
And there are bad practitioners in all of these different areas.
So it really is about the person and whether they are professional and
licensed, if there's licensing, but they have integrity and they're staying
in their lane and they know when something is out of their scope and
they say, oh, actually, you know, you should go over here to check that out.
And unfortunately, I don't think we can, or maybe not unfortunately, but
just I think we can't make blanket statements about any one thing and
just sort of be polarized about it.
So that's the advice that I would give folks who maybe are trying to think
about what type of practitioners to see and how to go about choosing.
The whole concept of faux self care versus real self care is I define
faux self care as a product or a service that you're doing or buying
in order to make yourself feel better.
So it's kind of a band aid that you put on the different problems that you're
having, whether you're stressed out or you're burnt out or you're whatever kind
of the issue is that you're feeling.
And in a capitalist society, we are encouraged to buy things.
And when we have feelings, we're encouraged to have buy
things to make us feel better.
Faux self care always keeps the status quo as it is.
It doesn't cause you to re examine the power dynamics in your relationships,
or in your family system, or in your workplace, or your community.
Real self care, on the other hand, is an internal process.
It's a verb, it's not a noun.
I define it as four principles.
Boundaries, compassion, values, and power.
And when you start practicing these principles, you will naturally notice
a shift in power dynamics in your family, in your relationships, in
your wider networks, because once you start setting boundaries, other
people are going to start responding to that and treating you differently.
The other thing that's important with real self care is you can't buy it.
It's not something that you can just check off a list.
It's a practice.
It's something that you have to learn sort of like working out, like developing
these muscles, but it stays with you as a lifelong thing, and it's also not
prescriptive in the way like everybody has that friend that's like super into
like soul cycle or whatever it is.
And they're like, always like, "Oh, my God, just do this.
This is the thing."
And you're like, "I hate soul cycle."
There's not one wellness practice.
There's not one form of self care that's going to be the thing for everybody.
So with real self care, it's like, no, you need to find your own through the
boundaries, compassion, values, and power.
It's not that the faux self care is bad or evil or terrible.
It's just that the faux it's a tool.
It's a method.
Whereas the principles, are a principle.
So a principle you can make your own versus a method is circumscribed for a
specific use in a specific situation.
So to bring this to life, because this is all like a little bit
heady, a good example is imagine somebody that goes to a yoga class.
You go to Black Swan, and they're on their yoga mat the whole time, worried
that they're not wearing the right Lululemon leggings, and like, the person
next to them can hold a headstand, and they're like, "oh, like, I can't even
do crow pose," and they leave for like, the yoga class more in their head than
before they started, like they feel worse after yoga than they did before
yoga versus somebody who practices real self care and, you know, sets boundaries
with her partner, let's say, and says, you know, I need to go to once a week.
So can you be the one to do dinnertime with our kids or bedtime so I can do this?
And you're compassionate with yourself when some of that yeah.
Critical self talk comes up.
You don't let it consume you and you have named your values.
You know why yoga is important to you.
Maybe it's because you like being in community and your yoga studio
is one of your places of community.
Or maybe for you, it's more about being in your body and the physicality.
And then you recognize that is actually power like you taking it.
Your time and your energy outside of our productivity system to fuel yourself, that
person actually takes in the medicine of yoga like they're actually present, but
both of those people, like, if you just look at it superficially, they checked,
like, went to yoga off their list.
Minh Vu: Yeah, that's helpful.
Am I right in maybe understanding that it's really using a combination
of the principles that you've laid out and finding which tools are...
live within those principles that you've identified for yourself.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: So, yes, and so, yes, in terms of finding
your kind of wellness practice.
That is absolutely right.
There's kind of like a second level of real self care.
I would say like the 400, like if that's the one on one is then applying it to
actually like big decisions in your life.
What do I want my career to be?
Do I want to have kids or not?
Who do I want a life partner?
Like in those...
and that doesn't happen overnight that happens over time, many years,
like we do need the 101, we need something to help us be able to
kind of get through the day to day.
And once you kind of start building that muscle, then it becomes also a little
bit easier to see that you can apply this more widely to other decisions
that you're making in your life.
Sandra Pham: Yeah, I think so much of what you've said is so true.
We are a very capitalist or capitalism, like, just driven society, right?
So we are constantly thrown messages of what self care is.
And I think it's hard.
