But What Will People Say? Quotes

“There are always opportunities for new interpretations of our pasts, and for new commitments to change our futures. Remember: You are writing your family history right now. What cycle do you want to be responsible for?”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“when we make internal shifts, the external world responds, whether we like it or not.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“You love them, but you can’t heal them. You love them, but you understand things that they don’t have language for. You love them, but you’re left having to rationalize their behaviors while simultaneously working through how those may be affecting you.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“Disenfranchised grief is defined as grief “that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“Just by being born and raised in a different country than those before us, we children of immigrants are automatically tasked with the internal or external burden of our parents’ sacrifices, but we also carry the strength of their resilience, adaptability, resourcefulness, and resolve.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“The more I connect to my roots, the more important it is for me to be surrounded by people who either share in my intersectional identity and cultural identity or are curious about it in a way that allows me to bring my whole self to the relationship.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“They may weaponize guilt for sympathy. Or they may be more overtly passive-aggressive and manipulative, utilizing the silent treatment, trying to one-up us, or bringing up past mistakes to continue to exert control over our behavior.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“Our parents may guilt-trip us because they believe they know what is best, leaning into the idea of morality to plant seeds of guilt within us that lead to chronic guilt—or always feeling like we are doing something wrong if it’s not their way.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“Guilt-tripping is a poor form of communication, and it indicates a lack of emotion regulation and conflict-resolution skills.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“For many children of immigrants, this constant questioning about what we choose for ourselves and our happiness can lead to family fallouts and further deepen our self-doubts. It also leaves us unable to investigate our choices for ourselves, because any ounce of hesitancy on our end provides our parents with an inroad to try to pull us out of these decisions altogether.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“This mentality has always made me feel guilty for resting, or prioritizing self-care, or saying no because I don’t have the energy or bandwidth, or because I just don’t want to. The reality is that this sense of urgency as a value has historically been weaponized against BIPOC, increasing the standards by which we can feel “successful” or good enough.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“Parents’ tendency to blame each other or their children is often rooted in an inability to manage their own anger or emotional dysregulation. It can also be a defense mechanism, protecting them from having to confront truths that are uncomfortable to face or that they don’t have the skills to handle.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“When thinking about the self feels selfish in a collectivist community, then pursuing mental health care or doing things for the sake of our own enjoyment may feel countercultural and immoral.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“When we tie our worthiness to what we can produce, we forget to cultivate joy and play in ways that have nothing to do with how good we are at something.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“Real self-care practices support an individual’s growth in the long term and help people feel rooted in their lives and values.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“Trauma may change our brain chemistry and our relationships, but so does healing.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“You don’t have to earn your self-care or rest. You deserve to enjoy your days, to feel rested and calm, and to be intentional with where your time goes. Full stop.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“We are not our mistakes. Doing something wrong does not make us inherently wrong.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“Many people don’t realize that going to therapy is hard work. It requires being proactive in your own healing and treatment in ways that can make many people feel wildly uncomfortable and vulnerable.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli MAEd LGPC, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“...we must have more conversations about how community care is a form of individual self-care and individual self-care is also a form of community care. Collectives are made of individuals, and we can't be our best selves within those collectives and in those roles if we are not also taking care of ourselves. Yet we can't be our best selves as individuals without considering the collective and our communities.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“. . . my dad's earlier life experiences and inner thoughts were a mystery. Like teeth, they needed to be extracted carefully and slowly.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“I was overcome with questions, but as per usual, I knew that it would be up to me, the family mediator--a burden I embraced and am still unlearning---to do something.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“I found that the common denominator was childhood abuse of some sort, usually manifesting as corporal punishment, explosive anger, and/or stonewalling.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures

“ongoing process of adaptation resulting from living within two different cultural influences.”
― Sahaj Kaur Kohli, But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures