From genes to memes, give yourself a (re)treat

This week we invite you to alchemize your belly breath. To transform pixels to atoms. To go from digital to analog. With guest Dr. Paul Chengpo Wang (aka Sifu Paul), we invite you to retreat into your well-being and wholeness. The Gratitude Blooming theme is patience, represented by the chamomile. Our artist Arlene Kim creates her first animated gif, a fun and delightful homage to Takashi Murakami. Her chamomile flowers light up as guides to joy and restfulness. 

When Dr. Wang is not traveling around the world to teach or treat patients, he enjoys training and being in nature, meditation, and retreat. Besides application of classical acupuncture, Chinese medicine, neigong, martial arts, calligraphy, guqin, and perennial philosophy, his interests include scientific findings in photobiology, quantum biology, the autonomic nervous system, the mirror neuron system, the microbiome, telomeres, epigenetics, mitochondrial disease, intergenerational trauma, and the fundamental forces.

Dr. Wang earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Integrative Biology with an emphasis on human locomotion and biodynamics as well as minor studies in Chinese philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley. He also attained a Master of Science in Traditional Chinese Medicine (MSTCM) and a Doctorate in Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine (DACM), both from the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He is professionally accredited by the California Acupuncture Board as a Board Licensed Acupuncturist (LAc). His official certifications as a Sifu of WingChun (詠春拳師傅), WingChun Fifth Technician Grade (詠春第五級技士), WingChun Combat Instructor (詠春技擊教師), and Escrima Fifth Level (武器第五段士) are conferred from the International Academy of WingChun (IAW).

Website: daocenter.com

Email: info@daocenter.com

Instagram: @sifupaulwang

Facebook: /paulcwang

Substack: daology.substack.com

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Create an intentional practice or give meaningful gifts with the Gratitude Blooming card deck, notecards, candles and much much more at our shop at www.gratitudeblooming.com.  

Learn more about our co-hosts and special guest for Season 4:

Co-host Belinda Liu | Hestia Retreat Centers

Co-host Omar Brownson | Trickster's Guide to Immortality on Substack

Special Guest Dr. Paul Wang | The Dao Center

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave us a 5-star rating and review.  Your feedback is valuable to us and helps us grow.  

Share your thoughts and comments by emailing us at hello@gratitudeblooming.com. We love hearing from our listeners!

Transcript

UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 0:02

Hello, Belinda.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hi, Omar.

SPEAKER_05 0:07

I am very excited about this week's Gratitude Blooming theme and guest. Who are we getting to talk about and what theme are we getting to explore?

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Well, this one is definitely one that I get very often, so I'm excited to really focus on it today and this week. It's card number 37, the chamomile representing patience.

SPEAKER_05 0:35

Yeah, this one's always a tough one. It's ironic because you're like, ah, chamomile tea, so wonderful. Let me relax. Yet patience is something that I know I struggle with constantly. And, you know, the root word patis, which means to suffer. And so how do you just gently rest like you're drinking a cup of tea of chamomile is a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

And, you know, for those of us that are in this Northern Hemisphere, we are just celebrating the beginning of the fall season. And I love that, you know, perspective on time that we get to experience together through this podcast. And the prompt for this card says, some of the most important lessons in life require space and time to grow. What is your relationship with time? How can you How can time be your teacher?

SPEAKER_05 1:36

Well, I have to say I appreciated the time we took last week to go to your Hestia Retreat Center up near Mount Shasta. And that fall equinox retreat, we actually got to... be inspired by the guests who we're talking to with today, Dr. Paul Wong. And for me, it was just, it was that very simple realization that you can't spell restoration without rest, right? Just taking the time to step back. And honestly, I had not very many expectations going up. I just knew, I was like, part of me felt like, a little guilty, you know, leaving my wife with our two kids. But I also knew that it's been a very long time since I've taken a step back, right? Like the sort of silent retreat that I talked so much about was eight years ago, you know, and you think about the last two plus years with the pandemic and COVID, just crazy shifts of You know, work-wise, we rebuilt our house. There's just been a lot of big things that we've taken on in the last two and a half years or have been put on us, depending on how you think about it. And I just knew I needed to take a break. And man, I got way more than I expected.

UNKNOWN 3:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Well, it was beautiful to land back onto the land for Fall Equinox and be able to spend it with you and so many others who have this shared desire to just reset. And I was just really struck by how by doing it together, it almost creates this container to slow down and really listen to people ourselves, the silence, the slowness, the rhythms of the earth as it's shifting and evolving in its cycle. So really excited to talk more about our guest who, you know, is representing this theme of patience. And before we do that, Arlene, I'm so curious, as you were remixing the chamomile flower from your original line drawings, what emerged this time as we're all kind of in this collective turning of Yeah, this

SPEAKER_02 4:28

one is interesting because I really didn't have any expectations. As you know, this is the eighth of eight themes that I'm creating new art for, and it gets a little bit tiring. And so I've really had to let go of expectations, really, and just go with the flow. And so it'll be interesting. I know you guys haven't seen this yet, what you think of this week's art. I have a story for the art. Maybe it'd be helpful to share that first and then we can talk about the art after.

