i'm obsessed with feedback
it's a love language
a couple years ago, my friend gabes said, “feedback is your love language." and i felt so seen.
my obsession (lol) with feedback has a few roots, but much to do with what i experienced during my heightened years of Madness.
when i was so relentlessly suicidal, in the attempts to advocate/demand for the care that i needed, i caused harm to and immense rupture with the key people in my care web, both friends and family. i was so fixated on my survival that i had little consideration for what they needed from me. some of them tried to tell me that i hurt them or that it wasn’t okay for me to do XYZ even if i was sick, but i was dismissive and defensive.
i don’t blame my Madness for it. Mad people are not inherently harmful or abusive. rather, my limited window of tolerance and trauma responses severely reduced my capacity for recognizing choicefulness and holding dualities. i reacted. i was afraid. i was angry. and i did feel entitled. so in my attempt to not die, i hurt a lot of people and with a few folks, i caused tremendous harm. i’ve been in the process of repair ever since, with varying degrees of reception, for the past 10 years.
around the same time, i became really conscious and aware of systemic violence, and i related it to my own survival as well as my childhood friend’s death. so i tried to scream at my friends to change and do better. my rage was valid and important, but it ultimately didn’t have the impact that i wanted.
i learned that while anger expression is so vital and necessary, there’s a difference between expressing anger for the sake of expression and mobilizing anger to strategically invite people into change (we’re talking close friends and community members, not politicians and institutions). i learned that shaming and blaming from a place of resentment often led to defensiveness or shame spiraling rather than generative self-reflection and actual behaviour change. and sure, we can call it whiteness and individualism and privilege but at the end of the day, it didn’t work. i had the goal of initiating change and it didn’t work. it wasn’t strategic and rather, it pushed people away and my friends became even more disengaged from such topics.
in the years of self-reflection and transformation that followed, i learned that feedback as practice is crucial for my sense of self, my relationships, and my role in social change.
sense of self
i constantly reflect on who i want to be, how i experience myself and how i want to be experienced by my people. and i check in regularly with my close people on how they experience and perceive me.
i am affirmed when how i want to experience myself aligns with how they experience me. and i note any gaps that may exist, see what resonates, and make changes as needed.
my relationships
i’m korean so i come from noonchi culture where culturally, we’re supposed to have an intuitive sense, an ability to read the room and people. while i’ve unlearned western supremacy ideology of categorizing korean communication as passive (with a negative connotation) and instead, understanding it as high context (thanks to gabes for the chats on tagalog & korean vs. english), i’m still a neurospicy diasporic kid who appreciates explicit and direct communication.
so when my mom wants me to do something, i’d appreciate when she asks me explicitly instead of waiting for me to figure it out and then growing resentful when i don’t. i don’t want to assume what someone needs/wants from me when it’s not necessary. i don’t want to try to read someone’s energy to assess if they’re upset with me when it doesn’t have to be that way.
i learned that feedback is an important practice in communicating our feelings, needs, desires, and requests so that we can show up for one another better. it fosters clarification and understanding and consent-based agreements instead of assumptions, unspoken expectations and resentment.
social change
i think covid is the first time i’ve been able to successfully practice invitation through loving feedback. i practiced covid precautions imperfectly for the majority of the past 5 years (i chose to participate in indoor dining as abled indulgence until the end of 2023) but i was also able to continue to talk about covid safety and precautions with most of my friends such that i have dozens of people in my life who have not completely abandoned masking (or returned to masking).
this has been possible because
i’m relatively abled-bodied so it didn’t feel personal and relatedly,
i try to meet people with where they are at and make invitations/requests that feel doable for them so that we aren’t pushed into resentment & disengagement.
i use feedback as a way to check in with where folks are at, clarify shared values, express my concerns, explain my practices, and invite them into doable practices. instead of just passively judging peoples’ lack of integrity, i vent with the friends who totally get it and then frame my feedback to invite the less cautious friends into changed behaviour. and it works! if i have a request for changed behaviour, my feedback needs to land. so i need to strategically frame it in a way such that will be received well (enough).
practicing feedback as a way of clarifying needs/desires, tending to assumptions/expectations, naming feelings and making requests has been so pivotal in cultivating nourishing, intimate relationships in my life. i also use it to minimize and reduce the chances of harm and rupture, especially in my therapeutic practice, as abolitionist praxis and i make it known with every single client in our first session that feedback practice is something i need for relationship-building. while we use feedback proactively, i let my clients know that i welcome feedback for if/when rupture or harm occurs. this is especially important because of the varying power dynamics within a therapist-client relationship.
practicing feedback makes me feel capable. capable of change within myself and capable of influencing change in others. capable of trusting myself and trusting my people. capable of cultivating honesty and intimacy in my relationships. capable of navigating difference, conflict, rupture, and harm. capable of love as action.
so yes, feedback is my love language.
if any of this resonates, i want to invite folks to a new offering! it has been in my dreamscape for some time and i’m excited (and nervous!) to be presenting its first iteration.
Practicing Feedback as a Love Language
Event: Practicing Feedback as a Love Language
When: Sat. June 7th at 10am-12:30pm pt/1-3:30pm et
Where: virtually on Zoom
This workshop is an introductory offering on integrating feedback in our day to day such that we can build towards using these skills for the bigger, harder things like conflict, harm, and rupture.
Key explorations:
Shift your orientation to and relationship with feedback — feedback as a love language, love practice.
Reflect on what makes feedback so hard: our baggage, our feelings, and power dynamics.
Learn some strategies and scripts for both receiving and giving feedback.
While the goal is to be able to use these skills to navigate serious harm and rupture, the focus of this particular session is to encourage folks to practice feedback as proactive measures to deepen relationships and aim to minimize harm/rupture. I may likely build off of this one to create an offering to focus specifically on incidences of harm and rupture in the future.
Tickets are sliding scale at 70 CAD (~50 USD), 40 CAD, and 20 CAD.
Learn more and register at itsjiyounkim.com/feedback. Hope to see you there!
(The session will be recorded for folks who can’t attend live~)
And as always, feel free to email me with any questions or inquiries, or reply to this email you’re getting this in your inbox.
Wishing us all moments of tenderness,
in solidarity & with care.