Meet My Client: Christine Cha
Christine is an artist, illustrator, and designer living in L.A.
We talked about the power of realizing you’re OKAY and what it’s been like to embrace her Koreanness more fully.
We started coaching right before the pandemic hit, in mid-February of 2020. What made you consider working with a coach?
I was riddled with anxiety at the time. I didn’t have a home, I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have any sort of stability. Although that was all by choice and it was a very exciting time, I honestly didn’t know what to do with all that freedom. It felt chaotic. It kind of hit me all at once and I was a mess.
Yeah, when you can go in any direction, when you can choose anything, that can be kind of paralyzing. How did coaching help?
With the freedom I gave myself, I also put a lot of pressure on myself to figure my life out. What’s my five year plan!? I viewed the time off as an investment in myself and coaching helped me put in a lot of guidelines, and separate all the mean voices in my head. Coaching helped me be okay with the fact that things felt stressful. And also later on, helped me to be a lot more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
What are some things that you learned or discovered that stand out for you? Or you still think about today or you’ve taken with you?
Definitely that Future Self exercise changed my life.
(note: this is a guided meditation/visualization where you meet a wiser, older version of yourself 20 years in the future, and then we talk about ways to use what you imagined as a tool in your life. It’s pretty cool.)
How so?
I think about her, my future self, all the time. It feels very hopeful. The way I’m living now, I can always feel and imagine her, and I feel like every step I’m taking is taking me closer to her and the life she lives. That was a big game changer for me, and always a pretty emotional visual for me.
What’s that like, to feel like you’re moving toward the things that came to you in that visualization? Emotional how?
The hopefulness of it, no matter what I’m doing, I think, I’m okay. It feels like I have a path to her, a path to becoming her. It’s empowering to have her as a resource. I can check in with her, like when my people-pleasing part kicks in, she can say, nah, you should say no to that.
I remember in our early conversations a lot of questioning am I’m okay, is this okay, is this thing I want to do okay, is my artwork ok? It feels like if you only took that one thing away from coaching, this I am okay feeling, that alone is pretty powerful. To just know you’re okay. How has it changed things for you?
You’re right, that’s kind of the overarching thing from our coaching. I’m okay.
When you came to coaching, the shoulds were running the show... there are things I should be doing as a designer and an artist... It feels like now you’re doing what you want to be doing.
The first half of our coaching was me saying I should do this and I should do that. But I didn’t actually want to do any of those things.
I could see the light bulb go off for you, like, oh, I don’t have to do those things! I get to decide. It was fun to watch you discover that you you could choose.
You’d be like, you know you don’t have to do that, right? I’m able to weed out the obvious shoulds now.
Coaching is not a fix for all our problems, but it gives us a lot of tools to navigate our lives. What would you tell someone the value of coaching is?
OMG I talk about you all the time. Coaching gave me space and trajectory. You highlighting things for me was helpful, you could see what brings me joy and what doesn’t. Having you reflect back that back to me was really valuable.
It was so clear to me what was important to you by how excited you’d get talking about something. There was such aliveness in your face in those moments. That’s a place for me to get curious as a coach, like, hey, you sound really excited right now, what about this is lighting you up? What was helpful about me pointing those kinds of things out for you?
I had no idea when I would have those moments of joy or what brought me joy because I was so concerned with the shoulds. I didn’t have any boundaries for myself, so I didn’t have any opinions for my own life. You’re were like a highlighter for me, you helped me see what was important to me.
Maybe that’s a good segue into the deepening curiosity about who you are, where you come from, your Korean culture. What was that transformation like?
That was pivotal. I remember at the time I was really scared to go in that direction, to explore my Koreanness more in my art, and I remember you being curious and asking me questions about what I was scared about. I was afraid the work I wanted to do would be too cliche.
I was having a hard time finding my own artistic voice within Koreanness. I was unsure of my identity in my culture. That was an important time for me. I feel like that was the beginning of something big for me. Now I feel a lot more comfortable. You really kind of gave me the push to explore that side of myself. My Korean is a little better now! My artwork has evolved a lot because of that. It opened up a lot of opportunities for me.
What’s the impact of giving yourself permission to go in that direction—toward your Koreanness—and letting yourself mess around and try things with your art?
This has had a huge impact. As we started talking about this together, I realized that I didn’t know a lot about people in my family. Learning more about their stories has made me feel understood, and so I feel more empathetic. I feel like I pushed the Korean part away for so long. I was one of seven Asian kids where I lived. I tried so hard to fit in.
It helped me feel closer to my family. I understand my grandparents’ stories more. Realizing and actually forgiving myself a lot for the way that I am. I don’t have a lot of Korean friends and I always wondered, why am I weird? when I would compare myself to my non-Korean designer friends. There’s been a lot of self-forgiveness and acceptance.
I feel more fully myself now, because I’m allowing myself to do things that the mean voices wouldn’t have allowed before. Now I have reinforcements, my thoughts are more like, you’re not dumb! Your parents and grandparents came to America for you.
It has been so cool to be with you’ve deepened your connection to your family and history. What does it feel like now, a little more than a year later?
I feel like everything unfolded naturally. We talked about things like how I wanted community and now it feels like it’s naturally happening because I’m just following that feeling and my curiosity. I’m hanging out with other second-generation Asian people who make art. Because I’m making the art I feel expresses the Koreanness for me, I feel like things are coming together. And because that vision is coming together, I feel less scared to reach for other things. It feels really natural. And small things, small steps matter.
What are you up to now?
I'm back in L.A. after staying with my parents for a lot of the pandemic. I’m taking jobs that feel good for me (I’m never taking jobs that are boring to me again) and that’s a big deal for me because that’s easy money. I’m doing more illustration jobs and visual design work. I’m doing some pro bono illustrations for communities that I care about, which has felt really good. I feel like there’s a line I can see through all this.
I’m painting a lot. The paintings are all about Asian culture. I remember when we first started coaching, I was doing small little humorous things, I was afraid to go a more serious route. Now there is a lot more of me in them. I might be doing a gallery show sometime soon. And I am cooking a lot of Korean goodies, which has strengthened my relationship with my grandma and my cousin. My grandma gets on the phone with me and tells me how to cook things and she gets so excited about it. She says, make sure to massage this rice cake for an hour. And my cousin too, I realize we both want to learn more and we can share that.
Hearing that makes me want to jump around and cheer for you! If you had to describe this place you’re in now in your life?
I’M OKAY. Feeling settled in those feelings and thoughts that we talked about together. A home.
I am happy for you, my friend. You are so incredibly OKAY!
[You can take a peek at Christine’s work over here.]
This originally appeared in my Winter 2022 email newsletter. To get on the list and receive this and other goodies in your inbox from time to time, sign up at the bottom of the home page pamdaghlian.com .