S2 Ep #78 Before I Was Ready: Saying Yes to the Life You Didn’t Plan With Jeanne Chung

Welcome to Into the Heart, Finding Wisdom with Him. The podcast dedicated to guiding you through life's transitions with grace, clarity and heart-centered wisdom. Hi there, this is Amy D. your host, a trans-personal life coach, certified clinical hypnotherapist, rakey master, and educator with over 20 years of experience teaching students of all ages in different modalities. This podcast is for you if you're navigating a change, a career shift, a relationship transformation, or even a deeper call within yourself that's something in your life needs to evolve. Whether you're facing a big life shift or just sensing that it's time for something new, this is your space to find support, insight, and inspiration. I believe that life's transitions don't have to be overwhelming. In fact, they can be powerful gateways to growth, healing, and self-discovery. And you don't have to do this alone. Together, we'll explore how to tap into your inner wisdom, unlock your strengths, and create a mindset that empowers you to move forward with peace and confidence. Your journey is unique and you are not alone. Every conversation, every story, every episode is designed to remind you that you have everything you need within you to thrive. And when we come together in community, we heal, grow, and rise in ways we never imagined possible. So whether you're in the middle of a transition or simply looking for inspiration to reconnect with your heart's wisdom into the heart is here to bite you back to your center. Welcome back to Into the Heart Finding Wisdom with him. My guest today is Jean Chang, author of the memoir before I was ready. Through reinvention from investment banker to yoga teacher to wellness entrepreneur, building businesses in yoga, hospitality, and menopause, and through resilience in the face of her brother's stroke, the deaths of her parents, a failed IVF journey, and menopause, Jean has learned to value the unplanned moments that lead somewhere extraordinary. She reminds us that saying yes can be smaller, significant, chosen, or forced. And today, Jean encourages us to look backward to map the yeses in our own lives and uncover the truths they revealed so we can fully own our next yes. Jean, welcome to Into the Heart I'm absolutely thrilled that you're here today. I am so pleased to be here. Wonderful. So the title before I was ready suggests that life often asks us to move before we feel ready or prepared. Take us back to your story. What did the younger part of you believe her life was going to look like? And where did the first unexpected yes take her somewhere she never imagined? Oh, wonderful. I love that. I was raised by two North Korean immigrants who moved from the North, from the Korean War to South Korea, and then to America. They were very strict. They were very specific on the path that the best path to take in life. Education, profession. So I also was the only daughter. So you think about growing up. My oldest brother was a doctor. My second brother was a lawyer. I went to engineering school. The only Trinity. My little brother got to go to music school so that was good for him. So my plan from early was you know get educated, go to college, get married, have some kids, raise your kids, very formulaic and very predictable. And then what happened actually is quite bittersweet is my mother was a force to be reckoned with. She was very controlling and there was not a lot of room for my purposes. And she died when I was 31. Oh dear. And it was quite young. I wasn't young. But I was young. Yeah. Feeling to lose a mother. And she was such a large energy in my life. And after her passing, after after grieving her loss, my life really shifted. I was in San Francisco. I quit my job. I became a yoga teacher. That was the first unexpected yes. Well the first was to stop having a career in a very predictable and laudable profession. And then I became a yoga teacher. And so that was one of the biggest shifts. It was hard to even fathom at the moment that had made the choice. Yeah. I bet. And how wonderful that you were able to tap into something that was nudging within you intuitively. Did it feel like did the idea to become a yoga teacher just arise within you? Did something outside of you point you in that direction? Yeah it was actually something outside and we pointed in the direction. And it was a twofold thing over many weeks. So it was practicing. And this is a funny story. So I was practicing at yoga studio for time. And after class, one of the other students said to me that she was going to a teacher training. And she was also everyone knew except for me. I didn't know at the time, but she was one of the drug dealers in the neighborhood. And she told me that she was going to yoga she was going to be a yoga teacher. I thought, how could you possibly be a yoga teacher? She's a drug in my brain. I'm saying this. And I was like, well she can do hand to eye. And so there's a small thing like going to my brain maybe I can or maybe I'll go, maybe I'll test it out. So that was a response, a response to something external. Someone else was going and I decided I'm going to go to. And what happened at the training was the second thing where I was doing we