The Map of the Territory: Notes of Encouragement for Stepping Into Your Next Unknown

The Map of the Territory Notes of Encouragement for Stepping Into Your Next Unknown

by Lisa Chu

Welcome to Your Next Unknown “In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost…”

- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy You’re in the middle of life as you know it, and suddenly nothing around you seems recognizable. You wonder, “How did I get here?” and “What do I do now?”. Does this sound familiar? Many ancient stories begin with this moment of bewilderment and disorientation, where none of the rules that once applied seem to work anymore. In 2020, the world is experiencing this on a collective scale. For some of us, this is a time of crisis, and for others, this is a time of unprecedented opportunities for growth.

What we all have in common is the need to make new maps of a territory I am calling the Next Unknown, which is right in front of us now. This set of notes is intended to provide you with encouragement to set forth on your own mapmaking journey. I will share stories from my life and things I’ve learned from the many teachers who have miraculously arrived when I was ready to hear them. But no two life journeys are exactly alike. Take from this what feels ripe to you now, and leave the rest for another day or never. Each chapter will cover a different element of the territory of the unknown, and you can start anywhere. I hope that by familiarizing ourselves with the feelings of this territory, we can someday become friends with every Next Unknown that we encounter.

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© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

Chapter 1: Self-Care This story could start anywhere, but for me it started at a moment of crisis. Something had to change. I was entering my mid-30s and had followed a dream to move across the country (from Ohio, where I was living at the time) to start my first business, a violin school in Silicon Valley. On paper, the business was successful, but after five years, I was feeling more physically exhausted and disconnected from the thing I had built myself. I was my own boss. I thought I should have been happy and thriving. But all I looked forward to doing was sleeping. I was confused because everything that had “worked” to get to that point in my life was no longer working.

I took myself on a solo vacation, rededicated myself to yoga (the only form of self-care I knew at the time), and surrendered. That’s right. I remember asking for guidance from “somewhere” as I had no idea where to turn. Shortly after that, I found out about a conference in Seattle, where I was first introduced to some of the practices I describe later in this book. I also ended up meeting my very first personal development teacher. That trip was the first of many solo travel adventures, which is now one of my core self-care practices.

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What unfolded from that moment of surrender was a stream of new teachers who magically arrived in my life. I could not have planned for or even google searched for them, because I didn’t know they even existed, let alone what they were called. I believe there is a certain magic to a well-timed surrender or giving up: when we say, “I don’t know. Please help.” I didn’t even know whom I was asking for help, I just said it silently inside my heart. That moment of not knowing has magic in it because it opens us fully to receive new information and possibilities. For me, someone who had seemingly been in control of my achievements for so long, it took a crisis to get to that fully open state. Someone once said that revolutions are born of desperation. It definitely took that for me to accept an initiation into full transformation.

A few months after that conference and meeting my first new teacher, I was still hesitating about whether I could really take a week off from my teaching to attend her workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was absolutely sure I wanted to go, but I was so tied to my idea of my clients’ expectations of me that I feared they would call me lazy and undedicated. Finally, one morning I was immobilized by back pain, unable to get out of bed. I remember staring at the ceiling, feeling electrical tingles all along the surface from my shoulders down to my hips contacting the bed, and wanting to move. But I couldn’t. That was the wakeup call I needed. I chose to listen to what my body was trying to tell me. I suppose in that moment I realized that if I kept plowing ahead, I might hit a wall. Maybe I had already hit one. It was time to STOP what I was doing, and how I was doing it, and trust that another way was waiting for me to get quiet enough to hear its call. In a later chapter, I’ll share more about what happened during that very first workshop in Santa Fe.

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I chose the image of the sun for Self-Care in this map because it reminds me of the light, space, and awareness that self-care brings. The very first self-care practices I implemented in my life are still applicable all these years later, and still as transformative whenever I remember that I’ve forgotten them.

Self-Care Starting Points: 1. Pay attention to how you start your day. What is the fi rst thing you think about? What is the fi rst action you take?

What is the fi rst sound or image you consume? How do you feel immediately after consuming this sound or image?

