Tag Archives: girlfriends

Empowering Women Circles

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My upcoming workshop on February 19, Tuesday is now changed to a 2 hour workshop at just $25.

(For folks who are not in New York City, you can be in touch with me directly about one-on-one coaching.)

 

Screen Shot 2012-12-07 at 1.40.03 AMEMPOWERING WOMEN CIRCLES

Empowering Women’s Relationships and Sex Lives through Community

Date: Feb. 19, Tuesday

Time: 6:30-8:30pm

Location: 928 Broadway, Suite 1002, 10th floor (btw 21st and 22nd St)

Tickets: $25 (only 12 spots total), http://skl.sh/V6bTD6

 

Who: This workshop is for women looking for a community of women to provide emotional support while going through the ups and downs of their relationships and sex lives.

What: A safe, nonjudgmental space to share our struggles and frustrations about our relationships and/or sex lives amongst a group of female peers.

Why: Because we are reenergized when we get to share and connect with other women. Because we need something to offset the isolation and self-blame from society’s harsh and oppressive messages.

How: Through paired listening and structured group sharing we gain and give support, as well as receive suggestions. Where we originally had given up hope, we come back recharged and emerge hopeful with renewed perspective ready to jump back in.

 

FAQs:

Q: “What if I already have a group of girlfriends?”

A: Some of us have an awesome community already. Maybe some of you just moved here. It’s hard to keep girlfriends after college, or people go off and get married and have kids. Everyone’s busy. Or maybe you don’t feel comfortable sharing these things because you know each other so well. Sometimes it feels much easier to talk with strangers about private, intimate things. The structured paired listening time is also really helpful.

Q: “How will this actually help improve my relationship?”

A: Most of us are pretty isolated with issues around our relationships, nevermind sex lives. We need to talk with other women, and realize we’re not the only ones with these issues. Emotional support is crucial. We can learn from each other, get ideas and suggestions, vent. After releasing our frustrations, we can gain strength and confidence in ourselves through these brief but safe connections and go back to our relationships with renewed perspective, energy, and hope.

Q: “How will this help my sex life? I just want some sex tips!”

A: OK, let’s say you learn some amazing, awesome sex tips. However, when you go to try it out, you still can’t relax into it. You still need to cross your own emotional bridge and learn how to open up, be vulnerable, and really trust the other person. That’s an emotional journey. Improving our sex lives and orgasms is more than just some quick sex tips. It’s about trust, communication, feeling powerful and emboldened, being vulnerable and letting go. And that is a spiritual path. That has nothing to do with quick, “easy,” external fixes.

 

About Shiuan:

Shiuan has been a trained counselor in human behavior patterns and relationships for 15 years. She’s written about dating, relationships and sex for the last 10 years.She’s been married and divorced. She’s had periods of casual sex and tried online dating. She’s even explored her irrational fetishes. She has a lot to offer from lessons learned from her own personal experience as well as from 4200 hours of counseling. She looks forward to sharing her expertise through this facilitated support group session.

 

Buy tickets:

http://skl.sh/V6bTD6

$25 (only 12 spots total)

Girlfriends, Boy Drama, and Loving Where I Am

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Girlfriend Time

I had the most lovely time last night. A girlfriend and I chatted non-stop for 6 hours straight and I still had to tear myself away. Apparently we have really similar signs, as well as similar backgrounds and childhoods, and we’re great listeners and supporters of each other and just understand each other ‘like that.’ It was incredible. And so so filling. That is only the second time we have ever hung out.

 

chocolate covered oreos...yumm!! + tea + gf = heaven

chocolate covered oreos…yumm!! + tea + gf = heaven

We talked about so many things. We didn’t realize she hadn’t heard about my sexual journey—we hadn’t seen each other in months, she was busy getting set up in her new awesome apartment, just a quick hop on the bus away from me, in a 1-bed all by herself too! I’m so proud of her. On my way home it reminded me this is one of the reasons why it feels right that I’m in New York.

But one of the things we talked about apart from sex, sex, and orgasms, is drama. Apparently both of us love drama. Which is really hard for me to say out loud. I always felt drama is for lame stupid people who want a lot of negative attention. Who would want drama except for people who are really bored and self-destructive and doesn’t value themselves? Kind of sounds like someone who stays in an abusive relationship. Sigh. That would be me.

My girlfriend mentioned that Leos like drama because we like getting a lot of attention. Or something. I’ve always thought drama searched me out and I don’t know how I find myself in those situations but it just seems to keep happening to me. Over and over. Now it seems to make more sense. And I can only start changing it if I am aware and admit it to myself first.

 

Drama WTF

I have been in plenty of drama this summer and fall. Currently, things are really not bad. Dates have been good, fine, fun. Meanwhile I can tell where I could slip off into drama-land, but I’ve been consciously trying to pull myself back. Like my last post about timing.

