What is Dear Seekers?

Dear Seekers is newsletter & podcast focuses on motherhood, style, spiritual growth, and home (literally and figuratively).

I created Dear Seekers as a podcast in 2018 with the hope to have honest and meaningful conversations that truly focus on celebrating the perpetual journey we are all on, as the media narratives around that time were still heavily promoting one specific type of success which was very “speed”, “fame”, and “money” oriented and driven, with headlines like: “30 under 30”, “50 women who have made it,” “so and so have secured a $50 billion dollars funding for their start-up by the age of 30”, etc.

Luckily, since then, we’ve graduated from that type of narrative and have thankfully recognized the definition of success is very individual. As time went on though, my life has also been shifting and expanding: I got married, became a mother, moved (and would be moving again soon), and bought a house. I realized that I had also outgrown of this podcast I created.

Since becoming a mother, I found myself having the strong desire to write with someone in mind: writing to a friend, a loved one, my past self. This has added an extra layer of tenderness to an old love affair of mine: hand-written letters. Of course it’s not feasible to be hand writing letters to each one of you, but I can still write these digital letters with the same devotion and sentiment. With that yearning, I chose to bring Dear Seekers here.

Occasionally, I share some personal essays as a way for me to untangle, document and explore my own feeling, thought and wonder- which are usually around motherhood, style, home (both literally and figuratively), spiritual growth, and community, which at times may feel individual to me, but are, in fact emotionally and intellectually, universal.

To continue our good old podcast format, I would seek out an aspiring artist and author, and pour my existential pondering and melancholic feeling all over them in a hope to get something in return- something that would reflect us back to ourselves, remind us who we are and who we want to become.

How often would I receive a letter from you?

I’m aiming monthly- sometimes a podcast conversation, sometimes a personal essay.

Who is Sasha (you may wonder)?

I was born and raised in China under the one-child policy to two parents who had many priorities in life- with parenting not being one of them. As much as it may stir up some sorrow or sympathy, it truly was some of the most instrumental years of my life- too instrumental that I almost believe my parents did it deliberately for my own sake.

As a result of their parenting style, I spent countless hours playing, reading and daydreaming, all by myself. The two games I mostly occupied my days with were 1) playing dress-up (with my bed-sheets and pillow cases) as a famous actress I invented; 2) pretending I was Oprah interviewing her.

I still remember we had about 15 channels on TV and for some God-sent reasons, Oprah’s talkshow was one of them. I would watch her closely while she is creating her magic. I didn’t understand anything she said, but simply by judging how she could masterfully provoke her guests’ emotions as if they were her puppets, I was certain, this woman had the superpower I hoped to one day obtain. (Of course it wasn’t until I’ve grown up and acquired a certain level of English vocabulary that I have finally understand that she never treated her guests as her puppets but quite the opposite. She has the ability to see pass everything to get to the things that connect us all- despite the cultural, racial and language differences. )

I often joked to my friends that I wanted to be the Chinese Oprah, which definitely earned me some laughs, but little did they know, I wasn’t trying to be funny.

Spoiler: I didn’t become the Chinese Oprah - at least not yet. Fast forward many years after, I did become a broadcast journalist in Alberta, Canada and was covering daily breaking news like local crimes, highway crashes and elections. The coolest part of this job was getting to have very different conversations- sometimes with prominent politicians on agenda-prompted ones that flew right by me, but sometimes with domestic violence victims or child-abuse survivors that still haunt me to this date.

I was on the top of the mountain. My mountain.

I was 22.

And what did they say when you’re on top of a mountain? The only way now is down.

After having survived many rounds of layoffs, I eventually got the letter too.

This led me to a deep existential and identity crisis. The thing about achieving the biggest dream so early in one’s life is that when it’s taken away from us- because it had became something we wrapped up our whole identity with, its residue remains so sticky that it’s prone to attract anything, especially dust and frill.

I spent the many followed years searching for answers, backwards.

Dear Seekers was the thing that saved me from drowning.

Many people asked me how did you come up with the name?

I didn’t come up with it. IT found me.

On the days when my heart was no longer pumping blood, it was Dear Seekers that gave me the CPR and the oxygen.

So many times when I thought I could no longer keep this project alive emotionally, physically or financially, I always returned to the feeling of owing it to IT. I got a feeling this is bigger than myself. It chose me to deliver something. I’m the channel, the messenger. So I kept pushing forward, carrying it with me wherever I go.

All I need is getting out of my own way, brushing away the ego and fear, and continue looking inwards, so I can pour outwards.