Five Vulnerable Things: Vol. 34
On burn out, shooting your shot, learning to follow, and the dharma in drowning
Monsoon Season is a newsletter and podcast by meditation teacher and writer, Asa Yee. It lives at the intersection of culture, consciousness, and creativity. It is about the messy, beautiful, non-linear work of becoming. The courage to be seen. The belief that the most spiritual thing any of us can do is be vulnerable.
I think ambition is slowly killing me.
I spent 15 years becoming a successful beauty creative director. I got everything I wanted. Yet within me, my scaffolding, my internal mental health — everything was completely crumbling. I got my mental health on track with meditation and finding more alignment with creative practices, but if I’m being quite honest, physically, I’m still struggling a lot. I’m dealing with chronic illness, autoimmune issues, fatigue, and pain on a daily basis. And I don’t talk about that enough in anything, because I want to show up and do the work and create.
But if I’m being quite honest, I think a lot of me is still recovering from that extreme, severe exhaustion and burnout of a lifelong pursuit for extraordinary. To become someone. To be someone great.
I want to be uplifting in these letters, but sometimes it’s just — some weeks are hard. Some weeks and seasons are just a grind. This week has been such a mixed bag of things. In between real wins, I’m feeling so tired. Tired of going at it.
So this week’s five things are the dharma I’m sitting inside of right now, not from a place of having arrived, but from being right in the middle of it. The muddy ass middle.
1. Ask anyway.
On Wednesday, I did something I’d been procrastinating on for over six months. I reached out and invited three dream podcast guests, people not in my network, cold invitations. Two out of three said yes.
It feels like such a huge win.
And it was such a clear thing, if you don’t ask, the answer is always no. It seems so simple, but it’s true. And I felt so much momentum in myself after that moment.
People want to connect, to collaborate, to be humans, together, and help you on your quest.
Sutra: The only way the answer changes is if you ask the question.
Shot #1:
Shot #2:
2. Your wound becomes the portal.
Yesterday, I had a full circle moment. I’d posted something on Instagram called “How Starting a Podcast Saved My Life,” and a friend privately reached out to say her friend was thinking about pivoting careers and wanted to start a podcast. We connected. We talked for almost two hours.
What I reflected on after the call was, I can’t believe this thing that I started three years ago with a podcast, and where I was mentally three years ago, and now someone is sitting across from me asking for my wisdom and expertise. I knew the answers. And they were unconventional answers, things you can’t find on ChatGPT or YouTube or through any growth coach online.
It was a really beautiful moment of realizing: all of this is about helping each other make their creations come true. Giving people courage. Giving people clarity and hope that it’s possible, that everything you can muster up the courage to create in your mind is possible. If you can conjure the thought, you can turn into something tangible.
Sutra: A stranger is earnestly waiting in a cosmic waiting room for you to do your thing, so you can help them when they go on their journey.
3. Winning isn't the same as being free.
I hit 100,000 YouTube views last month. I grew 847 subscribers.
And yeah, I want to celebrate those things. But the truth is, in between these moments, I’m feeling just so tired of chasing the ambition. And I’m realizing that even leaving corporate, leaving a job and a 9-to-5, doesn’t guarantee that you actually taste freedom. Freedom is something you have to reckon with every single day. Something you have to truly look at and intentionally choose, moment to moment.
“The only true test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.”
― Naval Ravikant
One of my favorite quotes by Naval Ravikant is: the only true test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life. Something I’ve been grappling with this week is my own intelligence, my own self-awareness, and how that has sometimes been the thing that hindered me the most. Constantly looking at things through the lens of intelligence, through the lens of a cerebral thing, versus allowing all of that to fall, and then truly just being guided by an intuition and a power that is greater than me.
I struggle with that a lot. I struggle with letting go, and remembering what I really want.
Sutra: You can have the win, and still not be free. Freedom is a daily practice. A choice.
4. You are not the lead in every dance.
My husband and I took salsa classes almost two years ago. Partner work, of course. We’d rotate partners every song, leads on one side, follower on the other. I was on the follower side. And every single time I got a new partner, I would feel myself leading them. All of us were beginners, and I just always felt like I was leading. I wasn’t able to surrender and allow the lead to do their thing.
