49: Friends with Benefits: Navigating Choices, Creating Home, and the Art of Giving with Joo Teoh and Adeleena Lim

Have you ever wondered about the intricate dance between choice, the concept of home, and the art of giving? How do these elements intertwine to shape our experiences, relationships, and sense of self?

Imagine peeling back the layers of fear, failure, and societal expectations to uncover the authentic self. Joo Teoh and Adeleena Lim guide us through the labyrinth of choice, challenging us to question, "Where is home?" Is it a physical space, an emotional sanctuary, or a journey toward self-discovery?

Come along with Joo, Adele, and me as we challenge the conventional notions of home, contemplating its essence beyond physical spaces. You'reinvited to join in on this inspiring conversation.

Here are the highlights from this episode:

05:41 - The essence of a home
08:53 - The story behind Normandy Retreats
12:32 - The importance and disadvantage of holding space for someone
23:56 - Understanding individuals' needs when developing a program
37:38 - How hustle culture negatively impacts an individual's identity and choices
43:46 - The importance of saying “no”
48:23 - The need to assess one's self-awareness in decision-making.

About Our Guests

Joo Teoh, a trailblazer in holistic healing, found his calling amidst the shadows of adversity in Beijing back in 2006. Leaving behind a thriving 17-year corporate career, Joo took a bold leap into yoga, qigong, meditation, acupuncture, and massage. Breaking societal norms and familial expectations, he now serves as a devoted healer, offering public group classes and private retreats in Normandy, France.

As a Five Element acupuncturist trained in London, Joo blends ancient wisdom with modern practices, inspiring others to embrace well-being beyond cultural boundaries. His teachings, emphasising breath, alignment, and intention, create an inclusive space for practitioners of all levels.

Learn more about Joo on his website: https://www.jooteoh.com/ .

Adele Lim is a beacon of resilience and self-discovery in the healing arts realm. Her journey began with corporate burnout and a challenging breakup, prompting her to seek solace and grace through yoga. 

Undeterred by adversity, she took

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About Me:

I help you lead with fearless authenticity by smashing the self-imposed heteronormative stereotypes that keep you playing small through emotional healing inner child and inherited intergenerational trauma.

Create a purposeful life of your unique design by disrupting societal norms and expectations of who you should be.

Explore mindfulness, music, fearless curiosity and loving kindness through the lens of Human Design to thrive as the person you are born to be.

Learn more about my coaching method and join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community at melissaindot.com.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Joo: It's all about the connection of people that's what causes the damage in the first place. And then it's through connection with people that we also heal. We work on ourselves because we have to recover from the damage that was done through relationships. But we also heal in relationships.

[00:00:24] Melissa: Hey there. Welcome to the Fearlessly Curious Podcast, your safe space t0 listen, lean in and learn the diversity of human experiences through the lens of fearless curiosity. When we learn more about each other, we also learn more about ourselves. 

[00:00:38] Melissa: How? Because when we listen to each other's curiosities and experiences, we relate to that which is in common and that which sets us apart, gives us something to reflect on. We learn through and with each other. I'm grateful to you, the global community, for your curious questions.

[00:01:01] Melissa: The Fearlessly Curious podcast cannot exist without you.

[00:01:10] Melissa: Okay. Hello. Welcome to another episode of The Fearlessly Curious Podcast. I'm co hosting this with none other than Adele Lim. Say hi, Adele. Specifically important to say hi because those of you who are not watching the YouTube podcast only on audio need to be able to recognize your voice. How do you feel about co-hosting this with me, Adele?

[00:01:34] Adele: It feels right. Yeah, I know we've been talking about this for a while. 

[00:01:42] Melissa: Yeah, it's finally landed. So I'm wondering if you could just frame for everybody. What does friends with benefits mean? 

[00:01:50] Adele: I guess according to popular culture it means friends that are sleeping together. Okay. 

[00:01:59] Melissa: And how does that apply in this series?

[00:02:03] Adele: Well, we have other benefits that don't include necessarily the sleeping part, or we do, but it's like sleep for real. 

[00:02:17] Melissa: Yeah. We wanted to. That's perfectly described. I mean, we wanted to tap into something that's very real and accessible to people, friends with benefits. I mean, who doesn't dream of having friends with benefits?

[00:02:29] Melissa: And of course we are exploring all the other benefits that can come from friendship. Lots of benefits. And today, well, at least I know how I see Adele as my friend with benefits, it's that I get to learn so much from her and through her and you, Adele, from your decades of commitment to learning about the human condition and healing and growth and psychology and somatics and so much more.

[00:03:01] Melissa: So we'll get more into that. In fact, could you just let everyone know a little bit of what you do in normal life? 

[00:03:10] Adele: In normal life. I don't really have a normal life. So yeah, I guess I'm a therapist and sometimes yoga teacher now. And then sometimes I'm a yoga teacher and sometimes a therapist. I work mostly with the trauma framework of processes rather than The traditional talk therapy models, even though I'm trained in it, 

[00:03:38] Adele: So just mostly working with trauma and then just kind of believing that, you know, once you work through the stuff that is kind of holding you back

[00:03:46] Adele: That, you know, kind of organically will move forward in the things that you want to do.

[00:03:53] Adele: So yeah, and then just trying to integrate the mind and body, body and mind sometimes. also trying to seek the spiritual as we all do and try to integrate that and implement that and embody that in my day to day, living a little bit more consciously, stuff like that. 

[00:04:14] Melissa: Beautiful. Thank you. So you're creating that life for yourself and supporting others who choose.