As an individual to navigate.
Well, what does that mean?
Does that mean just taking care of my body or, oh, that
means going to therapy, right?
Like there's so many various ways organizations, people define self care.
And I think it's really hard to muddle through all of that and figure
out what does that actually mean?
How can I apply it?
In my life, and so I really appreciate the example that
you just walked through there.
I think that was really visually or for me helpful.
Minh Vu: What I'm hearing is principles are...
really like firming up on your individual principles and what matters to you is
a nice compass and like, North Star to then help you make decisions about a
lot of aspects of your life and you can maybe start with like what are these
tools that can help me bring a little bit more peace to my day to day so that
maybe you're well resourced to then make larger big decisions in your life
that still live by the principles you're using to help you bring your maybe more
day to day peace through these tools.
I definitely like the person that would probably be too self conscious to go
to yoga, so that's not my tool of use.
Building Legos at home by myself, like, that is, that brings me peace, that
brings me joy, and that helps clear my mind so that I can, like, think
about Larger things like my career, relationships, boundaries that I'm
trying to set and how I want to set them.
And I think that's what I'm hearing is kind of this like 101 up to the
400 type of thing of approaching real self care in your life.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yes, yes.
And the only thing that I would add to that great summary, your
summary was much better than mine, would be that it's always changing.
Like it never ends.
Minh Vu: Mmm.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: It's because you always have to keep taking care of
yourself as long as you're alive, and your context is always changing.
You're always moving into different roles, you're in a new job.
You break up with someone, you know, somebody passes away, right?
There's always going to be changes in the context.
And so that, so then you'll find yourself probably stumbling a little
bit and falling into old patterns.
And that's to be expected for sure.
But as you move along, you'll catch yourself more quickly.
Minh Vu: Yeah.
I really appreciate you naming that.
Cause I feel like.
As someone that struggles with rigidity or just like the concept of
like, okay, this is the right way.
And that means that's the final, like finite way to then navigate life.
But as you mentioned, life continues to evolve and your situation changes.
And it's okay to make adjustments as those things happen, as long
as they feel true and good to you.
I want to maybe apply some of this to another type of example that
our listeners might more resonate with being Asian Americans.
You know, you mentioned those four principles, setting boundaries, learning
to deal with guilt, developing self compassion, how you talk to yourself,
and then getting clear on those values to make future decisions in life.
As you k now, in a lot of Asian cultures, children of like immigrant parents can,
I think you mentioned at the beginning, being parentified at an early age
or feeling like they have a lot of responsibility at a young age, not only
for themselves, but in some cases for their parents to, to kind of this concept
of kind of like repaying your parents for a life that they weren't afforded
because of the sacrifices that they made.
And I can speak for myself where sometimes I- I've done a lot of work to
not have that be this type of like...
repaying them be my North Star for life because it doesn't necessarily serve me
and my individual wants and desires, but there is an aspect that I still want to
honor that I do feel like is a positive value to want to incorporate some sort
of respect and repayment or just desire to honor what their experiences have
been so I guess this is a long way to set up the question of what advice you
give people whose values still kind of embody family and the desire to show
that love and respect to them, but it also might conflict with this new paradigm
of prioritizing yourself first and then the guilt that kind of comes with it?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: I love this question.
My answer is going to be very long winded because I have a couple different things.
It's all good.
I feel like it's a complex thing.
Totally.
So, so I guess the first thing is of course, you will feel that way,
like, the goal is not to change your personality completely, right?
If you've spent your whole life living with this conceptualization of, you know,
my job is to make my parents proud and to make sure that all the sacrifices
that they made were worth it, then that's always going to be part of your life--
upbringing or your kind of your blueprint.
So we're not saying that's going to completely go away.
And, and like you said, I liked your point that it's not totally bad.
Many cultures have a history and tradition of honoring elders and
kind of showing and paying respect to the wisdom of the generation before.
So I want to set it up by saying like that it's...
it's not a bad thing to feel this way.
And yes, you will, you'll always have this conflict or this tension.
You'll know that you're moving in a direction of healthier.
I guess you'll know that you're moving in a direction of being at peace with the
fact that you will always be in some level of this conflict when you're not angry at
your parents, when you can make a choice.
