This article is a sequel to the post “To The Non-Conforming Asian Women.”
The pressure to conform to a particular way of being, looking and behaving is paramount in conformist cultures. In collectivist cultures where group harmony is prioritized over individual expressions, People are pressured to do all they can to maintain the status quo, or the outer harmony, even at the price of personal autonomy, voice or needs.
The rigid social standards can be abrasive and coercive for all but are especially challenging for the innately intense and sensitive ones, who, on many levels—physical, intellectual, psychological and spiritual— just do not fit into the normative stereotypes and expectations.
When someone decides to break away from her family or cultural heritage, perhaps by disobeying their parents’ prescribed plan, walking away from family members who guilt-trip and manipulate, or going against society’s dogma, they are—explicitly or implicitly—led to believe that they are doing something that is unjustified, disrespectful, or even immoral. Having internalized judgments from various sources, they carry a sense of guilt all the way through into adulthood. It turns into toxic shame, and shows up as harsh self-criticisms, chronic anxiety, low self-esteem, and the consistent feeling that they have done something wrong. They may even hold themselves back from career success and loving relationships because they feel they do not deserve them.
ARE YOU A NON-CONFORMIST IN A CONFORMIST SOCIETY?
- From a young age, you have a sense of knowing that goes beyond your immediate surroundings. You were curious about the endless possibilities lying beyond where you were. You have a desire to move out, to explore the world, to have adventures, or to break out of the social and cultural confines of your hometown.
- You have multiple interests and are always hungry for intellectually rigorous, sensually intense and culturally extensive experience.
- The imposed standards on appearance, dating, and marriage make no sense to you; and no matter how hard you try, you struggle to comply.
- You are introspective and sensitive by nature and are more aware of social and psychological dynamics than those around you. For example, despite the facade of joyous unity and normalcy, you notice the tension, hierarchical pressure, hidden comparisons, and envy, and stifled resentment amongst relatives during family or community gatherings.
- You have always felt older than those around you. As a child, books, music, or arts were your closest friends. You travel in your mind by reading, watching movies, or researching on the internet to negate the sense of being trapped.
- You have always been an independent thinker and—as much as you can—take actions according to your judgment; even when they go against the school rules, family instructions or social norms.
- You always had wondered about existential issues such as the meaning of life, even when you were pressured to be driven by money, status, and social recognition.
- You were told by adults in your life—teachers or parents—to stop ‘dreaming,’ or to cut out the abstract and philosophical questions to focus on the pragmatic.
- You have a strong sense of justice. Issues in the world bother you deeply, and you feel emotionally overwhelmed when you witness suffering in others. You struggle to find people who share your concerns, as they generally seem apathetic towards global issues.
- You have been puzzled by others’ obliviousness to the inner world of psychology and imagination, and their content with only the material world.
- You have vivid and exciting career aspirations and dreams, some of them transcend gender stereotypes.
- Despite the pressure to focus on a single academic or vocational discipline, you feel pulled in many directions.
- You strive to find your answers, rather than what has been handed out to you.
- You feel the double-bind of on the one hand being pushed to be ambitious in achieving academically and rise in your career, while at the same time being told ‘not to compete, not to try to be humble and subdue.'
- You have the ‘Fear of Success Syndrome’: If you are a woman, perhaps you believe that your peers may reject you or that you will become sexually undesirable if you were too competent or successful.
- You have the Perfection Complex: Believing that you must be perfect in everything you do in all aspects of your life.
- You have the ‘Imposter Syndrome’: Having low self-esteem despite outward achievement and attributing your success to outside factors such as luck. You are unable to take any compliments and feel undeserving of your success and abundance.
DO YOU HAVE TO LEAVE HOME TO FORGE YOUR PATH?
