Joining our host, Yuliana Kim-Grant, this week is Kim Thai, an Emmy-award-winning producer, writer, activist, and mindfulness teacher. She is the founder of GaneshSpace, a community organization dedicated to creating spaces to dismantle internalized oppression and explore identity through the lens of intersectionality. Kim shares her Phoenix Tale today of how she rediscovered herself after her divorce.

Kim begins the conversation by sharing the event that redirected the course of her life: her divorce. She talks about experiencing heartbreak and turning to yoga at the time and how this event set her on a path of discovering her life and finding independence. In this self-discovery, Kim found herself exploring her sexuality and embracing her queerness. She discusses the challenges of being the only person of colour in a room and how her life experiences have made her create impacts geared towards encouraging diversity. She also talks about unlearning the generational trauma passed on to her from her parents’ experiences as refugees. The episode concludes with Kim talking about Ganesh and sharing the one song that describes her life- a song about acceptance and stepping into the world and knowing you’re enough.

Episode Highlights:

• The event that redirected the course of Kim’s life
• Experiencing heartbreak in divorce
• Finding yoga in a time of need
• How Kim embarked on a journey of independence and self-discovery
• Kim’s exploration of her sexuality
• What does queer mean now? - Kim’s piece
• The challenges of growing up as an Asian American in Texas
• Observing from a distance as one different from others
• Generational trauma- staying in survival mode
• Migrating to Texas
• Kim talks about Ganesh
• The one song that describes Kim’s life.

Quotes:

“It was a very interesting time for me in the next couple years to be able to really kind of find myself and find the parts of me that still needed to be woken up when to be discovered.”

“We both had that sort of mindset that we were each other's person.”

“We kind of grew into different people than we were when we first met at 17. ”

“It was a lot of deep diving of getting reacquainted to the core of who I was.”

“I didn't have to necessarily completely understand who or why I was attracted to someone and or have to identify, but it was more just me being open to it. And that was really the practice for me at that point.”

“I don't want to be put into a box, I don't like want to have to restrain my identity in any way, whether it's my sexual identity, or my racial identity, my gender, whenever in order to fit a system that may or may not be able to really let me express the fullness of who I am.”

“My boundary has become a lot more clear. And I'm a lot more strong at holding it with when it comes to discussions about race”

“I’m Asian all the time!”

Links:

Phoenix Tales Homepage

Phoenix Tales on Instagram

Phoenix Tales on Spotify

Phoenix Tales on Facebook

Kim's Homepage

GaneshSpace Homepage