School is considered a very important, if not the only important focus in a child’s life in the Asian culture.
I was never really interested in school – it was something that I did because I believed I had to do it. Apart from the most basic foundations in language, maths and social skills, I found most of the subjects we had to study uninteresting. Going to school seemed like being in a vacuum that took me away from daily life. But more importantly, to be recognised through the education system meant I have made a pact to disconnect from myself.
As a child knowing this is what awaited me in entering our education system, I had two choices: to rebel, which is to say no (in reaction) to all that is felt to be not true, or to excel, which is to say I agree to numb from feeling the disconnection to myself that I choose. I did not know there was any other way.
I chose the latter, but not without consequences.
During my elementary and high school years, every day after school, the moment I got home I would sit at my desk and start to do homework and study. I would not break for anything except a haphazard dinner with my family, returning immediately to study until midnight. As a student I was not taught or expected to do anything else but study.
By age 11 I was put on tranquilisers before school exams because there was just too much to memorise and I was already living in deep anxiety and had insomnia at that tender age. I was encouraged to just do mediocrely at school by my parents after they witnessed the emotional distress I put myself in, but that was actually not a truly valid choice. I already felt imprisoned in a system where, no matter how I chose, I would lose. If I rebelled against school, I would be ostracized in society and suffer; if I chose to excel, I would equally suffer from further disconnecting from my own body. Whatever I chose I felt disempowered, but excellence in academics would earn me a recognition that the world bought into, so I chose to play that game whilst knowing it was not true success. What was seen as ‘A’ grades on the outside was very far from my true story that was not told.
My growing up years in school were spent crying and studying in bed with a sea of books around me.
I migrated to Canada when I was 17 with my younger sister because my family was unsure of the political future of Hong Kong, then soon to be under Chinese rule again. I got into a prestigious university studying Chemistry. I did not particularly feel equipped to study science, I just got in because of my grades.
I was very disillusioned in life at that point that I was close to giving up. I did not know what I wanted to study, I did not know what life was about, I did not know myself, I had very little confidence, I was hurt and deeply lost, and my physical and emotional health reflected all of that.
On top of that, this was considered normal by the world.
College days were also completely devoted to study, but panic and anxiety grew as now I was studying in a foreign country and had to take care of life with a younger sister. I knew there was so much more to life than just studying, but as a student in my culture, school was the be all and end all of life. And I did not know how to live life outside of studying! Without any idea of how to self-care, eating and sleeping as how I liked was common, which meant a normal daily diet would include coffee or chocolate covered cocoa beans for breakfast. I would start my day exhausted and eat fast foods or instant noodles during the day so that I could have the most time to study.
The way I had studied throughout my school days was not special, it is one typical example from many students who grew up in a culture where academic performance was the only life we knew.
Life is reduced to studying… the awesome possibilities and potential of a human being are reduced to the knowledge from books. I felt very trapped as I did not feel that I have learned anything in life at all. The anxiety that I felt not only came from having to fulfill academic pressures, it was knowing that the choices that were presented to me and that I chose, were not true: disconnecting from my body and retreating into the mind was the only way I could cope with the horror that I could feel but wanted to avoid feeling at all cost.
In my desperation I made the choice to quit studying life: I wanted to live life, I wanted to experience feeling it from my body, I wanted to truly learn.
I had to be very honest to myself and started to feel into all my choices. I made some pretty big choices at that time which had to be implemented, but I was willing to go there. From Chemistry, I switched my major to Chinese Studies, as what I truly felt to explore then was my culture because being in a foreign country highlighted a feeling on inequality within me, which I was on my way to exposing. I was still conscientious about studying but I started making friends and having life outside of school.
I wanted to truly learn through human relationships and the relationship with myself. I dropped studying science, and started to live the experiment of life.
Knowing that every moment is a living science brought back responsibility in my life. If something didn’t work out, I would have to go back and look at the data that built into the result. I didn’t want to rely on book knowledge because I knew there was a deeper way to live, and the only way to test that out was to fully give myself permission to trust in my own heart. The more I gave my heart the opportunity to express and got out of my own way, the more my life flowed with the results from this experiment as I built my foundation upon it. I knew love was a part of the equation, and it was something that was calling for a deeper exploration.
That was the time when I met Serge Benhayon in the 2012 Universal Medicine Vietnam Retreat. I was ready to go deeper with my experiment and practical tools would be supportive. From Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have learned that the missing link to the True science of life is self-love. The tests I thought I had been doing with love over many years were still producing results which were unloving, and now I understood why. I hadn’t given myself the permission to express this love to myself. For the last three years, this was the living experiment I tested, researched, got more understanding of what worked and discarded what didn’t work in my life.
Life became clearer. I have chosen to be born in a place and in circumstances that have offered me ample opportunities to experience the devastation of what is not natural on a daily basis, so as to come back to loving myself. Loving myself was to constantly say no to what is not natural and choose to live the naturalness that my body knows. Without a foundation of what self-love feels like in my body at the start of this experiment, I had to feel the intense disconnection I have chosen to live from the reactions I had towards the world.