Food, I think food is always one of the ones that this falls around, and I, I'll
just give an example for me years ago, but like in college, my mom would bring
all of this Indian food to my dorm, like all sorts of Indian, South Indian
food, and I would never eat any of it, but I always felt so bad, and so then
it would just be in the freezer, and then when she would come the next time,
like, I had to give her the Tupperwares, you know, because, like, they saved all
the cool containers, and it was just, like, this cycle of guilt and guilt.
Like, I have patients now where they feel really bad with Asian
parents of saying no to food, like, parents often, like, bring food.
So, where you can say, you know, we don't need that right now, or, like,
we're okay, and not feel angry, and then also not feel consumed with guilt.
If you feel consumed with guilt, that means that you have
more work to do in therapy.
The place that you want to get to is to be able to name what the ideal scenario
is and have that be aligned with your values and something that you've named.
Like, maybe you can say for yourself, like, this is arbitrary,
but say on each of my birthdays, it's important for me to have my
parents bring food from our culture.
And I want that to be something that is included at the table
when we're having dinner.
And that might have a very specific meaning for you and
signify something in that.
And that's your own thing.
So when you can kind of move in that direction and then not get angry, if on
top of that, your mom or your dad, like, makes some sort of comment about it being
the wrong thing or like, blah, blah, blah, whatever drama happens, letting
that happen, just letting it happen and not getting enmeshed into it and letting
it ruin the meaning that it has for you.
And your parents might not understand why that specific thing
has the meaning and that's okay.
I think that's a place where a lot of people get stuck.
You spend too much energy believing that you're going to be able to change your
parents mind or that they're going to be able to understand where you're coming
from and why you're making different decisions and setting boundaries and
doing things a little bit differently.
They will never completely understand and that's okay.
When you get to a place of acceptance, that's when you know that you're
kind of on the right track.
Does that make sense?
Minh Vu: Yeah, I think it's that level of tension that you might feel when you're
feeling, really I think what we're talking about is the in between, that in between
feeling that of this like, for me I'll just say the, I think growing up being
born and raised in the States, there's a bigger lean to like individualism maybe,
versus Asian cultures that really promote kind of this collective prioritization.
And figuring out, well, there's parts of it that I really appreciate and like
growing up, and there's some that just feel so in contradiction of the aspects of
this individualistic culture or like thing that really resonates with me or feels
aligned with how I want to live my life.
And what I'm hearing maybe is that once there's a little bit of acceptance
that tug will always be there...
It's a matter of how much that tension is impacting the way that you navigate life.
Maybe not navigate life, but yeah, that tension how much it like
dictates your reactions to things or
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: yeah, how much distress it causes you Yeah,
Minh Vu: yeah, that's where you'll notice as less distress happens over
time you're starting to really embody those values that you want to live by.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yes.
And the only other thing I would add there is that it's
okay to pick and choose, right?
Because what the generation before probably would ideally
want is that you take everything.
You do all the things.
All of your kids know the language, you're eating the food all the time,
like everyone goes to this, right?
And you get to decide.
And it will take time.
It will take many years for you to land.
On the right equilibrium.
So I just want to also name that like, don't beat yourself up for skewing one
way or the other, because you will as you're navigating this, you're figuring
this out to alongside helping heal some of the intergenerational wounds.
Sandra Pham: And I think what I'm hearing is that it's also flexible as
you continue to recognize these things that there's a constant conversation
that you have with yourself of what feels comfortable and right for you.
And once you recognize that and what your threshold is and when you say that's okay.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Sandra I just want to say I like that you mentioned that it's
a conversation with you that you have with yourself, and it's important to know
that you probably won't be able to have that conversation with your parents, and
that's okay, and maybe you will at some point, but your goal should not be to
have the conversation with your parents.
Sandra Pham: Yes, that is just on a personal note, something I constantly
work on and reconciling and just acceptance of these are likely
conversations that I will never have out loud with my parents, but they are
conversations that I have within myself.
So that struck a note there, but I want to move in this topic.
I think is very interconnected with what we're discussing here, but
something else that you discussed and I know you even hosted a panel around
this is intergenerational trauma when we're discussing our parents.
There are a lot of beliefs and behaviors of our culture that we
inherit from our families or ancestors.
Some of them may remain unconscious.
Some of them don't as, as you start to invest more in discovering your own values
and again, figuring out how much of.
What your parents expectations and all of that you work and invest in.
