We sat down with Chin to discuss his current work and learn more about his perspective on wellness.
What are you working on now?
Taking care of myself. As a result of my multiple myeloma, I must take care of myself so that I can continue to benefit others. I’m also contemplating what I’ll do next in my life. There are compressed fractures in my lower spine that put me in a body brace and a wheelchair for more than a year and a half. I had to relearn how to walk; bending down is still difficult for me. But I’ve managed to establish a fair quality of life — my new normal — recovering physically, mentally, and spiritually. Better still, I’ve made the commitment to move forward, even though after months without medications and treatments, I must go back on chemotherapy. I’ve gone from “Life is OK” to “Life will be OK,” from treading water to swimming ashore.
Chin on Stress
We all need to be better informed about stress. What should we know to increase our stress IQ?
Really take the time to feel your body. When you go to bed, deliberately get rid of the tension you’ve stored in your body — what you hold in your shoulders, for example — by feeling every part of your body. Release the tension from your head, your shoulders, your neck, and your legs. Breathe and relax.
Chin on Resilience
How do you define resilience?
“The ability to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions”; that’s the dictionary definition. I prefer to define resilience with my life. I’ve managed living with multiple myeloma for more than two and a half years — far longer than the seven to eight months my doctors said my recovery would take. I managed despite there being days — especially during winter, as weather affects resilience — when I didn’t want to do a thing, when I could barely sustain a forward-looking attitude. From a feng shui perspective, I’ve learned to enjoy my mobility moving to and around different environments and spaces. On sunny days in particular, I am able to savor the outdoors; I walk around the city with my rollator, my walker on wheels. I am able to climb two flights of stairs to my beautiful office and visit the Hudson Yards complex of shops, restaurants, and art that is down the street from where I live. I’m even able to take short trips to the beach and the countryside. I said earlier that I’ve gone from treading water to swimming ashore. Where will that shore be? Something related to cooking, perhaps, and to the restorative, healing qualities of healthful organic food. Something that incorporates the importance of feeling and showing gratitude, and the importance of framing what is happening in our lives with words that lift our spirits.
We all at one time or another have a life experience that challenges our resilience. Can you describe what you learned about your own resilience after such an experience?
I learned that there are four components to living through my recent challenges: Showing Gratitude I credit my mother for demonstrating the power of appreciating the world around us and expressing gratitude to others. She had one lung removed when she was very young due to tuberculosis. She was nearly killed by a car that plowed into a playground of children near her home. She had to ask permission from her future mother-in-law to marry into the Chin family because of class differences. Her mother died by suicide at our home. Her doctors said that she would never have a family. In spite of all those traumas, she was known throughout her life as a kind, generous person who was always smiling. She enjoyed the accomplishments of her four children, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, and she outlived our father by 25 years. My own resilience was tested during interminable waits for transportation to the hospital or home, and the agonizing pain of going over potholes while driving back and forth. It was tested by medications that affected my bodily functions, by recurring fevers, and by living with aides in our apartment 24-7, destroying any pretense to privacy. But with my mother as a mentor, I found reasons to be grateful and to express my gratitude with a word or smile to my nurses, my doctors, and the EMT and paramedic teams who picked me up by stretcher ambulance for my twice weekly infusions. Everyone would comment that it was a pleasure to take care of me. I think that’s because I was feeling and showing honest appreciation and gratitude for the care they gave me. Knowing When to Switch Out of Survival Mode For the first year or so of treatment, I was in survival mode, not looking ahead. I used all my energy to stay in the present and did only what I needed to do to get through each day. It was winter, of course. I say “of course” because feng shui means wind and water, which, in turn, are associated with the balance of good health. But it also symbolizes the elements of weather, which as I said, affects resilience. So it kind of makes sense that when I couldn’t go outside when it was dark and cold, I turned inward. As to my physical environment, feng shui solutions had little meaning as we tried to accommodate a large hospital bed, portable commode, the walker, a chair, a sofa bed for the aides, files of paperwork, and more in a small New York City apartment. There was one major exception, a feng shui “cure”: a handmade quilt titled “Faces.” I knew it had to be hung in my office. Even though I could not physically go to my office, I felt strongly that this inspirational artwork would welcome lots of helpful people and symbolize my presence in the office. When the weather turned warm and sunny, I felt open to learning, realizing that I’m capable of more than surviving. I also realized that, yes, the quilt had indeed welcomed many supportive people into my life. Staying Connected to a Passion I love to travel and have circled the world several times. Obviously, travel wasn’t possible when I was essentially bedridden. But I didn’t want to grieve this loss and the way it had invigorated my life. That’s when I realized that my mobile phone could be my lifeline to the outer world, helping me maintain connections with family, friends, and the global community. Nearly every day, I posted beautiful pictures from around the world, combined with inspirational quotes. It was my way to include and feel included as I checked the number of likes for each post. Even my wife, Heather, who is not on social media, was drawn to my armchair travels as she heard about my posts from people who saw them. Realizing Words Matter In the world of multiple myeloma support groups and conferences, conversations are filled with the language of chemotherapy, toxicology, cancer, and relapse. It was both enlightening and depressing to listen to my fellow multiple myeloma warriors describe their journeys. Fighting this underlying and overwhelming depression, I learned to use different words to describe the chemo, calling them “healing elixirs.” I blessed all my healing elixirs by ringing my Tibetan bells and quietly chanting the mantra “Om mani padme hum” with the intention of inviting only the benefits of the medicine into my body. I greeted the interventions of my doctors, nurses, and social workers by affirming, “We believe in magic and miracles!” By integrating these phrases into my daily vocabulary, I felt blessed: by my primary care doctor who made house calls to visit me; the social worker who helped obtain the special bandages, for which insurance would cover only a limited amount; and the orthotics and prosthetics technician who personally delivered a body brace, then stayed to ensure that it was properly fitted and placed (dare I think of this as a kind of feng shui?) on my body. These experiences confirmed that the words we choose, spoken with positive intentions, help resilience. A Final Thought I want to share the story of Daniel, an 8-year-old boy and the grandson of a feng shui colleague who lives in Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Daniel was diagnosed with leukemia at age 5 and underwent a bone marrow treatment following a relapse last year. He is now blind because of a rare and unexpected occurrence during his recovery. In a recent Facebook post, there is a photograph of Daniel with outstretched arms, smiling in the morning sun, with this statement: “I am rare and magical because I have been through so much and have survived!”