did mock teaching. So you'd go up in front of the group and you'd pretend to teach one or two poses. And after I did mine, the main head teacher leaned in and said she's going to be a great teacher. And I blew my mind because I hadn't really considered I was doing the training just to kind of train and go deep into my practice as they say. And that was the second signal. And the way I look at it now, it's their one way to the perspective is something came for the outside in. And I took that as permission or write the signal. The way I look at it now in retrospect that it was it was closing the gap that there was something in me that wasn't exactly articulated. And there's something out there that helped me pull it forward. So it wasn't just external validation, but it was a combination that's something inside and outside. I love that. When that meets, when the inner part of you meets the outer part of of you in such a beautiful, organic way in an experience, right? I hear two things. One is you responded instead of reacted to a situation that could have taken you. I love the comparison. A yoga teacher and a drug dealer all in one and and comes up for you. Like you said, is a surprise, right? A surprise reaction. But what was born in you out of that contrast was immediately, well, if she can do it, I can do it. And how powerful is that to know that that you can do it? And then to have the external experience of somebody believing in you and you being able to be witnessed to someone else's experience of you, I just I just love that. Yeah, it was very powerful and particularly in retrospect. I think in the moment it was one of those things that are is almost inappable. Like you can't actually just grab what's happening. But in retrospect, I was like, oh, that's exactly what happened. There was part of me that was being seen and I was letting it be seen and I was letting hundreds of people see me and also accept it. So in the moment, you said, like, I could be seen and withdraw. I could reject. You could qualify, right? But I was I heard it and I allowed it to land in my body. I love it. I absolutely love it. And one of the things that you talk about is that life makes more sense when you look backward rather than ahead. And this seems to be of that very thing. Can you speak into that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. I've always had this hunch. It was kind of the remember the movie sliding doors with Quintet Opera. And what happens if you miss like just one moment and it puts you two different paths. And I always thought about since then. And you'd say we all have a plan for our lives. We started this conversation like what was the plan for my life according to my mother and that I bought into for many, many years. So you have a plan and your plan can only take you so far because who you are today and what's around you today is inherently limited. And in looking back and writing my memoir of digesting and metabolizing my stories, I see this beautiful articulation, serendipity, coincidence, opportunity, fear, a lot of all of these things that it couldn't have been predicted. And any plan could have not had said Jean, by the way, you're going to be expand about five years being an investment banker, then you're going to be a yoga teacher, then you're going to open up a yoga studios, et cetera, because that would be like comedy for me. The plan would not be possible. So in looking back, I think there are things that you can uncover that are so beautiful and if so not only beautiful, you think all of the coincidences have grateful one can be for all of that to happen. The other is to understand what those yeses, what those decision points ultimately revealed to you, the truth about you. And that's what I landed on, which is the idea of an investment banker becoming a yoga teacher and becoming very good yoga teacher is something that I could have not have guessed or even desired really because it was my brain was not able to do that, but in looking back, I can understand that I had the innate skills desire or passion to become a great yoga teacher. I also had by saying yes to open yoga studios, which again, I've never done before and it was a wild yes, but I did it anyway, a lot of expanded energy and passion for yoga. I then understood after opening a bunch of studios at a hotel and a teacher trading company that oh, wow, you know, I have the entrepreneurial skills that too, which if you would ask me when I was a banker, I would say there's no way I would ever run my own business. So I'm looking back. It's not just reflective. It's not just all of these things that happened to me. The themes I learned from writing the book and evaluating the book is to say look back, see what those yeses, those pivot points gave for you. And what is what is the truth about you now that you have that those yeses gave you. Can you say that one more time that's really beautiful. What is the truth that yes gave you. Yeah, so looking back in these pivot points and maybe you have maybe it's a big decision, but you said yes, maybe you said no, but to look back and trace those. Okay, because of that this happened because of that decision, I became this I developed this I grew in this way. And as there was and therefore today looking back, that's