Sonya Nguyễn
Ancient and nubile. Evergreen and ephemeral.
I love learning and the spirit of inquiry. Living some kind of scientific method merging with artistry to mess around outside the lab. Experimenting directly with life, making mistakes and gleaning insights.
I felt secure in intellectual rationale and cerebral headiness. It felt “good” and “safe” to nerd out and focus on academic achievement. Emotions felt confusing, intense, messy and inconvenient.
Right before middle school, I attended a mindfulness retreat with my family. I saw sides of my family members that felt so different, good different: a softened tenderness and warm presence. Monastics and community members approached me with friendliness and genuine care. Just human beings. Imperfect. Real.
I remember the first time I heard the old monk say, “Ask the question that can change your life. Dare to ask the question of your heart. It will change not only your life, but it can help others here who are also listening.” It surprised me to see people stand up and earnestly walk to the mic. I watched them waiting to ask their deepest questions, feeling shook.
I realized then and there, for as long as I remember: the yearning ache to understand.
Palpable unuttered questions in my heart:
What in the world is going on? Why do people do what they do? How do people know and think? What makes us who we are?
Who are we? Where did we come from? How did we get here? Where are we going? How do we get there? What about me? How do I know? What does it all mean?
A friend once declared:
“Go as far as your heart can take!”
Some say the longest distance is the journey from the head to the heart.
But I feel they aren’t so far apart
When we listen with our whole beings.
When people share their stories
I receive them in awe. And thank them.
The joys, sorrows, dreams and pains–
All the same. To listen with compassion,
to be with and witness and behold.
I am a multifaceted human with multidisciplinary passions. I enjoy the nonduality of exquisite granular detail and complex systems/constellational awareness.
Interests: poetry, dance, music, zen mindfulness, somatics, neurophysiology, social biopsychology, embodied anatomy, developmental psychology, kinesiology, food anthropology, astrology, education, medical ethnobotany/herbalism, traditional medicine, politicohistory, global cultural relations, ethics, health disparities, human rights, philosophy, religion, folklore, mythology, theater performance, animal ecology, cultural psycho linguistics, etymology, indigenous psychology, fashion/textiles, bioeconomy, film/cinema, comedy, gardening, martial arts, pole, geology earth science, mycology, etc.
I have a duty to speak the truth as I see it and share
~ Audre Lorde
not just my triumphs, not just the things that felt good,
but the pain, the intense, often unmitigated pain.
It is important to share how I know survival is survival
and not just a walk through the rain.
What happens when people are supported to unfold their most potent presence?
Healing trauma as the art of living.
To craft vision. To shape worlds.
To wake up to the life you dare to dream.
To piece together the shattered fragments.
Kintsugi golden cracks made whole.
Even after all the generations of
harm, exploitation, abuse, extraction, injustice, violation, dislocation, war
Life is the music, the art, the poetry, the dance.
We are the instruments in the symphony, the colors in the palette, the letters in the words, the moves in the grooves.
We can render beatitude paradisio in the pain and hell terrors.
No one sees the existence of suffering more deeply than a bodhisattva,
~ Thầy Thích Nhất Hạnh
yet no one maintains as refreshing and unwavering a smile.
I can hear the bodhisattvas saying,
“We are not here to weep and wail, we are here to make life beautiful.”
“Please quote me on that…”
“You know what? I don’t usually fuck with therapists. I don’t fuck with therapists. I dont fuck with therapy. But I fucks with you. It’s been so different. I don’t know, like…it can be like this? Shit, I fucks with that.”
“You’re not like other therapists. You’re what, an actual human? You’re human! That’s real. You don’t just sit there with the ‘And how does that make you feel robot thing’. It’s a relief. I can be real. I get to be real with all of it.“
The key to my internal map appears to read something like this:
~ Joy Harjo
East: A healer learns through wounding, illness, and death.
North: A dreamer learns though deception, loss, and addiction.
West: A musician learns through silence, loneliness, and endless roaming.
South: A poet learns through injustice, wordlessness, and not being heard.
Center: A wanderer learns through standing still.