[00:04:19] Melissa: Who are at first at least curious about whether that's possible and then how they can implement that for themselves. I'll use this because this is part of what I want to represent and that's supporting people to show up with this kind of fearless authenticity, doing what it is they're called to do and just to be themselves, whatever that is, however that looks and feels.

[00:04:38] Melissa: So folks, you've met Adele and she's friends with benefits and to kick it off, we have our first, friend, the benefit coming to you. All the way from Normandy, we have none other than Joo Teoh. So Joo is, I'd say the founder, the father, and the mother of Normandy Retreats, and many, many other things. I'm here because I've just had a four day retreat at the Normandy Retreats with Joo and also with Adele, but really with, with Joo in particular, and it just felt so right, in the words of Adele, that we launched this and we have a conversation with Joo about home.

[00:05:18] Melissa: So Joo, welcome to the Fearlessly Curious Podcast. 

[00:05:21] Joo: Thank you for having me. How lucky I am to have friends like you and to benefit from them.

[00:05:28] Melissa: So you have a magnificent paradise here and I would love to know, and I know the listeners who are tuned in are curious to know, what does home mean to you? 

[00:05:41] Joo: Well, thank you.

[00:05:42] Joo: Thank you for seeing through the absence of structure and control in the fields that are surrounding us right now. That, uh, imposed traditionally by humans because I've kind of left it up to nature to rewild the land around us and within a certain framework, there are clearly areas I've been marked out specific users of the land around us, but I've really wanted to allow nature to create the space with me.

[00:06:15] Joo: And yes, this is my home. It is an old French farmhouse that dates back possibly to the 18th, 17th century even. Nobody really knows because a lot of the houses in this area between the 17th and 19th century were built in a similar style. And in this house, slightly Vegas to the actual age of it, but it's kind of that era and the land around it, we have close to five acres of land, two hectares of land.

[00:06:43] Joo: And I moved into this property in 2019 with the intention of creating a space where people could come and feel in this land, in this home. And I didn't want to create a space that was separate from where I was living. An important part of it was that it is part of my life. It is how I live. It is the space I live in, and this is also a space where other people are welcome to enter, to step in for four days, a week, ten days, however long that they want to come.

[00:07:21] Joo: I have actually some people who have stayed for months, not necessarily on a formal retreat, but more as volunteers who have contributed to the land and to the growth of the home, but also contributed to their own growth. In the time that they've been here. So for me, at this point in time, home is a workspace and a school room and a therapy centre and a restaurant and a farm.

[00:07:55] Joo: We have a donkey, and two goats, and two dogs, a cat, and 18 hens, and fruit trees, and yeah, you know, vegetable garden, and the whole shebang. 

[00:08:10] Melissa: I mean, if that's not home, I can't imagine what home could possibly be. Everything you could need, everything you could desire, is right here, being provided for you by Mother Earth, and being in community here.

[00:08:23] Melissa: Has it been magical for me initially in the last five days? And so, on a personal note, you know, I'm very grateful that you have this space here. And I think anybody who has an opportunity to discover this, whether it's, you know, come for one class, or you come for one day retreat, or you, like you said, stay for a week, stay for a month, and whether you come as a retreater, or you come as someone who wants to commune with the land and contribute, there's one thing you can definitely be guaranteed of, I would say it's definite nourishment.

[00:08:53] Melissa: What was the calling for you to create this space? 

[00:08:56] Joo: Back in 2011, when I was on retreat, I was doing a vision board and it drew a layout for a retreat healing space. And I sort of put that away. I had ideas that one day maybe I would host the retreat space or open a retreat space and run it. And tucked it away and I completely forgot about it until I came here on holiday in 2017 discovered the region, realised how friendly the people was, how affordable the property was, to be honest, because I was about to start building a studio in the back garden with my ex husband to create a space in our home at the time to teach.

[00:09:37] Joo: And it turned out that it was going to be a lot cheaper to move here to France and do it here. So we said, well, let's take a leap of faith and try it. And here we are.

[00:09:45] Melissa: Wonderful. I'm going to pass the baton over to Adele. Okay. Why are you here, Adele? 

[00:09:53] Adele: Oh, well, the long answer would be I was invited. 

[00:09:57] Melissa: Hold back, everybody.

[00:09:58] Melissa: I know it's going to take you a long time to process that long answer. 

[00:10:04] Adele: So I've always had this thing where, like, I don't really do things unless I'm invited. And it's been even before, like, I really found out that that was my human design kind of design because like being a go-getter, like I would always like push or I would get or go for whatever I wanted in life.

[00:10:29] Adele: And I think I learned pretty early on, like in my 30s, that like whenever it was something that I pursued really hard, it never really worked out for me long term. 

[00:10:38] Melissa:  And this…

[00:10:42] Adele: Yeah, so I just would always kind of wait and kind of feel that reciprocity or that invitation really. And so I think, yeah, I had visited, well, Joo and I have been friends for like ever, and so, yeah, I waited kind of, yeah, I was just kind of like, you were like, Oh, come co host a retreat with me.

[00:11:05] Adele: And this was last year and I was in a place where I was still carrying a lot of grief. Remember? Yeah, I think I came here and it just felt like I could, it's a place where it felt like home in a sense that I could just put everything down. And yeah, I didn't have to carry it, even if it was for just a couple of weeks.

[00:11:28] Melissa:And then when you pick it back up

[00:11:29] Adele: I don't know. It's whether your strength or your capacity increases or whether, you know, it just doesn't feel so heavy when you have a different perspective or when you have different perspectives and you pick it back up. So, yeah. And then we got into conversation about how we could definitely foresee ways of working together more because I just love working with them.

