How I Found Resilience as My Life Fell Apart | Jane Marie Chen | TED

[This talk contains graphic language and descriptions of abuse] Do you ever wonder who you are beyond your job, your titles, your accomplishments? This is the question I was forced to confront when the company I'd spent a decade pouring my soul into shut down. My work had been my entire identity, and without it, I didn't know who I was anymore. Ten years earlier, I had co-founded Embrace, a social enterprise that created a low-cost portable incubator for premature babies in underserved communities. Our technology could work without constant electricity, making it usable in remote parts of the world. We set an audacious goal: to save a million babies. I moved to India, where over 20 percent of all the world's premature babies are born, and I made that mission my life. Over the years, we saved thousands of babies. Babies like Nathan, who was abandoned on a street weighing just two and a half pounds. He was rescued by an orphanage and kept inside our incubator for weeks. He survived. Seven months later, I visited the orphanage and I held him in my arms. A few months after that, he was adopted by a family in Chicago. Stories like this kept me going. Along the way, we were recognized by President Obama and funded by Beyonce. (Cheers) (Laughter) Our work was featured in headlines all over the world. On the outside, it looked like a success story. But the truth was, on the inside, I felt like I was drowning in stress, exhaustion, self-doubt. The work weighed so heavily on me, there were moments I felt like I could barely breathe. Ten years in, after countless setbacks from manufacturing to distribution to funding challenges, we had to shut down the company. I failed. I hit the lowest point of my life. I was having panic attacks, I was depressed, I couldn't sleep, I felt completely broken in mind, body and spirit. So I decided to set off on a healing journey. I packed a surfboard and a suitcase, and I bought a one-way ticket to Indonesia, where I threw myself into healing with the same intensity I'd once poured into my company. I was willing to do anything because this was a matter of survival. I was going to heal the shit out of myself. (Laughter) I meditated for days in silence in the jungle until I hallucinated. Although I'm pretty sure those cockroaches on steroids were real. (Laughter) I did psychedelic journeys. I dove with sharks so I could learn to relax. I don't know why I couldn't just get a massage like a normal person. (Laughter) I burned holes in my leg for a frog poison ceremony. It was supposed to purge my past. Instead, I think I purged everything I'd ever eaten in my entire life. (Laughter) But the real breakthroughs came only when I began to confront my childhood. Growing up, my father showed his love by pushing me to excel. I remember in second grade, on weekend mornings, I would cuddle with him and he would warm my cold feet under his as he quizzed me on my times tables. Thanks to those drills, I won all the math competitions in my class. When I didn't meet his expectations, I was punished. Violently. When I was 12 years old, I came home from school one day and I decided to read my history book on the front lawn. It was a beautiful sunny day. When my father came home and saw this, he flew into a rage. He decided homework shouldn't be done on a lawn, it should be done at a desk. And so he beat me. And he demanded that I apologize. I refused because for the first time in my life, I knew I had done nothing wrong. I also knew I was utterly powerless. As I did this healing work, I finally connected the dots. Feeling so powerless throughout my childhood had driven me to help the most powerless people in the world. My pain had become my purpose. But it had also become my shadow. No matter how many babies I saved or how much recognition I received, I never felt like I was enough. Sometimes our trauma gets channeled into drive, perfectionism, overwork. Some people numb their pain with substances. I numbed mine with productivity.

I cared deeply about my work, but I also believe that my worth depended on what I achieved. I finally stopped trying to achieve my way out of pain. Here's how I found my way back to myself. First, I slowed down and I just let myself feel. For most of my life, I had disconnected from my emotions to survive. Research shows most of us do this. We avoid painful emotions through working, drinking, social media and other endless distractions. But when we suppress our emotions, they don't go away. They actually resurface more intensely, often as anxiety, depression or burnout. So I let myself feel it all. I got really comfortable with being uncomfortable. I sobbed until I had no more tears left. I trembled with fear. I raged with anger. I learned you can't think your way out of pain. You can't work it. You have to feel your way through it. Second, I learned to let go of outcomes. Everything is constantly changing. The only thing that is certain is uncertainty. Nothing teaches me this lesson more viscerally than being in the ocean, where my conditions are changing moment to moment, based on the winds, the tides, the swells. Because of this, it's so important to be present and to not be attached to anything, including outcomes. I realized I'd become so attached to an outcome for Embrace that I pushed past all my limits, and when the company failed, it shattered my sense of self. I now know I'm not defined by my external successes or failures. It's who I am on the inside that truly matters. Am I acting with love? Am I growing? Am I giving to others? I can't control the waves, but I can choose how I want to ride them. And lastly, I learned self-compassion. I did this through recognizing all the different parts of myself. The warrior who had fought every battle. One of my exes nicknamed this part of me “Jane-ghis” Khan. (Laughter) The overachiever who had pushed me to work past exhaustion. I discovered the part they were protecting, the little girl inside me who was so scared that she wasn't enough. For so long, I wanted everyone else to show her that she was worthy. It never worked. So I finally turned towards her and I finally said the things that she had always needed to hear. I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve that. You are enough and you are loved. And she believed me. I now know resilience isn't about toughness. It's about tenderness. It's about treating ourselves with compassion and knowing deep in our bones that we are enough just as we are, beyond our achievements or even our purpose. I once thought healing meant fixing myself. Now I know it means loving myself. And this is so important because the relationship we have with ourselves shapes every other relationship in our lives, both personally and professionally. In a miraculous turn of events, Embrace was saved. As of this year, it's impacted over a million babies. (Applause and cheers) I'm so proud of this accomplishment, but what I'm most proud of is learning to embrace myself. Thank you. (Applause)