2. Consciously create space in your schedule, in your physical environment, and in your body each day. How would your life be different if you did these?

• Space in your schedule: For example, sit quietly for 10 minutes a day, not reading or listening to music or watching a video. You could listen to a guided meditation, read or say affi rmations, or simply sit in silence noticing your breath and body sensations.

• Space in your physical environment: Create an “altar” that is dedicated just to you and your self-care. My fi rst sacred space was a small patch of carpet next to my bed and in front of the window in my apartment at the time, where I could look at a redwood tree’s bark. I started by © Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

sitting for ten minutes each morning, before looking at my emails or text messages (this was before Facebook, Instagram, etc). I credit this one seemingly simple change as the catalyst to all the subsequent changes in my life. It was a radical departure from my daily routine of waking to start reacting to emails, pumping myself up with caffeinated beverages, and being pulled through my days by a to-do list • Space in your body: Stretch your arms above your head and breathe. Bring awareness to the position of your spine, shoulders, head and neck. You can do this throughout the day, even as you sit at your computer. Learn a few simple yoga poses or stretches you can do safely and consistently. Notice how you feel before and after this.

3. Stopping or surrender as self-care. Stopping can mean anything from fi nding a good ritual for ending your work at the conclusion of each day, giving yourself permission to rest when your body needs it, to quitting a job or leaving a relationship. What tasks or projects can you stop doing, as an act of self-care? What habits are you ready to give up? See the next chapter for the map of change, which begins when you stop even one thing.

4. Solo travel as self-care. Take yourself on a solo adventure, even if it’s in your own neighborhood. Set aside time that is for your own curiosity and delight alone. Visit a place you’ve always wondered about. Bring a sketchbook, journal, or camera to document your experience. Or not! The only requirement is that you choose the place and time, and you go alone. Notice how you feel before and after this.

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Questions for you: Respond to these in any way you like — try writing in your journal, making a sketch or doodle, collaging cutout images, or walking outside as you think about them.

What moment in your life left you confused and not knowing what to do because everything that had previously worked for you was now no longer working?

What are some things you tried to do for yourself? How did these help you or reveal something new?

If you are in that moment right now, what would it be like to surrender — meaning, to give up on trying harder and say, “I don’t know”?

What surprising or unexpected choice could you make right now, in service of your self-care?

Practices: Make a list of your current self-care practices. If you don’t use the term “self-care”, write down what you think it means after reading this story. What new self-care practices are you inspired to start exploring?

© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

Chapter 2: Change Cycle Each time life hands us a crisis, a choice, or an opportunity, we find ourselves at the beginning of another cycle of change. Before my “awakening” moment described in the last chapter, I thought of life as a continuous straight line of growing up, accomplishing things, then getting older. These were the expectations I had been raised with as the protected, must-succeed daughter of immigrant parents. Back then, I didn’t even consider death to be something I would ever experience. When I started meeting my new teachers, I began hearing stories of different metaphors for the cycle of life, stories which allowed me to imagine complete transformation as a natural, and perhaps necessary, part of being alive and becoming a whole person. Most importantly, I started to see how death and loss were natural and necessary parts of the cycle of life and change. I’ll share just a few of those images with you here.

In the Map of the Territory, the Change Cycle is represented by the varied mountainous landscape on the horizon. Becoming an avid hiker, backpacker, and biker was part of my change journey, but that’s not what these represent for me. I remember the story of a devoted spiritual student who had to travel great distances to see a beloved guru high in the

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© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

mountaintops. First he traveled across dry land, and then he came to a river. In order to cross it, he had to build a canoe. Once he successfully crossed it, he carried the canoe on his back all the way up the mountain. When we finally reached his teacher’s temple, he was exhausted, and still carrying his canoe on his back. His teacher said, “Why do you carry this canoe on your back?” The student replied, “I needed it to cross the river below.” The teacher replied, “You must learn to let go of the tools that worked for one part of your journey, but will not help you now.”