SPEAKER_05 5:02

Incredible. The art is awesome. It

SPEAKER_01 5:05

smiles. It moves this week. I can't wait for our listeners and viewers to see this.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yeah. So, I mean, it's really not something I would normally create. It really came from, you know, to vectorize the original drawings. You know, I have to spend a lot of quiet time with the art in a digital way. And as I was sort of digitizing this, I kind of started to think of the, there's like famous art by, I think it's Takashi Murakami. He's done these flowers that have these big smiles. And so that was really the inspiration for the work. And I haven't worked in animated form either. So this is my first animation. I

SPEAKER_05 5:51

can't wait to hear your story more about this and I just recently went to the Takashi Murakami exhibit at the Broad here in Los Angeles. And interestingly, and not to like give away anything too much about the art, but the name of the exhibit is stepping on the tail of a rainbow. And so when you look at the rainbow essence of this, it's spectacular.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Well, let me go ahead and share the story of this new art inspired by the theme of patience. I've been having an interesting time with time over the past few years, maybe even before the pandemic started. One day, not too long ago, I remember trying to recall something from my childhood, and I got this strange feeling like that girl in my memory is still who I am today. I still am that girl. I am me now. And then there is this future me too. It really felt like all time collapsed or possibly expanded into a single moment. That feeling almost like dancing through time reminded me of an excerpt from a book Basin and Range by John McPhee. In it he writes if you free yourself from the conventional reaction to a quantity like a million years you free yourself a bit from the boundaries of human time and then in a way you do not live at all but in another way you live forever this freeing yourself from the boundaries of time feels connected to patience and for me patience is connected to being free of expectations because half Having expectations can slow you down by making you think you're not making progress, when in fact you are moving in the big picture. I think the secret is to align yourself with the bigger picture so you're moving toward the desired place you hope to go, despite where you may be at any given moment. So for this week's Remixed Art, inspired by the theme of patience and the chamomile plant, I decided to have some fun fun and create a psychedelic scene where colors brighten and the chamomile flowers come to human life with eyes and mouths. My hope is that the art will be a reminder of why cultivating more patience in our lives can be so magical. For me, the fantastical worlds of our inner lives can open up in the still moments we experience when we allow more patience in our lives, when we allow ourselves to get lost a little by letting go of expectations

SPEAKER_05 9:08

amazing I love the art Arlene you we started talking about sort of managing expectations and I think you really just allowing yourself to create in this way you're just sharing such beauty and joy and fun so thank you

SPEAKER_01 9:30

I can also see the little girl girl that is still present like the little Arlene that's smiling now to see you know this playful expression of patience which can feel a little bit like a firm teacher you know like my it reminds me of my Chinese school teacher sometimes really firm really you know stern and this is just such a beautiful soft playful fun expression of patience with their with the petals being like their neck collars or the yellow faces smiling.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Yeah, I really see like when I was making the drawing, I really felt like the petals just felt like hair blowing in the wind. And then I just had to put faces on the camel mill plants. So I hope people enjoy this.

SPEAKER_05 10:23

Well, I know we're continuing to evolve and play with this new round of art as both digital art and also an And this one, this is definitely now competing with my other favorite, the I Ching hexagram filled one. So you're continuing to just, I don't know. I just really appreciate the co-creation that you're inviting us into. And I think, you know, related to some of the conversation that we had last week around memes, right? Memes. are what Dr. Paul or Sifu Paul shared a lot about. And they really connect, they're like the social equivalent to genes, right? So we have like our genetic code and how genes help to transfer information and memes are how we transfer social information. And so I feel like what you're kind of getting to explore through this digital art and embracing this digital art is like, how do we share information these sort of social kind of connections and expressions in different ways. Hey, Belinda, I love that we're growing more gratitude in the world. And part of the way that we're doing that is collaborating with other podcasts, including Better Place Project. I was recently a host on the show talking about gratitude with Steve Norris. He and I got to talking about how do we just help promote and share what we want to see in the world.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

So So yeah, we invite you to check out Better Place Project, where each week they shine a light on amazing humans doing extraordinary things who share their knowledge with us on how we can be living healthier, happier, and more purposeful lives, which is in such alignment with this whole podcast of collective acceleration through gratitude, nature, and art.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

So to add a little more joy and inspiration to your day, head over and subscribe to Better Place Project wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Arlene, you haven't heard any of the interviews with our guests. So you're coming up with your own meaning of the theme. And Omar and I have never seen the art until we record the podcast. So it's a really interesting play on time and co-creation and being kind of in the unknown and seeing where the threads naturally want to be woven together because there are very many connections today with our specialty guest, Paul Wong. And he is just an amazing acupuncturist, Chinese medicine doctor from my hometown in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. We actually discovered that we lived in the same neighborhood, our families did. So we're tracking down, you know, do we have, you know, relatives in common? And Paul has these beautiful lineages that he alchemizes together. So there's a Kung Fu tradition that he is a master at. Omar, you researched that modality?

