CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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[Cheerful theme music begins] 

This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

In their early twenties, Mimi Zhu was a survivor of intimate-partner abuse, which left them broken and in search of healing paths to re-learn love. Mimi began writing a collection of powerful, interconnected essays and affirmations that followed their journey toward embodying and re-learning love after their violent romantic relationship. The result is a stunning and provocative book, Be Not Afraid of Love, which like all of Mimi’s work is a testament to the strength and adaptability humans possess and a tribute to love. 

In this episode, Mimi is joined by author and multidisciplinary artist Fariha Róisín for an empowering conversation on life, art, and what it means to not be afraid of love. 

This episode was recorded during a live online event on October 12th, 2022. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 

[Theme music concludes] 

Fariha Roisin: Hello! Hi Love. 

Mimi Zhu: Hi.  

Fariha: How are you?  

Mimi: I'm great. How are you?  

Fariha: I’m good. I have a lot of questions that I want to ask you, but I'm also just really curious about where you're at and how you're feeling. You had a roller coaster; I feel over the last couple months. So, I really think for me and for those of us who are here. I really want to know how you have been these last couple months since the book has come out. 

Mimi: Thank you. I mean, we are such great friends and I think catching up in this way is so special and delightful and I'm going to try not to get too personal or emotional, but it's really special to be just checked in with, especially because I think you are familiar in many ways of this process, and it has absolutely been a roller coaster.  

I love to say that it's a joy ride because it definitely is. It's an absolute honor to watch people form relationships with the work and the book while at the same time, it's been a really deep time of boundary setting and protection. Not so much protection from people, even though that is always important to do. But also, protection in terms of re-exploring the trauma or having to revisit it, through every reading through every event. Even every conversation you had with somebody who's read it, you know, kind of having this very odd experience when people will be like, I read your book and they'll tell me what they think and it's usually really beautiful and grounding feedback and I just know that they know. I’m like you know what I've been through because I wrote a book about it. So, you see this layer of me that is not necessarily something that I present publicly by appearance. But because of this work that I have written, and I have gifted to the world, you know. You know what’s up. And there's this level of intimacy there, there's a sense of closeness there and I'm just trying to navigate it all, honestly. At the end of the day, I'm more than grateful and blessed and I feel so happy and at the same time I'm resting, and I don't feel bad about it.  

Fariha: Oh my God, that's amazing. Yeah, it's funny because I had read the book before and wanted to read it again through this conversation. I wanted to read it again obviously just because I wanted to do that again and I think it's really fun to read a book in the book form that it's coming in, you know, reading it, I did think that there must be so many people that are reaching out to you and asking for your time, trying to tell you about their story saying like how they were moved by- I mean, I've had people tell me things about it, so I know that people are being really shaken and stirred by it a lot. I mean also as your friend, and you know reading it is really uncomfortable and painful and I'm sure everyone is kind of disclosing that to you. How do you navigate one not feeling like you need to be responsible for other people's feelings and how are you ensuring that you're actually resting?  

Mimi: That is just such a beautiful question and I think it's a question that I'm asking myself every day. I think maybe there is something inherently a part of me, I guess from my childhood from an Asian upbringing. That feels like I'm obligated to give all of me all the time and if I don't then I don't deserve love and praise which is like this like mode of scarcity in this mode of survival. And when I do kind of get these messages that I'm really grateful for, there's an immediate kind of like reaction to be like, okay, you have to respond, you have to tend to everything, you have to let them know how grateful you are. I am while at the same time I've learned to just be like, do I have the capacity right now to extend myself emotionally and to get into it? If I do that, right, I want to do so with intention instead of without like the obligation right?  

I know that readers and people who have read the work understand that and have been extremely respectful of my time and my space. My therapist actually said something really beautiful that I think you'd really love and appreciate, but she said that, you know, there's like specifically in like Chinese Opera, for example there's this one dance that's like a mask dance where they would put on these masks and then they kind of switch them out really rapidly. It's like a performance, but before they do this mask switching ceremony, they have to do a grounding exercise to kind of remember who they are without the mask. When she told me that, you know, as kind of like a metaphor for what's been going on because when I went on tour, I know I have to talk about my trauma in a way. I know I have to be wary of people's triggers and be respectful, be in these spaces and somehow present something to the world, right? That is in a way in all honesty me getting into, like a zone, me getting into this performance mode, me switching my mask and I remember what my therapist said that before I do that mask switching before I kind of give myself right to an audience, before I respond to someone in messages, to just do a very simple ceremony, as simple as taking a deep breath and remembering who I am, my capacity. Then moving from that place of groundedness instead of like I have to do this otherwise nobody would like me you know I feel like that fosters a more genuine response.  

So, I guess just like deep breathing has been really helpful and also spacing out my tour like a lot. In the last month I did six events, and I went to Toronto which I've never been to before, so I got to see a new city. Well at the same time by the end of it, I learned that I did push myself a little bit and that was a great lesson because in all this care work that we talked about and that we practiced, I must remember to not forget about caring for myself, you know? So that's been like a push and pull of this whole process. I appreciate you for asking that because I know that you probably went through the same and I want to ask you like, how, how have you been, how have the last few months been? How is your process as well?  

Fariha: I have been going through a really deep depression and like that's just been where I've been at.  I've just been struggling quite badly, and I don't know, I have a lot of compassion for myself right now and it's taken a lot to get here, but I was sort of in this haze because our books didn't come out that far away from each other. But enough that we've had like, very like separate experiences and you know, this whole year was pretty brutal with everything that the book and the process and then having a book out and feeling so vulnerable, exactly what you said like people know everything about your life and you're just like feeling a lot of shame and embarrassment like oversharing, you know, and like feeling like God, am I really doing this with my life? Feeling really dissatisfied with how the book has landed or feeling like nothing is satiating whatever it is that I want and really struggling with that and feeling like, okay, how do I surrender, telling myself to surrender then feeling frustrated that I'm not surrendering? It's been like a really big spiral dance with myself but I'm just in it, you know, and that's why I asked because I knew that we were like communicating but we're both in our experience too.  

So, this is our chance to sort of like I think talk through that fog and it's really quite powerful to hear how you were experiencing it and that's why I'm so curious cause I knew that you were definitely probably having your own process that was like, going to be so specific. It’s also your first book and in the first book the relationship is very different and it's your baby, you know, and it's everything that you pour into it like every, every part of it. It's so you, you know, it's to the illustrations inside, to the preface, to the colors that I know that you fought for all of these things, and you wanted like this book to be representative of you and what you bring to this world, and I know how hard that is, you know, to do that with your art. How much you have to advocate for yourself to even get this book made. You know how much you had to do? So, yeah. I am really curious about sort of the rest process for you and also just like how you negotiate those things. So, thank you for sharing that. Like, I know it's an up and down joy ride as you said. 

Mimi: Thank you. Like you're just so fucking real, you know, like you are like, since the beginning and I remember sitting at your event when your book came out in Brooklyn and you talking about how like your dreams have changed shape, right? Like I think what we move within literary spaces and we're told like what to expect and what to hope for in terms of like a book being like a best-seller and like, whatever, you know, like reaching these models of success and I am not like, I'm embarrassed to say it but I'm not ashamed to say that I had those wishes too, you know, I had these like, best-seller dreams in mind and all these like, you know, I was wanting to do it, big of course. And that's not a bad thing. And that's what we're told to hope for. Well, at the same time. I think it's complex because it is about our trauma, right? Like these books are about our deep trauma and it's like- 

Fariha: They're yeah. They’re inextricably linked. Totally. Validation, right? Exactly. 

Mimi: Like it's like Yeah. Like the more people read this the more I feel validated in my experience. It's also completely earth-shattering and I'm sure this happens to you too to have people come up to me and tell me their very similar experiences. I'm like how many fucking people are going through any kind of intimate violence right. And why are we, why do we, why does it feel like we have such limited resources, right? Like a lot of the feedback that I've got is like, I haven't read something like this etcetera and I'm like, neither have I, and I really want us to be able to engage in these conversations with each other while the same time being aware of the complete heartbreak knowing that this is happening. So often, right? And then on top of that writing about our trauma. Fighting to have it kind of in this body of work and then wanting it to reach these milestones. It's like a complicated beast. It's a beast. Exactly. And so, I'm so grateful for you that we are kind of in parallel with these experiences. Yeah, yeah. 

Fariha: I know it's actually just so like, helpful just to hear it, you know? Because it's like you're, I'm in my head all the time, just but I've just been spiraling for months and like, it's also just really shameful so I can't talk about it in public space. Like, I don't want to talk about it. It feels very vulnerable and icky and, you know, I do feel this like sense of like, oh, I should feel happy. I should feel like, you know, really why people keep being like it's so great to see you're doing so well and I'm like, you haven't even asked me how I'm doing, it’s so crazy, you know, it's like real. Really the dissonance is really intense.  

And, you know, something I've also like, really started to think about and I wonder how this lands for you is like, I actually really need validation. And I didn't realize that, and I think that like, in our culture because of this, like, feminization of care that, you know, you kind of talked about, you know, and like I also talked about. It's like something that I think we think about a lot. And I, what does care even mean and how does one, how does one care for themselves? When what you do is, and how you express yourself is also tied to like, what is cost, what was the most painful thing in your life? And the thing you're trying to impress people about, you know, it's just like this really like and I talk about it in therapy all of the time. The irony that I like, am doing a career that literally is on my wounds. You know, it's like I'm excavating, but I'm excavating the wounds in order to understand it, and this is the first time in my life that I feel like, I've felt like the, like that feeling of being hit by a ton of bricks like really, like, I physically and spiritually and just somatically and energetically felt that release. Like, did you feel that kind of release like, was it joyful? I mean, what does a joyride look like in that sense?  

Mimi: I think, like everything you said is so powerful. And I think something that came up for me after I like, submitted the last draft of the book is actually, what if I have nothing left to write about, that's like a thought that I had like, I was like, okay, I guess the book is done. What if I have nothing left to say? And in a way I think that was me kind of thinking like, I am my trauma, like that's all I am. I am my trauma, and I am the story that I've written about it and like, that was like a really like, depressing state to be in. To realize that I genuinely believed that in moments, and so I think lately, after the book has come out, it's surprising because there is almost like a period of like, grief or something where it’s just like, oh it’s done. Like, on to the next thing, I guess.  

But I’ve been exploring that thought. I've been like, really sitting with it, sitting with what I believe to make my self-worth, right? What I attached to my self-worth. What, as a child of Asian immigrants, I believe to be my self-worth, which was usually achievement, right? Usually accolade, awards, you know, not care, not warmth, etc. And so now that I'm in a different place, and honestly, like, when I return to what you said about how your dreams are shifting places, I actually feel quite invigorated by the idea that I can. I have a lot to say, and like you said we're always in our heads. Like we're always thinking, and as writers, our job is really like to think on a page. And I want to believe in that brilliance, and I want to believe that I actually have a lot more to say, because I do, because I'm thinking all the time. And honestly, there's so much in that, right. In that positive reflection and in that devotion and desire to be closer to myself and to always understand like, what is within this feeling, what is at the root of it?  

And so, I'm not so much in that place of scarcity anymore, that conundrum that you were describing before. It is such a specific and unique one. And I think it does come from this place where we believe that we can only take on the role as caretakers for others and not to just take care of ourselves. Take care of our big brains, you know, like we're allowed to do that. We're allowed to write about whatever we want. It doesn't just have to be about our pain.  

Fariha: Yeah, yeah, exactly, imagine. Yeah, I actually wanted to talk to you about love and a lot of other things and something that I really love about the book is, you know, we really get a sense of like, what you're reading, who you’re inspired by. There's like, so many other references and I was curious, what really helped you like, did you read anything? Did you, were there writers that you turn to like, North Stars or like, was there a movie that really helped you, a song that really moved you while, or many of them, while you were specifically birthing this book that, like, has a lasting memory with you? 

Mimi: I love that question. And I feel like it kind of ties into what I was saying before about having this false belief that I had nothing left to say, because I actually feel like when I am in connection to anybody else's art, especially artists that I feel really connected to, I'm always in dialogue, and I find myself like, journaling about like, a song that I listened to on the bus or journaling for hours about a movie that I watched. And so that's like, there's a generativeness to that and just indulging in other people's art. And I thought that was really important to constantly cite in the book, to always work, like, refer to the people, including you, who have inspired me so deeply and have invigorated my spirit in that way.  

And my process for writing the book was like I would write one day. I’d take a whole day to write. And then the next day, I’d just read all day. I wouldn't write a single word, I’d just read. And I got through so many books like that and I'm so happy because they were books that I've been wanting to read just in general, you know, I read books by like, Tyson Yunkaporta, and Robin Wellcamara, and bell hooks, of course, and Audre Lorde. And those in general, are like my literary idols and ancestors and just being able to read them for the research process, I think was really important because I'm like, I don't just want to research like academic texts that are not usually, in my like, rotation of absorbing art, I actually want to just reference the books that guide me through my everyday life and bring me closer to love every single day, right? And there's a blessing and a privilege in that. I also like made this 800-song playlist because music is so important, I think in the writing process as well. I have a flair for the dramatic, I realized, so I love just a cinematic soundtrack. I mean, I think writers are pretty dramatic, and I watched a lot of film. I watched a lot of Asian cinema specifically. I think there was something very comforting about seeing people like, from Asia, create art, I don't know. That gave me this sense of like oh, I can do this, I can do this, I can create something really interesting and I- 

Fariha: What were you watching? 

Mimi: I specifically reference one movie in the book, Hirokazu Kore Does Afterlife. So beautiful. I watched all his films. I watched a lot of Abbas Kiarostami. Edward Yang, you know, very like I realized there was a theme there and it was all very like, slice-of-life kind of movies, but very much about relationship dynamics, which made a lot of sense because I was ultimately writing a book about relationships, and so witnessing people in these nuanced and complex relationships, conveying emotions that kind of get triggered through relationships was really helpful. So, yeah. I have been able to write because I've been able to be in dialogue with other artists and I don't think I could be the writer I am today without that. Yeah, yeah. 

Fariha: It's so beautiful, to just say that and I think that is like why I kind of asked that question, right after you were talking about like, that feeling of like, will I ever have anything to write ever again? It is what art that brings us back to our own writing. And to our own art, it's the experience of art. And I think something really beautiful about our relationship is our ability to have always done that for each other or ourselves and the ways in which we have shared communication. And you know, we're both Asian Australian. We both come from this very specific you know land and then like specific experience and then being Asian in which is very different being East Asian. Asian is very different in Australia than it is being in America. And so, all of those like, sort of cultural shorthands that we have, I think Edward Yang, Abbas Kiarostami, you know, like they are all of these like, filmmakers and like, people that I think like, that are in our constellations, and I've always found that really exciting about your mind. The ways in which like that expands and comes into your own art. Yeah. Like, I guess this sort of then brings me back to- I was thinking about all these questions that I wanted to ask you that, I've never really asked you before, and they're about the book but not like, I'm really curious why you wanted to be a writer in the first place because we never actually talked about that.  

Mimi: Wow! That’s actually so true, and I don't think anyone has asked me that. 

Fariha: I was thinking about that while I was reading your book a lot today. You know, I was just like, what makes, what brings someone to the page.  

Mimi: Oh my gosh, I love that question. I used to have these little journals, right? These little diaries or whatever, but I would just scribble in like, red pen, scribbling how like, I was angry at my mom and how this boy I had a crush on didn't like me back, and it would just be, like, stream-of-consciousness release. And I was way too young to realize that that was what I was doing. But the pen is what I turned to when I felt any kind of inner turmoil basically or when I wanted to document a happy memory or something. And I think that has been such a constant and intuitive practice in my life, but it was really hard for me to call myself a writer until extremely recently, actually.  

I also have like, a background in music journalism and I would interview a lot of artists and talked to a lot of artists and I write about their art, and in a way, I felt like I was avoiding creating my own through just talking to artists about their art and almost living vicariously through them. And I kind of got to a point where I was genuinely just scribbling in notebooks and journals over and over again and believing that my writing could only be like a me thing, it could only be something for my eyes. It could only be something for myself to experience. And then I kind of took a leap and started sharing some of the things that I wrote, literally on social media or in a newsletter. And I think there is just something, I mean, writing has just always saved my life and I always advocate that if you write in a journal, whatever. If you write privately, and no one has ever set eyes on your work, you're still a writer. Right?  

And I think for me, I always was one, but to believe that I was one, I needed to share my work, which I don't necessarily still believe in, but that was my trajectory. And the way that people responded to my work, and by people, I mean two or three people took the time to read it, to pay attention to it and to like, listen and validate me, was something that I knew was very special and it felt like a strengthening in connection. It felt like a practice of closeness, not only with myself, but with the person who is reading it, and I just feel like writing is such a powerful tool of connection in that way. And that's why I wanted to be a writer.  

Like I guess I wanted to connect with myself and people more, and that's like the core of that dream. And it's really beautiful to be able to call myself that now. Not because a book is out, but because I write, and that's it. I practice writing, I love writing. And I finally have found the strength in myself to share it. You know, I want to ask you that question too because that's such a good question. And I genuinely never thought about it really. 

Fariha: Why I wanted to be a writer? Oh yeah, I wrote down things that I want to ask you next. Okay, why I wanted to be a writer. Curiously, like totally with you, survival. I mean, I started writing Like a Bird when I was 12. When I think about that, I'm just like how is that possible. And it wasn't even when I started to write it or even like years and years and years of writing it, I still didn't feel like I was a writer. I never considered it to be like, a possible career choice for me because I had a very like, academic family and it made sense for us to like, always be in some kind of academic form. I also think like East Asian people, we have like this like or at least my family, there's like this obsession to get like that seal of approval. I think, now, as an adult looking back, I can understand it, but I wasn't functioning in that world, I wasn't functioning in the bureaucracy of the university environment and like, you know, like wanting to be a lawyer, which is what I was going to be. I was going to be a human rights lawyer and then I dropped out of school and after I dropped out of school, after I dropped out of the university, writing was the only thing that was there.  

It was the only thing that I had to reach for and I had an astrological reading of my chart when I was 18, done for me and it was like this hour long process and I remember distinctly a couple of times it was, Turkish Muslim astrologer who was reading my chart and she said like three times in the thing that I should be a writer and it just stuck with me because I was like why would someone tell me that? That's so random. I was obviously really committed to something and then I think eventually it was the only thing that made sense and for me, creatively and artistically it was the only thing that I think I feel like I've had for most of my life, like, writing has probably been the most dependable relationship I've had outside of God and it's because like, no matter what I can go there and I can write nobody is going to tell me what to say. Nobody's going to tell me not what to say.  

You know, when you come from a house and like I was deeply surveilled as a child when you have that kind of upbringing like everything is so protective you know, but like to feel like free and to feel like these are my words and I'm allowed to say them, I mean writing a book like this, writing about abuse I think there is and I hope for the both of us that we can kind of return to this feeling or get this feeling soon like the awe of writing something so deep and so powerful in order to release it. That sense of awe, I really want to get there, and I actually want to ask you about that because recently I've been trying to unpack like my depression a little bit more and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it's been hard for me to locate awe, like find awe in the world.  

I'm inspired every day, I think like I'm with the Earth, I'm seeing a hummingbird, I'm so excitable as you know, I'm very animated but there's a deep sense of sadness and I wonder if it's like finding something that's more, awe, it's bigger than me, but in order to write this work that's so dark, you have to have so much light and you have to find so much awe in so, have you been finding awe? Have you been finding awe in anything recently?  

Mimi: I mean that question in itself, right? I think the ability to pose that question to yourself and to be aware of that awe is such a powerful tool in survival to be honest, right? I think when we do, go through our holes of depression, or going through, like, deep spirals, downward spirals, what is so profound are like the moments of awe that we experience right in these dark times where it just feels like tunnel vision and we're just looking into the darkness, into a pit, but there are these glimpses of awe and I try to hold on to that as much as possible.  

I think like you said, existing in our heads is really not easy and it does create this whirlwind of thought and emotion. While, at the same time I think for me, always, it's like that physicality of like my body or just like breath, right? Always returning to breath and I go to a monastery, and I think having my spiritual practice in Buddhism is extremely powerful for me because I can be spiraling, like sinking, really deep and they say something so simple. Take a deep breath, you are here, take a deep breath, you are home and that is just something that completely changed my life. I think it's because it's so simple and when we are in our heads and like, whirlwinds and vortexes, it's so complicated, right? We're like doing all these math equations and it's like what, what the worst scenario is and what that breath kind of does, is it kind of like sheds those cobwebs of bits or like breaks those like constellations and it's just like you're here, right? Like, you're here and that, for me, provides a sense of awe that allows me to notice like the fern that is unfurling next to me or the change of temperature in the air, or the beam of sunlight that shines through all the way that like when we light incense, smoke doesn't travel in a straight line, you know, like really simple moments creating awe that, reminding me that my living being is connected to all living beings right and that's not easy. That's the thing. It's actually not easy at all and awe is so simple. But I think what our society and the systemic violence that surrounds us kind of wants to strip that simplicity away and make everything so complicated right, making having food on our plates and a roof over our heads, extremely complicated. I think awe, what awe does is it calls in the simple, and that in itself is extremely profound, and it now requires a lot of skill of like, giving yourself permission to pause. 

And so yeah, I think awe for me is simple but it's difficult to get there and that's kind of where I've been at too. When I'm in my depression spirals, I will be in bed and I mean I'll be looking out my window and I'll look at the tree and I'll feel nothing like I'll be so honest, right? I get that way, but I think then remembering these mantras, breathing deep and actually focusing on something and feeling my groundedness instead of just like leaving it, it is a really different and profound experience, but it's not always easy to get there.  

Fariha: Yeah, no. We're like learning it for ourselves, we're teaching it to each other, we're talking about it. So, we can share and unpack, and I think we both learn so much through conversation, you know, in communication, and it's so evident in your book. Another thing that is really evident and something that I guess I just really want to hear you talk about is your relationship to Buddhism, and how that's evolved. I know, especially, I saw that transformation in you over the years of like it's become more and more present and more and more like a compass. So, like I mean I think you know, because the book is about love but also because you are writing about, or you are practicing something that's so spiritually potent. How was that experience or relationship to put this in or even or whatever you want to share, how does that ground you and help you and teach you?  

Mimi: Yeah, I think that Buddhism is absolutely inseparable from the work and the type of writing that I've done and like you said, you see me change and grow as an artist and it's interesting because I think, for me, my voice became clearer to myself when I started practicing Buddhism, more constantly, you know, and I think about the biggest lesson that is in the book, right that I tried to convey, also that I have learned through Buddhism is that, you know, every chapter in the book details, a different nuanced emotion that I experienced in this healing journey of intimate violence, right? I kind of start off a lot of chapters with how scared I was of every emotion, especially grief, shame even. I was just so scared. Every time they arose, I'd be like, you can't feel that way, you can’t feel grief that makes you weak, that means that you miss your abuser. Are you crazy? What's wrong with you? You need to be strong, you need to be good. Like this is this, you get over it, you know. This punishing punitive voice in my head would just tell me to skip that emotion, delete it, avoid it etcetera, right and that actually deeply prolonged my journey because I would be super dissociative and I'm not, like, blaming myself because those are the tools that I had.  

But I would be so dissociative. I would just go out to try to escape this feeling and party. I'd engage in like all these sexual relationships that I really did not have the capacity to engage in etcetera. Very self-destructive behavior because I do not know the alternative, I did not know what self-restoration looks like I didn't know what stillness looked like or that it was possible. I think what Buddhism has taught me is that especially through the practice of meditation, I think people have this misguided idea that meditation is blocking thoughts out, right? It's like I thought coming here like, no, I'm not thinking this. I just wanted to picture white light, nothing else, right? I think that's what some people envision meditation to be and therefore, it's such a difficult practice because it's like how do I block everything.  

But what I learned going to the Vietnamese Monastery that I go to is that it's actually not about blocking anything it's about sitting with it, it's about having a thought come to you and the intrusive thought that's maybe for example saying like you're not good enough, Mimi and me instead of sitting there and being like nope not a useful thought. Instead, being like yes, I'm thinking that I am. I'm thinking this thought right now about myself, I sit with it, right? I have an itch on my leg and I sit with it and I'm scratching it and I hear the breeze outside and I'm not blocking it out, but I also sit with it and that's what Buddhism taught me about emotion. It's that as these emotions come instead of blocking them out, what does it look like to sit with it? What does it look like to sit with it and love yourself through it? I think that's actually to me, what self-love is about everything we've been taught, and I'm sure I know you write about this, but it's like, we've been told that self-love is like, no, you're a bad bitch, you're good, you're fine. Like this doesn't serve you etcetera. But it's like what if self-love is actually like these things are affecting me now and I do feel vulnerable and I know I can love myself through it, right? That's what Buddhism taught me, and I don't think I would know how to love without that.  

Fariha: Yeah, because it's also like when you were talking, what I was thinking about is like, we come from cultures where deep inquiry was at the cornerstone of civilization. We come from people, lineages, ancestries, ancestors, that were deeply, deeply considering like their minds. And deeply going to these corners of their minds in ways that you don't see in Europe or in European enlightenment. We're talking about thousands of years ago like it's just really extraordinary, you know, what arrived to the world 3,500 years ago. 

And so, the thing that really stuck with me while you were talking is that that's where we come from. So, of course, it makes sense that, you know, this is like your Buddhist practice that you're experiencing right now is really centering the importance of actually acknowledging, those thoughts, and acknowledging, and understanding that, we are contradictions, and we are constantly having to contradict our minds are contradicting us. So, you know, we're also mortal beings and I wrote this in my own work, because there's a meditation chapter and when I was doing the research on that, something that really moved me was like meditation is also death awareness. It's an understanding that we are going to die, so it's to be present with that impermanent state and fully aware of the kind of like, again, contradiction of like you are alive and you will die.  

That just really moved me about what you shared because I think it says a lot about just sort of even like the ways in which Buddhism has gotten you know white-ified, and like, you know, just really turned into something for capitalism and Transcendental Meditation and all of these sort of offshoots are really prioritizing money and the lineages that actually these things, these like practices come from privileged and prioritized true, unpacking of oneself and what is mortality and questioning of one's being on a distant far, more deeper level, I think.  