Change is fundamentally about letting go of what worked in the past, but no longer serves us now. In order to know what we are holding onto, we must be willing to look at the past, how we learned the tools that brought us to this point in our lives. A common complaint about inquiring into the past says something like, “Let bygones be bygones,” or “Forgive and forget.” Unfortunately these adages do not support us in getting a clear picture of the patterns we have learned from our societal and familial conditioning, and they deprive us of valuable information that will become the source of our true power, freedom, and joy.

Caterpillar to Butterfly: The Cocoon of Grief and Loss The first image of change I will share with you here is the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly. As children, we may have been taught this in picture books, but the metaphor of the caterpillar’s journey is useful for us in our mapping of the Next Unknown. A caterpillar’s life feels normal and complete when it is crawling on the

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ground, eating leaves and grasses. However, one day something inside the caterpillar tells it to start building a cocoon. Can you imagine what the caterpillar thinks will happen by building a dark resting place for itself, and climbing inside? Does it envision its future incarnation as a flying creature? Does it even consider the reality of making a container for its own death? We will never know the experience from a caterpillar’s perspective.

As an observer, we know that once the caterpillar goes inside the cocoon, its entire body dissolves into liquid “goop”. It doesn’t (as I once believed) just go inside to grow wings on its existing body. It completely dissolves and reforms from a primordial soup. The metaphor for the territory of the Next Unknown is that the first step involves surrender and the death of old identities. Most of us hold on for dear life to the beliefs and expectations that we grew up with. If we were lucky enough to have caretakers who pointed us to a brighter future, most likely it was with the wish that our lives would be secure and without the uncertainties that so many of us fear.

The caterpillar teaches us something different. If we are to reach the promise of flight and higher perspective that the butterfly has, we cannot avoid passage through the dark place of the cocoon. I love the image of the cocoon because it is not only dark but also safe. I imagine the texture of the spun chrysalis and the careful labor of the caterpillar in constructing it from the substance of its own

© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

body, and it feels comforting. While it is a safe space, the cocoon is also a container for profound loss and grief.

In our modern era, we aren’t given much space to reflect on our losses, to grieve as individuals and communities, to appreciate the complexity of the histories we each bring to being right here, right now. As a result, we are often unaware of our own interdependent relationship with death and renewal, of the mutual relationship of past, present, and future. We don’t get to see our place in the rhythm of a larger cycle of life and death around us. Birth and death increasingly happen behind the closed doors of hospitals and other institutions, rather than in our homes where family is gathered to witness. Our families are often separated by many thousands of miles. This is such a common way of life that many of us consider it normal.

It is often our first experience with the loss of something dear to us that we are shocked into facing all the feelings we didn’t get to feel before. Why is my story about change beginning with a discussion about loss and grief? Because these feelings are natural catalysts of change, and if we remain unaware or in denial of our experience of them, we could miss an opportunity to move forward fully. For me, becoming aware of how I held tightly to my identities as “Perfect Doctor Chu” and always needing to achieve superiority in order to be worthy were my entry points into the soup of grief and loss. I could not have opened to this awareness without an environment of No Judgment. From this soft and tender place, which emerged for me once I started to slow down (stop, actually) and listen inwardly to the silence, the revelations began. I was also surrounded by the support of a new tribe of “important strangers” — people who were not my family or friends from the past, but people who were on this journey of mapmaking their own Next Unknown territories.

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Caterpillar to Butterfly: Dreaming into Being We can take solace in the observation that from the loss of the caterpillar comes the dream and formation of the butterfly. One cannot exist without the other. Even though we have an imbalance of spaces for grief and loss versus spaces for innovation and creation, they are interdependent on one another. We can imagine the enormous creative vision required to fashion a winged butterfly from a caterpillar’s consciousness, and be inspired by our own capacity to dream big. The cocoon can hold both loss and visions for renewal, if we allow the process its own time.

Once formed fully inside the cocoon, the butterfly must make its journey out into the world, rebirthing itself. In the final stages of a butterfly’s emergence from the cocoon, before it takes its first flight, it goes through an extended period of struggle or labor. Its wet, folded wings must push open the cocoon, which takes tremendous energy and requires intermittent rest.

