kindofheart

In this episode, I chat to Whitney about her childhood as the eldest daughter, the pressure she felt to achieve in high school and her experience with panic attacks and anxiety at work. Whitney shares how she slowly overcame these expectations and quit her job in search of balance in her life.

Whitney’s background

• Chinese & Vietnamese
• Mainly speak English, can also speak a little Teo Chew and Cantonese (Chinese dialects)
• Parents immigrated from China to Cambodia

Whitney’s life

• Respecting your elders- she had parents who had been in the war
• Study hard, doing well at school
  • Parents didn’t have that same opportunity
  • Parents not knowing the English language
  • There was a focus on getting into university, getting a good job
  • It was a big focus across the whole family (aunties, uncles, cousins)
  • Not a huge focus on sports
• Burnout from overstudying and self expectations
• Tutoring experiences for English and Mathematics from primary school until Year 12
• Expectation to be musically inclined- played the piano
• Chinese school
• Work- wanting to achieve, being upset after making mistakes
  • Being sick on and off for a couple of months
  • Being on antibiotics on and off
  • Having heart palpitations, getting very warm, feeling stuffy, tingly and numb hands, feeling like fainting, having panic attacks on the train commuting to work
• Seeing a psychologist
• Quitting her job with no other job lined up

Let me know if you agree. Do you find yourself people pleasing? If so, dig a bit deeper into that. If you ever need support with that, DM me on Instagram. I’d love to continue the conversation over there.

Remember, you’re a human BEING, not a human DOING.

Chat to you in the next episode!
Van Anh