Healing with Internal Family Systems

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Healing with Internal Family Systems

When COVID hit, I was overwhelmed by emotions I didn’t quite know how to hold. I felt deep sadness as lives were lost, anger that leadership failed to protect people, and fear as I watched Asian Americans—including people who looked like me—being verbally and physically attacked. I grieved George Floyd’s murder and the systemic racism it laid bare. At home, I was navigating my young child’s schooling while worrying about work and our future. Like many of us, I coped by putting my head down and pushing through.

Even though I journaled, meditated, and practiced mindfulness, something inside me knew it wasn’t enough. My body was carrying stories my mind couldn’t fix. When I told a counselor that I wanted to explore somatic healing, he referred me to an Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist. I didn’t know what IFS was, but I was curious enough to try.

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Whole Brain Integration in Hard Times

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Whole Brain Integration in Hard Times

As a coach, I hear many stories from leaders facing difficult challenges. Often, their reactions to these situations stem from places deep in the subconscious. I’ve experienced this myself—feeling something intensely but struggling to articulate why. It’s only after meditation, journaling, or quiet reflection that I begin to uncover the root.

One story that has always stayed with me comes from The Whole-Brain Child by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel. As a new father, Siegel found himself emotionally withdrawing when his infant son cried. Though he loved his child, the sound deeply disturbed him—and he didn’t understand why. After some inner work, a long-buried memory resurfaced.

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Curiosity is a Leadership Super Power

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Curiosity is a Leadership Super Power

Curiosity is an incredibly powerful practice, and I believe it is one of the critical factors in being an outstanding leader.

"Curiosity killed the cat” is a common warning. In the TV hit show Doctor Who, when a character considers opening that ominous door at the end of the creepy, dark hallway, I am often found squirming in my seat and yelling, “Don’t open the door….some scary monster could be on the other side!”

But, what if behind that door, there’s a beautiful, shiny new car behind it like on the Price is Right? You’ll never know unless you walk over to the door and open it!

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How to Develop Emotional Agility

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How to Develop Emotional Agility

There comes a time in everyone’s life when things just aren’t jiving. Maybe you have hit some challenges in life or work and are struggling. Or maybe things are great on the surface, but deep down, you feel that things just don’t feel right. Either way, this post is for you.

Whether you are dealing with personal or professional challenges, an important skill to build is the muscle of emotional agility. Emotional agility is the ability to move through emotions instead of getting stuck or suppressing them. It’s a way to stay flexible when encountering hard emotions, and to stay present to the moment instead of acting out in less productive ways. 

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Reimagining Imposter Syndrome

/ Lila & Company/
Reimagining Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is a commonly reported experience among the women I coach. I too have felt like an imposter at times. But lately, I’ve had to re-evaluate my relationship to this term.

At the start of my career, I entered a top business school. I felt like a fraud. I didn’t doubt that I was smart enough to be there. Having graduated from a competitive college, I didn’t doubt my ability to get good grades or graduate with honors. It was the soft skills that made me wonder if I had the qualities to become the leader that top business schools expected out of its students.

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Live Your One Wild Life

/ Lila & Company/
Live Your One Wild Life

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - from The Summer Day poem by Mary Oliver

Decades ago, I met a man who volunteered with a non-profit organization that provided seminars to help Korean American youth with their career choices. He told me that the organization had held a career summit for medicine. The event was standing room-only as students and their parents crowded into the seminar room. Later, the organization held a summit on journalism careers, and only three people showed up. As a writer and a creative, I was saddened to hear about the turnout at the journalism event because it reminded me of my own struggles to find a career path in a creative field.

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Tiny Habits for Big Results

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Tiny Habits for Big Results

At the start of every year, I always spend time reflecting on the last year and considering all the things I want to achieve in the new year. Like so many other people, I used to write down my goals, then look back later in the year in disappointment when I fall short from a realizing them. That's when I realized that my approach may be flawed. Perhaps instead of goals, I needed to focus on habits.

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