Life had felt unbearably lonely and I was always seeking to escape this loneliness. I could easily give up, saying this study of life is too difficult, as it indeed was. But with the support from Universal Medicine, I didn’t give up.
Instead I have come to the simple conclusion that in self-love, I just have to give love to myself, consistently without perfection, in all moments that my awareness allows.
In moments where I was unaware I had to go back and ask why, further refine what determines my ability to be aware, and test again.
No one can offer love to me, no one can tell me how to love myself, no one can force me to accept this love. I didn’t have to do anything special or to go to a faraway place to love myself, I just have to give myself permission to feel my own love and offer it back to me. I simply had to be myself.
In this living experiment, the data becomes the confirmation. Nothing outside of me can truly confirm the success of my experiment or not, the only true confirmation is in my own body.
I have found another way to learn, a way which brings me deeper back to myself every day. Every choice that I make and how consistently these choices are made, will be everything that comes back to meet me, so taking responsibility is a given. Every moment is an opportunity to learn; if I dismiss any moment, I would have to take the responsibility to catch up and feel the consequences of that delay. In learning with responsibility, not only do I feel more energy and vitality, anxiety is replaced with joy. I am growing and expanding and always welcoming more to learn. Did I mention I am also looking and feeling amazing and beautiful?
There is a true way to learn; it involves my whole body and Soul, it involves all my movements, it is interconnected with all of life and humanity and beyond – it is The Way of The Livingness.
Inspired by the Love and Inspiration from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that is forever limitless.
By Adele Leung, Creative Director/Fashion Stylist, Hong Kong
Further Reading:
Livingness
Time for a New Normal
The Way of The Livingness – Where can I Register?
594 Comments
The university of living life has a richness and depth that the knowledge in books doesn’t touch.
Adele, I agree life is indeed about connecting with the love we innately are, which is the love we all come from. Why self-love is not taught and reflected to us from a tender age is nothing less than a crime against humanity. Those of us who are aware of and embrace self-love, have a responsibility to live this openly so that other may come to know that they too can live this way, if they so choose.
Thats intense to be put on tranquilisers at age 11. I know children taking medication in the UK has gone up considerably- when our children need to be medicated for anxiety as a society we really need to stop and ask why and what truly can be done about it.
‘Life is reduced to studying… the awesome possibilities and potential of a human being are reduced to the knowledge from books.’ When explained in such clear terms it really doesn’t make sense that we choose to live from the head rather than from the body. It begs the question why we have subscribed to a system that reduces us and what we get out of it, for surely if we didn’t get anything out of it we would not be subscribing to it.
Adele, it is beautiful that after all of the anxiety and not knowing who you were that you came to feeling like this about yourself; ‘I just have to give myself permission to feel my own love and offer it back to me. I simply had to be myself.’
Adele, this feels like we are failing children if this is how they feel when they leave school; ‘I had very little confidence, I was hurt and deeply lost, and my physical and emotional health reflected all of that.’
‘Loving myself was to constantly say no to what is not natural and choose to live the naturalness that my body knows.’ – life is so simple, when we follow what our bodies know is true, and discard the rest. Thank you for spelling it out so simply and clearly Adele.
Why are we not educated to know we are hurt and also then how to deal with it; Otherwise you do retreat to your head, give up and withdraw as the case was with me. Once you withdraw depression can kick in. Education needs to support us not kill us.
There’s more to learning than our brains, true learning occurs when we open our heart to others and we start to really see what is going on in the world and for people – then true learning occurs and it starts to become clear what our place is in the world.
This blog exposes so much that is damaging in our current education system as it values those who do well academically whilst leaving the majority to feel they have failed in some way as they do not tick the right boxes but even those who get A grades can still feel that something is lacking so everyone suffers. Thank you for sharing how you navigated through this and came to the understanding that you needed to become your own science project to experiment with what worked for you and that without self-love there can be no true learning.
What a glorious experiment. At some point, I came to the awareness that life is constantly offering us opportunities to learn. We are ‘forever students’ to quote Serge Benhayon – another ‘forever student’. It is a wonderfully humbling awareness to come to and in my experience, in this humbleness we truly start to learn about life.
It was interesting to feel how my body changed while reading this great blog Adele. When I read the first part that described your choice to excel in school via all the super intellectual based belief that all knowledge comes from books my head felt kind of foggy and I started to get a slight dull headache. But the latter sections where you were living your life via the guidance of your body and connecting with people, expressing more fully, etc. brought a clarity and lightness to me. This shows me what way is the truth, The Way of the Livingness.
Adele, you expose the dilemmas of being an A grade student. It is assumed that if you are bright and if you get that elusive A grade then life will be fine. Yet, the pressure of maintaining excellence puts an inordinate strain on the student. School only prepares students for exams it does not prepare students to live life.