I think what's exciting about your book is just like, you were saying it's like this book hasn't existed before and you're creating a new discourse in so many different ways with all of the things that you're bringing to the table and Buddhism is just one of those things too. Like, as you said, you wouldn't be able to write about love if you didn't have this practice and I think that's very clear to me, like, as I'm reading you, I'm like, thinking, like, how did you get from A to Z? How did you get from this to here, right? Like, that's extraordinary that should be awe-inspiring and I think Buddhism is really that answer is like when you're able to sort of, remember, and ground in something beyond you and that is God in spirit. And you're inevitably connected to something higher.  

Mimi: Yeah, and that fills me with awe, you know. I think that like you said, it was from this, like A-Z, which you have seen me in all those ways and even I think before that I felt before we saw each other, before we met each other, just knowing how we're both Asian Australian and how we have our stories and experiences in those places, it is an honor for you to have witnessed that and I think you have seen as well, that it's been so gradual and it's not because I have necessarily attended elite ivy league, writing workshops because I definitely haven't. It's cause I've just learned to have compassion for myself and learned to be kind to myself while writing about really difficult truths and I think that has pushed me to be the writer that I am today and like you said before and it really moved me when you talked about how you were surveilled your whole life and writing was where you felt free because that's exactly what it is. It's where we feel safe, it's carving out safety for ourselves as survivors and I think what that takes is actually believing that we deserve to feel safe in the first place, which is why I am where I am today because I finally realized that I deserve to feel safe and I deserve to feel protected as do you, right. And as you fought for your book, I know that you went through your legal battles and you were fighting for your safety and I was watching you do that, and your freedom and that is the most important thing.  

Fariha: [pause, sounds choked up] Yeah. I want to end on love because we only have a few more minutes. You know you’re telling us be not afraid of love. Are you afraid of love? Do you feel loved these days?  

Mimi: I’m so afraid! I’m so afraid but I think what's different is that I can admit that now and I can sit with that, and I can love myself while I am afraid. Yeah, I've never said this during an event before, but I am exploring a new romantic relationship. 

Fariha: Oh! 

Mimi: Woah, big exclusive! I'm so private about my love life, but I think what that has shown me is that when we engage in deep intimate relationships, our wounds come out, right. And I've been thinking to myself, as you know, of course, my ego has come into play, and I'm like, I'm good. Like I'm Mimi Zhu, I'm solid. I've learned how to be secure. I've learned how to be really confident in, not only my career, but just in my, like, the embodiment of like, self-assurance that I've kind of built up over the last few years, right. Of being able to create a space for myself and feeling great in the community or whatever, whatever. Like, all these things have felt like you know, they’ve fallen into place and I'm like, I deserve this, I worked for this. I've thought of myself as like Mimi Zhu, the individual independent person, whatever, and then I started dating and I was like, oh, I need to think about who Mimi Zhu as like, a lover is. Who Mimi Zhu as like, a partner is, not just someone writing about love, or theorizing about love, and honestly practicing love, but in community spaces, in friendships, even my biological family. But re-entering what is the scariest dynamic of them all to me because of my trauma, which is a romantic partnership. Like, I am so afraid, but I think what has been so beautiful, is the difference that it has, because I've been afraid before. Of course, I've had my intimacy issues many, many times, and I found that in those instances, I've found myself being afraid and I'm like, what's wrong with me? I'm not ready. I gotta go. That's been the usual reaction. But lately, I found myself being like, I'm afraid and I'm going to hold myself through it, and I'm gonna take time to be tender with myself and understand where that fear is coming from, right? Like, being afraid that I will be hurt, being afraid that I'll be abandoned, being rejected, that's all really real but that's not, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm afraid of love itself as the powerful force that I actually embody now.  

So, it's really different as that fear comes up, I think what's important is not the fact that I'm feeling the fear, but that I know how to move with it better or that I have new tools now, right? Including the art that I'm absorbing, the breathing meditation that I do, these new tools that are just like, okay, you're afraid. So, let's move through this together. My therapist again, shout out to Aditi, but she really taught me that, she told me how to do this thing where I actually have a conversation with my fear and that has been so helpful, and she loves this whole roleplay vibe but like, where I'm playing myself, and then I'm playing my fear, and we've done a role play before, I'm playing myself, and where I'm playing my mom and that was like, mortifying for me because I'm like, I had to do it in front of her on, like a couch, in a therapist's office, and I was just like, my inner theater kid was coming out. I was just freaking out, but I have been doing that actually lately, where I've been role-playing as myself and then while being myself and then role playing, as my fear and just having a chat, right? [Fariha: Wow.] It’s really cool and I really advise anybody, if you get some moment of solitude, if you're alone in your room or even your shower, you know, to just have a conversation with your fear because I can assure you, that it will make your fear less monstrous right, you'll actually see what your fear is telling you. So, I say that all to say that all to say, yes I am very afraid, but I am in love with myself even as I move through the fear, and so I am afraid of love while at the same time, I'm moving through the fear with love and that feels amazing. 