I'm curious through this session in this panel that you've had in discussions that
you host, how do we consciously disrupt some of these intergenerational traumas?
How do we even begin to begin the work and scratch the surface?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really big topic.
We could spend an hour talking about that in itself.
I would say actually the boundaries piece is the first start.
The conversation we just had about how to navigate what's yours versus
what is theirs and what is ours.
Those three different buckets.
That is the way in to doing some of this intergenerational trauma work
because the thing with immigration trauma is that it's a loss.
It's a loss of a past culture, you know, a physicality of people.
So, the way that somebody responds to losing something is to try and
hold onto it, to try and get it back.
And so, the navigation of cultural traditions, and language, and food,
and all these things, is that.
ends up being some of the battleground.
And I don't think that you should, it's usually not helpful to start directly.
You have a better chance of having it be received if you come from an indirect
place, like with boundaries, like, you know, it's not going to, it's not going
to work if you just sort of be like, "Hey, let's have a conversation about
intergenerational trauma, because I'm talking to my therapist about this.
And I realized that Blah, blah, blah."
Like, that's not going to go over well.
Minh Vu: Yeah, as you're sharing specifically around this, like,
boundaries topic, and I think it makes a lot of sense that being kind of the
first step into maybe, like, disrupting this intergenerational trauma cycle.
But, you know, I feel like a lot of people maybe in the community might
have trouble with the sticky nature of what's their boundary versus
my boundary versus our boundary.
And I'm curious if like there, I know there's probably not a one size fits all
solution to being able to sift through and like pull apart which ones actually
is your individual boundary, like what feels good to you versus like what has
been told to you as like a boundary.
I'm curious if there's any sort of helpful question that someone can ask themselves
that can make that a little bit more clear about what's my boundary versus
the boundary that I've lived by, but it's maybe like my family's boundaries.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: I would say collect data on things that are
less important and see how you feel.
Let's say a small one is like whether people take their shoes
off when they come into your house.
And even if that's like a clear thing for you, yes or no, maybe play around
with either side and then see how you feel because the feeling that you get,
like if there is like an aversion or like a feeling of disgust, then you
know, Oh, this was, that's what it feels like when a boundary has been crossed.
Or if you like don't really have any feelings and it's kind of like a non
event, then you're like, Oh, okay.
That's how I know that's what it feels like in my body when I'm a yes.
So try that with things that are very low states because everybody's
line is different and everybody's body responds differently.
But the thing that will tell you is your body's response.
Minh Vu: Yeah.
And what I'm hearing in that example, it's like, yeah, maybe you
lived your life with being like, I'm a no shoes inside household.
But actually when I've like tested this thing, I don't, it doesn't
really impact me that much when I see people wearing shoes in the house.
And so maybe that was a boundary that I grew up with that not necessarily one
that aligns with things that I really value or like how it impacts my feelings.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Yes, exactly.
Exactly.
Minh Vu: Appreciate that.
Yeah.
Sandra Pham: Yeah, and that's a good one to start with.
Minh Vu: Yeah, very low stakes.
I go back and forth with that one.
I'm definitely a no shoes household, but yeah, I have
definitely broken that for myself.
And like, if I forget something in the house, I'm like walking
back in the house with shoes.
That's okay for me.
Sandra Pham: Look, well, Dr.
Lakshmin, we are so internally grateful.
I personally feel like I've just gotten a really therapeutic session that I didn't
know I was going to go through today, but it's, I think we could definitely
spend hours on a lot of these topics.
I think there's so much to dig here, but so appreciative of the work that you do.
I think we would be remiss if we didn't mention a lot of the work
that you do is really stemmed in Dr.
Lakshmin.
Understanding, recognizing the systemic barriers when it comes to these
intersectional identities that we carry and have as women as, you know, being
people of color and things like that.
And so I just want to recognize that it's...
we are just so grateful to have these kind of very nuanced conversations and
feel that there is so much work to be done, but just to have the privilege of
having the conversation, just thank you.
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Well, it was absolutely my pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
I enjoyed being here with you both.
Sandra Pham: You have an amazing book.
It is called "Real Self-Care."
So check that out.
If you haven't.
We'd like to close the episodes with our guests doing a rapid fire.
So if you're up for it, just let us know the first thing that comes to mind.
But before we do that, we'd like to ask all of our guests this question.
