How to Flow with the Struggle: Resistance as a Teacher

Hi community,

I've been dragging my feet on writing this newsletter since last week.

Whenever I thought about it, I'd feel overcome with a sense of dread and resistance. So I kept putting it off, avoiding it, telling myself, "Tomorrow, I will have it in me and get it done."

So tomorrow came and went, again and again. But my body felt so sluggish. I got my period and my energy levels dipped massively. 🥱 My focus, concentration, and creativity went underground, and in their absence a flood of emotions swallowed me whole, taking me under to where I needed, but did not necessarily want, to go.

In that state, nothing wanted to flow out naturally. In fact, quite the opposite. 

As someone who gives so much to community – something I both love about myself and am aware is a trauma response wrapped up in the wounded healer archetype – I am discovering that when I feel this way, it's a sign that I need more to flow INTO me. After decades of getting by to varying degrees of energetic starvation, I need nourishment, care, and to be fed in all the ways: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally. 

I need so much more than has been normalized in my life and I'm finally able to say that aloud without totally cringing or feeling frozen.

Which sounds fantastic, right? But is truly a gargantuan task for someone reckoning with how quickly and greatly their self-concept and, well, narrative for their entire life has completely changed due to relatively recent diagnoses of autism and complex PTSD. 

With all this going on, sure, I could force myself to create in these conditions...

But what's different now is that I don't WANT to.

By now, I've sat in enough trainings about the nervous system to know what happens when my body is chronically flooded with cortisol and adrenaline just to get something done. (especially something not dire or required)

By now, I've done enough unlearning in my rest journey to know how incredibly costly it is to override my nervous system's cries for recovery and the awful message that it sends to my body: I don't care what you want or need.

By now, I've done enough grieving to know that I / we lose so much more than we can even imagine when pushing the gas pedal harder becomes our default way of surviving the overwhelming demands of being alive in this wild time.

So here we are, a week later from when I initially decided I would, I should, do the writing thing. Once I noticed I was struggling and how greatly I was resisting being in the struggle, I paused to ask myself, "Is this working in my best interest?" When I realized it wasn't, I softened around the difficulty I was experiencing. I relaxed my grip on where I thought I should be or how I thought I should feel to create space for where and how I actually was.

From this tender space of acceptance where I didn't make how I was feeling wrong nor did I deny my feelings of resistance, something magical happened: words started flowing effortlessly out of my body, into the keyboard, and onto this screen.

When I stopped trying to control the situation, the words I'd been desperately searching for found me.

It's funny. I set out to basically tell you all "Sorry, I don't have it in me." But somewhere between letting go of expectations and moving with what felt true, honest, and real, a real piece of writing emerged. A newsletter formed itself.

Over the past several years on my rest journey, I've had more and more experiences like this. Some situation arises that generates resistance. Through immense frustration, I discover that my go-to strategy of using force or willpower to power through will no longer work here. In the surrender, I realize it was all an invitation to look deeper at whether that was serving me (no, it wasn't) and what other strategies might be better and available now.

As a result, I am no longer confident my creativity comes from me. It comes from something like me getting out of the way, being receptive and willing to listen for what is, and trusting that the intelligence of my nervous system will show me a way forward – no matter how uncomfortable it is for my logical mind and ego!

What a relief! That it's not all on us. That we are supported in many ways by forces both seen and unseen. That we can learn how to skillfully interpret these cues from our bodies and by listening, we find a way through that is gentler, kinder, and healthier for us in the long run.

The only requirement? That we soften our grip on how we think it should work. All real relationships require this, including the one we have with ourselves and our creativity.

P.S. I've been quieter on the newsletter front, but that doesn't mean nothing is happening! Scroll down for some exciting collaborations and events I'm part of 🥳

P.P.S. I'll offer a transparency report for February's fundraiser for the RORS scholarship fund in the next newsletter. Winners of the free 60-min rest mentorship session will be contacted in the coming week as well by email!

P.P.P.S (is that a thing?): Can I also celebrate with y'all that I closed enrollment on such a sweet group of API women + femmes for the Spring 2024 cohort of Rewriting Our Rest Stories?! And that Collective Rest @ Work clients I've been building relationships with over the past 2-3 years are beginning to book me for in-person experiences? And I'm going to be keynoting a conference in October to kick their day off with rest? 😭

Lots happening behind the scenes, and all of this abundance is coming from COMMUNITY REFERRALS (love y'all for real) as I also listen to my body. Here's to rewriting my rest story for the better and breaking away from the idea that I can only be successful if I kill myself for it.

Your restie bestie,

Cassandra Lam / Lam Thùy Dung

Collaborations

👉 RSVP HERE 👈

I am excited to kick off this incredible virtual event with a somatic grounding practice!

Join California Coalition for Women Prisoners and three leading activists—Andrea James, Rachel Herzing, and Piper Kerman—in a vital conversation about making women’s history by closing women’s prisons in California and across the country. What will it take to make this vision real? 

The 2023 comprehensive report From Crisis to Care points to an inescapable conclusion—women’s prisons only perpetuate catastrophic trauma and harm. To reverse intergenerational cycles of gendered and racial violence and poverty, California needs to invest in community controlled resources that are life affirming and health promoting. Our communities need to develop non-carceral, non-punitive forms of accountability and close women’s prisons! In Massachusetts and other parts of the country campaigns to close women’s prisons are already underway.

As of February 2024 , there are 3,374 people incarcerated in women’s prisons in California, 70.8% less than in 2010 when there were 12,668! This dramatic reduction was a result of strong, persistent legal challenges and advocacy campaigns by dozens of organizations and thousands of people from our communities, resulting in marked policy changes in California. Collectively we were able to reduce the population of women’s prisons by over 9,000 in little more than a decade. We can decarcerate a few thousand more and close the state’s two women’s prisons.

👉 LEARN MORE 👈

👉 APPLY 👈

Hosted by ACE NextGen and in collaboration with one of my best friends Andrea, a heart-forward trauma-sensitive facilitator and life + leadership coach, I will be co-leading a 9-month container called "Whole Body Business".

For AAPI Women Solopreneurs & Service-Based Business Owners in the holistic wellness and coaching industry looking to build their brand and business in a way that honors their unique gifts, voice and pace. 

This group is for you if you prioritize both personal well-being and professional success, with an emphasis on sustainable growth strategies and whole-body intelligence (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual).

Get the Rooted Power Zine

👉 READ ME 👈

Towards the end of last year, my friend Kwonyin (who's an amazing healing artist and emotional alchemy guide who skillfully guides folks through emotional repression to expression) reached out to interview me for a zine exploring the concept of "rooted power". 

And it's now here and totally free to download!

what is rooted power? and how do you root to your power?

ROOTED POWER is a zine that bloomed from the deeply fecund wisdom of healing artists, heartful activists, regenerative earth oracles, poets, and priestesses of kindness

Here's her "why" for the zine: I'm interested in rooted power cuz it's been really challenging to stay grounded and rooted in these ever increasing turbulent, overwhelming times. i'd love to help inspire each other to root in our own power, to the nourishing realm beneath the noise, and be resourced to live, rest, and take action in service to the highest good for all.