[00:11:59] Adele: It's kind of lonely working alone. I feel like I've been doing that for a really long time because when you're on this kind of path, it's, it's kind of, it's always really lonely. Because not everyone can come with you. So yeah, I think when we cross paths along the way, we're on the same trajectory. And those are really valuable relationships to kind of nurture.

[00:12:26] Adele: So yeah. 

[00:12:28] Joo: Can I pick up something on what you were just saying? 

[00:12:31] Melissa: Of course. It's an open conversation. 

[00:12:32] Joo: Yeah. It really is a lonely path and that really resonates with us. Holding space in the work that you do as a therapist, as a teacher. I feel that holding space here can be very lonely and it's a big responsibility.

[00:12:46] Joo: And even though we feel that we're equipped and trained and able to do it really well and get paid for doing it really well. At the end of the day, sometimes I ask myself, well, who's holding space for me? Who's making home for me? 

[00:13:05] Melissa: And even on another level, how much space are you making in your home to have that received or to receive that?

[00:13:13] Melissa: It's one thing when somebody invites you into their home. Right? To nourish and feed you, pour love into you, whatever that may look and feel like, but we can also create space within our own homes to receive that from others, rather than step into someone else's home. So I just wanted to pop there. 

[00:13:34] Adele: Yeah. Yeah. By invitation.

[00:13:39] Melissa: Yeah. That's how I ended up here. 

[00:13:43] Joo: Well, you both have an open invitation to come back anytime you want. 

[00:13:47] Melissa: It's recorded. It's recorded. If we need evidence, it's online now. Forever. 

[00:13:57] Joo: And that was something that was quite unconscious in the formation of this space. That I started very clearly saying, okay, this is the retreat to space.

[00:14:07] Joo: This is the retreat, a part of the calendar. This is the studio. This is the workspace. These are the guest rooms. And the more I did it over the past three, four years, the less distinction there seemed to be. And the more comfortable I became melding my life in with the work that was being done in with the people who are coming through the space that these guests.

[00:14:34] Joo: We're not just paying guests. Some obviously are paying guests, but even those who are paying guests who come through, it's not a service relationship. It really is a meeting of equals. I am welcoming people into my home and I'm being incredibly vulnerable and exposing my space, my animals, my kitchen, my mess, my library.

[00:15:00] Joo: To the people who come through and some people actually feel that I've seen people feel a little bit uncomfortable asking, oh, can I, can I touch one of these books? So, of course, you know, go sit wherever you want, pick up any book you want, play the piano, play the guitar, cuddle an animal, use any of the facilities anytime you want to, and that I found.

[00:15:24] Joo: For some people, incredibly healing in itself, just to be given permission and not feel like they have to ask or to pay for access to something. That's been a very interesting process for me in how I live my life, to just be open to be like, sure, anything you want in the fridge, help yourself. If you don't feel like eating what we've made, here are the ingredients and go do what you want.

[00:15:50] Joo: It's totally cool. And to not feel rejected as well as a host or judged as a host has been a really big learning curve for me too. So I don't have kids of my own, so I imagine that that's what it's like having grown up kids too, to a certain extent. You just have the space and yet let autonomy be part of the experience.

[00:16:16] Melissa: Well, I can certainly say, at least for me in my experience here, it's something that is magical and, and powerful, what you just explained. I'm invited into someone's home. Okay. I'm here for a purpose. I was here for a retreat, but the way that you welcomed me was exactly that. This is my home, but help yourself.

[00:16:35] Melissa: This is like, treat it like yours, like, come and go as you please. And, it was very interesting to witness. Because I live alone, right? But yet I'm still attached to certain ways of thinking that I was brought up with conditioning. Like, you know, I go to eat at a certain time, there's certain things that I should or shouldn't do even in my own home.

[00:16:58] Melissa: And it took me to come to your home and to be welcomed unconditionally, right? Both Adele and you witnessed this. For me to sleep, to lie in bed until 10 AM or 11 AM is like, I don't do that in my own house. I don't do that in my own freaking house. Here I'm like, maybe I'll lie until 12 and not guilt myself over it.

[00:17:26] Melissa: You know, but it took me to leave my own house and have that very intentional and special invitation. Welcome. You're free to be you basically. So, I rediscovered my biggest judge and jury in myself, right? Like, you must wake up at 10, you got nothing to do, but it doesn't matter, you must, because otherwise you're lazy, you're this, you're that, whatever.

[00:17:46] Melissa: So, I definitely feel that here, too. That freedom to live in the moment, be in the moment, but more than anything, honour what I need, without need to explain either to myself or anyone else. 

[00:18:01] Joo: Thank you for picking up on that. That was a very big lesson for me as a host to allow things to happen and not feel like I have to do everything in order to get an outcome and that leaving lots of free time and leaving lots of space is in itself part of the process so that yeah, we can say we'll have a morning session.

[00:18:22] Joo: We'll have an afternoon session. What time does it start? Let's see how you wake up tomorrow morning and when you feel like moving or doing something. 

[00:18:31] Melissa: So actually, Joo, I want to use this as a segue for you to share with everybody in air quotes for those not watching the YouTube, certifications or professional accreditations.

[00:18:42] Melissa: Oh yes, that you have committed to learning different, uh, different modalities, different philosophies, whatever way we want to use to describe it. Like, what do you personally offer people here? And then maybe we can go into what retreat, a retreat here looks and feels like.

[00:18:57] Joo: I never ever intended to be a yoga teacher.

[00:19:01] Joo: I had always practised yoga with my mom, not knowing it was yoga. We did the Jane Fonda workout in the eighties. Most of which is yoga. I tell you, put it on right now. It's free. It's on YouTube. Do the Jane Fonda workout and half of it is yoga. And I used to do that in the living room in Penang with my mother.