To an observer, the impulse might be to want to take away the struggle, to “help” the butterfly by cutting open the cocoon or removing it to prevent so much energy from being expended. “Poor butterfly!” we might say to ourselves. Once again, nature teaches us something different. If we do this to the butterfly, we actually see that it

© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

does not survive. There is something in the “struggle” that is necessary for the butterfly’s healthy and strong development. If we try to intervene out of pity or our own discomfort with witnessing another being’s struggle, we actually can do harm to the process of emergence.

Another way to see this stage of the butterfly’s journey is practice. We start with tiny turtle steps, and we build strength and endurance for longer journeys. We keep the vision of flight, while being patient with our newly formed wings as they develop. Breathing and rest are as important as consistent effort and encouragement.

Truckload of Dung The second image of change I want to share with you comes from an old Zen story. It says to imagine that one day you arrive home to find that someone has dumped a truckload of dung on your front doorstep. You didn’t order it, and you don’t know who did. You have a few choices in that moment. You could stand there and complain, demanding to know whom to blame for this mess. You could demand justice for this major infraction.

Or, you could set to work. Getting your boots, gloves, shovel, and wheelbarrow, and maybe a few friends to help, you could begin the work of hauling away the dung. Little by little, you could begin to clear a path to your own front door. You could move the dung to the backyard. And then one day, you could find that you have a beautiful garden with flowers and vegetables thriving there, while you have no trouble entering your own home from the front. You enjoy the rewards

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of your hard work, and you have transformed your living situation for the good.

The point of this story, for me, is that we have a choice of what we do with what life gives us. Sometimes all of our options have something undesirable about them. It seems better to complain and blame. But when it comes to the metaphor of making the home in our hearts a place we want to live, we must do the work of clearing the way.

Hauling away the dung of inherited trauma, unproductive reaction patterns, and relationship-destroying habits. We can imagine the rewards we will reap in our own gardens.

But the work is ours to do.

Questions for you: Have you ever been offered “help” that turned out not to be helpful?

What is your experience with personal struggles you have endured and then overcome successfully? Can you see the necessity or the value of those struggles?

Which image of change resonates most for you? What moment from your own life does it remind you of?

How are self-care and the change cycle related?

© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

Change Cycle Practices: 1. In a notebook or your journal, write about a loss that you have not yet fully grieved. What do you miss about this person, place, thing, or time? What are your fond memories? How do you feel as you give yourself time to remember? If you don’t feel comfortable writing about the loss, try writing a letter from the person, place, thing, or time to your present self. What would he/she/they/it say to you right now, if they could?

2. The Work of Change: In the truckload of dung image, there is the step of getting out gloves, boots, shovels, and wheelbarrows to do the physical work of hauling the dung away. How do you relate to this image in your own life? What have you found that helps support you as you do the work of change?

3. Dreaming, Visioning, and Ripening: Are you in the phase of forming an image of the new reality you’re being called to create?

First, write a list of adjectives and feeling words that capture the essence of your new vision. At first, try to capture sensations, textures, colors, and tones that make you feel the presence of your dream, rather than naming specific objects that you see. Then, make a visual artifact of these feelings. This could be as small as an index card, or as large as a poster board. You can use magazine image cutouts, photographs from your own collection, google images printed out, stickers. paint, markers, crayons — any medium will work! Once you’ve collected your feeling words and images, listen to how they want to be arranged on your page. Rather than planning a piece of art, let these images speak to you from the realm in which they dwell — the magic of the dream time.

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© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

Chapter 3: Creativity The river of creativity is something I stumbled into, or rather was dragged into at first, kicking and screaming. I remember being asked by a workshop leader to make a vision board, using scissors and glue stick to paste magazine cutout images onto a poster board.

My first vision board was sparsely populated with just a few images. Frankly, at that point in my life I had never been asked what I really wanted. I was busy enough trying to do what everyone else wanted from me.

Over the course of the next year, I was asked multiple times to make vision boards, and while I groaned silently inside each time, I went along with it and kept making them.

Gradually they became more full, more specific, more bold. Two years later, I ended up moving to a new region of the Bay Area based on a vision board I made about “My Ideal Living Space”.

My signature stories about crossing the threshold into embracing my creative nature involve music and art, but I’ve since realized that creativity is not limited to what we call “art”.