Sometimes giving myself a pep talk works. Like if I feel the very strong urge to go off the deep end—and by that I mean freak out on someone else or myself—I sit myself down and write in my journal. Why am I freaking out? What does it remind me of in my childhood? Because most certainly there is some early connection there or else I wouldn’t freak out so much.

For example:

Recently I had a guy express ‘a ton’ of interest and attention on me for a few days online. Up until we met in person. Then it faded off. Logically you’d think well they just weren’t interested when they met me in person. But not exactly. He’d text really urgent messages about desiring me then disappear and never confirm a date to meet. It drove me crazy. But mostly I realized I felt resentful and angry. Why?

I’ve always known I’ve had rejection issues. I can’t handle rejection.

I’ve always known I like guys wanting me, whether I want them or not.

Where does this all come from?

 

Childhood, Again

When I was little my mom left me and my brother with my abusive dad. For a year. When my grandparents flew me from Taiwan to Maine to join her a year later it saved my life. At the same time I felt utterly rejected by my dad. If he had to choose, and he did, he’d rather keep my brother simply because he had a penis and I didn’t. I felt unwanted and rejected by the first male figure in my life. Who loved me and treated me abominably. Foreshadowing…

So I don’t like the feeling that a man has power over me, to say when he wants to see me and if he wants to see me. I’d rather be in that position. I don’t like the vulnerability that I’m just here whenever he feels like it. I don’t think women should give that much power to guys anyways. And I don’t think that’s empowering for women or the strongest position to lead from. If we truly believe we are amazing, unique, brilliant human beings then how would we hold ourselves? How would we expect to be treated? What behavior would we tolerate and not tolerate?

 

so excited to read this-- thanks gf!

so excited to read this– thanks gf!

Why New York is Good For Me

Also as it is New Year’s eve I also wanted to reflect specifically on why it’s good for me to be where I am right now. I always have so many reasons why I want to leave NYC. Surfing being at the top of the list. But there are *grumble *grumble certainly a lot of good things in being here as well that are good for me to remember.

I have girlfriends here whom I love and who love me. Last night was the perfect reminder of that. I do tend to fabricate a story in my head that ‘nobody’ wants to hang out with me. Just like Mindy Kaling’s book, “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns).”

I have an incredible counselors base here which is crucial to me. While they are separate from the rest of my social life, they provide my grounding base and I do a lot of my crucial self-work there. I don’t want to leave that, not right now.

There is amazing talent and creativity in this city that I know I haven’t even begun to explore.

There is a strong feminist and activist community that I have just begun to discover and have yet to plop myself down in the center of. That would be good for me to do.

 

What a Year

It has been a tumultuous and incredible year. I left my boyfriend of 2.5 years and it was completely heartbreaking and necessary. I had the time of my life stand-up paddling on the east coast. I never thought I could have combined my love of surfing while living in NYC and on a tight budget, but I did. I had amazing surf experiences and pushed my body to another level. I saw how strong I could be and developed further goals to travel and SUP and race. I started on my sexual journey which I never would have fathomed in a million years. I am so excited to be bigger and bolder while becoming more and more me. It’s an incredible reminder to myself that I am naturally big and bold. I was shut down young but that’s not who I am and I won’t be made quiet anymore.

Why do I blog anyways?

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Where I ponder the purpose of my blog: to share my stories and add my voice.

 

A friend asked me that question today. Why do you blog? I replied with my usual answers. That I write for other young women, Asian women, women of color so they know they’re not alone. To share my experiences, however embarrassing, painful, scary they might have been or might be in sharing them so that others can learn from my mistakes and learn without having to make the same mistakes. I also realized, especially after hearing Anna Holmes—founder of Jezebel— speak last week that I really want to add to the conversation out there as well. As in the online community, whether it’s news, ‘pop news,’ Asian American community, feminist etc. I want to add my distinct Shiuan twist — Asian-feminist-surfer twist. Because as my girlfriend said tonight, I am as far from a stereotype as can be (when I said I was afraid of falling in the Asian woman – white guy stereotype)!

Wheelchair Babes

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A reality TV show about women in wheelchairs leading big, bold lives, and even having sex. Who knew?

 

There’s a reality show out right now about a group of women, but unlike any other reality TV show in the past they are about 4 disabled women in wheelchairs and their lives and relationships. Reality TV shows are not usually my cup of tea and I especially don’t like the usual cattiness and internalized sexism that is completely unaware and rampant, but I think that Sundance Channel’s “Push Girls” really has made a breakthrough, in terms of highlighting those with disabilities having full, bold lives and also showing female friendships really being there for each other—the best of how girlfriends can be, not just the worst.

 

There’s Auti who is the ‘firecracker’ who was paralyzed in a car accident right when she was just exploding her hip hop career in her 20s. She’s now 42 and trying to have a baby with her husband.

 

Mia was a high school swimming star when she had a sudden rupture in her spinal cord that left her a paraplegic at the age of 15. She is now 33 and we see her try to swim for the first time on the show. She is also on the dance team, Colours ‘n Motion, the hip hop wheelchair dance group that Auti founded.