[00:19:25] Joo: And so I always, you know, all these shapes, these movements have always felt very comfortable and easy for me. So as an adult, I carried on doing all sorts of different hours of yoga, hot yoga, become yoga, vinyasa power yoga, every style of yoga. I've tried. I, and I've had my little phase of being a fan of different styles of yoga.

[00:19:49] Joo: And then in 2006, at a very pertinent point in my life, I walked into a yoga studio and met an amazing teacher, Mimi. And the class and one of those classes that literally changed my life and I studied with her and with the teachers she invited into her studio in Beijing yoga yard in Beijing, which is the first dedicated yoga studio in China, which opened in 2002, and it's still running today one decade later.

[00:20:16] Joo: So I trained first as a yoga teacher and qualified as a yoga teacher in 2007. Part of my yoga teacher training also included a lot of cheap on and foundational martial arts taught by Matthew Cohen. And then my yoga teacher training more formally was completed the yoga alliance stuff was done with Max Strom and I've done lots of teacher training intensives and workshops with people like Donna Fahy, Sarah Powers, people I really respect, the people who look at the being as a totality and not just a body where you can throw shapes around.

[00:20:54] Joo: Yeah, so that's really been my foundation of movement teaching and that's what I started doing in 2007. And then one of the foundational teachers I met as well was a Kiwi woman, who was an acupuncturist, and she gave me my first ever ACU treatment in seven, which was incredible. I never intended to be a negative, but then I also ended up training to be a, in.

[00:21:21] Joo: And so I'm formally trained as a yoga teacher, qigong teacher, and acupuncturist. And I have little bits of training and massage therapy. I'm just finishing a tantric massage training course right now. So, you know, little, little bits of enhancements here and there, and things that I have learned, which I believe have been most useful in my life, I've been just through doing the work, talking to the patients, talking to the students, seeing the retreats come and how they, how they behave and what they learn, what's useful, what's not.

[00:21:56] Joo: I think that these really have been the most educational parts as well, this entire experience, but paper qualifications, yoga teacher, qigong teacher, acupuncturist, massage therapist. 

[00:22:06] Melissa: Thank you, Joo. I really appreciate how you mentioned that probably the most generous part of the learning has been being with people, like really the space holding actually, being with and deeply listening.

[00:22:20] Melissa: Right. Um, because we, we have our own personal lived experiences and there's a wealth of wisdom in that, but we can also learn through each other when we listen, because these are experiences we, perhaps, you know, it's not our trajectory to ever have ourselves, but in a way we have a version of it when we listen to others. So powerful.

[00:22:39] Joo: It's all about the connection of people. That's what causes the damage in the first place. And then it's through connection with people that we also heal. So for me, it's always. been one of those very roundabout ways of learning that we are never alone. We work on ourselves because we have to recover from the damage that was done through relationships, but we also heal in relationships.

[00:23:06] Adele: We heal for relationships so that we can have better relationships. So I mean, we're inherently why it's a connection, love or hate people.

[00:23:14] Melissa: It's still a connection, right? Because if you hate someone, that's still, yeah. Yeah. So you love to hate them the way you hate to love them.

[00:23:25] Melissa: Or maybe you just learn to love to love the person and or maybe also learn to respect that someone's not aligned to you and be okay with it. 

[00:23:32] Adele: Yeah, yeah. Learning to kind of disagree. 

[00:23:34] Melissa: Well, I don't know. I don't agree with you. 

[00:23:38] Adele: You don't have to. 

[00:23:40] Melissa: Exactly. That's the beauty. That's the beauty. So Joo, when people come here on retreat.

[00:23:45] Melissa: What do you vision for them? This is a structure or an outline because you touched on it earlier, but I can do what I wanted to give it its own space. And so we can give everybody context. 

[00:23:56] Joo: Firstly, it's about understanding what the person is coming for at a conscious level. So I always have conversations with people to say, what is this?

[00:24:04] Joo: Why, why are you coming? What do you want? And listen to the story first and then observe how they react after they tell this story, because there's going to be something else. Someone will say, Oh, I'm coming here because I really want to study Qigong or yoga. I really want to deepen my practice and learn more.

[00:24:25] Joo: I've studied this for years, studied with these teachers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then in the process of looking for a date for this person to come, maybe you discover that actually this person runs a restaurant and finding a date is the most difficult part of the entire process, because the process of this person detaching themselves from the business is actually part of the or what they actually need to come here for. 

[00:24:46] Joo: So that really informs the program. So to understand the context of what they're leaving in order to be here because they are leaving home coming into my home. They are leaving their home. They're leaving your home, your context, your reality, so to speak, your day to day reality to step into the bubble.

[00:25:09] Joo: The bubble that is my home. And expect to get something out of it, and I can't really help or contribute or feed in a way unless I understand a little bit of that context. So that's a big part of the understanding process that happens in the background while developing the program and then beyond that.

[00:25:29] Joo: It's one to one or with a couple or with friends or putting the pieces together based on what they might want. And part of it comes into building an intention. They will want to come for X number of days and feel like they've done X hours of work, in air quotes, so to speak. And then what the shape of that work is obviously evolves once they get here.

[00:25:55] Joo: From day one. Today to, you know, we'll see how the energy levels change. We'll get to know each other more, look each other in the eye. We had somebody last year who on paper claimed to be really disabled, but once this person got on, got on the mat, mobility was really not an issue. It was more about self confidence and perception of self.

