044 - Po-Hong Yu: Journeying to and Through Anger
Welcome, dear ones. Today, I am honored to share a fun and soul-stirring conversation with Po-Hong Yu.
Po is a Somatic Healer, Microdosing Guide, and Energetic Mastery Teacher for those who desire to create a deeply meaningful life.
Together, we navigate the complexities of anger, compassion, and boundary violation, as Po shares valuable insights into the transformative potential of anger alchemy.
Tune in to hear more about:
The relationship between Yin and Yang
Po’s personal journey to connecting to her self
Recognizing beauty in surrender
Grounding in the body before reacting to anger
Connect with Sarah
Email Sarah about the three-month program at sarahtacy@gmail.com
Connect with Po
Episode Transcript
Sarah Tacy [00:00:00]
Hello, Are you ready to increase your capacity to be with life's challenges while having the clarity, will and skill to step into the fullness of what truly brings you alive? I'd love to invite you to join me in an incredible 3 month container where I'll be your guide and we'll do a mix of one-on-one sessions and group experiences. Because my understanding and experience is that much of healing happens in the presence of another and that relational healing is part of it. So that group integration could be a pretty big deal and helping us to make our pattern shifts. Here's what some people are saying or have said.
Sarah Tacy [00:00:45]I healed my deepest wounds and have come out the other side feeling whole in ways I never thought possible. Another testimonial. I've experienced a deep visceral change that neither looks nor feels like anything I have felt before. Every session is an affirmation. Working with Sarah will help you feel at home and finally at ease within your body and your life again.
Sarah Tacy [00:01:10]If you'd like to join us, please reach out to me at my e-mail. Sarah Tacy at gmail.com. It'll be in the show notes. The group sessions start January 9th and meet one Tuesday a month, the 9th, the 6th, the 5th and the 2nd, generally happening at 12:00 PM EST. Currently the price is 1275, which is 20% off the valued price.
Sarah Tacy [00:01:37]
If you'd love to receive any more details, again sarahtacy@gmail.com. And I would just say if it feels like it's calling to you, come join us for this journey of self discovery, healing and transformation where we might just unlock some pretty profound revelations and pattern shifts. Hello, welcome. I'm Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown and the pull feels real.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:20]
Together we share our grief, laughter, love and life saving tools. Join us. Today we have with us PO hung you. I had so much fun. We did a podcast exchange.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:42]
And so I was on hers before this and I had all of these memories flood back about the power of the Dao of the way and how over 20 years ago I was really invested in learning more about Taoism, which you can hear this more on her podcast, I believe coming out January 2nd. But for today on my podcast, we got to hear about a 20 year period of chaos and confusion and looking for love and security outside of herself after a big rift in the family structure. We get to hear about different elements in her life that allowed her to both realize the shortness of time that we have here in life, but also the long period of transformation that we have, such as she's seen in her own life, but even more so in her the life of her father who is a 95 year old Daoist and Leighton Master. She talks quite a bit in this podcast. At least at the end, we touch into the ideas of anger and how to approach anger from a Taoist perspective, from a yen perspective, and how so many of the women that she works with are people pleasers and that they come to her not even knowing that they have anger challenges.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:08]
And how it presents because she was also an acupuncturist. It presents in many physical form that she can then ask deeper questions until they get to the root of many unmet needs and boundary violations. And I love hearing about this perspective from somebody else as I continue to work these edges with myself and with many clients and alchemical alignment as we look at the feelings that often don't feel as good to have, but are there to teach us something. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I do. Thank you so much for being here today.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:49]
Till next time. Welcome. Welcome to Threshold Moments. Today we have with us Pohong Yu. I'm going to start by reading her bio and then actually having a conversation with PO so we can hear directly from her.
Sarah Tacy [00:05:17]
Pohong Yu is a Mystic, a spiritual guide, a medicine woman, and a somatic energy healer. Her soul's work is to guide people back to the wisdom that lives in their bodies and to heal unprocessed pains so they can have a space to cultivate their gifts and then radiate their light and their work out into the world. Everything she teaches is based on the foundation of Taoism, with an emphasis on yen, which I would love to get into as well, which is feminine energy. It's the internal, the deep, the dark, the soft, the surrender, the receptive energy that is arising in the collective. Welcome, Poe.
Po-Hong Yu [00:06:07]
Thank you, Sarah, so good to be here.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:10]
How do you feel? This is like not my first question but I guess it is my first question. How do you feel when you hear your own words read back to you?
Po-Hong Yu [00:06:21]
I love this question because that's actually what I was feeling. I was like, wow, I said that. That was the first thing. I was like, oh, that's good. I like that.
Po-Hong Yu [00:06:33]
And it still resonates. It still rings true. It's me, and it felt really good to receive it reflected back and remind myself again of who I am because I really feel like that is the process that we're always in as human beings is a constant path of remembrance. And so thank you for that opportunity for me to remember again.
Sarah Tacy [00:07:00]
Yeah, what makes you forget?
Po-Hong Yu [00:07:05]
I guess like, you know, regular human stuff like the To Do List sometimes or, you know, concerns about life or, you know, things that are happening in the world, right, These or being activated and in situations, whether it's like relationships or strangers or anything happening in everyday life. But it's great because I'm no longer victimized by them. And for so long I was. And now to me, it's, it's an opportunity, right? It's, it's a moment where I get to choose.
Po-Hong Yu [00:07:48]
I get to use my mind because even though my emphasis on yin, I never forget about Yong they together. And so I use my mind, the power of it, to help me to remember as well, like bring me back to what this moment is asking of me.
Sarah Tacy [00:08:13]
There are two things that are coming up for me, but first, for our listeners. I've heard you speak about this, about the mind as young and the body as yin. Can you describe yin and Yang for the listeners? I'm sure many of them know it, have heard it, but hearing you say it may bring up new things and then also differentiating your perception of the mind and the body.