SPEAKER_05 13:44

Yeah. If you've ever watched Ip Man or Bruce Lee, he's the highest rated trainer of Wing Chun in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

So that was his kind of beginnings into the realm of Chinese healing. And then he went on to study Chinese medicine and acupuncture. And I think in this phase of his life, he is really embracing also the mystical, the mystical healer. And Omar, we got to enjoy this during our week-long sabbatical last week for Fall Equinox, just practicing the embodiment of all these three aspects. And before we introduce Paul and hear his story, I'd be curious, what was it like for you to embody? You know, we talk about embodiment a lot in our podcast and with our team. And then now, you know, to be on the land with a guide in community, how was that for you? I

SPEAKER_05 14:47

just, I think just a little bit of a setup. Each day, Paul shared, you know, an hour and a half, two hour sort of just framework to sort of think about these different modalities. So, you know, he definitely was sort of helping us just sort of visualize mentally kind of how to think about this embodiment work. And then he gave us very simple practices that we could exercise in real time. So we weren't just sort of in our heads. And then I kind of created sort of a routine for myself. So I led a Qigong exercise each morning in more of a peer-to-peer. I'm no master at Qigong, but it just sort of felt like a stone soup. And that was my offering to the community. And every day folks showed up, which was beautiful. And then after Paul talked, I would... go climb the mountain and really sort of get that beautiful view of Mount Shasta. And I would then also try to sort of take some of like the breath work that he shared with us, for example, and like, okay, I'm going to climb the mountain without stopping and only breathing through my nose. So it was sort of like a real exercise in some ways, patience, right? So like you can sort of try to climb a mountain super fast but then you're going to be huffing and puffing. And I didn't want to have that feeling. I wanted to be like, okay, I want to climb this mountain. I don't want to stop. And I don't want to, and I want to just breathe only through my nose. And so really using those breath techniques and like feeling it in my body. And just, you were talking about Arlene, like when you let go of those expectations, you know, and how do you move forward? forward to those sort of boundaries that are almost beyond what you can see. And I was doing the reverse, which is I was imagining these trees, not that I was walking towards them, but almost like as if the trees were coming towards me, right? And so I was being almost pulled. So then I was like, okay, if I'm being pulled up the mountain by these trees, then that's going to make my job easier. Then I would do a plunge in the river and just really get that sort of sort of shock of cold water and just then sort of be present with it. And then I would meditate and really let the whole sort of day's experience kind of settle in. And then we had these beautiful dinners made by your amazing husband and chef, Peter Extraordinaire. And then we had, you know, sometimes we had just sort of informal conversations or we had, you know, the amazing evening with the fire. And I think the fire evening where we let go of certain expectations, you know, speaking of which Arlene, and some powerful things kind of came up for me. I'm like, oh, I've been holding some memes, some expectations, some identities for a very long time. And what does it mean to shed those identities and really kind of allow myself to sort of emerge in new ways?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

It's beautiful to hear you speak of the experience and to see you on Zoom I'm so radiant, Omar. And for those of you that are listening, it's an invitation to just take whatever pause you can in your life to be with nature and be with the stillness because so much can emerge from that space to come back to your center. So many people ask, is there a lot of programming? Are there lots of classes for these sabbatical weeks? And I'm just I just say, you know, it's an opportunity to listen to yourself and to hear how you want to spend your time and your energy every day. It's like from a blank canvas.

SPEAKER_05 18:57

Yeah, that's definitely in some ways having very few expectations going into it. It was really then a delight to kind of allow the week to sort of emerge and just be present to it. And, you know, I think we have what's the card that is trust all that all shall be well. Is it the trust card? Vulnerability. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So vulnerability, trust that all shall be well, I think is a fascinating way to think about letting go of those expectations and being patient with time.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

So with that, we're going to introduce Paul first through his reflection on the chamomile flower from the perspective of of being an acupuncturist and Chinese medicine doctor.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