my truth. My truth is, I was an investment banker, but also had the ability kind of the chrysalis and the, you know, for the butterfly is that I had the essence to become a yoga teacher. And that's a truth about myself. I would not have known if I didn't say yes. Yeah. So what this leads me to want to ask you what strengths about yourself. Did you discover because you said yes before you were actually maybe ready or even knew what was next. Absolutely. So the is funny. I was talking to someone at the time where I decided I was a move I was in living in Singapore and I decided to open up some yoga studios again. I was living in San Francisco and decided to open a studio Singapore halfway around the world didn't know anybody had never been there. And this person was talking to us like, wow, you know how to really leave it to the unknown. I love that. I have not really articulated that to myself in that way. Honestly, I'm just going to go do this thing. It felt quite manageable in my brain. And when he framed it that way, I was like, oh man, I really am leaving. And I internalize that in a way that and helped me understand the momentousness of the surgeon. I was like, okay, I'll just go do this. It's not a big deal. But in fact, it was a very big deal. So someone helped me understand the ability to take a risk to do something new, to decide to create something out of nothing. So those are things that started to be revealed, but in fact, a long time to build that makes sense. So it was these small things to me. It's like the next step and next step and the next step that start to pull you in a direction that build your skills. And that's why looking back at like six or seven steps, you're like, wow, where I was and where I am. And that's the cool thing that is a gift to yourself. I couldn't agree more. I can so totally relate to this aspect of your journey in a very parallel, mirrored way. And I tend to call it breadcrumbs that are leading or synchronicities that I'm paying attention to. Because synchronicities are happening all the time. But am I available and am I paying attention to what's arising? And what are the experiences that my heart is seeking? Really? What experiences am I seeking? And in that awareness, being able to see the yes kind of just rise up off the pavement and say, over here, try this. Maybe the wildest thing that you hadn't ever considered before. So my path to becoming a life coach is a lot like that. It started with me being in therapy. And then receiving such an enormous gift from an experience that I became a clinical hypnotherapist and that led me to train and subtle energy and study metaphysics and all these different things that eventually resulted in me becoming a life coach. So like you, it's about piecing together all the different parts of ourselves, right? And what I really really to emphasize or point out or repeat for myself is being open to the signal. They're signals all the time. And partly when your body and your soul are red, your heart are ready, you know, and like you have to learn like for yourself, but you're evolving all the time and sometimes you're close off to signal, sometimes you're open to it. And it's the thing where you get multiple signals that you can't. You have to really take a moment and consider these are the same signal. Yeah, I really like that. And something popped into my mind from a coach that I have that she often says this if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no. So to your point about what to pay attention to and when there are multiple different things coming your way, how do we discern what's right for us? Which also reminds me of another story, which is a, it's a really endearing story about a woman who was late in her years and someone asked you what is the most valuable lesson that you ever learned. And she said looking back, she said it's to understand the power of choice to understand to understand that I could choose at any given moment. And if I stepped into an experience and it wasn't right that I always had the right to change my mind. How powerful that is to understand that we have that much agency. Yes, for the two things to choose, and then she's in and then to choose out that is really cool. And I think this is, I think this is the question for the ages, which is you get a signal, what are you going to do? So are you going with your intellectual mind? Are you going with your lizard brain? Sure. How are you responding? And I would going back to the beginning, which is, you have a plan for your life, my father had a plan for my life, right? So I'm going to make a decision based on the plan and execution, how does it resonate within me? Am I even as a young person? I wasn't even able to resonate with my own desires, how I felt, right? It wasn't until I started practicing yoga and getting into my body that I could start to attune to understand myself. So when I was younger, I wouldn't be able to make a decision off plan, right? And then I'll, people like you and me, and people that are listening to you, or more involved, evolved and paid attention to their lives, and want to make the most optimal decisions. This is this is the crux of the matter when you're in front of it. What do you do? And I think one of the messages for my book is. Lean