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It is a way of thinking, seeing, and approaching the world. And we are each born with this way inside us already. Whether it grows and becomes something we claim as ours depends on whether we are encouraged to use it. Like a muscle, our creativity can either grow stronger and more skillful with practice, or it can wither and atrophy from neglect.

Right now, the most important aspect of crossing the threshold into my creative self is the idea of No Judgment. Since the words “Play the wrong note” originally called me from the relative safety of classical music into the new territory of improvisation, I have contemplated the meaning of these words. Why was that instruction, given to me by a teacher, so monumental and life-changing? Doing things “the right way” formed the foundation of my identity. My superiority and status depended on maintaining that reputation of “being right”. I studied and practiced hard, developed very few peer relationships while in school, and fed off the approval I seemed to receive from a system of authority figures.

I didn’t know any of this at the time. I just thought of this as “who I am”, the kind of person who graduates from these universities with these kinds of degrees. Eyes always on the top spot, getting as close as I could without being a total a*%-hole.

My attitude of striving and self-improvement was not all bad, but it was also not all good either. And that is what I’ve found out so far about what “Play the wrong note” means. It means to deconstruct the whole idea of right/wrong and good/bad when it comes to expression of yourself. Stop going for only praise, because you won’t get it from everybody. But also stop berating yourself for not being good enough.

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Stop comparing yourself to others as a way to feel either superior or inferior. Listen inwardly, do the work, share and listen generously. Focus on learning, which often looks like failure from the outside. Focus on something true, which often won’t be well-received by many. Focus on practicing kindness toward your tender self bringing something new into the world.

Play the wrong note was not an invitation just to throw away all that was “right” and focus on doing everything “wrong”. (Although I did try this for many years.) It is an invitation to explore what has been hidden from us because of our attachment to a very limited range of thought or action. It is more of a “What if…?” question. And so often, creativity is ignited by the spark of “What if….?”.

Questions for you: What area of your life might be ignited by the spark of asking, “What if…?” and considering a possibility you previously ignored because of a rule or assumption?

What are some of the messages you received about your own creativity, as a child and as an adult?

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Creativity Practices: Make a list of your currently held “rules of life”, or the “shoulds” you hold to be true for you.

Are there any of these that are painful to live by? Which of these rules has not played out in your life experience?

Rewrite a new list of declarations that does not include the word “should” but starts with, “I AM”, “I CAN”, “I CHOOSE”, or “I WILL”.

Start keeping a blank (unlined) notebook where you write, scribble, and glue in images, objects, and moments that capture your attention in your daily life. Begin seeing and acknowledging your own private observations as real and valuable. There is a whole lifetime of liberation in this one practice!

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© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

Chapter 4: Embodiment Embodiment means how we carry our experience of life in our physical bodies through voice, movement, and the physiology of our internal organ systems. Both traumatic memories and experiences of transformation are held in embodiment. Each body has inherited patterns acquired before birth, habitual patterns acquired through early childhood practice, repetition and reinforcement; and conscious patterns which can potentially emerge and develop later in life through evolving awareness.

Writing about embodiment is the least useful mode of learning. Embodiment must be experienced in the body through a lived moment.

What I’ll say here will hopefully apply to experiences you’ve already had, or point you to other resources to explore in the future.

The two most important embodiment transformations I’ve found for the territory of the Next Unknown are the response to stress and the attitude toward learning. These are related.

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Embodied Response to Stress Many of us in the modern world live in a constant cycle of stress. We operate from a fight-or-flight response, which leads to a bodily posture of depression, helplessness, and negative thinking, with rapid, shallow breathing. We remain alertly in search of danger, and our muscles remain tense. While this response was designed for short bursts of reaction to danger, it is damaging to the body’s health over a prolonged period of time. Chronic stress, as this is called, is related to many of the top disease categories in the developed world.

When we have carried chronic stress in our bodies for years (decades), we need an embodiment practice that will help reeducate us in the physiology of relaxation. Many of us bounce between hyper-vigilant states and total shutdown, with very little experience of a middle zone of relaxed, open attention. This middle zone is now known biologically to be the state in which mammals build social bonds and care for their young. However, it is becoming a more foreign way of being as our lives become more and more demanding.