 

Tiphany, 28, is the youngest on the show. She is working on becoming a fitness model and is designing a clothing line called “Wheely Famous.” She became wheelchair-bound when she and her high school friends were hit by a drunk driver driving 130 mph. She was the only survivor after finally coming out of a coma after 3 weeks. She speaks at schools about the risks of drunk driving.

 

And finally Angela, age 36, whom I recognized right away having acted in Fast and Furious and is married and now separated to Dustin Nguyen. She is the only woman on the show that is a quadriplegic—there’s an episode where we see Angela try to paint a portrait of her friend, struggling with her two hands, then tries to paint with the paintbrush between her teeth.

 

“Push Girls” unique quality is they actually portray the women as whole human beings with real problems. You can even see from people’s comments on the site how excited they were to see a reality show portraying real women’s issues. Auti is trying to have a child in her 40s, in addition to being disabled. Tiphany is trying to have a relationship and figure out the balance between being taken care of and being smothered. Mia has a boyfriend but misses going out on dates. Angela is really supportive to both Auti, who’s terrified they’ll tell her she can’t have a child, after having 2 miscarriages, and Tiphany, who became her housemate, and gives supportive but firm girlfriend advice about being honest with Tiphany’s girlfriend regarding personal space. It’s real. It’s meaningful. It’s extremely inspiring and humbling watching it as an able-bodied young woman and makes me have to put all my fears and worries in a whole different perspective. Watching “Push Girls” reminds me of all the privileges I do have and one oppression I don’t have to deal with. It’s inspiring to see the daily bravery in these women and also remember that their disability has nothing to do who they are—just another group of 4 women facing their fears and leading as big and bold lives as possible.

Little Chinese Girls Want Things Too

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Where I talk about how our addictions blind us from our real feelings and can sometimes get us into trouble… and wanting, wanting, and wanting more.

 

Couple days at the beach this weekend has left me browner and with some take-home lessons from an experienced and caring girlfriend. She warned me against my temptations to call up my old friends-with-benefits (FWB’s). I didn’t even tell her about my surfing OKCupid profiles. (I’ve been contemplating this morning to either take down my profile or at least delete my photo.)

 

And what is up with the black smoke that has been coming out across the street for days…??

 

Anyways, she was reminding me that whatever happiness I was searching for back then I didn’t find there either. I wasn’t happy bopping around with different guys however much I may fantasize about it now. Sigh. It reminded me of how my ex described me when we first met. He said I just seemed so exhausted and was so fed up with sexism. I think being lonely or feeling lonely even when we’re not actually alone in the world (“No one is actually alone unless they’ve been on a deserted island for >6 months”) can get us in a lot of trouble. At least it’s gotten me into situations in the past that cumulatively, as my girlfriend calls it, “ruins my chi” (or energy). Sigh.

 

I keep thinking about these two phrases:
‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.’ AND
‘Addictions are something that we know is bad for us every time we do it.’
Does that make addictions crazy? Or our addictions are the place where we’re kinda crazy? At least, irrational, yes.

 

What is up with women having sex with men even when they don’t like it or even worse, are in pain? Speaking for myself, I’ve certainly done it in the past when I didn’t really want it to happen at that moment. I let it keep going. Why? I couldn’t tell you. Of all the guys I’ve slept with I’d probably guesstimate that I didn’t totally enjoy about 70% of them. Wasn’t in love with 90% of them. Didn’t come with 98% of them. There were various reasons why I did it over the years:

 

They had something that I wanted to share (like a motorcycle, a big boat, a house in Hawai`i).

It was exciting and felt really good.

They were hot.

I was lonely and it was late.

It felt good to be wanted—if only for my body.

It felt good to be taken care of.

 

I could stave away the feeling of being rejected and unwanted at least for another night.
Essentially to avoid feeling my feelings, which is what addictions are. (Start feeling something you don’t want to—oh, immediately reach for a cigarette or sugar). At the same time I don’t want to feel bad or guilty for still having whatever remaining distresses/addictions that I do have. I have improved on so many of them, and considering my past and my childhood, I am doing so well. (Chimney smoke has stopped!)

 

So back to my title: Little Chinese Girls Want Things Too. I didn’t get to want— anything—when I was little. I just had to be really careful and thoughtful of other people. I was worried about my mom and felt so bad that I couldn’t protect her. I was trying to be good all the time. As if that would help or change my dad’s behavior, but hey I was like 2 or 3. So in this new transition in my life I want to think again about what I want in my life:

 

I want to be really buff and strong.

I want to be on the water—surfing, SUPing whatever—for half the year, at least.

I want to keep working on these old loneliness feelings until I’ve purged them completely.

I want to travel and write and travel.

I want to stick with my girlfriends.

I want to have a steady partner who I love being with, have fun and laugh a lot with, and treats me really well and appreciates me everyday.

I want to not feel bad about anything anymore.