“I simply had to be myself.” the truth that calls for no academic study but an ever deepening knowing of who you are.
Learning who you are – now that is the best learning in the world.
This is a parable on self-love — I love it! I took these snippets from the blog that are a sure way to a self-love-affair:
“I hadn’t given myself the permission to express this love to myself.”
“Instead I have come to the simple conclusion that in self-love, I just have to give love to myself, consistently without perfection, in all moments that my awareness allows.”
“In moments where I was unaware I had to go back and ask why” — this exposes how we choose to not move in a way of appreciating that we are aware and confirm the next the level of awareness / love that presents itself.
“I just have to give myself permission to feel my own love and offer it back to me. I simply had to be myself.”
Boy-yah!
What you describe is very common amongst school children, when will the education authorities realise that the education system as it stands is not working, ‘I did not know myself, I had very little confidence, I was hurt and deeply lost, and my physical and emotional health reflected all of that.’
Learning through our lived experiences is a great way for us to explore, feel and understand more of who we are in essence and all others too. This is not only a great way to connect with people but also an opportunity to deepen our relationship with self which his a marvellous way to learn from life.
Adele, this is really gorgeous to read, I am studying at the moment and I can feel the pressure of deadlines and that I have a choice to go into stress and overwhelm – which feels awful in my body, or I have the choice to take care of myself along the way and not make the deadlines the priority.
The pressure of the education system is so intense – and we are putting kids through this as a way of judging how good they will be in life. Adele – reading your story really shows how we impose on children and ask them to be something they naturally are not. What message then is society giving out? Thank God for Universal medicine that has allowed an understanding as to why we fight our own amazingness.
The education systems worldwide cater to knowledge, reputation and success but seem to have forgotten that it is about human beings first and foremost – and to start with, about very young, tender and impressionable and still relatively ‘fresh’ human beings. What are we doing to them? Turning them into functional and functioning robots?
I find it ironic how the books that you were studying will one define a prison as a physical place they themselves studied with the absence of Love, incite a greater prison than they would tout and that is the prison of the mind. A life lived in the absense of Love is not a life lived in fullness.
Adele, what you are sharing in this article makes such sense, ‘I have learned that the missing link to the True science of life is self-love.’ what a huge difference self love makes, in my own experience life without self love is empty, joyless and purposeless, self love feels key to living a truly loving life.
Sometimes I am amazed how little school and our education system seems to prepare us for real life and the responsibilities of being an adult, and not just a worker. But then again, that sense of responsibility is what the homes we grow up in is also to nourish – so we can’t blame the education system for everything that is going on in today’s world.
It is possible to live a life where we are content with all we have been offered. Appreciation of what we bring to ourselves and others is the antidote to everything that comes our way to throw us off track…to better ourselves, to be the best at whatever, to stand out. It’s all designed to distract us from the simplicity and wholeness we already are.
I struggled at school through most of the lessons because I couldn’t learn by reading or studying and had trouble focusing on what was being said and in truth most of the lessons didn’t hold my interest. so I probably checked out for most of the lessons. From either perspective you Adele burning the midnight candle studying or me giving up and leaving school at the earliest opportunity says a lot about our education system that needs to be changed. “There is a true way to learn; it involves my whole body and Soul, it involves all my movements, it is interconnected with all of life and humanity and beyond – it is The Way of The Livingness.” One day this wisdom will be taught in schools and we will have an education system that offers a way of living that everyone can be supported by.
Having just recently re-entered the education system at the age of 56 what has become clearer to me is the level of anxiety I would have been living with whilst attending the many schools up until the age of 16 years. So it makes sense that anxiety impedes the learning and then we take on the beliefs that we are not capable of learning a certain subject and then this stays with us all of our lives. This is evident by how many people have negative experiences to recall about their school years.
Schools and education in particular have such an important part to play in our lives. Why have we chosen to concentrate on acquired rote knowledge rather than wisdom from our hearts?
“No one can offer love to me, no one can tell me how to love myself, no one can force me to accept this love. I didn’t have to do anything special or to go to a faraway place to love myself, I just have to give myself permission to feel my own love and offer it back to me. I simply had to be myself.” Simple and profound. We should all know this from day one.
It certainly is a strain to have an education system whereby we can go all out and excel or rebel. But we have to ask ourselves, why have we set up an education system that promotes this – and not just at a young age, but right through academia.
Thank you Adele it sounds like you have learned to be the forever student. The living of this learning is the truth of wisdom..
I used to, and still do have a very good recall ability. And recently I’ve taken up some online courses. The education system of read and repeat does feel very limiting and yet being an intelligent success is based on how limited you can be by developing one skill (recall). As Human Beings we are so much more than what we can repeat. And recall can only get us so far, the education from my living way, learning the results and ripples of my choices has had a far greater impact than recall alone has.