[00:26:18] Joo: So that totally flipped. We could do on the retreat because the reality was very different to the words that were presented. So it's about being really flexible. And being confident in what I know and what I believe can be good and useful and then inviting friends with benefits, people like Adele to, to show up when, when they can and enrich the offer and sharing, sharing, sharing, sharing, sharing is a really big part of, I think, what I've learned from doing this work.

[00:26:53] Joo: But it's not how capitalism runs. Sharing is not part of how we are conditioned and how we are raised. It's like we do, this is for me, this is mine, and this is not yours. 

[00:27:07] Melissa: And if you want it, we need to have a conversation and maybe make it transactional.

[00:27:14] Adele: What was that phrase? Post capitalism rehab. 

[00:27:17] Joo: Come here for post-capitalism rehab. 

[00:27:24] Melissa: Rehab and recovery. Without minimising the impact of those words, this, you have a recovered addict right here. So I, just to frame that, okay. Because to be sensitive to people who maybe might find those words triggering, that's context. It's a reality.

[00:27:38] Melissa: We discussed this. It is because that world we live in outside is hustle culture. It's all about more, more, more, more, more, not enough, and keep, and more, and not enough, and more, and not enough. It really keeps us locked into this incredibly destructive cycle of chasing everything that's external to you.

[00:27:54] Melissa: You forget who you are. You don't even know who you are anymore. You don't even know why you're doing things. You're doing things because you think you should, because someone's telling you you must. And that the only way to survive in this world is if you can use the language, plug into the matrix. And that's in essence, the capitalist model.

[00:28:11] Melissa: I'm sure there's more, either one of you can add to that. If you want, please go ahead. 

[00:28:16] Joo: I worked for 18 years in advertising a month, and I've seen the hours and the money that is spent Into dissecting unconscious biases in consumers so that brands and consumer products and touch that sensitive point that will make you want it and make you need it and keep coming back.

[00:28:38] Joo: And that is at one point, I guess, when the advertising industry was growing, when the world was operating on a slightly different framework that was seen as intelligence. Potentially even an enriching experience, but since then it has just become incredibly manipulative and insidious and hurtful. And I still have loads of friends in the advertising industry, so I'm probably going to be raising a few eyebrows with friends who still work in that line of work.

[00:29:12] Joo: And I'm not denouncing that line of work, I think the industry is evolving and is working very hard to evolve. So that there are some more current ethics in the world that marketing exists in. However, I'm not sure how that's working out, to be honest, 

[00:29:31] Melissa: it's going to be changing a very deep rooted signature of the way the advertising industry works.

[00:29:36] Melissa: And that goes into everything. I mean, even to business and entrepreneurship now, you know, I mean, I'm an entrepreneur. I've been learning about digital marketing and copywriting touching on these skills. And so much of that, at least what, what I have been learning has been about speaking to people's pain points.

[00:29:51] Melissa: Now I totally understand that. But it's very different when you use the word manipulate where I'm really driving the dagger right back into a very sore point, like clickbait rather than selling, advertising, or speaking to the growth that can happen, the nourishment, the potential that can be so much more fulfilling, speaking more to that than the pain point.

[00:30:14] Melissa: It's a very, very fine line.

[00:30:16] Joo: Absolutely. And I think for me, it's about what the transformation is for, because all these efforts are about triggering that transformation in the person, whether it's the unbiased transformation to make that choice of, Oh, I've got a baby, I need to buy all these things before the babies even arrive, or is it about, okay, a transformation about understanding this is the energy that rises in me when I'm triggered by this and the choice I have to respond to this trigger.

[00:30:45] Joo: Which is the work that you're talking about, I believe, the work that you do. 

[00:30:48] Adele: Yeah, because oftentimes we don't realise when we do have a choice, it's just running in the background, right? Yeah. Like, oh, here. 

[00:31:00] Joo: Yeah. Yeah. And speed, and speed and technology, which is not a bad thing. Love technology, we wouldn't be doing this without technology.

[00:31:09] Joo: But speed has really impacted how people expect the world to behave and to the ego mind. Because I want something, it must be possible. 

[00:31:22] Melissa: Entitlement as well? 

[00:31:23] Joo: Yeah, it could be that, but even in a more pure, imaginative, purely clean way, there could have been a time before Technology was so easily available to us, but we could have imagined something and say, Ooh, I would like this, but there was no way it would still be possible because of where technology is today.

[00:31:44] Joo: We can imagine the craziest, wildest things and say, I would like this, and there probably is already somebody working on it. And it's not a bad thing. It's just that it flavours it. this choice question in a very different way. Because is there really a question where we could ask these days where the answer is no, that is totally, utterly impossible?

[00:32:06] Joo: I don't know. I can't think of one off the top of my head. 

[00:32:09] Melissa: I can't either at this point. 

[00:32:10] Joo: Because even if it's very unlikely to happen, We can imagine how it could be possible and we can find examples of how it has happened for other people potentially.

[00:32:18] Melissa: Yeah, it has happened to other people, and that we can't even explain.

[00:32:23] Melissa: All we know is that it's happened. 

[00:32:25] Joo: But just the richness and options of entertainment and media out there that may have portrayed a certain outcome already. So I'm wondering how that has changed. Our choice is choice making fed by what we consume, or is there still any kind of naivety to choice making?

[00:32:49] Joo: I don't know. 

[00:32:50] Melissa: That's a great inquiry. Does any of our choice, our decision making process come from a place of absolute naivety, purity? Where it's not influenced by anything. My gut tells me no, because the fact that we're, our DNA is already encoded with, you know, so many, uh, ancestral programming. That's a part of me that like, like I said, by God saying no, but I'm so open to this conversation at home right here with both of you.

