Permission to Come Home
Rating: 4.5 / 5 stars
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High-Level Thoughts
Immersive book to dive deeper into many different pieces of what Asian Americans struggle with such as navigating two cultures and choosing to make your own decisions. This book opens up sides like grieving and failure to evolve the narratives. That being said, I did not find the rest stops containing reflective questions as useful. Extremely deep book overall and would reread it.
“You find your way home not so that you can settle and hide there for the rest of your life, but so that you know the way back to a space that offers comfort, rest, and affirmation of your unshakable value and worth – an irrevocable worthiness, in spite of what the world may tell you, so that you can fully embark on the expansive and boundless adventure that is your life.”
Summary Notes
Standout Quotes
“Living without boundaries is like thinking that a sprint is a great way to start a marathon. At some point, we run out of fuel and find ourselves wondering why we are so deeply unhappy.”
“I want to acknowledge that claiming our permission to choose comes with a cost. In choosing, you are recognizing that others may not always know what is best for you, and perhaps that you might create conflict if you decide to listen to yourself.”
“A simple visual exercise to try when seeking to regain perspective is to imagine that you are taking a bird’s-eye view of life starting with today. Then zoom out to the week and the month.”
“Fears of failure are rooted in core beliefs about being unlovable, incompetent, and easily abandoned. This is why we struggle with failure so much.”
“Scheduling play is like preventative medicine, done in order to help replenish and be better able to focus on what matters most to you.”
“Language has the power to connect or divide people, and for those of us who struggle to speak our native tongues, it only highlights the disconnection that might exist between us and our ancestral people.”
Top 5 Concepts
Double-edged sword. Taking up space invites criticism and people to attack you for who you are. Build up the courage and tenacity to continue voicing yourself and taking action. This maintains your focus on what you serve and provide.
Ingrained expectations. Immigrant parents did not have failure as an option. That would lead to their demise with not having food on the table. This passed on to the next generation and led to an expectation of not being able to fail. Adjusting this relationship requires reflection internally about the repercussions of failure and whether it is seen as being unlovable, incompetent, and easily abandoned or a signpost for pivoting.
Sustainability decision-making. Make choices that lead to sustainability. Choices you make reflect what will happen to your environment and you will live with the consequences. This at first glance can be areas such as global warming, but also with the choices you make with who you spend your time with, what company you choose to work for, and other everyday decisions.
Play without reward. Play itself is the highest form of research. You bend the space of time and reality by not having none or different rules set for what you do. It allows us to create new connections. Playing without reward is like finding a fun minigame in the middle of your journey. You had no idea it was arriving, but it brightened up your day.
Home. Home is where we feel safety, belonging, authenticity, and compassion. These attributes provide us with the ability to show more about ourselves openly. Home is where we may rest and have reminders of our value and worth regardless of what the outside world may tell us. This home is a spot for us to return to before embarking on another expansive and boundless adventure.