into the unknown, the unexpected, the off plan. There's so much, there's so much beyond your plan. Good and bad. My younger brother had a massive stroke out of nowhere. He had no indication medically beforehand, and it threw his life obviously into the air and our whole family. It was such a, it was such a traumatic and transitional and all-consuming event. So these kind of things happen. Life happens. And then there's this, I think we are, we can be really stuck to like, this is the plan that I have. And as a result of limits, you're able to respond and dance with the signals that are coming to you. Yes, something that just dropped in for me was also in light of trauma and difficult experiences happening in life, which I have also had along my path. I am aware of this question that arises within me, which is, what am I making it mean about me? Meaning, what am I taking from this? What am I learning from this experience? And how is it going to impact my life? I think we were talking a little bit earlier about responsibility. Well, I was, you know, about how much responsibility do we have for other people, sick relatives or our kids or, or anybody really could be a colleague at work? And how do we know where to place our, our attention when it comes to other people experiencing difficult moments, right? You, you came right in and helped your brother in a very critical moment and showing up with, with love. And just being a presence, I can't even imagine how powerful that must have been for all of you. - Absolutely, yes, absolutely, and I think fear is. This, you talked earlier about service and it's this continuum of responsibility to service what's needed in the situation and what my brother had his stroke, it was all responsibility. At Prima Fasha, like looking at it, it's just responsibility, hospitals, insurance, finances, all the things, and then zooming it out and seeing the other side and the other side of the spectrum, it was in service of my brother as a human, my brother as part of this family, my brother as, as his sister, honoring his life, honoring the situation and understanding how we could get to the best. Yeah, may I ask a very personal question, what do you carry into your present day about that experience that you value and treasure? There are two things. One is, me and my little brother, he was in his 40s, we were both in our 40s, we weren't very close. Through the process, I learned how to show love to my brother and for him to show love back to me, it had its difficulties our whole lives and in this situation, we really got to give each other, it showed each other love, which was it's irreplaceable and that's I carry with me. The other is, I'll say it's simply put, is I carry with myself very deeply, maybe it's the most important thing that I've ever done in my life, is that I'm a good person who shows up. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that you learn that about yourself because it taps into self-worth and I think that's something that in our society, we lose sight of at times. I believe that that's an important piece of our ability to expand is understanding that we are worthy of being loved and reciprocating that. So what a beautiful lesson that you got to live through a very painful situation. Yeah, it was very difficult, it was years long journey and it's one of those things that you say when people go through really hard stuff and looking back like I'm actually very grateful because while I had spent time building businesses and making money and all of that was, okay, I'm a good smart professional person, right? Yeah, this was a profound profound life experience that has given me so much comfort about being a human, like to tell other humans on the planet. For sure. I think it brings me, for me, I go back to that responsibility question of when we share our stories and we're vulnerable, while honoring another person's set of circumstances, it allows us to love, I think, in a more, I'm going to dare to say unconditional way. You know, it lets us get out of our own way somehow. Yes, absolutely. I think it helps us expand our own hearts. When we're going through really difficult things and we're not sure if we're making the right decision or we're good enough or why is this happening to me like all the different dimensions of a very difficult situation that it's, it weighs heavy on the heart. Absolutely. Even though there's tons of love and I'm working from deep dedication, it is so hard. So many rehab centers, so many physical therapists, so many drugs, so much anatomy, so much neurology, there's so much to learn to carry. At the same time, my heart is exercising, it's getting stronger from the love perspective, and it's not until you have a shared story, a shared experience, and you get to feel that more, sharing the story helps me feel the love, more clearly and more fully. Yeah. Do you know quite a bit about resilience? Would you care to share a little bit about your experience with our listeners about what you've learned about resilience in your life? Yeah, I think this was the primary, the biggest things I went through was through my brother's stroke. It was so apparent the circumstance. The other, there were other two, there are other a few stories, but one I'll talk about my father. So