As a Chinese medicine practitioner who prescribes chamomile sometimes, I guess the first thing that came to me was sort of clinical. But the way I actually approach chamomile as one ambassador of the plant kingdom is in a sort of idle, cosmo model of wellness and wholeness. So of which one aspect of That wholeness is rest, related to the patients, as is on this graphic here. rest and taking time and making time and taking time out it's really serendipitous actually because i had no idea we're going to talk about this but this last weekend i was leading a retreat which also has a connotation of rest and i actually like to call them reunions with self and nature and other like-minded souls I had a colleague in France who wanted to do a podcast. This is the second podcast conversation in a few days. She mentioned, I want to talk about time management. I meditated on that and sunk into that prompt. I came up with four ways that we can relate to time. You can think of it as sort of four phases or four seasons. So chamomile patience and this aspect of time reminds me of winter season. and stillness and grounding as you just led us, Belinda, which is so deficient, I think, in the noise and hyperactivity and information overload saturation of our 24-7 modern life. A lot of people don't know how to unplug. Sleep is one of the top symptoms that a lot of my clients want to work on. It's hard, I think, because Another aspect of the hyper exposure is to artificial light. Besides deficiency of rest and patience and calmness is darkness too. So that's kind of what comes up for me as themes and memes, sort of a constellation around winter, which by the phasic cycle of Chinese medicine, Chinese philosophy is water. Of course, water has many different characteristics, but in the winter phase, it's sort of more still and even frozen, right? Just temporarily not engaging in that more dynamic aspect, which will come soon enough. So that's what comes up for me for chamomile, at least in images and constellation of connotations. But I also taste it in my tongue right now. It tastes like encapsulated sunshine but more like sunset aspect of the solar cycle, and not so much maybe the noontime aspect, even the image. You see in the center of the chamomile flower, this kind of circular, actually it's three-dimensional, so it's actually a semi-spherical orb that's sort of, again, with this connotation perhaps more of the infrared rather than the ultraviolet aspect of the sun that is more featured in sunrise and sunset. So those transitional times, actually, right? Those liminal edges, inflection points between yin and yang. And a lot of people are pretty good with, you know, yin going to yang, like, you know, just kind of, oh my God, I have to do this, do that, you know? So, but maybe the transition from yang to yin and maybe, you know, Master Chamomile is trying to teach us that. Come to the yin. And this term, yin yang, we all have heard of it as this kind of duality, this unity of dualities that ideally should be within a dance of balance.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

You kind of get a taste of Sifu Paul's perspective on time and the world and the plant kingdom. Omar, how does it feel for you to recap, you know, Just that feeling of connection that Sifu Paul kind of gave us around the seasons and the cycles of time. I

SPEAKER_05 24:35

like how he ended with dance with balance. And I used to say even balance needs to be unbalanced in order to really be balanced. And I think really being able to push those boundaries, right? That's what the sunrise and sunset sort of are these gives us these extremes and in some ways with everything that has happened over the last couple years has been one extreme it feels like been one extreme after another honestly and so in some ways to be able to really do a hard reset right to really kind of be able to like hey I need to like counterbalance everything that has happened and so it's not just even about real rest or taking a day off or taking a week off and going on vacation. But like, no, this is this intentional time. I'm going to go, uh, to land where, you know, I was intentional in that week of besides the fact that there's no real internet, um, but not even using the light, uh, in the yurt that I stayed in at night and just being like, okay, no, I'm going to sort of be present to just the nature's cycle of light. Um, And not really have an alarm and just sort of let sort of the sun wake me up as it kind of came up over the mountains. Fortunately, not too early. The benefit of being in a slight valley. And so really just being able to be present to those cycles of the day that sometimes it's hard to disconnect from in the city.

UNKNOWN 26:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Just... I feel like when the body is reminded, it helps the mind come back to its center too. I'm curious, are you finding that it's changing how you're landing back in the modern urban life of LA? How is that? What are you noticing after having your biological clock kind of reset?

SPEAKER_05 26:52

What was nice about this retreat, particularly in comparison to the silent retreat that I took eight years ago was that that adjustment was very abrupt like everything was loud and just I literally I couldn't even just talking to someone was just took a tremendous amount of energy and so the transition back was honestly very rough whereas this one because there was a community of people that we were in practice with and we did a good balance between social time and solo time, the coming back has been more easeful. And, you know, I've continued to do my daily Qigong and really being intentional about like sort of the end of the day and how am I kind of sunsetting. And so then it's made the mornings a little bit easier. And so just really being kind of aware of, of all of that happening. Okay, right. I don't have to always have the gas pedal sort of push down the accelerator sort of on. It's like, okay, what does it mean to really break as well?