Fariha: Yeah, it's so new and it's so like, that's how you build safety. You do it through the trial and error of that experience. I think what's so powerful also, that you're in this experience when there's like all of this cataclysmic shift happening around you and like, you know, you're also like, all of the teaching that you had and experienced over the last couple years. Now you're getting to and like through writing this book. Now you're getting to like, not put into action because this is, I think in a lot of ways like, grieving a past version of you but it's also hopeful. There is this hopefulness, you know, like, the title itself is like a mantra, you know, like be not afraid of love. Like, be not afraid of love. You can keep saying that to yourself. And so like, too, it's really cool and really telling and ripe and it feels like the right time that this is happening now.  

Mimi: I love the word ripe. It’s juicy. 

Fariha: Really juicy, yeah.  

Mimi: The both of us can say that like, as the page ends, as the last page comes to a close, we continue the work, like the story continues and if anything, it happens again and [Fariha: Yeah.] you know, and that's been amazing. Like we said before, how can I get to a place where I'm like, I've nothing left to say because as soon as I close the book or as soon as I finish the last word, I continue living and the work, doesn't stop like, the work never ends, but it’s work that I find awe-inspiring, right all of it, tedious, juicy and ripe and delicious and I'm dedicated to it. You know, I'm dedicated to continuing living off the page and then coming back to the page and sharing it all over again.  

Fariha: So yeah, what are you excited to write about next then? Do you have, in the spirit of thinking about the future, what feels right for you to write about? 

Mimi: I want to write about Asians being in love and how hard that is for us. It's not easy to love and be in a healthy, secure relationship as an Asian person and I want to write a whole book about it. Like, I actually want to go to Asia, and I want to do research, and I want to talk to my family. So that's what I want to write about next. 

Fariha: So exciting. Yeah, exciting. This is really exciting, I want to meet you there. Where are you gonna go, China? Where would you go? Okay, where do you want to work? What do you want to look at, like, what's your case studies?  

Mimi: I want to talk to families, really, that's really it. I want to see families like, in their own dynamics. I want to see how they move; I want to go back to my own lineage and go to temples. Like, I want to do it all and I want to write books about it, I want to make shows about it, I want to be in film and TV. I want to do it all. Like I just want to tell stories in every sort of way, and I feel really excited and I think that definitely is spurred from my being in practice of trying to understand who I am again as a person in romance because I think in the book, Be Not Afraid of Love, I actually never talked about how I experienced romance again. Because I haven't really, you know, and that's been something I've struggled deeply with. So, like I said, when the last page is done, it continues and my struggle with romance continues and now that I'm kind of exploring it in my own way, I'm so interested in seeing the lineage of romance in Asian culture. Like what is it? Where is it? You know, yeah. 

Fariha: Oh my God, I also think about what's really cool and like, this is what I hope for you is that, yeah the page isn't done, a new story can be written with a new, beautiful story. A huge story can be written of what your experience was with love. I mean, that's the hope, right, like it's that you're ever evolving and ever changing. And that, the lessons are not the same, so the experiences are different and yeah. Personally, as your dear friend, I hope that for you, you know, and it’s so darling to hear that you're feeling things again, and that that gives us all hope as your audience to the future of your writing and your life. I think it's a really beautiful place just to end this conversation.  

Mimi: Yeah, and I'll send you voice notes about it, don’t worry. 

Fariha: I mean, I want it all. I want everything. Thank you so much for being here and being present and talking about these things with me. I know it's a lot to show up and I'm just grateful because this conversation was really generative and beautiful, everything I could have hoped for.  

Mimi: I love you so much and you have been one of my teachers in love and you've allowed me to sit with you in my fear, like I remember our conversations at your dinner table and how we talked about our fear so openly and how we love each other through it all. So, I love you so much.  

Fariha: I love you too, so much, so proud of you.  

Mimi: Thank you. 

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. 
 
Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS Public Programs. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Izzy Angus, Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Patty Pforte, and Nikki Roda. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 
 
CIIS Public Programs commits to use our in-person and online platforms to uplift the stories and teachings of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities.  

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