心觉知Heartful Awareness

It feels right to write a little about the journey that brought me here.

As you will see, my academic life has not been a linear one. I was never the smartest, although being the best used to matter enormously to me—at least in the small world I knew.

(By the way, it no longer matters to me now, to be the best. And I would never want my children to feel that pressure)

I went to Tsinghua University for my master’s degree. That year, I was the top candidate among nearly 400 applicants across China, and only about six students were admitted to our cohort.

That may sound impressive. But let’s be clear about what it means: Tsinghua is one of the most prestigious universities in China, but its psychology program was not the very best.

The best program may not get you the best mentor.

At Tsinghua I found the best mentor I could have hoped for: Dr. Fumin Fan.

Professor Fan is one of the most humanistic, supportive, and inspiring mentors a Chinese student could dream of having. I learned so much from her and grew tremendously under her mentorship. Most importantly, I learned from her not to be afraid of my own suffering – to have the courage to believe in myself and to work toward transforming suffering into a source of healing, not only for myself but also for the people around me.

I could have stayed at Tsinghua to pursue my PhD with Professor Fan. I still remember the time when I had to decide whether to apply. I knew she would have accepted me. In many ways, staying would have meant a more familiar and predictable path: earn my PhD at Tsinghua and build my career in China.

But I wanted to learn the most cutting-edge scientific methods for studying mindfulness, and I knew I needed to go elsewhere to do that.

So I applied to 12 U.S.-based PhD programs (funny how I still remember the number), all connected in some way to my interest in mindfulness.

My English test scores were not strong.

I had not even started studying English until college; before that, Japanese was my first foreign language, but that is a story for another time. I also had no research publications from my master’s program because with Professor Fan, I focused primarily on clinical training.

What changed the course of my life was meeting Dr. Abigail Gewirtz during her visits to Beijing at Tsinghua. Apparently, I made a positive impression. Later, I was about to apply, and contacted her again. She said she was in Beijing. And I asked if I could meet her again.

I was smart enough to ask her if she would be willing to let me drive her to the airport if she did not have extra time. And then she told me that her flight was 5am. So, I drove her to the airport. In the car, she asked me if I could re-take my English tests. I explained to her that my English is not strong because I studied Japanese, but I said I would try.

And I didn’t retake it.

She took a chance on me – I was admitted to the Family Social Science PhD program at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities to study with her.

It was my only PhD offer.

Did I wish, at the time, that I had gotten into somewhere “better”?

I did.

But I was wrong to think about it that way. Minnesota gave me the education and mentorship that shaped my career. And, rather importantly, I met my husband there.

That is definitely another blog post.

Starting Over in America

Before leaving China, I worked full-time for a year and saved $4,000.

In Minnesota, I rented a room in a house near my department in St. Paul. Many Chinese international students understandably chose to live with other Chinese students, but I felt an urgent need to improve my English. So I intentionally moved into a house with four roommates, none of whom were Chinese. I knew I needed to immerse myself in an English-speaking environment and work on what I saw as one of my biggest disadvantages.

Then, after arriving in the United States with my precious $4,000 in savings, I made a rather bold financial decision.

My first big purchase was the most expensive MacBook Pro at the university bookstore.

It cost more than $2,000 after tax. And there was no student discount!

It is still a puzzle to me why I spent more than half of everything I had saved on one laptop. Back home in China, an Apple laptop had been something I simply could not afford.

Perhaps, as I began my PhD, I wanted to have the best laptop I could possibly have. Perhaps it was one small way of telling myself that I belonged there.

What I did not understand was that $2,000 could probably have bought me a cheap used car—and that living in Minnesota without a car was going to be rather difficult.

Several months later, I asked my parents for financial help and bought one. Having a car gave me independence, not only for grocery shopping and everyday errands, but, perhaps even more importantly, for having a social life.

Guess what, that car is no longer with me now, but I still have that laptop, and it still works!

A few days ago, someone asked me if I was studying to get my PhD.

My first thought was: Oh thankfully that chapter is over now!

When I was an international PhD student, I was poor, lonely, and anxious.

Fair to say – I was also brave, focused, and proactive.

Sometimes I was confused. Sometimes I was frustrated or angry. Most of the time, I simply studied—very, very hard.