[00:33:17] Joo: Yeah. Because even sitting in this paradise of home where things are going well, and we have just the most amazing things around us and amazing people, amazing nature and all that. I still have the choice of, ooh, what if I were to move to another country? What if? There is still that, there is still that very pure energy of what if that comes up.

[00:33:39] Joo: And I'm really curious where that comes from and how, how that is useful, how that informs our behaviour. I don't know. Do you guys know anything more about that? 

[00:33:50] Melissa: Yeah, because I'm just sort of reviewing, as a child, did I ever think, what if I didn't live in this house? What if I didn't go to this school?

[00:33:58] Melissa: What if? I think that happens at a certain age. And I guess that would have been formed from media, whatever media was, whether it was reading a book, which talked about or described or showed in images a picture that was different, right? So that's kind of where I'm tracing it to. I, I wouldn't think to ask until I was presented with something that would spark that curiosity, something that was different to what I'm used to.

[00:34:28] Adele: Okay. Well, for me, it's like wherever I travel, I always ask myself, Oh, could I live here? And like that kind of for me, it's like, there's so many places I could live. So yeah, I think that kind of determines for me what home is because that it's a feeling. It's a feeling of safety. Yeah. So it's a very emotional choice always for me.

[00:34:56] Adele: Even buying houses is always like, This feels right. So yeah. 

[00:35:03] Melissa: So it's a feeling for you. Home is a feeling for you and choice comes from feeling too. Therefore, when in relation to home right now, right. 

[00:35:10] Adele: Totally. Like I want more of this. So then where do I need to be in order to keep feeling more of that?

[00:35:17] Adele: Right. Yeah. So that's the choice. And then I tend to thrive in thought and expansion is possible. So I can come out of my periods of contraction because I do so much and then I, and everything goes into a ball somewhere. And then I have to go somewhere where there's space for the expansion to happen.

[00:35:41] Adele: Yeah, and then I go back out there and I re-engage in a different way. So it's, it's very strategic for me actually, like different types of homes feed different aspects of the self.

[00:35:53] Joo: I have a question for either of you, but I'm thinking maybe Adele might know. I imagine there must be studies about the change in brain chemistry for the amount of time you spend at home and amount of time one human being spends out of home and amount of time the human being spends at home.

[00:36:16] Adele: I'm sure. I'm sure. Because I mean, they do a lot of studies around environments, like home environments. So I'm sure there has to be some of that. Like, I can look it up.

[00:36:26] Melissa: That's why you need to make sure you subscribe to the podcast and you catch the next episode so that Adele will have the data for us.

[00:36:35] Melissa: That was also a very unobviously knock on the head, so obvious and unsubtle invitation to have Joo back already. We haven't even finished the first episode so we can follow up on the question, you know, and, and hold Adele accountable since she said she was going to go and look it up. Friends with benefits.

[00:36:53] Melissa: Here we have it. Every now and then I just say a few words because otherwise I'm just here and I'm just taking in all this brainpower and high wisdom. It's so awesome. 

[00:37:03] Adele: Yeah. 

[00:37:04] Joo: Oh, who's providing the brain power? It was funny. I was done. Hey, me. 

[00:37:11] Melissa: So I thought maybe, what do you think about doing this? So since I've been on retreat here for four days, I thought maybe it's interesting, cause you know, you were walking us through earlier, Joo, what it's like when someone comes and you know, you get an idea of where they are and then the things that they discover along the journey.

[00:37:26] Melissa: So I would be willing to volunteer myself, put myself in the mix and for you to maybe share. What you witnessed with me being here on retreat. So what was I like when I first arrived? And of course, Adele, I'd love for you to contribute too, because Adele has been a key part, a key player, also in supporting my retreating here alongside you.

[00:37:48] Melissa: How do you feel about doing that? 

[00:37:49] Joo: Yeah, I think that you're probably the one of the visitors who've arrived with a very clear sense of where they were, and who are not afraid of admitting how tired they were. So that was already a very big level of honesty for someone who is welcoming you, because that made me feel safe, because I knew you were not gonna pretend to wanna do things you didn't wanna do.

[00:38:14] Joo: So for me, that was valuable. I was like, she's already telling me now she's tired. She needs to slow down. Her body's aching, she's feeling the function. These are all very standard things that a human being who is tired will experience. So let's not start with a vinyasa class tomorrow morning, please. 

[00:38:32] Melissa: So see, just that in itself for me to hear from you is really interesting because that was so hard for me to do.

[00:38:39] Melissa: No, it was really hard for me to be in your home, right? And have free reign to be myself. So I had to push through that. I'd be like, you do not have the energy. You are actually going to honour that. Now you have to communicate that, and it was not easy. 

[00:38:57] Joo: Well, well done, well done, and thank you for doing it, because that was what really shaped your experience here.

[00:39:03] Melissa: And this is the interaction, the Friends of Benefits thing, is that because you set the space up in a way that you made me feel safe. Right? So you're saying I made you feel safe. You made me feel safe. And there was also a level of, in my case, a prep for the safety level of safety, because I was introduced here by Adele.

[00:39:23] Melissa: In fact, she booked in, she's like, not asking, neither am I inviting you, Melissa, choose four days to come in here. You need it. 

[00:39:30] Joo: Well, that's one of the reasons I do small private retreats for one person, two people, mother, daughter, or two friends, or a small group of friends. Because then we don't have the performance of walking into a retreat with 20 other strangers and having to find your place in a group dynamic.

[00:39:47] Joo: Yeah, there's none of this. Oh, so what do you do? Where are you from? Are you single? Because come on, let's face it, in big group retreats, there is always that one person who is looking for a partner. 

[00:40:04] Melissa: Oh, we're going to be ruffling a few retreat leader feathers here, but hey, we're already in this, so there you go.

