It's strange to say this as a straight Asian male but I tend to be in environments where I'm a minority. I was in the great majority when I used to be a software engineer but now that I've quit that, there aren't that many males in the life coaching world and Korean Buddhism has a particularly strong female presence.
I attended a training recently in Seattle and in that training I was one of three males. The previous year's training also had three males including me. While last year I was the only guy in his 30's, this time all the guys were in their 30's.
As we talked on and on following the program, I got to talking a little bit about my upbringing as a Korean kid growing up in America. I didn't deep dive into it and just mentioned it in passing because something that happened in my youth was related to the topic at hand.
This caused one of the other guys to start talking about their youth, very similar to me: a Korean growing up in America. They went into the details about their life and I was listening in fascination because I thought his life was so similar to mine, along with its differences.
Then the remaining guy started talking and now both of us who had already talked were attentively listening in fascination. It was almost like we were three parts of this grand experience of a Korean boy becoming a Korean-American man. As he finished I felt inclined to share a bit more about my stories in relation to what they just shared.
As I was done talking and I put the figurative period in my sentence, I felt a bit of self-consciousness coming up; 'hmm, maybe I spent too much time talking about me and didn't give enough time for other people when they could be sharing more'. Then one of the older female participants started talking, and what she shared was very surprising to me.
She actually thanked us for sharing our story because she felt like she could finally understand her son in ways she couldn't before. Turns out, her son was basically a younger version of us, currently trying to figure life out as a young twenty-something Korean-American man.
When we get so engrossed with our own voice in our heads, we sometimes forget that this experience of life is shared with other people. Sometimes we hear things from other people but our own voice blocks us from listening to them. Even she said that her son has talked about life experiences like these but she never really listened to them because he was her son.
Then after the gratitude she said something that made me unexpectedly emotional: "it must have been very hard for all of you". I've never thought of my younger days as a particularly tumultuous one, but as I noticed my tears welling up I found out I wasn't being entirely true to myself. I thought I was fine, but parts of me weren't. And I finally felt understood at that moment.
You never know how a single sentence of genuine encouragement can change a person's entire day or even life. Sometimes that sentence of encouragement is best when it comes from you. You never know how sharing your life story, no matter how trivial it seems to you, can be inspirational to another.
My hope today is that you will open your heart to receive love and encouragement from others, and that you will offer others the same.
Billy Seol
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July Life Coach
βjulylifecoach.comβ
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