What is your Asian American identity mean to you today?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: I think right now as a parent, having a little
kid, I think I'm thinking about it a lot in terms of next generation
and especially having a kid who is.
biracial, and will likely be sort of ethnically ambiguous, I
think, in terms of his skin tone.
I'm thinking about what pieces I want him to take with him,
and I'm not totally sure yet.
I'm open and curious right now about my identity on that side.
Sandra Pham: Yeah, curiosity, I think, is a wonderful way to kind of position that.
So rapid fire, here we go.
What is your favorite Asian snack grown up?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Oh, Chakli.
Which is a South Indian like fried dough.
It's basically just fried dough.
Yeah.
Sandra Pham: Oh, okay.
Is that something that could, you could purchase packaged or is that made at home?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: You can get it packaged and I think
they do have it at H Mart.
Sandra Pham: Oh, okay.
We'll look out for that.
Where do you have fun in Austin?
Oh, where do we have fun?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: One place that I really like is Meanwhile.
The brewery in South Austin,
Sandra Pham: you're a Southie, you're a Southie, that's very far from me.
But Meanwhile-- it's a great one.
And then is there an example or a principle that you feel
comfortable sharing that's a self care principle for you?
Dr. Pooja Lakshmin: Gosh, I have so many, but I talk about
this in the book, the pause.
So I say that the boundary is the pause.
And then you always have three choices, yes, no, or negotiate.
Because no always has a cost.
So you might not always be able to say no, but you can always pause.
Minh Vu: I love that.
Well, just plus one to what Sandra said, it was a pleasure to be able to talk to
you today and hear more about your story.
Thank you for sharing and getting a little personal with us.
I appreciate you.
And I'm sure all of our listeners appreciate being able to learn a
little bit more about kind of what led to the great success and book
and journey that you're on now today.
So thanks again for sharing that with us and I hope you
have a great rest of the year.
How are you doing Sandra?
Sandra Pham: I feel like I got a free therapy session.
Thank you so much, Dr.
Lakshmin.
How do we even summarize that?
I think there are so many thoughts in my head because a lot of these
topics are so close to my heart.
Those are real conversations I'm having with my therapist.
I think it's no secret.
I really value my therapist.
I've been going for four years now and a lot of these are just,
yeah, just resonated with me.
Minh Vu: Yeah, and I mean, same, like, these are conversations and topics that
I'm, like, actively working through in progress of, have made a lot of
strides in, but also still continue to figure out what works best for me, and
I think it was just so comforting to be able to talk to someone that gets
it, and that there's a shortcut there.
Sandra Pham: You know what, I walk away that conversation and will
probably for the rest of the day and just telling myself that's
okay, that's okay, right, like,
Minh Vu: yeah,
Sandra Pham: things shift and change your values, your boundaries, all of that.
Those are conversations you have with yourself.
But I think you also need to grant yourself the grace and permission
to tell yourself that's okay.
These are not conversations that I need validation from others, specifically
my parents, to ever mouth those words to me and say, that's okay.
I think those are things that I have to really accept.
And that, that's my biggest takeaway.
And those words sound so simple to say, that's okay.
But boy, that is really hard.
That is really hard.
Minh Vu: And to actually, like, feel it.
Yeah, and
Sandra Pham: not be fake about it.
Be like, oh, like, to actually feel.
Minh Vu: I don't know if it's like the millennial generation or like
what, but I feel like self deprecation and just being like, lol my life, I
don't know, that's fine, whatever.
It's so common and it can be helpful in some ways, but it, to what she was
talking about, doesn't really, getting to the root of what, You feel is true
for you, like actually true and knowing what that feels like and feeling good
about it can really make a difference in coming into that acceptance.
If you don't truly feel like you've come into that acceptance, there
will still, you'll, there might be resentment, there might be anger, like
she was mentioning, and those aren't necessarily sustainable emotions to have
every time you're encountering these.
Sandra Pham: I'm going to challenge you here because it's the question that
you asked on how to, I think, figure out what's your boundaries versus
someone else's versus your parents and things like that, and something
that she kind of positioned was the best way to really figure that out is
to gather data to really have those tests or whatever, what do you think
you're going to challenge yourself...
what boundary are you going to challenge yourself?
Minh Vu: I also had to just take a big deep breath as you
were asking this question.