Yoga and meditation together break the stress cycle by supporting the development of these counteracting practices: positive body language and posture, awareness of and release of negative thoughts, slow deep breathing, calmly looking within, and active muscle relaxing. Many other modalities also exist which are designed to break the stress cycle and activate the body’s relaxation response. Rather than trying to name these modalities, I’ll discuss some unifying features that I’ve found across the various embodiment practices I’ve encountered.

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In my experience, being present is an embodied practice. There is no amount of reading about inner peace or reading about the philosophy of meditation that can replace the experience of being with the experience of your own body’s sensations. The discomfort of this experience prevents many people from venturing into this territory. But what we know from the truckload of dung story is that the discomfort of the work is ours to take on, for the benefit of our own hearts and homes.

Relaxation techniques using sound, movement, aroma, and the withdrawal of visual stimuli are helping us to retrain the nervous system to become familiar again with a relaxed state, to eventually learn to regulate and attune to relaxing cues which we may have learned to ignore out of a sense of constant stress and danger.

Posture, muscle strength and flexibility, and the voice are all related. When we empower ourselves through the practices of the Next Unknown, we carry the strength of having built ourselves from the inside out, and establishing a base of integrity we can return to during times of stress.

© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

Embodied Attitude Toward Learning

Questions for you:

Many of the practices we’ve encountered in the Territory of the Next Unknown relate to learning. Every time we truly learn something new, we are encountering an unknown. So what is our attitude toward that moment?

How are Self-Care and Embodiment related?

In my “Play the wrong note” moment, I saw for the first time that when faced with the unknown, and a perceived threat to my closely held identities, I froze. I had nothing to add to the group conversation, and in fact my body was held motionless. It was new territory for me, at age thirty-four at the time, to face such a terrifying moment of blankness. I was so stunned by the experience that I felt compelled to follow my curiosity about improvisation, to see what was on the other side of that frozen place. I was held in support by a cohort of fellow explorers. I see now how important that was. It has been a big part of my work over the years since that moment to keep moving toward a new community.

To keep dreaming, allowing, and putting myself into groups of fellow travelers (and learners). By following my curiosity, listening to the energy of my body, and showing up again and again in new situations, I have given myself embodied experiences that have gradually changed me. I have also developed daily home practices that allow me to continue my learning in between the workshops or classes I have taken.

What embodied experiences of your own learning and change can you name?

Practices: 1. How can you incorporate moments of the Relaxation Response into your day?

2. Now that you’ve discovered some linkages between stress, learning, and embodiment, what new modalities are you inspired to try?

Becoming courageous is an embodied experience. Talking about it, reading about it, or thinking about it can never reach the cells of your body. Now it’s your turn to venture out and find your own embodiment of these words.

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© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

Chapter 5: Empathy Seeing others and being seen is a central need of all human beings. Communities and families that once provided the holding container for humans to develop in relationships of belonging are now fragmented and inconsistent. More and more of us rely on media images to receive simulated doses of witnessing and understanding by consuming content, created for large audiences, that appear to be made just for us. We crave a feeling of closeness, touch, and the sound of another human voice that resonates with what we feel in our hearts and in our bellies.

Embodiment and Empathy are two areas on this map that I feel require the engagement of real live human beings in bodies to experience. It is not the same to read an article or watch a video “about� these subjects; they come to life when experienced directly by you. While ZOOM is an almost acceptable substitute, I hope it never completely replaces what happens when we gather together with the intention of really listening to each other, with the real intention to feel, understand and take in what we hear.

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Š Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

I have experienced healing changes within me directly as a result of speaking my truth to a group of Non Judging witnesses. In this case, Non Judging meant no one was trying to fix me, or get rid of my pain, or offer me their advice on what to do. I simply had all the space I needed (within the boundary of a time limit) to discover what I needed to say. Sometimes I surprised myself with what came through my voice. But the exchange of expressing myself and being heard in real time by other humans slowly began to patch a hole that I didn’t know I had in my heart.