[00:40:11] Melissa: We're telling it is right here. 

[00:40:13] Joo: Totally. And hey, don't get me wrong. I participate in lots of retreats myself as a participant and I have run lots of retreats of 20 plus people too. So I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying here, that's why I do things this way. 

[00:40:26] Melissa: Yeah. Because you have an awareness, right?

[00:40:28] Melissa: You have an awareness of these big group retreats. It's, it's, we're human. I mean, yeah. 

[00:40:32] Adele: Triggering in different ways. I mean, sometimes you need to also see yourself in a big group setting to kind of know where you are because a lot of it is also about us out there. Right. Not just in here. So, yeah. But I can imagine it's a shock to the system if it's done kind of simultaneously and the focus probably would not be as, you wouldn't get so much introspection.

[00:41:00] Adele: And I think it's important to take time to introspect and 

[00:41:06] Melissa: Is it belly gazing? Navel gazing, 

[00:41:08] Adele: my ex! 

[00:41:10] Melissa: Navel gazing, yes, I want all of you listening to now do that. Be embodied, feel the weather, let's do it together. Come on, we're friends. Let's do it together, everybody. Oh, yep. I can imagine my navel right there.

[00:41:26] Melissa: I have this sort of premonition. I've got this premonition that when I go back or when people finally get to watch this episode they'll be like, so did you do a lot of navel gazing there then? I can tell you what I did a lot of and that was staring at the ceiling and it was wonderful to just be lying down and staring at the ceiling or staring at the blue sky without this tension of feeling like I need to be somewhere and do something, you know, and with what I do, I'm constantly telling my clients that the people I get to work with.

[00:41:58] Melissa: And to a certain level I thought I was practising it until I realised I wasn't. What are your thoughts about when people say this is such a luxury? 

[00:42:08] Joo: It is a luxury in terms of time. I'm the worst person at taking time out to go on things like this myself because I feel guilty. Because I'm abandoning my responsibilities.

[00:42:23] Melissa: Not over there, it's just you and me, Joo. 

[00:42:26] Joo: Generator club. 

[00:42:27] Melissa: Yeah, if you're into human design, yeah, generator club.

[00:42:29] Joo: Yeah, so I feel guilty for leaving my responsibilities. Even if it's delegated to perfectly capable people, and usually it's a team of people I delegate it to, there are usually two or three people here when I go away for a weekend, and even then there's a very strong sense of betrayal that sits in me.

[00:42:50] Joo: But I'm getting better in that I'm still going away, I'm being with that feeling, but I'm going away. 

[00:42:57] Melissa: Baby steps. 

[00:42:58] Adele: But wouldn't it be awesome if you actually didn't have those feelings? Or had a lot less of those feelings. 

[00:43:07] Joo: Right. Absolutely. And I'm at the logistical level. I'm getting much better at communicating with the people who are here and working out a way so that they can reassure me that the animals are okay.

[00:43:19] Joo: Everything's all right. If I get a message in the morning, I get a message on the day that everything's okay, at least then we know. So I've managed to at least introduce a system where I can demand my signs of assurance. From the people at delegations 

[00:43:36] Adele: Demand or request demand 

[00:43:40] Joo: At the moment is demand 

[00:43:41] Melissa: He's owning it.

[00:43:41] Melissa: He's only getting clear what your needs are, right? No, no, sometimes. 

[00:43:46] Adele: Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, when we come from a place of not having ever being able to even express that we, we have to, you know, it's a bit before you find the, the middle, right. It's like when you start learning how to say no at two and then you won't stop saying it.

[00:44:07] Melissa: I just learned how to say no when I was about 43. What do you mean two? Two? I feel like I really lost out on about 40 years?

[00:44:20] Adele: No, no, no, no, no, no, 

[00:44:21] Melissa: no, no, no, no. And there you have it. Right there. An absolute natural. 

[00:44:25] Adele: What about you, Joo? 

[00:44:29] Melissa: How little did you learn to say no? 

[00:44:33] Joo: Oh, I learned very young to accept to know, I don't know how good I am at saying no.

[00:44:41] Joo: I know that in a professional context, at one point in my career in a professional context, I was known as Mr. No, because of my power position in the role I was in at the time, I was quite good at putting down boundaries with clients. So I became Mr. No whenever clients had unreasonable requests.

[00:44:58] Joo: But in terms of my own personal life, I honestly would not be able to tell you if I'm good or not at saying no. I think I'm still working on it. 

[00:45:09] Adele: Yeah. It's hard for me to say yes.

[00:45:14] Joo: That's why we need each other.

[00:45:15] Melissa: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. It's a winning combo. It is the listeners. I invite you to really explore. Who has a seat at your table that you say yes to? Right? You say yes to, but more importantly, well, two ways actually, both are important. You, who you've said yes to and who are not at your table, even though you've said yes to them and those you've said no to and insist on being on your table.

[00:45:44] Melissa: Yeah. Take a look, see who's there. Right. And then ask yourself that question. So what are your thoughts around that? Maybe we can, as we wrap up this episode, what are your thoughts about. Who's who of the yeses and noes at your table? 

[00:46:00] Adele: Yeah. Draw a diagram, colour it, put little dots for people, put yourself in the middle.

[00:46:05] Joo: I think for me, it's very deeply linked to my sense of self and how much I value myself. I feel like I've always got energy to give and as a result of feeling this way, I don't ever feel the need to say no, unless there's, I have a few boundaries, like disrespect, dishonesty. There are certainly boundaries there where I'm like, okay, this is a, this is a line.

