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?
636 Comments
This is a super powerful, and empowering read Adele. You have completely exposed the loveless nature of the majority of education, and the complete lack of acknowledgement of the sensitive and tender beings that we are that accompanies such societal pressures to ‘study and excel at it’ as you’ve described.
Beautiful blog Adele. Learning is so much narrowed down to only be in schools and that wisdom only comes from books or with the age. Yet as you have shared so beautifully true learning is about living life. This is freeing to feel as I am studying at university and I sometimes get caught up in that I am only learning there, but overall my experience is the other way around. I learn everywhere if I am open to it – life is my school and I must say one that is so much more enjoyable than the university alone.
Currently our education system is about knowledge, fostering the intelligence from the head and the wisdom we all have inside us when we connect to our soul and take our body into consideration is not taken into account and forgotten.
I am also a forever student of the way of the Livingness and I love how you described it: “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.”
Isn’t it absurd and so far from the truth that we consider it normal that children and young people have to damage and ignore their body to be in the education system. You only have to look at the students nowadays and listen to how they really are both physically and emotionally to see something is not right. And yet we consider it normal and let them harm themselves with what they do to themselves without starting the conversation about another way.
It does look like we only have 2 options to choose from when we are in school: either rebel and say no or try to excel and be the best. You choose the one that isn’t the worst and go along with that. With truth missing and so many children and later grown ups not connected to themselves and their bodies it is no wonder depression is through the roof as are all so many illnesses and diseases.
I am also struck by the pressure that has been put on young people culturally, no matter where they travel in the world, that results in this way of studying and depletion of internal resources. It is culturally disproportionally high and should be an area we look at closely.
There is something about this part of the blog that strikes me, I may even have commented before…”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.” It is because I love science and clearly it speaks to me about the logical nature of how energy works. It is not complicated, it is logical and incredibly simple. I have some data to go look at now, not in a big way, but for the next evolution of understanding the energy that got me to where I am now.
As a parent it is my responsibility to express what learning truly is to my child, especially when he is ready to succumb to the tantalizations of recognition. Truth has to be clearly and consistently shared to our own children as well as to everyone else. We all deserve the opportunity to have truth felt again, although it is also our choice when we choose to align with it.
Bringing love and connection into education is so needed, this should be part of every syllabus, ‘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.’
I see the pressure of performance in education among Asian students who are studying in Australia. It is not uncommon for them to feel shame that only a pass or credit is received when others are achieving Distinctions or High Distinctions. They forget that they are working twice as hard because of language issues and unless given a reminder will drive themselves harder at the expense of their physical health and social connection. This drive has become internalised after a childhood of long hours of study so Adele your ‘social experiment’ is a very important blog that could help many look at education a different way.
The importance we place, demand and or impose on our children’s education is nuts! We have been through the meat grinder ourselves and wish to do the same for them, is this do on to others as others have done on us? If this is all in the pursuit of getting a good job, why will employers always prefer to experience over education everything? Being book smart does mean you can do what you know.
Education needs to be about common sense, connection with others and life skills anything else is just a tick box which destroys spontaneity. Unfortunately thus far our education system has not been based on love, we must change this if we want to live in a society that people actually want to be a part of.
I did not enjoy school. I got bored easily and found memorising very difficult; it felt so unnatural to be tested on what seemed to be my memory so I found school very hard work often checking out. No amount of books I read and studied truly energised me where I felt alive until I came across the purple books written by Serge Benhayon. For the first time in my entire life I actually wanted to read a book and I was awakened in some way every time I picked a purple book up. The books present truth which I had been seeking all my life to support me to connect to my inner most and live my life from this place.
Great blog Adele, what society often champions as success can be so far removed from true success. If whatever we ‘achieve’ is at the expense of our own bodies this can never be considered successful.
Beautifully expressed Adele ‘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.’
