Heng Jia Min’s Experience (Participant) [she/her]

The quest to work on my self has always brought me to new experiences, but these 10 weeks introduced me to the idea of renewing my experiences instead. I chase new experiences because I am curious about how I might be in that new situation, and curious about others too, but probably also because of a secret wish that something big will happen so that I can become more certain of who I am. Yet despite all my experiences I encounter for the purpose of experiencing myself, when writing or creating or just expressing myself, I persistently face two issues. One, a worry over not having a fixed identity I can present myself as so people can “understand” “who I am”. I struggle to express what I believe/opine because I know it keeps changing. And two, I worry about my many ‘moments’ being insignificant. I’ve always found it unrelatable how people have these “defining”, life-changing moments in their lives when I just had many little perspective-inching (not even shifting, perhaps) moments, most of which I probably can’t remember until I look at my old notebooks.

I think I still face these worries, but this program equipped me with some kind of self-acceptance because I started to feel that perhaps it is my fluidity that makes me capable of encountering things as if it were for the first time (even if sometimes my limits are tested). I feel proud of my ability to ‘stay’, and to repeat to death with a certain energy, and to practise being present despite my hyperactive mind. I also feel proud of my appreciation and memory of these perspective-inching moments and grateful that I have so much to play with and dig from, grateful for the many associations that I make from ‘insignificant’ memory to ‘insignificant’ memory.

Yet I also experienced quite a strong focus on myself and a resistance to others in physicality, that I don’t really experience with words. Paying attention to the specificity of my movements seems to take up a lot more “brainpower” for me such that I find it hard to say yes to others’ ‘gifts’, whereas responding to words is easy for me.

I also experienced a lot of indecision, which is something I experience often, but not with the same acceptance and forgiveness I felt I was able to give and receive in WOTS. Indecision definitely has its costs, especially in terms of the commitment to the present moment (post-decision). But I think because there’s not too much significance placed on each decision, I felt less stressed about it. The decision is not indicative of anything more than me at that moment, and I can take back the decision anytime as long as my actions remain whole-hearted. Of course I’m still learning what whole-heartedness means, but a community like this that accepts how we are always potentially misunderstood, misunderstanding and changing, was freeing for me because I always thought I was the only one.

I’ll be taking a break for the next few months to renew and remember my experiences instead of chasing after new experiences ; wish me luck and discipline :)