And I'm going to ask you it right back at you.
You're not making me be the only one to answer this question.
I think one thing that I've noticed for me is I used to, I don't know if it's,
I don't think this was like, a familial boundary, like a boundary that I inherited
from my parents or anything like that.
Like, I don't think it was, but there was, I don't know, even if it's a boundary,
but what I'm trying to say is basically when I'm at an event or hanging with
friends or things like that, and I feel myself like oh, I think I'm ready to go.
But in the past I've just stayed I've stayed until almost like the last one...
almost I guess if you want to call it like FOMO or like some sort of thing that
I'm like missing out on something and not wanting to miss out on that then I have
like forced myself to stay even though my body and my feeling is like, oh, I think
I'm ready to go and I've definitely...
I've definitely I feel like I've done a lot more work to be like,
no, I'm going to go home now.
And that's fine.
I'm at my limit.
Or I used to have like three or four things scheduled in one day
of extracurricular activities.
And I think that does probably come from my parents a little bit of being always
busy and don't waste time, don't always be productive, always be doing something.
And these days I notice when like I'm out and about and I do one event and I'm like,
this is good, but there's like still time left in the day and I'm like, well, I
could maybe add on this other thing too.
I have that pause where I'm like, wait.
I don't think I actually need to add another thing to my day.
I can go home and building a Lego set sounds nice.
So I think just continuing to gather that type of data to feel more, even more
confident and being able to make those decisions without any sort of like regret
or yeah, resentment or anything like that.
Sandra Pham: Yeah, I think that's a good one.
And I know we've talked about that one and exploring that
one, because it's a tough one.
Minh Vu: I like to be around people.
So, yeah.
What about you?
You tell me, how are you going to challenge yourself?
Sandra Pham: So one that I've been working on, and I think when you
first hear it, it kind of feels like silly or maybe more playful, like
the shoe thing, but mine is around food and not feeling the need to eat.
Eat all of my leftovers and things.
Right?
Like I grew up in a household single mom four kids.
It was like if there's food in the fridge granted we are on
the sixth day of this leftover.
We are going to eat it until it is gone.
You do not throw out food.
You do not waste food.
I just have struggled with that so much because a I just hate I hate
leftovers And I hate eating the same thing and that sounds so privileged
because it is but feeling not so bad and guilty on just saying, like, I
don't need to eat this like I'm...
I'm done.
I've had it.
I've enjoyed it.
It's also probably gone bad.
I'm not going to force myself to eat this for the 6th day and managing
that because food, I think, is such a big part of the culture,
but also not being wasteful, right?
And there's figuring out how I can do that...
without feeling so, so guilty about it, because I do.
Minh Vu: Yeah, it's so funny that food is such a topic within the community.
Even the example that she brought up, because I have gone through the same
things of just feeling guilty of either taking food from my parents and then
like I can't eat it all and then I do have to end up returning to where but
does that mean like I throw out the food and then I feel guilty about that?
Sandra Pham: You tell your parents you like one thing.
I'll go.
I'm craving bun bo hue or whatever so it's a Vietnamese noodle dish and my
mom will cook for a household of like 10 people and I'm like mom I live alone.
Minh Vu: Oh, I know.
Sandra Pham: And you're not going to eat this morning, day, and
night, and it's going to go bad.
And so have I lied to her when she's like, Oh, did you eat it all?
Yeah, I've dumped half of it and just been like, here's your Tupperware back.
Minh Vu: Yeah.
It's a way of life of cooking for a lot of people and for it lasting
a lot of time because that's how they grew up and those were the
circumstances they had to like live by.
Sandra Pham: But I didn't enjoy it any less because I threw some of it out.
I just can't do it.
But anyway, so that's mine.
Minh Vu: Yeah, cool.
Well, hopefully some of this stuff resonated with you.
Hopefully there were some tidbits and things that you feel like you can take in
your day to day and apply it to your life.
We're all doing our best.
We're all, that's all we can really ask for.
Everyone from our parents to ourselves to our kids to just the
relations that we have in our lives.
I think it's important to remember that people are generally doing
their best and that ebbs and flows.
I think that's the other important thing to remember is that things can
evolve and change and that's okay.
Sandra Pham: Yeah.
Well with that take care of yourselves y'all and bye.
Minh Vu: Bye y'all