[singlepic id=430 w=320 h=240 float=center] Last week I started a brand new blog called Bad Asian Daughter: http://badasiandaughter.com.
I came up with the idea and bought the url months ago, and even had a first attempt over at wordpress with http://badasiandaughter.wordpress.com.
This time, I knew what the message was going to be, and tumblr.com provides the best format for creating short, frequent posts in a variety of media - video, quotes, text, and my favorite, chats (sharing conversations in a screenplay-like format).
My intention is to create an inspiring, healing community for Asian American women who have tried their whole lives to be "good", done everything they were supposed to do, achieved success in the forms they were told to, and still find something missing in their lives. Together we will discover all of who we are, and unlock the keys to our own unconditional joy, peace, and freedom....B.A.D.ness and all.
The inspirational quotes are the most fun, since I love getting a daily dose of the very inspiration that has gotten me to this point in my life.
But the personal stories - the memoir writing - are the most difficult to write! I've found myself wanting to find the humorous voice, not wanting to sound TOO bad, and editing myself for various reasons.
What's interesting is that these many layers of fear are EXACTLY why this blog needs to be written, and why the voice of the "Bad Asian Daughter" - the person we are trying so hard to AVOID becoming - needs to be heard.
As long as we hide and sequester the dark corners of ourselves and label them "bad", we will never be truly free. No matter what we achieve. No matter what we own. No matter who we are with.
So Bad Asian Daughter is about embracing ALL of ourselves exactly as we are, naming exactly what we believe we're not supposed to say, not supposed to do, not supposed to want, and risking our own significance in the world by actually doing the thing we think we cannot do.
In the words of poet Mary Oliver:
"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves."
B.A.D. is about the discipline of revealing to ourselves that we don't have to feel "bad" for wanting what we want, and living our own lives on our own terms. We can free ourselves from the mental prisons that have kept us small and afraid...and unleash all our goodness in the process.