So some key players are definitely bell hooks, Thich Nhat Hanh, Audre Lorde, Bayo Akomolafe — a lot of thought leaders, teachers who have just shown me how their minds work and how in relation to the world they are.

I first just want to say that books like this usually don’t appeal to me, but I’ve followed Mimi’s page on Instagram for some time now, and their words have always resonated in a very deep way for me. It asks us if self-love can be bought - through vacations, through gym memberships, through performative social media - or if it's something you could always give yourself, for free. I was surprised to know Zhu has these insecurities — from the outside looking in, they seem charmingly at ease with themself. He just sat there eating, sitting with the foods that he’d shared so many times with his wife and his children, and cried. Mimi's powerful and provocative words will guide and inspire readers to lean into love with softness.I remember sitting at a round table opposite my gong gong, my po po’s husband, with at least fifteen of my relatives. Even amid the waterfall of Instagram accounts focused on mental health, Zhu’s messages have a certain clarity and warmth that make you feel like you’re listening to a close friend. Your posts seem to stand out more because of the platform they’re on — a really deep thought about insecurity will be sandwiched between posts of people being a little more fake. And for the privilege I have in that, while at the same time, I could not have healed with my biological family if it wasn't for my chosen one because they taught me how to communicate openly. In Be Not Afraid of Love: Lessons on Fear, Intimacy, and Connection, Chinese-Australian author Mimi Zhu translates the thought-provoking, text-based work they have become known for on Instagram into a book filled with wisdom, imagination, and tips for healing.

Their work has been featured in The New York Times, PAPER, i-D, The Guardian, Printed Matter, VICE and more. Although Zhu has always been “very anti-binary,” they struggled for quite some time to honor the full range of emotions that came up around their tumultuous relationship with X. A serene and transformative narrative that balances between sincere personal narrative and helpful healing tips, the book is a pure testament to human will and the embracing of love, even when it appears arduous. the book is sectioned off based on different feelings, and i found some more helpful than others in the present moment, but i appreciate all of them and will continue to revisit them as time goes on. Taking cues from both memoir and self-help, they employ the wisdom of prolific scholars and philosophers like bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Thích Nhất Hạnh to make sense of their trauma, develop self-compassion, and reconfigure their understanding of love.I wept about the pain, the violence, the abuse, and for the first time in a long time, I wept for me. when we believe that a good or perfect world is one that has rid itself of anger or sadness or death, we become fearful of the radical teachings within these natural experiences and emotions. And then we’re given contradictions in the form of childhood movies or romantic comedies, in the form of words vs. Their work has been featured in The New York Times, PAPER, i-D, The Guardian, Printed Matter, VICE, and more. Because sometimes the grief is about planet earth, and it’s about watching global warming or the trees dying, et cetera.