Po-Hong Yu [00:08:37]
I want to say that it's all relative. So it's not an absolute that the body is yin, the mind is young, it's always in relationship. And so when we talk about the mind and body, I call that young for the mind and yin for the body because of how they are connected, right? But you can also think about where maybe the body is more young and relative to, let's say the blood in the body is more yin, right? Right.
Po-Hong Yu [00:09:13]
So like there's always a relationship and that shifts depending on that, if that makes sense.
Sarah Tacy [00:09:20]
That makes perfect sense.
Po-Hong Yu [00:09:21]
Yeah. So it's never an absolute. And that's the beauty of yin and Yang is that it is always this flow. It's never just one way, right? This is we talked about in the interview that I just had you on my podcast about the way and the flow of life.
Po-Hong Yu [00:09:41]
And so when we talk about yin and Yang, it's always moving. There's no stagnancy there. And even when like in everyday life, somebody might feel like, oh, I'm stuck. Even if you feel like you're stuck, you're never stuck. There's always a movement because yin and Yang energy is constantly moving.
Po-Hong Yu [00:10:03]
So that being said, the yin energy as my dad, who is my spiritual teacher, who by the way used to be a Jesuit priest before he met my mother and turned into a Taoist enlightened master, like literally an enlightened master. And he has been my spiritual teacher since I was about 11. And we talk about the laws of energy. And he ended up learning Taoism and he has been teaching Taoism for decades now. Wow, yeah, so he so from his transmissions are have been the most potent for me because of our all of our conversations, the access I have to him.
Po-Hong Yu [00:10:42]
But also I'm an acupuncturist and the foundation of acupuncture is Taoism as well. I did not plan that on purpose. It kind of life path just guided me to Taoism in that way. Yeah, for yin it is this energy of. So in the body it would be considered the blood if we talk about the relative part.
Po-Hong Yu [00:11:04]
And Yang would be the chi, because the chi is an active energy. It's like movement. It has more of that structure, that force, that intensity. And then the yin is like this slow. The blood is slow.
Po-Hong Yu [00:11:19]
It's like rich, it's deep. It's the root. Whereas the young would be the actual tree above the soil, right? And so, as my dad shared in a reel that I put on Instagram the other day, the part that is the appearance, the external, is more of the young aspect in relationship to the yin. And so all the work that we do on the internal is the most important because if we don't cultivate that the soil, like make it fertile, then all the other parts can't even happen.
Po-Hong Yu [00:11:58]
But it can't happen the other way, right? And so he calls Yin the mother and Yong the son, which I thought was interesting.
Sarah Tacy [00:12:07]
Oh yeah, I was already predicting you're going to be like and young the father and I was like clearly, but young the son I love. I've never heard that. Me.
Po-Hong Yu [00:12:19]
Either Dad, you're brilliant.
Sarah Tacy [00:12:24]
I know you did say enlightened master, so I don't want to take away from like clearly, yes.
Po-Hong Yu [00:12:30]
He's next level like he's the real deal. I've never met anybody who has been so deeply accepting and not from a bypassing way. Just like so present, so loving. I mean, I would not be where I am now or who I am if it weren't for him and also my mom and my stepfather. But my dad has guided me every step of the way.
Po-Hong Yu [00:13:02]
And I've had other teachers too, but he has helped me to lay the foundation, this soil, this fertile soil that I'm talking about. He taught me the power of yen. He taught me what surrender is. He taught me what it is to go into the shadows, right? He's whenever I would have moments and many moments of rock bottoms throughout my life, he was always there and he was always reminding me and guiding me to let go, to be in those moments of despair, to be present with the anger or the grief or whatever it is that was present.
Po-Hong Yu [00:13:49]
Because when we do, it moves just naturally. We don't need to force it. We don't need to make anything happen When we just surrender to that moment, it starts to shift on its own. And he taught me that in real life holding. He has been my facilitator in a lot of ways.
Po-Hong Yu [00:14:15]
And I was like, I would not be able to do the work I do with my clients if I hadn't learned how to facilitate from him. And.
Sarah Tacy [00:14:24]
You gave me an example of a rock bottom or a threshold where your father, you use the word transmission. And I just for my listeners, the way that I hear transmission is like not just through words, but through being. We could say through action, but I actually think it's more through a beingness that your body learns from his body, your energy learns from his energy. What surrender feels like. What being?
Sarah Tacy [00:14:56]
I mean, I'm going to put this on, and it may not be true, but I'm imagining like a parent who's unafraid when you go low, like they're not fearful and spinning, but somehow like just going like, oh, I know those plays, I'm here with you. I'm unafraid. But maybe you could actually tell me what happened. This is like what I'm imagining it feels like to 100.
Po-Hong Yu [00:15:22]
Percent. Yeah, I mean, that is absolutely true. In addition to the transmissions, the energy that moves through his voice, because the energy that we transmit through our words and sound are so powerful too. And so those moments of him speaking to me would land in my body. And so it was in his holding and in his vocal expression.
Po-Hong Yu [00:15:54]
Yeah, there were so many moments. But the first one that comes up actually wasn't one of my biggest rock bottoms by far. Absolutely. I've had serious rock bottoms. I come from a history of multiple sex trauma as a child and, you know, addiction and depression, try to commit suicide, things like that.
Po-Hong Yu [00:16:16]
So this is like no way even close to any of those moments, but it just was so clear, this experience that I had, I was dating somebody short relationship just like a few months and we had our first argument and he broke up after with me after that first argument just kind of just cut me off was just like, I'm done. And I'm like, we're not even going to be able to have a conversation about it. Like, what the hell, Like, And so it really ****** me up in that moment, because I was like, wow, like, that's it. I have no control here. There's nothing I can do.
Po-Hong Yu [00:16:55]
And which was so such perfect medicine for me, by the way, because historically I have always been able to manipulate my way out of ******* up or whatever in relationship and finding my way back or, you know, bringing them back in, right? And so to have somebody just be like a clear, no, I was like, what that actually happened one time before too. So it's only actually happened to me twice in my life. But in this moment, I feel like it was so poignant because the first time it happened, I lost it. I, I was, it was such a turmoil filled experience.
Po-Hong Yu [00:17:40]
And then then it happened again, and it was so different. And I was seeing how much I was able to surrender since the time before, right? And so we have these experiences that we get to practice again and again, and we get to go deeper and higher. And we also get to celebrate how much we have learned and grown since then. And so in this moment, I was like so hurt and I could see my mind wanting to attach to this person and how can I change things or what did I do wrong or something is wrong with me.
Po-Hong Yu [00:18:23]
You know, all those stories that we all have in our heads and these kinds of experiences. And I was really depressed for like a day or something, I don't know. It was very, it was like I just, I just was ****** **. And I talked to my dad and he guided me yet again into surrender. And in his transmission, he reminded me to just be with what is.
Po-Hong Yu [00:18:51]
And I did. I dropped in. I just let myself be there without any force, without trying to have a certain outcome, right? It was like literally just being with it. And something amazing happened.
Po-Hong Yu [00:19:10]
And it was the first time that this happened for me. And I actually experienced what I thought was unconditional love for this man. And it wasn't because I was in love with him, It was because I wasn't trying to control him and I wasn't trying to get him back to make me feel better. It was me trusting the process and trusting myself and trusting him and our path. And so there was a moment where I just felt my heart burst, like I was like, what am I experiencing right now?
Po-Hong Yu [00:19:53]
Like this guy just broke up with me and I am feeling this overflowing bushing love out of my heart. And I never had that experience before in a breakup until this point in my life. And it was because I surrendered, and it was because of my dad. For many years of teaching me this, by the way, and I had been practicing for years and years. It wasn't like the first time, right?
Po-Hong Yu [00:20:21]
Totally, totally.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:22]
I love that you add that. Thanks for adding that.
Po-Hong Yu [00:20:24]
Yeah, I mean, like, this has been a ******** practice for me for many years. But this was such a beautiful moment that I cherish because it wasn't all about me for so much of my life. I made everything about me. I made it all about me. I made it like you did something.
Po-Hong Yu [00:20:44]
Something's wrong with me. Oh, it like literally it was always me pointing the arrow back at me. And this time, I didn't make it about me anymore.
Sarah Tacy [00:20:52]
I'm like, there were no arrows, like I trust your no, I trust my need to be able to communicate. I try like I love the idea of just loving someone enough that you don't need to control them. That's a big one.
Po-Hong Yu [00:21:08]
It was huge it was a life changing moment for me and my ability to love has expanded so much since then. And you know, yin is love, like there's such deep love there. And so that has always been my desire in, in, in my life is to really, truly love, you know, because I knew inside myself how conditional my love was in the past and how, you know, selfish and self-centered I had been. And I wanted to live from a different place of just that openness and deep, deep trust.
Sarah Tacy [00:21:56]
We've spoken about the yin and the young, and I'm hearing here both the boundaries of the young, because sometimes when people hear unconditional, there's an over coupling with unboundaried. And you know, I hear that there were like there were boundaries in this situation and the yin being the I trust and let go to these boundaries. I honor what it is. I honor the love and to have to have both. I feel like you've been saying boundaries in the presence of this gushing love that you had.
Sarah Tacy [00:22:32]
Sounds so gross. Like way to ruin it, Sarah. But like, to me, there was something so beautiful that there was a no and instead of forcing the yes. And I also feel like this is so much of the alchemical alignment work and the somatic work that you do. There are similarities and overlaps of being with the no and really not being there to fix the no, but to accompany it.
Sarah Tacy [00:22:58]
And to say, like, I see you, is there any more like unmet needs or support that could be offered in this moment? And like you keep saying, when you see something and surrender it, it continues to change this idea of like blueprint of moving back to blueprint. So 1st, I'm going to say incredible. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for also mentioning the many micro or macro practices of the possibility of surrender that may not have worked out fully on the end of feeling the surrender.
Sarah Tacy [00:23:28]
And before that conversation when I was asking about your father and about the transmission, you mentioned many different situations that may have been traumatic or may have been thresholds. And I can imagine like it just in myself. And the way I tell a story is like, wait, but if she had this incredible father and this incredible mother, then it how could that be? And I think that's such a detrimental coupling to have because then if parents have a child who's going through something bad, then it turns into the me story again, what am I doing wrong? What am I?
Sarah Tacy [00:24:06]
So I'm wondering if you could talk to us about like your sovereign or autonomous journey as Po Hong Yu, who also has parents that love her.
Po-Hong Yu [00:24:22]
Yeah, I mean, you know, my parents made a lot of mistakes, as all humans do and all parents do. And my dad is an amazing spiritual teacher and human being, but I saw him grow over the years, right? And so my dad was very rigid actually when I was younger, even though he was very connected and I learned so much from him. He was also very principled and not as emotionally available in certain ways. And so that's been part of the journey too, is witnessing how he has grown and softened and expanded in his own way.
Po-Hong Yu [00:25:06]
It's like, oh, because I think that really is important to be able to see that in our parents. Like, it shows me more of what's possible. It shows it inspires me to keep growing when I see my dad can do that. Even at 92, he's still doing that, right? Like he's constantly, constantly growing.
Po-Hong Yu [00:25:25]
He's like, I'm, I'm here for at least another 1020 years. Like I'm not ready to go yet because, you know, there's so much work that I'm, you know, not finished with. And yeah, they were amazing. Like, they were loving in so many ways. And I also felt abandoned, you know, like, they didn't know how to communicate.
Po-Hong Yu [00:25:44]
I mean, they're immigrant Chinese folks. You know, my dad was born in 1931, My mom was born in 1941. And so, and there was a whole, you know, war and, you know, just all the things. And so being raised as a first generation Chinese woman was very hard for me. I had so many identity issues.
Po-Hong Yu [00:26:05]
They didn't teach me about my body. I didn't know what a period was. I thought I was going to. I was dying when I got my first period. You know, we didn't talk about sex.