my father was a kind of famous North Korean escapee up his time during the war in like the 1950s, '60s, and he, I'll say this is simply as possible. He drank a lot, he wasn't very good with managing emotions, and he was abusive, and it was abusive to my mother, and I didn't know how bad until I was in my late 20s, and I'd seen some scars that my mom had, and she disclosed to me the situation, and I was, I have her gastin, broken hearted, so upset, and I decided I'm not going to talk to my dad ever again. He is a horrible person, and I finished, how could someone do this to my mother? And I got very righteous about it for many years, I did not speak to my father. And my dad would call me, leave voicemails, all I said, I just ignored him. And then it hit me one day, and I don't know, this was like some mana from heaven. It hit me in exactly these exact words, like you're a fighting fight, that's not yours to fight. You're fighting a fight for your mother who has now passed, you are not in the room, you don't know what's happened. Yes, it was severe, but it was decades ago, and you are carrying something, you do not need to carry, it is not yours to carry. And I sat there, and it was like so profound. And I said, okay, in that moment, like I'm done, like I'm done fighting this fight. And in that moment, I also said, I'm going to start re-engaging with my father, and I'm intentionally deciding not to bring it up. So there's one part that one part of the branch, the decision tree, would say, like, you know, you should tell him, tell him why, you should talk about it. And I said, you know, it's so not necessary. What I'm going to do is just show up. So what happened was it would spend time with my dad, we'd hang out, watch TV, just zero agenda, being each other's presence, and we spent so much sweet time together. It was so wonderful. The at thing I'll add to it is, my dad would never really tell us his story of a escape. And so I bought a little digital quarter, and we'd go to dinner and put it under my plate, and I would secretly record him. So I very casually asked him questions, me very casually answered, it was wonderful. And so the two, like the epilogue of it is when my dad was in his final days, he reached, he lived to 90. I was able to sit next to his bed in really a lot of peace. I was very clear that the past five years of my dad had been, it was actually more than five years, but I'm very intent of all our time. There was no resentment, there was no regret. I was sad, it was the end, it was so in a way easy, and I knew that because it was because I decided to show up and just spend time with him. And that was for me, that idea of like how do you it's resilient, you go through something really, really hard, and you come at the other side with an outcome that you are expecting that was very positive, heartful. And then the other day about around Father's Day, I had found these recordings on my laptop, and I started to play them. It was so surprising, but wonderful, was I could listen to it without tears. It was so wonderful, just to me here, my hair, my dad's voice, his cadence, his favorite filler words, the way he laughed, the way we engaged. And so for me, it was that idea, I could be very deliberate about resolving a problem that I carried, like it was really righteous about it, and I dropped it, and for that I gave him and I both this amazing gift. Yeah, that speaks right into forgiveness. And it started with you giving yourself forgiveness and permission to lean in and say this is maybe, this is what I hear you say, right? How beautiful that you were able to create a connection. You know, it reminds me, Gina, of so many instances, even my own, where you're walking with something and you just don't know what people are walking with. We don't know. We have conversation earlier about this, about you might run into somebody who's crabby or having a bad day, and you know, we can make all kinds of judgments about other people and about where they are and how they show up and, you know, how we, it's abrasive or we don't like the way that they're treating us or whatever, and the truth is we really don't know their full story. And it sounds like you took a chance to get to know your dad better and to lean in rather than step away. Yes exactly and that was the thing I didn't know his whole story never asked about you know his emotional state when he's feeling abusive or why he drinks so much right because it's the moment and going forward none of it mattered. Yeah matter is a father and daughter it's spent time with each other. I wonder this connection between your ability to look backwards and learn from where you've been and to bring that forward and to have these aha moments over and over again of oh okay I understand this is this is where I'm at and this isn't mind to carry and so I'm going to make a different choice I just love the power of choice and how you've just leaned in and owned that. Yeah absolutely that was a very clear choice and then we were saying before choices aren't always so clear. Yeah but get me and just like a laser beam. Yeah like what are you doing you don't have to do it you're doing something that's not productive. Yeah do something else. I love it I absolutely love it. Jean I would love for you to share