I will never forget my second year in the program, after the first year of adjustment, before I met my husband. I often slept only five hours a night. After a full day of classes, I would come home exhausted. My eyes could barely stay open. I would set an alarm, allow myself exactly 40 minutes for a nap, and then force myself to get up and study again.

I had a language barrier to overcome. So I worked on my English. And worked. And worked.

Someone Had to Tell Me I Could Aim Higher

I remember meeting with my PhD advisor to discuss a scholarship application. One of the questions asked about my career goal after graduation.

I hadn’t thought very seriously about it.

Then my advisor said something like:

“You want to be a tenure-track assistant professor at an R1 university, right?!”

Around the same time, I talked with a more senior Chinese friend whom I looked up to. He had graduated from Peking University’s prestigious psychology program. He told me that he had the goal to get tenure because, in academia, tenure was what really mattered.

I have to admit: at that time, I had no idea what tenure actually meant.

Yes, I understood tenure as a concept. I understood it as a goal. I understood that it was something academics wanted.

But I did not understand what it would mean to me.

It reminds me of how I once thought about Tsinghua. Coming from Capital Normal University – another long story – I knew that almost every Chinese student dreamed of going to Tsinghua. Tsinghua existed in my mind as a symbol, a destination, something to strive for.

But I could not know what being there would actually mean until I became a student there.

Tenure was like that too.

I remain deeply grateful for my PhD advisor’s mentorship. My upbringing and experiences would not automatically have led me to believe that becoming a professor at an R1 university was a realistic goal for me, despite what I had already accomplished.

I needed someone to tell me that I was allowed to set that goal for myself.

Life Became More Complicated

One of my dreams came true. I had wanted to become a scientist who studied mindfulness, and after graduating from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities with my PhD, I began a new journey as an NIH-funded postdoctoral scholar at Arizona State University.

Then I became a mother.

I wrote my first NIH grant application during my first and second trimesters of pregnancy. Around the time I gave birth to my son, I learned that the grant had not been funded.

I was a first-time mother. I was facing the reality of going on the competitive academic job market because very few people actually get a job during their first year on the market. My parents came from China and stayed with us in our two-bedroom apartment to help care for our baby.

And then COVID-19 happened.

It was one of the most stressful periods of my life.

I did several job interviews. My last interview was at UConn.

I knew it was my last chance that year to get an academic job.

On February 4, 2020, I wrote in my diary:

最后几日

一份工作的重要性

作为一名移民

能在异地他乡实现理想

这意义比要找到一份工作更大

这是我通往理想道路上的

里程碑之一

不知道命运这次会不会垂青

如果命运负我

我又能经受得住那考验吗

我会放弃吗

我真的不知道。

我知道的是

如果那一天真来了，

那一天也总会过去的。

无业不会是永恒。

Soon afterward, I received an offer from UConn.

Again, it was my only offer.

In August 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, my family moved from Arizona to Connecticut.

The six years that followed?

That is another very long story.

And Now: Tenure

Tenure.

Now that I have it, I finally understand what it means—not as an academic concept or a line on my CV, but as something personal.

It means I can finally give myself permission to take a mental break from workaholism.

It means I no longer want to depend so heavily on external validation to know whether my work has value.

It means I can begin saying goodbye to the “publish or perish” mentality that has shaped so much of my academic life.

It means I finally feel comfortable calling myself an expert in something.

And perhaps most importantly:

It means I have more freedom to teach, write about, and advocate for mindfulness and mindful parenting simply because I believe this work matters.

When I look back, I notice how many times I thought there was one destination I needed to reach.

Tsinghua.

A PhD in America.

An R1 faculty position.

A funded grant.

Tenure.

For so much of my life, achievement meant reaching the next destination and proving—perhaps to other people, but mostly to myself—that I was capable of getting there.

Tenure feels different.

For once, this milestone does not make me want to immediately identify the next thing I need to achieve.

Instead, it makes me want to ask:

Now that I have more freedom, what do I want to do with it?

And that brings me to Heartful Awareness.

Heartful Awareness is a seed I am planting at this turning point in my life. It is a place where I hope to share what I have learned – and what I am still learning – about mindfulness, parenting, emotional well-being, science, and living with greater awareness and compassion.

I don’t know exactly what it will become.

Maybe that is part of the point.

After spending so many years working toward destinations that were already defined for me, I am excited to create something without knowing exactly where it will lead.

So, here we go.

The seed is planted.

I look forward to seeing how it grows.