For some people, breaking away from their hometown and family of origin is not just a yearning, but a calling. From a young age, the boys and girls with a broad mind and an open heart show a keen sense of observation, an interest in cultural differences and hunger for adventures. They have difficulties finding companions that meet their intellectual, emotional and spiritual depth and have learned to seek refuge and resonance through books, music and the arts. As they grow older, they realize they have no choice but to look beyond their immediate surrounding. In the search for connections that reach far and deep, they are compelled to live expansively, absorb knowledge rigorously, and expose themselves to cultures and people from across time and space. In other words, they are a traveler at heart—both in terms of their mind and in actual geographical footprint.
This need to break away, however, often clashes with the traditional expectation of filial piety. Especially inherent in most Asian cultures (and many non-asian Collectivist cultures), filial piety can be broadly defined as being loyal and obedient to one’s parents. The Chinese word for it is Xiao-xun, literally meaning being respectful (i.e., Xiao) and compliance (i.e., xun).
A belief that permeates these cultures is: ‘Having children is your investment in your future.’ There is an expectation for the younger generation to reciprocate what the parents have done for them, often by not just living up to their standards, but also physically, pragmatically and financially giving back. This translates to giving money, staying at home, or at least be living nearby, to take care of one’s aging parents. This pressure is more profound for the daughters, for as even implicitly, they were assumed the ‘caretaker’ roles. The cultural code is that the men's work justifies all sacrifices, while guilt permeates the consciousness of women who break free to forge her path.
Therefore, the independent one who leaves home attracts ridicule from not just their own family, but also the extended family and society as a whole. It is not unusual for strangers (the ‘aunties and uncles’) to offer unsolicited advice or comments about their life choices. Facing judgment and implicit criticisms from all fronts, they may believe that they are doing something ‘wrong,’ or bringing disgrace to the family. No matter how far they go in life, they believe that they have disappointed or hurt their parents, and carry the heavy burden of guilt that holds them back from living the fullest life.
HAVE YOU BEEN NAMED 'THE SICK ONE” IN THE FAMILY?
It is not uncommon for the ones who break away to fall into the role of scapegoat. In a family, pointing the finger at one person as the cause of all evil is an unconscious strategy used by some family members to evade their emotional pain and suffering. More common than most people believe, scapegoating is something that happens in most groups. The word originates from an ancient tribal practice, where a goat would be chosen to represent the group’s collective sins. By casting the animal out, the tribe symbolically wash themselves off any sins they carry.
Accident does not assign the scapegoat role. It is most like to fall on the bright, perceptive and hyper-empathic ones because, like apples that have somehow fallen far from the trees, they have traits that others do not understand or identify with.
Once scapegoated, the son or daughter is then assigned a ‘sick’ identity. Theorists of Systemic Family Therapy use the term ‘Identified Patient’ (Minuchin et al., 1975) to describe this role. From the time when Freud considered ‘hysteria’ an exclusively female disease, women are more likely than men to be scapegoated as being mentally frail, emotionally unstable, paranoid and impulsive. While the ‘identified patient’ act out, others in the family are not required to take ownership of their anger and resentment. Having a ‘mentally ill’’, ‘rageful,’ ‘unruly,’ or problematic child in the family allows all the other members to think of themselves as being more emotionally healthy and stable than they are. For example, the siblings might let the scapegoated child express the anger towards a controlling mother through rebellion, while they continue to play ‘the good ones,’ ‘the reasonable ones.’
The scapegoated one might have grown up with passing comments such as ‘you have always been the crazy one’, ’everyone else is fine, you always come up with problems’, ‘you have no idea how hard it is to parent someone like that’, ‘you are ungrateful for what you have been given’… etc. Once the pattern is set, the family typically goes to great lengths to keep the dynamic that way – the scapegoat must remain the scapegoat – otherwise, the others would be forced to face their vulnerabilities. What this means is that when the scapegoat tries to walk away from this toxic dynamic, they may be met with subtle or not-so-subtle emotional revenge, manipulation or blackmail.
The irony is, mental health issues are highly stigmatized in most conformist cultures, and having someone with a mental illness is perceived to bring disgrace to the family. Thus, the scapegoated one is trapped in an impossible paradox: they are assigned to be the one who carries ’mental problems,’ but not allowed to or has no way of seeking support.