Po-Hong Yu [00:26:14]
Like there was just so much that was not taught to me. But I had always that foundation of love. Like we talked about that in love, that soil, that fertile soil. So even in all the messiness, because I was out of control as a teenager, like I was self-destructive to the extreme, the life that I had was pure chaos. The opposite of you.
Po-Hong Yu [00:26:41]
You are on my episode just now. You were, like you said, talked about how you were like the good girl and all these things. And I'm like, oh, not me. Like I was the good girl until I was about 11 or 12 when I was and everything turned. It was like my whole life flipped upside down when my parents got divorced and at the round that same time, my brother got kicked out of the house.
Po-Hong Yu [00:27:05] S
o I went from being the hub of the family to feeling completely alone and devastated. And then that led me to being raped for the first time because I was, I didn't, I was looking for love in all the wrong places. And I'm not saying that as a way to like, like, oh, it's all my fault. It's just that that's what happened. I was lost and I was looking for love.
Po-Hong Yu [00:27:28]
And I found myself in an experience that was very harmful and hurtful for me, but ultimately supported me in my journey of being a healer, right? Because I was able to do this deep healing work in my own life. But I was a hot mess to, just to put it plainly. And I put my parents through a lot, but that was my process. And they, they just always, even in the, the crunchiness of our relationships, like because of the communication issues or things like that, I always knew that they loved me and that lived in my body.
Po-Hong Yu [00:28:09]
Like I actually was breastfed for a long time. Like so my mom like, and I would cuddle even until she died. Like we, we would cuddle like as if I was a little girl. I feel emotional talking about it. My mom passed a few months before I turned 30.
Po-Hong Yu [00:28:24]
It was my Saturn return. And so we would always cuddle no matter what. Like I was just her little baby. So yeah, that just that love always lived inside of me. So I really believe that even though I had like 2 decades, it was literally 2 decades of deep despair and self-destructive behavior like blackout drunk rapes, waking up next to strangers, you know, losing $30,000, online gambling, like you name it, I've done it all.
Po-Hong Yu [00:29:00]
You know, like I try to just **** my whole life up over and over again. But even with all that, there was this part in me. It was like this fire that never could go out because I was like, no, I'm not going to give up. Like, I want to give up, but I'm never going to give up. And I really believe it was because that love was planted in me.
Po-Hong Yu [00:29:25]
That seed was always there. Yeah. So they were definitely nowhere close to, you know, perfect parents. But they gave me the most important things that I needed, and they inspired me. And my stepfather inspired me as well.
Po-Hong Yu [00:29:39]
He was a grandmaster of martial arts as well as a Chinese medicine doctor. So I was around these masters. And then my mom, she was just like the ringleader that this, you know, I'm like, she's just running **** you know? And so it was amazing. And I feel so grateful that this is my lineage.
Sarah Tacy [00:30:02]
It sounds like the turn for you around 11 was somewhat of a quick turn and then there's two decades. In episode 2, we talked about the cycle of awareness and like the normal life, and then there's an interruption of norm and then chaos and confusion and that any of these stages can last any amount of time. Then we have fertile void and then inspiration, resources evolve, state of being. SO2 decades and what sounds like chaos and confusion. Was there a quick flip that changed the way that there was a quick flip into it, or was it a gradual process into becoming more of who you are now?
Sarah Tacy [00:30:45]
Or maybe that's even the wrong question like that, that change that took you possibly a little bit further away from chronic chaos and confusion. Yeah, it was right that that should be your term. I don't mean to actually put that on your experience, but I did hear you use chaos.
Po-Hong Yu [00:31:01]
No, it was. It was chaos times 100. Absolutely. It was just pure suffering non-stop for a couple of decades. There was a couple of poignant moments that was like, oh, you know, there was with I'd have a moment of awakening.
Po-Hong Yu [00:31:17]
The first one I would say was around 27 when I lost that $30,000 playing blackjack online and I hit a bottom and I was like, what the ****? Like what am I doing with my life? And I lost it in like a couple of weeks. It wasn't like a long drawn out thing. I just like went crazy.
Po-Hong Yu [00:31:37]
And that was such a potent moment for me because I hit such a bottom and in my mind's eye, I saw myself in a visual of being in a black tunnel and it was like pitch black. I'm on the ground laying down and I just want to give up. I literally just want to give up. Like, what am I doing? How am I going to come back from this?
Po-Hong Yu [00:32:03]
I just lost $30,000, right? And I'm full of shame. All the things you can imagine, self hatred. And all of a sudden I see a shimmer, like not even a it's so tiny, almost imperceptible, this tiny light at the very end of the tunnel, which looked like it was miles away. And I was like, OK, that's where I want to be.
Po-Hong Yu [00:32:33]
That to me at that time at 27 was happiness because I never had been fully happy. Even though I would laugh inside, I'd felt empty and completely unhappy. And I'd always thought I'm going to die unhappy, right? I literally thought I would not be able to live ever a happy life. And so that was my desire at that time was to be happy.
Po-Hong Yu [00:32:59]
And so that shimmer light was that, and something happened inside of me in that moment where I was just like, you know what? I'm committed. I am so committed to my happiness. I will do whatever it takes. I don't give a ****.
Po-Hong Yu [00:33:18]
Like I don't care if it takes me until I die, but I'm going to keep going. And if that means I need to crawl the whole time, I will crawl. I don't care. Like there was this fire in me that was just like burning. And so I started crawling and then eventually I was able to stand up.
Po-Hong Yu [00:33:38]
Eventually I was able to start walking. Eventually I could walk faster. Eventually I could start jogging. Eventually, it was probably like 7 years or so after that moment, I felt happy for the first time. And I was like, Oh my God, I think I'm happy.
Po-Hong Yu [00:33:57]
I think I'm happy, Oh my God. And so that was huge. But I would, I'm there was also other of another part of it, which was my mom's death happened after that, that loss of $30,000 a couple years after and I went back into a depression. So there was, I started getting like taking better care of myself, but then all of a sudden I hit another bottom because she died out of nowhere with a brain aneurysm. And I started smoking pot a lot.