a little bit about your book and tell us about the story of your book and what you hope your readers will gain from it and take away from it. Yeah absolutely happy to the book is entitled before I was ready and it's all about basically life and folding in front of me and the genesis was as I mentioned my father was pretty famous North Korean escapee and I always had this idea that would write his story and another aha moment it took me a while I sent him books on how to write your autobiography and he never been mentioned then like this kind of thing he clearly didn't want to tell his story. Yeah and it occurred to me like I said it was same to myself like pain this is not your story to tell and I and then and I said you know my story to tell my story to tell is how I learned about a story and that expanded into all the stories of in my life and the idea came to me to write my memory only a year ago so I was 57 when the idea popped into my head and it was this moment in time where the idea landed so well that I was ready to tell my stories that I understood that my stories could serve two purposes one is for me to digest and metabolize I look at this journey and I recommended for anyone to write a memoir because it helps you digest everything that's happened and for me it's the foundation for where I'll go next because now it's a very firm foundation what I know about myself these stories in my life and the other is that it's a foundation for the past but it's also the permission for other people right that I didn't think my stories were that interesting right but you'd share stories and they would just resonate and they'd land and it's such a wonderful exchange right this heart-to-heart human-like-to-human-life connection from the stories so I appreciated that about where I was for myself to make it a foundation for where I go next but also really kind of honor the stories of themselves for them to inspire, motivate, inform, you know, comfort other people. So beautiful I love that. Jean this conversation has gone by so quickly I cannot even believe it I would love to invite you to share any tips that you may have for our listeners and also how may they find you and your book. Yeah the thing that I say to people now having written the book is I really encourage everyone to take a moment, take some time, take a journal even if like on a whiteboard posted notes trace big decisions in their life go back and trace them and three or four you'd have to do your entire life but three or four decisions that wish you off into a different path. Then from this decisions think about what they gave you but what it showed you and maybe it didn't show you anything yet it just showed like at the time it just starts uncovering later. What did it clarify for you? What is it affirming for who you are today? For me it's like I'm a good yoga teacher I'm a great sister and I'm doing a pretty good daughter. All of these things for all these yeses that I said and that in my opinion my own experience is once you look back you see these pivot points you understood when you said yes and when they gave you you'll then be anchored in your ability for your next yes your next big decision what I'm hoping as we touched on before is like when you get to your next yes your next fork in the road that you lean away from the the lean into these crazy signals that are coming your way and then you have the comfort and the confidence to do that absolutely beautiful so may I ask you in closing what is your next yes and my next yeah my next yes is following what this book will bring for me so part is messaging articulate and talking sharing stories with people like you and I think it'll be maybe doing keynote speaking um beautiful that's what I think that's what I'm feeling right now we need to send motivational speak yes I think so I think you have it in you there is no question about it yeah thank you and if if folks would like to find you where can they find you and your book yeah you can find to me at my personal website with which is jean shong.com j-e-a-n-n-e-c-h-u-n-g.com and my book when it's ready will be available there too it's currently preparing for publication but you can follow me there and I'm putting excerpts from my memoir in my sub-stack so when you go to my website you can find my sub-stack and then follow my my writing from there perfect jean thank you this has been such a heartfelt conversation I have truly enjoyed this conversation thank you so much yeah me too thank you so much hey if this conversation speaks to your heart please subscribe to into the heart finding wisdom with him on apple spotify amazon i heart radio you can follow me AMD your host on instagram at pathways to purpose life coach if you would like to learn more about my one-on-one coaching and packages you can find information on my website at pathways to purpose coaching.com there you will also find a special gift waiting for you there's a beautiful heart meditation and an interactive guide to awaken your inner power if you're considering asking for support i'm taking your next step during a life transition i want to invite you to set up a free discovery call with me i would love to support you during your life's transformational journey until next time take care of your beautiful heart