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Yeah, and having that equinox time representing the perfect balance of day and night is just one metaphor. It's just interesting to feel how you were playing with that balance and that rhythm dynamically right like sometimes you do want to move a little quicker and sometimes you want to slow down even within that cycle yeah

SPEAKER_05 28:36

definitely that dance with dance with balance

SPEAKER_01 28:40

and it's been really striking and Arlene you mentioned this in your story of the art of how much who we are today is a reflection of who we are as children and what we are becoming it's all like one moment almost you know in And when we started to dig into Paul's story, because you can feel he's like a poet, and he's not this clinical healer, doctor person, which is what I normally am used to when I go to the doctor's office, or even sometimes in the Chinese medicine world, it's very technical. And you can kind of feel in the way he even talks about the chamomile, how life is this artwork that's unfolding. And so one of the first ways that he introduced his journey was as a child. And he shares this clip of his early influences when he was 11. So I'm excited to share that with you all.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

when I was younger, 11, 12, 13, begging my mom to just take me to the library or the bookstore and just leaving me there for three, four, five, six hours. And I remember just going down the aisles and they had those stools with wheels and I got two of them, one to sit on and one to put a stack of books. As I journeyed, again, a process right down the aisles, from philosophy to psychology to spirituality to anthropology, biology. That was like my church. I really was absorbed and just, I guess curiosity. I think it's very interesting. I should admit the first book I asked my mom to buy and I was a bit nervous she wouldn't get it because it was a big book. It was a Bible, but It was the Bible written by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Encyclopedia, actually, of bodybuilding, yeah? Because I was so fascinated, you know, because, you know, philosophy, psychology, all good, but boom, you see, like, you know, practical results. And it's really funny when I think back. And another thing, I'm just kind of riffing here, is, like, MacGyver was my hero because, like, you know, in the worst of moments, you know, just pulling out of, you know, wherever, his divine spiritual creativity, like, making a bomb out of a bra, you know, or something like that. And then getting out of these tight spots. So I love the practicality. So it's very interesting. You know, again, yin and yang, right? Sometimes we think spirituality or philosophy is kind of abstract or woo-woo, right? And yeah, there is that kind of aspect where it's ineffable. And that ties into also my, I think I would have been diagnosed as maybe autistic or autistic spectrum. At that time, you know, in the 70s and 80s, I don't think they had that inclusion. They didn't medicalize that yet in the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Psychological Disorders, whatever. But because I later on worked with people with that kind of label, and I do think it's just a label to some extent, but I wouldn't speak very much. So it's interesting. I wasn't ordained as an apophatic monk in a cave, It definitely was very much in my cavern of introspection and introversion.

SPEAKER_05 32:30

I think this is one of the things that Paul does so well, is really to shine a light on these labels, these narratives, these memes, these expectations that we hold. And I think what I love really about this conversation that we get to have each week and the integration of the art is that art is really like a very powerful way about being very focused on what are you really seeing, right? And then in some ways, not in a literal sense, but what are you seeing with your heart? What are you seeing sort of in your imagination? And how do you... really explore right because i think arlene you talk about sometimes the challenge right and and those challenges i imagine they're not technical right like you know that you can put a pen down on a piece of paper and something will be created right and you know i can create a clean line or i can create a curvy line i know you know you know these things so then it's something else that you're are confronting and i just i'd be curious For you, particularly, I think Paul did also just such a great way of interpreting the original piece, sort of how even some of these labels are landing for you. I

SPEAKER_02 34:05

have to say it's so fascinating to me to hear the conversation because he equated the chamomile plant and this drawing and the word patience to the winter season. And I get that from the original pencil drawing. And then I think about how For the remixed art, it became this like fantastical world of colors. It's the rainbow. It's, you know, I love that you brought up Murakami's recent show at the Broad is called Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow. So, yeah. And then I think, what does that even mean? What does it mean to step on the tail of a rainbow? So I kind of feel like artists are able to like give us those questions, you know, the things that we aren't thinking about. And so, and I have a feeling that it sounds like the guest is also an artist, right? As he's making us think of things that we normally wouldn't even cross our minds. So that's what's coming up for me listening to his story. And