WAYS WE REMAIN TRAPPED
In the decades of faithfully serving the cultural values, practices, beliefs, prohibitions, and expectations, you might have lost contact with your instinctive truths. One could live the most productive life on the surface— approved by family and culture, and have achieved most vocational goals, yet feel trapped and congested on the inside. Perhaps you think you need a ‘permission’ to emerge as who you are, to desire what you want, or to run your life the way you like it. There are two ways we remain trapped by the pressure to perform and conform: Either by ‘surrendering’ to it or by fiercely rebelling against it.
SURRENDERING
As children, we naturally seek re-assurance by adapting to the values, believes, orders and expectations of our nearest surrounding. To adapt to our family’s demands, we have to internalize their values as if they were our own. Then, at some point, we might become wholly identified with them and forget about our inner nature, which is our most spontaneous, intense and passionate self. Perhaps As a child, our experience of love has been conditional— compliance and obedience were the prices we had to pay for love. As our young wild souls get tyrannized by the threat of punishment, abandonment, or annihilation, they had to go underground. We learned to hide our ambitions, drive and individual voices. Then, one day we realize that not choosing is also a choice; for allowing ourselves to go along with the cultural script create only a sense of false safety that would eventually erupt- like confusion, depression, boredom or an existential crisis.
OVER-COMPENSATING
Another way we react to being oppressed is to overcompensate; maybe by saying to ourselves:
“I am nothing like my parents,” “ I will never live their lives.” Our urges to run the other way can even turn into internalised racism: “I cannot hang out with my kind— they are all so shallow,” “I am not going to be a cliche”; or other kinds of internalised oppression, such as feeling powerless, carrying excessive guilt, or being overly-competitive with other women. However, by exerting all our energy into rebellion, we remain trapped. We thought we have escaped ‘that,’ but we become trapped by ‘not that.’ In the end, we are still not following our authentic spirit that comes from within. In other words, “Can you wear a raincoat when it is raining, even when your 'internalized' parent' told you to?”
UNBURDENING FROM THE “BREAKAWAY SHAME”
Dropping the burden of ’breakaway shame’ is one of the most challenging tasks on our path, but it is essential if we were to free ourselves up from the past and grow into our true self.
Let’s experiment with a contemplative exercise.
There might be a broader perspective that is beyond what we had been led to believe, about who we are, and how we come into existence.
The religious ones amongst us have always known that we are ultimately ‘children of God’;
Some call the universal source of energy that springs us into being God; others call it Brahman, Cosmic Consciousness, or the Universe.
But we do not have to be religious to be spiritual and to break free from our limited perception.
Perhaps we could even drop the idea that there is one omnipotent, superior being beyond the cosmos, who created and controls the universe, and consider how, like everything else, we are a part of nature.
Imagine the tiny seedling that was you did not come from the physical bodies of your biological father or mother- but from nature itself. We are a part of the ‘ten thousand things’— a Chinese expression used to mean the indefinite multitude of all forms and beings in manifest existence. Like any animal in the wild, or any flower in a forest, we come into being as part of an organic process calls life.
Now, consider how nature works: It produces but does not possess. Nutrients from the soil, sunshine, rainfall are freely given, without needing a return. Your true source has no preconceived ideas that dictate what you should do, whom you should listen to where you should live. It loves and respects you unconditionally, and you are allowed to live naturally and spontaneously.
Nature would not want an oak tree to become a pine tree, or a rose to be a sunflower. Therefore, whatever path you choose, however you act, you are as glorious and as valid as your neighbor’s daughter. Nature does not care about how much money you make, how fast or slow you grow, or how much materials you hoard. It honors every single piece of your path and wants you to expand into the fullest, most authentic you. The Mother Earth knows that you are entirely innocent, that you do not owe anyone anything, and your existence requires no justification.
In stillness, contemplate the above, and see if you could slowly and gently loosen some of the entrapment of cultural conditioning and internalized guilt.
Let’s also observe the following poem from Kahlil Gibran. Framed as his advice to parents; he shares profound insights into the nature of a parent-child relationship:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet, they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