[00:46:34] Joo: This is a no very clearly. My default position is yes, rather than no, because I always feel I've got the ability and the resource. To give, even though that may not be true, even though that may be detrimental to my wellbeing, energetically, physically, but what I'm learning more is to reframe that to say, who is worthy of accessing this gold?

[00:47:01] Adele: Exactly. Yeah. Because how much of your sense of self do you get from giving? And then you, when you turn it back onto yourself, then it's the same capacity and how much are you also not giving yourself, right? So yeah, as a giver, it's kind of. Yeah. 

[00:47:27] Melissa: That's interesting. In human design, with human design terms of, you know, we've all seen each other's charts and both Joo and I have undefined G Center and the G Center is that sense of self.

[00:47:37] Melissa: It's self expression, which clearly is directly related to the type of relationships that we form. Right? So we both have undefined and guess what, folks, Adele's is defined. It's the way that she responded to that. Yeah. Such clarity. It's such clarity. And it's about knowing who you are, no matter who you're with.

[00:47:59] Melissa: At least for me with my undefined, I understand that as being who I am changes according to who I'm with. They're all aspects of me, but perhaps certain groups will draw out more. It also holds me, puts me in a vulnerable place of people pleasing. So when I, for me, when I'm saying yes or no, I really have to tune in on the, okay, am I saying yes?

[00:48:23] Melissa: I want to give to that person because I want to please that person. I want to serve that person. I want to give to that person, right? So if it's a yes, okay, now I ask myself, but do I actually want to give to that person for myself as well? Am I getting something from it? So, in a way, the selfish, I use air quotes, because I think the word selfish is misused a lot of the time.

[00:48:45] Melissa: But bringing myself, I have to consciously bring my sense of self into the question of, or into the answer of yes or no. What am I getting from this? Is this filling me up? Is this lighting me up? 

[00:48:58] Adele: Yeah, because a lot of the time we can conflate that, okay, well, giving makes me feel good. Right? Yes. But then, like, do we further examine what giving means?

[00:49:10] Adele: Like, does it have to mean giving to others?  

[00:49:14] Melissa: No. Hells no. But if giving to others means giving to you, giving yourself joy, like it gives you joy, then how do you break that down? So is that okay? 

[00:49:23] Adele: Yeah. Yeah, but then if you are really, really honest about it, a lot of the time it's, it's not what we think. We really do want what sounds selfish to others a lot of the time.

[00:49:38] Adele: So if we give sometimes with the very underlying expectation to get that back. So for it to go full circle and come back, how about we cut out the middleman? Ah, right?

[00:49:53] Joo: Comes back to self love, doesn't it? Yeah. 

[00:49:58] Adele: I mean, I mean, no way to argue for hyper independence. Yeah. I am looking at how, you know, our very, very latent patterns of autonomy and codependency, like where it comes from.

[00:50:12] Adele: And like, once we become aware, the shift already happens, like there's no need to go for like, you know, 50 years of therapy or whatever shit.

[00:50:26] Joo: Sounds like I need a session with you soon, Adele.

[00:50:32] Adele: It's just really like cutting out all that mental clutter and getting these concepts that already exist, like clearly defined and felt at the same time. 

[00:50:41] Melissa: Felt, that's really key. Feeling it, right? In an embodied way. 

[00:50:47] Adele: Yeah. So you have a felt sense of what it is and you never have to think about it. 

[00:50:52] Joo: Well, I mean, that's a big gap there for a lot of people still, the felt sense and the argument that then happens with the head.

[00:51:00] Joo: That's a whole other episode, I'm sure. 

[00:51:02] Melissa: Yes. Oh my gosh, the episodes are building up, I'm loving it.

[00:51:05] Joo: Yeah. I'm going to be guesting on at least two more future episodes. Absolutely. Yeah. But not heart. In the romantic sense. It could obviously be the romantic sense too, but heart in the soul, sense soul.

[00:51:24] Joo: In Chinese medicine, the heart is the emperor or the empress of the being. And for me, if you say that, home is where that heart is. Yes. I think home is where you feel Empress Emperor. And where you can be in the company of emperors and empresses. 

[00:51:42] Melissa: Poetry, sweet poetry. I feel like, because we're all originally from Malaysia, so we're fellow Malaysians, and between us, I think we've had very colourful lives individually.

[00:51:56] Melissa: And so we bring that all together, it's even more colourful. And we definitely, in our casual conversations, have discussed some Asianisms. And we'd like to speak to behaviour, conditioning, sexuality, gender. Let's bring it all to the table, right? And give voice to what so many of our contemporaries and maybe even some of the younger people today as well may still have an issue with.

[00:52:22] Melissa: And I would even say some of the uncles and aunties above us so that they can move through that. It's never too late. It's never too late. Yeah. Should we do that?

[00:52:29] Adele: Yes. Yes. Yeah, we can promote our Asian supper club in Normandy.

[00:52:38] Melissa: You just did. You just did. 

[00:52:46] Melissa: So that's all for this week from the Fearlessly Curious podcast, all the way from Normandy with Adele and Joo. Thank you so much. I'm waving at them right now for this special episode. And you guys don't forget to hit subscribe and follow and all the other Jing Bang stuff you need to do that I don't need to tell you about.

[00:53:03] Melissa: Peace out to you. Next time.

[00:53:11] Melissa: If you want more, make sure to subscribe so you never miss a new episode every Friday. And please leave a review. If you enjoy this episode. Don't forget to send me your curious questions and experiences as inspiration for future episodes. Your anonymity will be respected if that's what you prefer. For more guidance and support, join my emotional healing, mindfulness and music community over at melissaindot.com

[00:53:39] Melissa: See you next week.