SPEAKER_05 35:10

I appreciate you just acknowledging, right? Like stepping on the tail of a rainbow. Like, I know what each of those words mean, but I have no idea. So each of us then are invited into our imaginations And like, is it a dragon that's like a rainbow and it's like, you know, or is it just like the bottom of the rainbow and you're getting to sort of like find that pot of gold, you know, like what is, what does that mean? What does that invite? And really letting us sort of reframe. And I'll just, you know, for me, one of the memes and expectations and labels that I've held onto, and it was kind of fascinating to realize how long I held onto this label was at As a reluctant leader. And it was my roommate in grad school who was just like Omar. And I think it was about running for office or something like that. And I was just like, I don't know. And he's now in Congress. And he's like, Omar, why are you such a reluctant leader? And I've held on to this idea of being a reluctant leader for 20 years. It was kind of crazy to think that that was 20 years ago that that label, sort of this meme of like, who am I, was landed. And it's not that I haven't done things that have required great leadership, but I think part of what I realized in this retreat was that I didn't want to be a leader of an old paradigm. I didn't want to lead what I felt like was falling down and becoming obsolete. And so I think really this retreat gave me in some ways permission to be like, no, I really do believe there's a new paradigm happening. And I have no qualms, no reluctance whatsoever about leading in that space, right? This is part of why I like the Web3 and just even these blending of conversations of the psychological with the spiritual with the emotional like how do we get to show up holistically and not in these siloed ways that I feel like have traditionally been put in place and so it was just like what does it mean to be a mystical leader what does it mean to love humanity and I would say that all the time like I love humanity but I had people you know I could give or take but just be like no I like it is about people it is about really kind of And for me, it's easier to say I love humanity, not so much people, because... then my expectations, my heart isn't going to get broken. You know, but I think as I've continued to learn from our guests, Radhika, Vakaria, you know, the singer, she's like, your heart doesn't need protection. In fact, it's protecting you. Your heart isn't going to get broken, only your expectations. You know, and to then sort of like each, then sort of feel it in my gut of like, okay, what does it mean to be this graceful warrior and to really sort of move forward in the space? Not hard, right? but I can move sort of with gentleness and then all wrapped around this sort of like trickster, like, Hey, let's have fun. Right. Like, and that's what I love about this week's art is that it's got that trickster vibe of like, I'm going to do, I'm going to move from this like cool, calm, classical black and white kind of piece to like hyper sort of fun, poppy irreverence.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Arlene basically took us on a journey from the winter solstice chamomile to this summer solstice chamomile. I love it. And for our listeners, I hope that as we each share our personal stories, Omar, Arlene, and I, and our guests, that you feel empowered to be an artist of your own identity at this time. Because I really think what's unfolding is, is integration of different, seemingly different threads that we can braid together into a beautiful And so how does someone like Paul Wong, who openly shares, 13-year-old child, I'm pretty sure I was on the spectrum of autism. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I wanted to be a monk in my own bookstore of cave. How does someone like that become the brilliant teacher and guide that Omar and I experienced? So there's a couple inflection points there that he shared with us, which I think are really important. you know, as you listen, just think about like, what are the moments in my life that are leading me to this new hybrid identity as well?

SPEAKER_00 39:49

So what, what breakthrough moment just to share one was, you know, I, I was, um, I was kind of a nerd. Yeah. At UC Berkeley, you know, um, and I came back and forth. I was born in Taiwan. Then we moved to Utah of all places. Yeah. My Mormon face, uh, when I was one, two, for my dad to go to grad school at the Salt Lake City U of U. And then after he graduated, we went to Chicago, Windy City, for another, I think, six, seven, eight years. And then the economy kind of went down. My dad lost his job, so I was 11. We all moved back to Taiwan. So that was kind of like a reverse immigration, immigration culture shock, you know, because we were fairly Americanized. And hindsight, again, you know, yin, perhaps relatively kind of difficult moment, but so grateful that I got to connect back to my roots there. And I know Belinda, you and I share some of that. And to connect to my grandma, she was still alive, to learn the language. And ultimately, I think it did lead me to choose to study Chinese medicine as kind of my main sort of academic or professional career or title. And so When I came back to the States for college, I was very academically inclined and I wanted to go to UC Berkeley because my sister was there. So, you know, the idea was to come two years earlier to try to get in-state tuition because it's like, you know, half of what out-of-state. And so I came junior year, right, in high school, which is another transition back to like, you know, all the kids have their cliques. So I kind of went back into my cave, you know, roaming the hallways. So again, these edges back and forth, east and west, you know, yin and yang, and extroversion and introversion. And so, again, back to the breakthrough moment is, you know, I had a freshman. So eventually I got into UC Berkeley on full scholarship, actually, because, you know, we weren't of means. And so the idea was to get in-state tuition. But, you know, we couldn't afford those SAT test preps. So I just, again, went back to the bookstores. I just read through those, you know, those thick ass, you know, SAT prep books, you know, because you don't know those classes are expensive, right? And then, and then I, and I scored really well, you know, and for my entrance application to UC Berkeley, I wrote a poem, you know, you know, rather than essay, I guess I was stood out. And then, so they gave me, you know, a full scholarship, but, so that was surprising. And so, but just as a background, you know, kind of academically inclined, kind of nerdy, but then I know my, I I think my freshman dorm mate, Gerald Ruiz, we're still in touch. He said, hey, we gotta go check out this martial arts class. It's Wing Chun, it's a Yip Man. He was the teacher of Bruce Lee. So of course, Asian American, right? And kind of maybe absorbing some of the stereotypes of that, being inspired perhaps by these kind of trailblazers of Asian American media. But I was like, I don't like to fight. But he convinced me to go, and I found out my studies at UC Berkeley was human locomotion and biodynamics, so like how we move, right? The physics of motion. And I found out when I went to this class, like, wow, this is amazing. This is everything I've been learning theoretically in textbook and in lab applied to, again, practical, again, right? This theoretical and practical kind of getting really turned on by bridging those. And I saw the instructor who was visiting, and just tell the demo partner, just attack me. He didn't say how, and so the person attacked, and within like 2.5 seconds, the partner was dispatched, but not hurt. And I was like, this is amazing. This is pure human dynamics. And so I got impassioned to learn that, and then my teacher was gonna move out of the country, and so either the class was gonna end, or someone would have to step up to take over the group. I wasn't going to volunteer, but people kind of started to push me forward and point at me. And so I kind of took on that and I realized that I really had a knack for it. And I've been kind of in a teaching capacity ever since. It's been like a quarter century since that kind of first foray into teaching as sort of a passion. And the compassion part is just like, I feel so empowered by whatever practice it is, whether it's calligraphy or acupuncture or martial arts or whatever. I want other people to be ignited by it. So that's the calm, right? Passion and calm and compassion. So that's kind of defined. That's been a thread that's run through my life so far.