Po-Hong Yu [00:34:26]
I was already smoking weed a lot anyways, but I just was numbing my pain for a couple of years because it was so like, I just, and also I knew my mom was going to die early actually, like I have some psychic abilities. And so I made sure to have conversations with her so that we could sort things out before she died. I didn't want to have anything left unsaid and I wanted to do the healing work with her. And it was challenging because she was resistant at first, but I was like, no, we're going to have this convert these conversations and we did it over time. So anyway, I would I was numbing out for a while and then I was like, you know what, I'm ready.
Po-Hong Yu [00:35:07]
And by the way, you guys, I'm fully functional during this whole time. I have, I bought my, I bought real estate, a duplex at 27 years old, right? So I'm fully functional, I'm successful, I'm making money. Everything looks amazing on the outside, but on the inside is like despair. And so, yeah, I just had this moment.
Po-Hong Yu [00:35:32]
There's another moment where I was like, I need to do something with my life. I'm ready to like do the work that I'm being called here to do. And one day I was meditating and literally the word acupuncture popped in my head out of nowhere and I was like, Oh my God, that's it. So I started going school in New York and commuting from Philly for a couple of years, became an acupuncturist. So being an acupuncturist school and being an acupuncturist was another moment for me of taking myself to the next level because I started seeing myself in the mirror.
Po-Hong Yu [00:36:12]
I started waking up to what was happening inside of me by seeing myself in my patients, right? And then also like giving them advice or support. And I'm like, oh, I'm basically talking to myself when I'm talking to them, Like, am I doing these things that I'm recommending, you know? And so it was a beautiful experience. And that really supported me, like being service, but also using them as a mirror.
Po-Hong Yu [00:36:42] So then I found myself happy at a certain point. And, you know, there was many other hardships. And it was years still after that until I really felt like I could be in my body and present and really in my power. So that was just like the first moment.
Sarah Tacy [00:37:02]
I'm hearing you use the word happy and.
Po-Hong Yu [00:37:06]
Which is funny because I don't use that word now. Ever.
Sarah Tacy [00:37:09]
Yes, you said that was like the 27 year old self that like saw shimmer of like is that happiness? Do I get to have it? And I'm wondering because I could, I could go into so many pieces of the story and like, Oh my God, tell me more. Tell me more. There's so many places.
Sarah Tacy [00:37:25]
And I know that you also offer a rage workshop. Is that rage? Is that correct? Anger Alchemy.
Po-Hong Yu [00:37:32]
Rage.
Sarah Tacy [00:37:33]
Anger, alchemy, all those things, and people could think that that is the opposite of happiness. I'm not saying that that's what I think, but I could imagine it could be perceived that way. And so I know I'm taking a little bit of a left turn and I'm and it's only because I'm looking at the time because I could talk to you about this phase of your life and different elements forever. And I think it'll all tie in. I'm wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about how working with anger and resentment could be like parallel or dance with happiness or joy or even like just like a full life well lived.
Po-Hong Yu [00:38:19]
Oh my gosh, I see it all the time. Well, for me personally, the reason why I do this work, it's because I know it intimately. I was full of rage and anger and didn't know how to even deal with it. And I just find myself blowing up in relationships or, you know, just being an ******* or but you know, not to everybody, just to the people that I really loved. And, you know, and so, but yeah, the so the modality that I teach around anger alchemy is yin based, right?
Po-Hong Yu [00:38:54]
And so it's about softening into those places. And so anger is, is, is like a, a layer on top of other layers, like it's a way for us to actually not drop into that love that's underneath. And I mean, anger is also healthy. And it's important to be connected and respect our anger. But when we're attached to the anger, then we're not allowing ourselves to move it through our bodies.
Po-Hong Yu [00:39:26]
And when we don't move it through our bodies, then we're not allowing the space to actually feel the desire that lives under there, the grief, the love, the orgasmic energy. You know, a lot of women actually can be in orgasmic because they're so resentful. If we heal and move that anger and resentment and rage to the body, you become more connected to your ****** energy. And so there's so much that is underneath there, including peace. Right, including that happiness, that joy and, and it all comes down to really softening and shedding those layers and releasing and processing those parts that live in the body that have not had a voice.
Po-Hong Yu [00:40:15]
And I have found through my work with women in this anger alchemy work that their inner children are so full of rage. And I'm not a mom, but I feel like I'm a mom to many children because of the inner children work that I do. And I don't feel like most people have given their inner children the space or time or attention to actually feel their anger and let them express it. So when we allow ourselves to move that through, then it opens us up to a deeper level of joy, peace, power, fuel, energy, all the things that we're desiring.
Sarah Tacy [00:41:03]
And the podcast that you and I just did together, it was on your podcast and we talked about parenting and how parenting has changed. And I don't know if we said this, but in the way of parents showing up and saying, wow, I just really lost my cool. Can we have a redo? I was frustrated And the kind of owning that part or if the child is really angry, instead of trying to say like, you must behave, please, like I said, do this. Why aren't you doing this?
Sarah Tacy [00:41:31]
That it's like, oh, they're not giving you a hard time. They're having a hard time. How can I be with that hard time that it might look like more and more kids are less well, quote UN quote well behaved. And it would be so much easier as a parent to just use our voice and our size to scare a kid into silence and good behavior. And so I imagine those are the kids that you're running into.
Sarah Tacy [00:41:54]
Like the inner children in US are the ones that like don't want to disappoint our parents. We don't want to be. And I can see these patterns of myself of like, I don't want to be a burden to anybody with my feelings or I don't want to be like, that's still alive and real, even though I had loving parents. It's like, and you hear that, like you and I have just had a conversation about like, wow, you had these incredible parents and you had this like really tumultuous time. And me saying like, oh, I have this part of me that's so afraid of being burdened.