I didn’t give myself permission to follow. And, trust me, I tried! There was always this gripping. And I remember the teacher dancing with me and saying: you have a problem letting go.
You are not the leader in every situation.
You have to let someone lead you.
Know when to let someone lead you.
Even in dance, something I feel so comfortable in, so at home in my body, I had such a hard time with that. And I still do.
I felt it even on that call with my friend’s friend. I was trying to hold it as a container, trying to coach the conversation, instead of just letting it be. Just answering his questions and letting him lead, since he reached out. I was kicking myself after.
Sutra: The grip that feels like strength is often the thing keeping you from dancing.
5. The water will hold you. Stop thrashing.
Post-pandemic, I signed up for a beginner swim class. I was in the shallow end with floaties, a belt, and a vest, right next to kids doing cannonballs into the deep end. It was a humbling time.
My instructor told me we were going to do a lap with no gear or props, just get to the other side. The deep end. And when she said go, I went so fucking hard. I needed to be the best. I started to see the pool floor shift through my goggles, from shallow to deep. And as soon as I saw the dip of the deep end, I started panicking. I started swimming harder and harder, gassing my legs out, moving my hands so violently and chaotically, thinking that would help propel me.
I started to sink.
I started to drown.
My coach pulled me out of the water and asked: what do you think you did wrong?
And I said, I’m trying so hard. I’m trying so hard, why can’t I make it to the other side?
She said: You sank because you’re trying too hard.
Holy fuck, til the day I die, I won’t forget that realization.
It’s not supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be easy. The easier you make it, the more ease and efficiency you have in your body. The more you get into flow. The water will just hold you, because that’s what it does. The more you see it that way, the easier it is to get to the deep end.
I’m struggling with that now. I keep trying so hard. Gassing out. Depleting my spiritual reservoir on the daily so I can be this person. Be somebody. For what? For who?
I know there’s gonna be a day I die, and no one is going to remember any of this. Not my Instagram posts, not this newsletter, not the podcast, not the views. No one is going to remember any of that. The only people who will care are the ones closest to me, and they will remember how I made them feel. And that’s it. That’s literally it.
And so I’m trying to not see that as a reason to give up, but as something to accept. Something to revere. My legacy is going to diminish. I’ll vanish into nothing, and that is not scary, that is maybe the most freeing thought. And maybe, just maybe, I can enjoy the ride. Can I dance? Can I swim? Can I write and create from a place of ease and efficiency, from a place of joy and fulfillment, without hurting myself in the process?
Now, that’s a life worth living.
That’s my journey right now.
Sutra: Let the water hold you and carry you to the other side.
I hope this letter this week is useful, and finds you at the moment you need most. I love you.
This video is me doing my first full swim lap EVER, at 36. Guess the saying is true…
just keep swimming.
Love you,
Asa 🥭
I resonate with a lot of this. We’re so conditioned to strive/to seek/to achieve that, even when we do it on our own terms/outside the 9-5 box, that old pattern can creep in. I’ve found that the antidote to this is PLAY. I’ve been starting my day doing something completely frivolous and fun before even touching my “to-dos”; then, I prioritize my to-dos based on what I actually want to do first (not what “needs” to be done). I also try to pause between one thing and the next to ask “what do I want to do right now?” (and honor that answer as much as possible). These actions are helping me reorient—and, while I still catch myself forcing or taking things too seriously at times, this feels like a path back to my natural state of flow. Thank you for sharing where you’re at and helping us all remember, struggles like these are universal ❤️
wow. this is vulnerable on a whole other level in such a beautiful and authentic way. that muddy ass middle is one we want to swim out of so hard and it’s about flowing with it.
this reminds me of one of brené brown’s books “rising strong.” she talks about how often we are so quick to say we “hopped over an obstacle” but we rarely want to describe and be in the obstacle. she calls it the rumble. read that back in 2020 among all life’s major obstacles colliding that year.
thank you for sharing the dharma of the rumble even when it’s hard to be in it.