SPEAKER_05 44:50

One, I think, is just his orientation to what's practical, right? Like I know as I have a... My father is... has his PhD and his dad has a PhD and his dad's dad had a PhD. And just when it came to me, I was like, no, thank you. Like, I wanna be a little bit more applied in what I wanna sort of see in the world. And I think his ability to sort of embrace that and then say like, hey, I'm both a nerd and I'm gonna write a poem, right? Like that is definitely sort of a holistic way of being present And embracing sort of these multiple ways of being present and disregarding labels in lots of different ways.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

And what was striking is also just the influence of friends and allies. And it reminds me of the friendship episode with Seneca, where he really talks about this unending conversation with his friend Jamie and how that got him into stoic philosophy, it's like we can't be monks in the cave navigating our path to enlightenment. At some point, someone has to show up and be a mirror for us and say, hey, I think you have a knack for this. And it's not because you're Asian, but there's something about you. And he was studying locomotion. So he was actually technically very interested in all of that. And then it was like, hey, can you embody this in your body in this form.

SPEAKER_05 46:40

Yeah. And one of the morning exercises that we did was just a very simple kind of like slow motion attack and then a block and counter attack. And so I remember, you know, modeling the slow motion attack with him and his block really hurt. He didn't even, I didn't even get to the counter attack. I was like, and this was at like, he's like, let's go at 50% speed. I think he was at like 20% speed. And I was like, oh man, my forearm, that's going to leave something there. And so, you know, he has that physical, but he's not a big guy. And so, you know, I just, I really appreciate just what it means to when you have control of your body, but control of your body in a way that is in motion, right? It's fluid. Like sometimes we think about like, oh, I'm going to control my emotions is like, it's this idea of like bottling them up until all of a sudden. a sudden you know they build up and they sort of burst out and it's like no control of your emotions is sort of being aware of them and be like okay let me choose how I want to react to them like let me feel all the feelings and that's what's also just fun about his vibe it's like it's a vibe you know it's not clinical but he's not sort of like artsy fartsy like woo woo either he's like I want to know what's practical like is this going to work for me or not like let's be real

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Yeah, we all got to receive acupuncture from him too, which was a delight. So here's a clip of him, you know, talking about, you know, this pivotal time in college, UC Berkeley, how he, you know, even thought about his focus, his passion and his compassion. I

SPEAKER_00 48:27

took an integrative medicine class at UC Berkeley, started by one of my students, a student-led course on integrative medicine. And so I just, my mind was open to other possibilities of practicing medicine and And my interest was in biology, how the human body worked. And I kind of realized, even at that age, I was lucky, I felt, before I got into the profession of Western medicine, and a lot of my older classmates were there, and they were like, oh my God, this is crazy, like half a million dollars in debt, and so sick themselves, right, unhealthy. And I said, oh, that's not why I want to go into medicine. I thought it was about health. And so I found an alternative that fit more with my philosophy, and then my sister was an ally she's like uh ma ba you should just let paul do what he wants to do because he's once he decides he's not going to change his change his mind because i'm like yeah thank you amy and so you know so i have i have uh you know many allies from my parents and my siblings and so yeah to help me yeah give me confidence and feel their trust and yeah that's that's such a gift that's

SPEAKER_04 49:35

such a gift

SPEAKER_00 49:36

yeah because if you don't trust yourself then you know it's it's it's hard to you know inspire that in other people it's hard to be able to trust your decisions right and so you kind of get into this either formal or indecision or procrastination mode rather than just let's go forward let's do something let's try and then trust that come what may you'll be able to you know navigate