Sarah Tacy [00:42:21]
Oh, by the way, my parents are so great. It's like I feel like the little kid being so protective of not wanting to hurt parents too, is a part of that. And to the point that my mentor, Bridget Vixman, said to me once, like, what do you have for a healthy fight outlet? And I was like, oh, I don't feel a need to fight. Like, I don't, I don't have that urge.
Sarah Tacy [00:42:44]
I don't feel like I'm suppressing it. And she suggested going out in the woods and, you know, just finding like a stick and a tree that's already dead and just like hitting the sick against that. And I was like, so I did it. And just like, this is silly. It felt so good.
Sarah Tacy [00:43:02]
And what I realized, and I noticed that that's not like the yen.
Po-Hong Yu [00:43:06]
No, we do that too. It's a. It's a combination.
Sarah Tacy [00:43:09]
But be would be like, oh, there's anger that's frozen. So in the healing process, even to feel anger would be a big deal to me because I am so good at seeing everybody's childhood, everyone's background, like finding the empathy why things happened that I don't and that I'm so uncomfortable to actually have anger because my mind can rationally understand why somebody maybe acted out or did something hurtful. To actually have a be a person with anger also feels unspiritual to me. I know, like I know that's not true, but it feels that way. And I'm wondering if you could speak anything to those of us who don't think we have anger and how we might like, like signs that it might be there.
Sarah Tacy [00:44:00]
And what does a yen approach look like? And also like the spiritual aspect of like, like wanting the peace that you talked about and wanting the surrender that you talked about. But before that's there, what do we do with that? Yeah.
Po-Hong Yu [00:44:16]
This is great. I mean, most of the women who come to me are people pleasers and over givers and they have become so resentful because of that because they are disconnected from their voice. A lot of times they might feel chest tightness, throat tightness, jaw tightness because they have not been able to speak up for themselves or they have repressed their anger in their body. So there's this line kind of like in their throat where they just like pushed it all down. So that's one of the signs and symptoms that I've noticed in working with these people is these physical symptoms of chest, throat, jaw tightness.
Po-Hong Yu [00:44:57]
Also in Chinese medicine, because I use the philosophy to support me in my quote UN quote diagnostic process. And the liver is on the right side and liver is connected to anger in Chinese medicine. And so if somebody shows up with a lot of right sided pain, I want, I do inquiry. I'm like, do you feel anger a lot? And sometimes people like, no, I don't because they might be disconnected from it.
Po-Hong Yu [00:45:23]
And we start doing deeper inquiry and then they start to open up to this. Oh yeah, that's right. I do, I actually do. But I've been pushing it down because I feel bad or whatever the case may be, right? Or sometimes eczema, skin issues, fibroids, I've found to be repressed, unprocessed anger in the body.
Po-Hong Yu [00:45:44]
So there's physical symptoms like headaches as well. So those are part of it. But also, are you irritable all the time? Are you depressed People who are repressing their emotions become depressed. I mean, you think about depressed, right?
Po-Hong Yu [00:46:04]
It's like pushing down. And so I work with people who are depressed and once they start tapping into their emotion and moving it through, they're not depressed. I have a client who is suicidal for years, and only after a couple months she was not suicidal anymore. Why? Because she was able to start to feel the things right and the rage and the grief and all those things.
Po-Hong Yu [00:46:35]
So part of it is like, if you're a people pleaser, you, you, you might actually have really tons of pain and rage in there. The people, the women that are like nice. And I'm not talking about kind. I'm talking about like, oh, like I I'm just going to do all the right things all the time. Those are the ones I feel like have the most because they're in such disapproval of feeling anger.
Po-Hong Yu [00:47:02]
And it's like not the good, you know, it's not a good girl way. So those are a few of the signs and symptoms that I've seen so far. But disconnection from the voice is such a big one. And that's connected to boundaries we talked about. You've mentioned that earlier. Po-Hong Yu [00:47:19]
And I think that's so important. Like in when we do anger alchemy work, it's all about really knowing what your yeses and what your nose are, being able to speak your nose with power and confidence, and also really honoring your yes, which is your desire. What is it that you really want, right? A lot of these women are very disconnected from their own needs and desires. And so the yin work is so powerful because I mentioned how it softens you because they need that.
Po-Hong Yu [00:47:47]
They're so in judgment of their anger and resentment and rage that it has to be a very loving process. You can't just ask somebody to start screaming if they're in disapproval of it. They have to 1st tap in and be kind to themselves and realize it's OK, it's safe, right? And so that's why the yen work is so powerful, because they start to feel safe in that and then they can start to emote if that's what's needed. But a lot of times you don't even need to do that either.
Po-Hong Yu [00:48:19]
It really is different for each person.
Sarah Tacy [00:48:22]
When I'm hearing like the yen, like the base of the love, it's, it reminds me of what you talked about with your parents. Like at the base there was love and then that allowed everything else to happen without getting fully lost. But then you're also there guiding them, your hand movements, the way you say depress your hands, both point in and down, which also makes sense with the word itself. And then when you talk about anger coming up and there's an up and out. And so when I'm thinking about the cycle and how you've also talked about the movement, say of blood, where you have like the Yang energy and the yin movement of blood, that there's a cyclical thing.
Sarah Tacy [00:48:57]
So that when we have something that maybe we repress that, then we bring it up. And I'm just with your hands and watching it. I'm just seeing how working with anger helps to create more of a cycle, more of movement through. And another thing is that I was once working with a kinesiologist, does muscle testing and different organ stuff. And he pinpointed a certain age and like the boyfriend I was with and he's like I'm and he's like that the emotion is resentment.
Sarah Tacy [00:49:32] And I was like, I don't resent him. I don't resent to anyone. And he said, well, the definition of resentment is that you went along with something that you didn't want to.
[00:49:45]
Yes, I.
Sarah Tacy [00:49:46]
Was.
Po-Hong Yu [00:49:47]
Like OK.
Sarah Tacy [00:49:48]
Maybe I have resentment.
Po-Hong Yu [00:49:53]
And so many women are walking around with resentment.
