Chi Phuong NGUYEN
I chose the first option Solo Presencing
as it allows me to answer certain questions about my authentic self. From the
day I arrived to Canada, I realized that I spent time thinking about pursuing
different objectives that I set out in life such as getting a degre, doing the
paper to ask for the PR, finding a job, making money… And all those
preoccupations took up my mind and didn’t let me to have time for myself, going
out to the nature with a free mindset. That’s why the exercise of Solo
Presencing is a perfect opportunity for myself to get rid of the daily issues,
to refresh myself and my thinking. I went out to the park Myrand near
Universite Laval at around 10 a.m. It
was a warm day after those long winter days, the temperature was -7oC.
Spring hadn’t arrived yet but fully presented in that day. I could hear a lot of
birds talking with each other on the trees’ branches (were they calling each
other to go for a late breakfast?) The snow wasn’t anymore freezed on the
branches like it was last week. The snow melt and left the pavement with black
salt but clear way to walk, there was still snow around the park. Near the
park, there was a café named “Café au temps perdu” with a big hanging clock.
The café gave me the feeling of nostalgic, thinking about the old days in the
past. An old man sat on a chair with a table on the cafe’ yard. He smiled at me
when I looked at him. I smiled back and nodded my head to salute him. There was
a playground for kids with a children’s slide, a colorful house, some seesaws
in the park but children were still busy in the kindergarten or school at this
time of the morning, and there was no child in the park. Closing my eyes, the
images of the green park with grass cover, full of children’s laugh, and people
lying down on the grass, reading books appeared in my mind, I was imagining the
park in the coming summer. After looking at the scene surround me, I took a
deep breath, relaxed my body, lean myself backward and closed my eyes again. The
first thing I felt was the cold of the bench that I sat on. I felt my body and
my legs more clearly, my feet were on the ground. There was an invisible link
between my feet and the ground, but my mind and my imagination flied from the
actual context. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to ask myself but I felt
relief, freeing my mind from the workload, upcoming deadline and exams.
I started to ask myself about who I was.
Did I define myself in the qualities that I possessed, what I had done or
realized so far or should I define myself by the relationship with others, my
family, my friends, my colleagues, my former colleagues, and how others perceive
me? Or should I define myself by values that I brought to others? I drew an
image of myself. I am a person that is helpful and was always willing to help
others if possible. I find it hard to say “No” when a friend asks for my help
even though I do not know that friend so well. I’m learning to say “No” to
certain things to focus more on my objectives. I like spending time with my
family members, my friends to talk about several subjects in life, from a
favorite destination to go for vacation to antique clocks, certain challenges
that our society is facing with. I am an ambitious person, wishing to do many
things in the same time. I like to challenge myself, putting me in several
contexts to adapt with the changes. I am far from a perfect person, sometimes I
push myself to do things but sometimes I am quite easy towards myself, letting
myself to give up some of my objectives. I speak Vietnamese, English and French
and have spent life living in several places in France, Canada and the United
States. I have many friends, some close friends and have good relationships
with people that I work with. I am interested in many aspects in life and have several
ideas of doing business in different fields from education to technology,
telecommunication. I worked as project manager, lecturer, educational
consultant and entrepreneur in the past. But I wonder how others perceive
me? What did I do to others that make me become a good or bad person in their
eyes? Our image of ourselves can be very different from the image that others
perceive us, sometimes contradictory. And in case of a significant difference
of perception, it can lead to issues of communication or misunderstanding,
affecting badly to relationships.
And I realized that my perception of
myself was more aligned with the image of myself that others perceive in the
social context than in the familial context. In other
words, people that I work with or meet and my friends have a perception about me
that is closer to my perception of myself than people in my families do. It
might result from the fact that my mother or my wife often compare me to others.
And when we compare one person to others, we often have a high expectation. I
should be a successful businessman, a model husband (for my wife) and a good
father (for my daughter), taking responsibility for my whole family. And I am
conducting my life to meet up with that expectation somehow. My future plans,
my objectives or my future image of myself reflect that expectation. That
finding made me feel really more comfortable as I understand the root of my
preoccupations. It was a feeling like relieving a big stone in my mind. Certainly
I have also expectations for myself and those expectations become motivation
for my to achieve my objectives, to improve myself and a source of curiosity
for me to learn and discover new things in life. However, bearing the expectations
from the family sometimes becomes a hindrance for me. I didn’t feel comfortable
and tried to delay things that others requested me to do. I have never asked myself
about my authentic self before and the exercise of Solo presencing really brought a
new experience for me, helping me to find the answer of a question that was
always burdened in my mind. In order to improve myself in life, I have to focus more on my values, strengths and also weaknesses instead of comparing myself to others.
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