SPEAKER_05 49:57

come what may and how to navigate. I think just that sort of very simple clarity of being present, right? And just being like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. And, but at the same time, recognizing that he's not alone, right? To have the allies, the families and friends. And I feel like, you know, this is, you know, we were imagining like, oh man, how beautiful would it be to have a retreat with some of the podcast guests and, you Why is it so beautiful to hear from our listeners? Every time we get sent an email or someone reaches out and shares just how our conversations are shaping them, it just really helps to sort of realize you're not alone and that we can sort of all kind of co-create together in beautiful ways.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Yeah. And if we can't trust ourselves, how can we inspire others? to take radical actions for their own lives. It really starts with that inner trust. And, you know, I have to say when I was at his age, I was definitely, you know, in university time struggling with who I really wanted to be for myself and what was expected and how cool that he didn't, you know, hesitate. Because there were a lot of, there was a lot of energy spent on that friction that inner, you know, should versus really, you know, want and desire. So we've gotten such a beautiful opportunity to kind of get a glimpse of Sifu Paul Wang's life journey and what brought him into his center, which he calls the Tao, the way of being. And he offered us a practice to share with you all. And this practice was something that Omar and I were able to do last week as well for our sabbatical. So we have this other, you know, embodied experience now that we can express and transmit to you all from our own hearts. And so Paul is going to lead this practice for you this week. And, you know, feel free to pause if you're not quite in the mode to you know kind of enter into a little bit of stillness you know save it for maybe the end of the day as you're winding down or or the morning when you're starting to wake up with the sun so just invite you to find the right time where you can really be be with yourself for this practice and play it as much as you need to get back into your your Tao your center throughout this week as we play with that balance of night and day, light and dark.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

From the beginning of our lives, the first act was inspiration. And then we cry as a newborn. And then at some point, our final act in this life is going to be an exploration. that doesn't come back into these lungs. What does that bring up for you? Grief? Gratitude? Right? Both? Neither? So as you're engaging the cycle, the circle of breath, you're inspiring, maybe a slight hold for a second, and then highlighting the expiration, maybe even lengthening the expiration. Why is that useful? that actually activates your parasympathetic nervous system to rest and digest. So maybe you're inhaling about a count of four, two, three, two, one, and then the exhalation maybe goes to five or six. That's the yin aspect of the breath, letting go, letting your breath fall, even bringing down, grounding, and triggering this physiological response in your autonomic nervous system to go from fight or flight and freeze to rest, Digest. Nest. So just by lengthening the expiration, just by spending more time letting go, imagining in your inner space, in your mind, in your heart space, maybe you feel your heartbeat. And as you lengthen that expiration part of the wheel of your breath, your heart rate will slow down. This is physiology. Breath as a switch or dial to tune down your heart rate. Blood pressure is going down a bit. Whole body is relaxing. So your heart rate maybe is boom, boom.

UNKNOWN 55:02

Boom, boom. Boom, boom.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

And see and hear and feel what's growing. The space. The space between the heartbeats. The silence between the tension, the contraction of the heart is creating that sound. Boom. The relaxation is silent when the heart muscle relaxes. See if you can hear that. Turn your hearing to that silent center space. Feel that space grow. So be here. This is the center of your being for now and now and now. The new now, the next now, the ever-present now. You can deepen, you can root here. Can we also sit in the center of our being and experience the doing from a state of being? So for just a few more breaths, can you simultaneously sense and sit in the still, silent space? and it is a sacred space. This place you can go to every day, any moment actually, as a sanctum sanctorum, an inner sanctuary. Treat yourself like that. You don't have to go to a church or temple. Those are great outer pilgrimages. You can come, do an inner pilgrimage, even if it's just within one cycle of breath. can you also be at the center so one more deep cycle of breath while being try to Really press save as. So you don't lose this when we go back out into the world, outer world. So become very familiar with this. Let this become more your default state. It'll take more objective time to practice, but actually the punchline is, it's always there. Everything falls to silence. All movement falls to stillness. 80-20%. I always tell people, can you keep, right now we're 100% inwards. Even as we go out 50 out, 50 in, or 80% out, can you keep 20% at being? Even as you're 80% doing out there.

SPEAKER_05 57:46

80-20. Just kind of being present. enough to both what you need for yourself and for what you need to be in the world. What a gift. And we may need to do a part two at some point of this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

You can always find that refuge within yourself. And we also invite you to retreat in Mount Shasta. So if any of you are called to travel here, just like Omar did, feel free to find us at HestiaMagic.com. Love to give our listeners 10% sent off, just to make it even more accessible. And yeah, just wherever you are in this time, just know that you can always come back home to yourself. And nature helps for us to find that peace, to breathe a little bit more naturally, to see the world in new ways.

SPEAKER_05 59:01

That was the one thing that Paul said. is that the intersection of nature and culture is nurture, both for yourself and the place around you. So here's to more nurturing and nutrition.

SPEAKER_01 59:16

And nourishment.

SPEAKER_05 59:20

Wishing you well. Cheers.

UNKNOWN 59:28

Cheers.