Sarah Tacy [00:49:56]
And the other thing that you said was about like the yes. And the pleasure is the earlier the imprint of like not knowing our preference, which I think runs a little bit more rampant in the female population who have been like socialized as female, is when you say what is your preference that it can actually feel completely numb. And the numb thing is confusing because it's like, I was supposed to have a preference. I don't notice anything Like, so beginning to have a preference is a sign that we're defrosting in ways. And then for some people, when they start to notice they have a preference, there can then be grief beside that of holy **** have I lived my whole life not knowing that I have a yes, but like I have a true preference beyond yeah, whatever you want to do, whatever is good for everyone and be a really like you would think it's such a relief in such this orgasmic moment of like, oh, I have a hell yes.
Sarah Tacy [00:50:54]
And I know what I want. But I can be coupled with the grief of waking up and realizing that there were parts that were asleep. And I think that this for me too, even just like in the rage or the anger, I keep saying the rage and I can again, mentally, I can get around anger as you know, a layer above sadness, which is a layer above like love. And I can also get around anger being a sign of a boundary violation. And there's a really beautiful quote that I pulled up here from David White.
Sarah Tacy [00:51:30]
You've most likely Have you read that from Constellations, David White's little paragraph on anger
Po-Hong Yu [00:51:36]
What does he say exactly?
Sarah Tacy [00:51:39]
Well, I'll read it to you because I it's long, so I'll just read a little part of it. There are so many beautiful parts about when anger turns into violence, which I do have a question for you about that. But the first line or two says anger is the deepest form of compassion for another, for the world, for the South, for a life, for the body, for a family, and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all possibly about to be hurt, stripped of physical imprisonment and violent reaction. Anger is the purest form of care. The internal living flame of anger always illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect, and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for.
Po-Hong Yu [00:52:24]
That's beautiful, yes.
Sarah Tacy [00:52:25]
It goes on it just like it goes on and it's all beautiful. And I can again, like mentally get down with that and say I really understand it. And I'm wondering if you have a thing to say. I don't know if this is your specialty, but on if somebody comes to you not as like a practitioner, as a, as a friend, as a person in a relationship and they come to you with anger and they're not necessarily speaking from the they're not at the place of sadness or love. I'm wondering how you interact with that?
Sarah Tacy [00:52:58]
Like is there a boundary without shaming their anger? Or is there like, I'm here for it? Like how do you interact when somebody comes to your life and they have kind of like an it's almost like an untamed fire?
Po-Hong Yu [00:53:12]
That actually hasn't. I'm trying to think of an experience of that happening and I can't think of one. But what I would do in that moment is ground myself in my body. That would be the first thing is if I'm thinking about what the process I would go through is to feel my own sensations and my body and to be in myself first. Because I think what the automatic reaction I would want to have is to like want to fight back or defend myself or something like that, right?
Po-Hong Yu [00:53:44]
So as a practice, I would slow down, really slow it all the way down so I could be present and be able to communicate from that place. And if I needed to meet them with that fire, I will, right? It really depends because I do believe that anger is important. It does help us learn what our healthy boundaries are. I mean, there's a reason for it.
Po-Hong Yu [00:54:09]
If someone's coming to attack us from the street, what, what are we going to do? Are we going to cower? No, Hopefully you'll stand up and say no, right? I mean, a lot of people will not do that because they are disconnected from their anger that this, this part of them that is trying to protect them on a on a pure level. And so it depends also on how someone's approaching me, right?
Po-Hong Yu [00:54:35]
If I need to meet, meet the energy where it is. So there's no definite way that I would do it. But this brings me back to what you mentioned around kids earlier. I actually held space for my nephew one time when he was ****** *** and I was like, let's go in the other room. And I was like, just let it out, you know, go ahead.
Po-Hong Yu [00:54:56]
Just rage it out. And the kids just so smart. They just let it move. And so, you know, I'm thinking in that sense, if it was a loved one, if I'm able to ground my body, I can just let that, let them just move it through their body knowing it's not about me, you know, But it's also depending on the kind of relationship you have as well, too, right?
Sarah Tacy [00:55:19]
Yeah, beautiful. Thanks for thank you for bringing it back to that. Just as you were saying that, it reminded me so much of the situation that you described at the beginning where you could say, oh, this isn't about me like that. This is unconditional love where I get to love the person where they're at and like, and the idea of boundaries and, oh, their rage or their anger, right. If you could, if you could ground your body in that moment, that they could do their thing and let it come out and pass.
Sarah Tacy [00:55:48]
And that there might be other situations where I might feel, you know, for myself. And I'd say like, OK, I'm not available for this right now, but maybe we can meet up again once.
Po-Hong Yu [00:55:56]
You've.
Sarah Tacy [00:55:57]
Had space for your rage and anger that isn't like in the direction of me dealing with like the different levels that anger present itself and our different ways for outlets and communicating it. It's very complicated to me because it's been frozen for so long that I do feel like I'm trying to learn a new language. And as I keep saying, like the earlier the imprint, the more impossible a different way of being seems. And so this is me, like you're in real time me trying to unravel the variety of ways that we can be true and authentic when anger arises.
Po-Hong Yu [00:56:37]
Yes. And, you know, in that moment, it might be like, yeah, you know, you say in a very soft tone, like, I'm not available for this. Or it could be like, no, leave. You know, like it really is about the women that come to see me are really trying to connect with that power in their voice. And that shows up in different ways.
Po-Hong Yu [00:56:58]
And that could be soft and, you know, more kind in that way. And sometimes it needs to just be A1 word sentence with that tone. And so it really is about that moment and that energy and the dynamic. It's so many aspects of how you would respond, but ultimately doesn't really matter all that. It's about being so deeply connected to ourselves and our inner wisdom and our knowing that we can show up and speak and have boundaries or whatever in the ways that feel most resonant and true to ourselves, not abandoning ourselves in that moment.
