A Message for Those Who Feel Lost and Are Looking for Answers

On June 24 I got into a taxi on the corner of 72nd and on the Broadway to JFK, pulling two large suitcases full of drugs, bug spray, sunscreen, gluten-free food, a bug (really) tent, and cheap cotton clothes.

I got in, I got in the gate, and I took a twenty-four-hour flight to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Months of confusion and self-doubt brought me here.

About a full year ago, after returning from a game and a national trip that ended up being a lot more fun than I had ever dreamed of with foot surgery recently, thanks to a doctor who made just a small mistake, I decided I wanted to try to get out of Zoloft. I was in the best part of six years to help with anxiety and depression.

This marked the beginning of what I now call the “catastrophic quarter of my life.”

I started working with a health coach, started a daily routine of meditation, joined a yoga studio, broke up with my three-year-old boyfriend, and studied Brené Brown, Mark Nepo, Tara Brach, and Byron Katie.

I went to one million auditions, I was very lonely and living alone in a hostel in an apartment in Manhattan's winter, I started to get my ex-boyfriend back in my life, and a few months later, I worked hard to keep myself going, I felt 100 percent lost.

I started asking difficult questions, such as “Why are you on showbiz? Are you trying to prove something? Was this really what you wanted to do? Do you still love New York? ”

I sat in my apartment and lit up, wondering if I could hear God in depth (life is good! Look - God is in that saucer that comes out of your compound!) And I feel so hopeless.

In one of my few gigs last spring, I was talking to a make-up artist about her trip to Southeast Asia last summer.

He told me about a nonprofit organization that also teaches English. Before going to Vietnam, he felt uninspired and “passing away”; in the background, he felt like a new person. Turn off the light inside - maybe this is what I need to do!

In May I applied, and within weeks I was interviewed and invited to join a tour of Duc Linh, a village some 60 miles [100 km] northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. I had five weeks to make my decision, to cover my action, and whether I boarded the plane or not.

I was scared, but I said yes. I was hoping that this journey would bring me answers and force me to grow in the ways I needed to go through this world free of confusion, into the next chapter of my life.

Duc Linh was not something I imagined and there is no such thing as an explanation. I taught English to a group of teenagers and adults, and I spent the afternoon playing with little children of all ages. They can kiss completely; it was unconditional love when you first saw it.

I felt at the same time alone and alone there, and overwhelmed by human communication. The children shouted “LOW-RAH!” as I passed by, I ran to myself, decorated with flowers, touched my clothes, touched my hair, touched my armpits, and held my hand, all the while chatting in Vietnam.

I kept a blog and wrote a post that I thought I would write in full and publish in a week or two, after which I learned some amazing, life-changing, and clear explanations.

I can't wait for more Oprah to say "aha!" times. Those frameworks are still being developed, and the times of "aha" came in small, unexpected ways.

There was no “Aha! I want to be (I put in an amazing job that makes sense and obviously was my calling all this time)! ”

It was like “Aha! I can ride behind the bike with a 15-year-old child who does not speak my language, I do not know where we are going, and have an amazing adventure in the rambutan garden! "

Or, “Huh! I could be a ‘big sister’ to a girl and a little boy (Chi and Bao) without a single conversation. ”

And, perhaps the biggest, “Aha! Enough as you are. They don't care that the National Song that you sang for them on the 4th of July is no longer fully functional and has some unfinished hymns; they don't care if you're sweaty, cold; they don't care that you can't speak their language: they just love you for being here. ”

For the first time in my free life, I was exposed to a poor world, to children who did not know what I was talking about when I said "Broadway !?" and whoever looked at the pictures of Central Park said “Wow! It's like a resort! ”

They wore the same clothes every day and played outside without shoes on the ground. They slept in houses with tin or thatched roofs and anywhere from one wall to the fourth.

But they were happy. They were kind, generous, and always smiling. I realized that the things I thought were important and necessary were not right. I realized that the first world did not have the key to happiness more than the third.

My concern in Vietnam was much faster than my concern for the American QLC (Quarter Life Crisis).

I remembered my QLC problems and thought man, what a luxury to be able to think about that nonsense! If I had a shower and a bed and a quiet place, I would be absolutely thrilled!

After spending a month in Vietnam, I was completely amazed at the life I was leading.

In Man’s Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl writes, “The suffering of a man is like the behavior of a gas. If a certain amount of gas is put into an empty room, it will fill the room completely and evenly, no matter how large the room. Suffering therefore fills a person's soul and mind, whether the suffering is great or small. The ‘magnitude’ of human suffering is therefore completely related. ”

When I first came back from Vietnam I was full of gratitude for my health, but in time the usual worries came back.