Many of us have no idea that the models we learned from in our childhoods taught us to dampen or even nearly eliminate our empathy. We are unaware of the degree of emotional blindness or neglect we experienced from the relationships we considered the closest to us. This is a painful realization to make, but as we’ve seen with the caterpillar’s letting go into the cocoon, there is treasure on the other side of this profound loss.

The process of healing from the pain of childhood emotional neglect or abuse is beyond what I’ll be discussing here. But as we hold the image of a home as the symbol of empathy on our map, and the final stop on our journey in this book, let’s imagine being able to come home to ourselves. Our true, whole selves. Through the experience and practice of empathy, we receive the nourishment of knowing we are not alone. Not in our darkest hours of pain and suffering, and not in our most glorious transformations, are we ever truly alone when we recognize our place in the territory we have mapped here. We are all living beings on a living planet, wandering this territory together. Now that we have the confidence that comes with having made our own map, maybe we can share our findings and compare notes with fellow travelers.

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Questions for you: When have you felt truly seen and heard by another human being or group of humans? Write what this experience felt like for you.

When have you had the chance to listen completely to another human, to reflect to them what you heard, to appreciate them for the gift of being able to listen so deeply? Write what this experience was like for you.

If you cannot recall a time when you were seen and heard, or when you were able to see and hear someone else, what are some ways that you receive these feelings in other ways?

Practices: Writing time - Set a timer, get together with a partner (you can do this on ZOOM!), write in silence until the timer goes off (try 10 minutes up to 30 minutes), then take turns reading your writing out loud without feedback or critique at the end. A simple “Thank you” is enough.

Listener and Teller - with a partner, practice timed, dedicated listening, followed by switching roles, so that each person has a chance to be heard and to listen.

Instead of responding with words, respond by creating three gestures using the whole body in sound and movement. © Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

Stepping In We’ve now gotten to know our whole selves in a new way, by integrating all of the qualities and experiences we’ve encountered in this territory. As we grow and learn, we continue to step into new Next Unknowns. New places within the territory keep opening up. We can always come back to the map and add to it, or take parts away that no longer match our experience. We are the mapmakers. And life is constantly presenting opportunities to face the Next Unknown.

I hope this has felt like an adventure for you, and I would love to hear what you’ve received from these notes of encouragement. If you would like to dive deeper into each of these areas (I have much more to say and share on each!), you can sign up with the link below to be notified when my online course becomes available.

Until then, happy mapmaking!

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© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

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Sign up here to be the fi rst to hear about my online course based on The Map of the Territory.

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Š Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com

About The Author Dr. Lisa Chu, M.D., is a SoulBodyMind life coach and multidisciplinary artist. As a coach, Lisa supports adults in healing, transformation, and creating healthier, kinder, more honest versions of themselves. She is passionate about encouraging people of all ages to recognize and explore their own creative potential.

Her early life was influenced by the values of her Chinese-Taiwanese immigrant parents and growing up in the American Midwest. She was blessed to fulfill many of her family’s expectations for achievement and status, traveling the world as a performing musician throughout her childhood, graduating from Harvard and getting her medical degree from University of Michigan, before being called to explore her own true nature. After leaving the path of clinical medicine, she became the youngest partner-level investor in a venture capital firm, and then moved across the country to start and run her own violin school in Silicon Valley.

Lisa discovered her own creative potential only after being faced with physical burnout and seeking her own healing. She has since worked as a sound healer, life coach, bodyworker, camping gear reviewer, organic farm hand, visual artist, and acoustic rock violinist. Throughout her odyssey of exploring the intersections of art, nature, and healing, she is continually reminded that there is hope for transforming the experiences of grief and trauma through creative and spiritual practices.

She works one-on-one with clients and has led workshops at Stanford University, UCSF School of Medicine, and at numerous conferences nationwide. Her most recent project was the creation and performance of her original solo autobiographical theater show, Bad Asian Daughter, at The Marsh and Stage Werx theaters in San Francisco.

Lisa currently lives near the ocean in northern California.

All text and illustrations are copyright Lisa Chu. No part of this may be reproduced without permission of the author.

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© Lisa Chu, 2020. themusicwithinus.com