Sarah Tacy [00:57:38]
When you say no and you had like your fist and kind of like pulled it down, I think you did. At least this is what I feel. I really felt this like third chakra energy. So that's around like solar plexus right below the ribs. I'm not telling you.
Sarah Tacy [00:57:50]
I'm just anyone who's listening who's unaware of third chakra. So you had said, you know, there could be tightness in the chest, there can be things going on with the throat and I'm thinking thyroid as well, jaw migraine. So this is all kind of chest up. And as you utilize that third shocker, like you can think of like core strength to like that energy, I can imagine that it becomes as portal between your sexual centers below like your second shocker, like the water element just below it. I am now just seeing that maybe for the first time, I'm seeing this as like the third chakra as like this portal when you because that's like the I will I can place.
Sarah Tacy [00:58:31]
So when you know, when you can tune into like what I want, what is my boundary? What is true for me? What's my know what's my It's like. Yeah, it seems like this portal between, because then you spoke about the way that this can open up orgasm for women or for anybody, and it can open up pleasure and it can open up peace and, you know, first chakra being like safety, right? Which again, sounds more Yang.
Sarah Tacy [00:58:52]
But you've also talked about like love being a basis of that, which brings in the yen. And so in all of our conversations, for me, I just keep like these cycles are coming up and I'm hearing like opening this chamber in between that allows the upper part of the body to come down in alchemical. I mean, I believe they would call it 321 rehab, like getting that 3rd, 2nd and 1st, that embodiment back in.
Po-Hong Yu [00:59:20]
Yeah, I love that. I love that you just brought it to that. I've never thought about it in the chakra sense, but makes so much sense when you talk about it. And literally, I mean, the work that I do with anger alchemy is there's voice activation, there's body expression, there's somatic healing, there's inner child healing work, but also boundary work is a key part of it. So I love that you just named that third chakra.
Po-Hong Yu [00:59:46]
And it is very connected to the boundary work. And I noticed that if we don't do these women don't do the boundary work, If we don't do the boundary work, if we have issues around resentment and things like that, it doesn't shift. That is such a key. Pivotal piece in in the work and really owning their truth and being able to actually let it then move up through the throat and out is important. So it's to feel it first, but then to actually let that energy move up and out through their mouth.
Po-Hong Yu [01:00:21]
Like I actually had a client who was super repressed around her anger. Like she would always cower and like always be a yes person even to her husband like. And she celebrated one day which I was like, Oh my God, this is so exciting. One day she said, I celebrate that. I yelled and honked at this guy on the street who honked at me like she never had given herself permission to actually express anger before.
Po-Hong Yu [01:00:48]
So that was a big deal for her, right? And somebody else because of the work. She was drinking alcohol every single day for years. She didn't, you know, she was addicted. And after a couple of works of anger alchemy, she stopped drinking.
Po-Hong Yu [01:01:05]
There's so many. And another woman she started feeling turned on like sexual energy. And so there's all these ways that results that happen from this work. And I believe it's because anger is an emotion that most people have shame around and judge. And so it's the thing that is literally pushed so far down even further than grief, right?
Po-Hong Yu [01:01:33]
Women are more easily willing to cry. And I'm all about going to the root, right? So that yin work. And so when we go to the root, root, you know, to that part that is most avoided then and we heal that and alkalize it, then everything starts to change. This woman didn't think she wanted to stop drinking alcohol.
Po-Hong Yu [01:01:57]
It was a natural byproduct of the work because we went to the root. It's really powerful. And I noticed when I started thinking about doing this work, it was inspired by, like, what I was seeing in the collective. And I was like, oh, there's not a lot of people teaching about this or helping people with this. There's a gap here.
Po-Hong Yu [01:02:17]
People are not really doing this work. And so I felt called to be that person, to be like, OK, you all want to work on anger. And some people are like, oh, hell no, I don't want to do that. I'm not ready, but I am here for those that are and want to heal from that, that deep root so that you can really unravel and let your life unfold even more beautifully than it already is. Well.
Sarah Tacy [01:02:44]
Thank you PO, thank you so much for coming on, for being you, for walking every step of your journey, the decades, the years, the UPS, the downs and becoming. It's OK, I say like the medicine woman that you are now for claiming your ancestry as well as your present time, you and using all of those places in your life. Knowing rage and knowing a sense of abandonment and knowing a sense of love and knowing a sense of like all those pieces to be able to hold space for somebody exactly as they are. And as I experience you, I experience you as like a sensual person. And when I say that, whenever I used to say that in yoga classes, I'm like, this means like not just sex.
Sarah Tacy [01:03:33]
This means, and I don't want to say just sex. Not It's like you sense the world, you smell the smells, you taste the taste, you laugh, the laugh from your belly, the grief, the anger, the joy. And I get to experience that when I'm in your presence, honest. It's like joy you bring when I was on your podcast, I think you made me laugh like more than any other interview I've ever done. I was just like belly laughing here and there.
Sarah Tacy [01:04:02]
And so I do believe that you teach women on sensuality. I do understand that you have these anger workshops, these anger alchemy and that there is also, we're not going to go into it now, but I'm just want to kind of put it out there for people who are interested that you are also highly qualified in the realm of micro dosing and all of these things to help people alchemize that which is no longer serving them become their most authentic self that they're here to be.
Po-Hong Yu [01:04:31]
Yes, 100%. In a nutshell, that's.
Sarah Tacy [01:04:34]
In a nutshell, thank you so much for coming here today, for being with me. This really just like filled my cup. Thank you.
Po-Hong Yu [01:04:46]
Thank you so much. This is so lovely. I cherished our time together today. Thank you.
Sarah Tacy [01:05:05]
Thank you for tuning in. It's been such a pleasure. If you're looking for added support, I'm offering a program that's totally free called 21 Days of Untapped Support. It's pretty awesome. It's very easy, it's very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacy.com. And if you love this episode, please subscribe. And like, apparently it's wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you Scroll down to the bottom subscribe rate, maybe say a thing or two. If you're not feeling it, don't do it. It's totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.