“the only true confirmation is in my own body” Adele this is also what the Way of The Livingness has taught me, its shown me what is possible, it’s shown me that I don’t need to be the smartest, the best at something but that the choice to be me and then live life is the greatest gift and what true learning is all about.
I love it when you say “Every moment is an opportunity to learn”. I used to reserve my learning for when I had books in front of me. The rest of the time I was shut off from any kind of learning. I now see it differently – books are for acquiring knowledge and life is for learning.
I too chose academic success which led to disconnection from myself. It was sneaky in that it was very socially acceptable and encouraged. At one point I did an entire university degree in one year whilst I had quite stressful personal circumstances. I still came out with A’s. I was a wreck at the end yet I was congratulated. Academic success is not a bad thing by nature, it is usually the way a person achieves it that is what needs to be looked at.
I had to be very honest with 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 of 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.
Love this Adele. There is so much that learning can be and i love how you have taken the angle of life is science and an experiment to learn from. I am currently studying at university and I can feel the pressure to study hard and get certain grades. Sometimes being very stressed about the situation and how the content is presented. Life and learning can be so different if we choose to make it- you are an awesome example of this.
Education is pretty much reduced to academic performance as it stands, we have to ask ourselves truthfully if this is working or failing? In this blog are some answers as to why people start to give up on themselves and life.
Adele, I love your living experiment and what you have discovered, ‘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. ‘ We can all learn so much by choosing to be aware, by connecting with our body and inner heart, listening to its wisdom and honouring what it lovingly conveys.
“Life is reduced to studying… the awesome possibilities and potential of a human being are reduced to the knowledge from books.” How many other ways in life do we reduce ourselves in this way, trying to fit within the boundaries we have set ourselves. Much of what we do is set by knowledge we have learnt from another. For example…food – the food pyramid, sleep – 8 hours, work – to provide, with set holidays…I could go on. In conforming to these ‘standards’ we stop listening to our own bodies and place our way of living in the hands of others, losing ourselves in the process. By listening to my own body I have learnt…food – I need very little and only from two food groups, sleep – I need four hours, sometimes more, but it changes from day to day, work – is serving others, and I enjoy it, and actually do not need a holiday.
Imagine what more there is to learn when we listen to within rather than look outside for the answers?
Thank you for exposing the huge price in disconnection that students pay for success in the academic field, it may be more extreme in the Asian culture but I am sure this is reflected around the world and that it is only by making the decision to re-connect to ourselves and feel what is true for us that we find our way back to a true way of learning that does not ask us to negate ourselves in the process because it is the way that we choose to live that is our true education.
I wonder how many students or children feel this way, having been a teacher in the education system I would say a lot. What does this say about our education system as it stands? ‘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.’
Adele your wrote: “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.” I wished I had learned that at school – I am sure my life would have been different.
As students, children and people simply, all we ever want is to be met. When students are met in connection, care, authenticity and not holding back by an educator who represents this in his/her living, students simply have the answers within themselves and this is repeatedly observed in the results from their work. There is no other way to truly learn and teach.
Isn’t it interesting how we made intelligence something that demands disconnection from our body, whilst the true intelligence I learned about with Universal Medicine actually is only achieved through connection with the body.
Wow Adele, I love how you unravel the consciousness that runs through academia world wide but at the same time your sharing has a particular flavour that reveals to me how your culture played into this, which gives me a broader perspective and understanding of the Asian culture.
Adele, this sounds like a wonderful love story welcoming yourself back to your soulful self. The world as it seems, is to disconnect us from ourselves. Some find their way back to soul and some are still lost in action. Thank goodness for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I say too!
Imagine an education system where we taught from year dot to lovingly stay connected to our body, that all is about energy and we experienced how in our essence we are all unified and share a universal knowingness. If that were our basis and from there we studied whatever temporal skill or knowledge was needed – what a different world we would have.
Absolutely Nicola, how different the world and our lives would be if we lived this truth from day one.
This life story melts me.
This goes to show that love is the only true way for us to live, and that any exalted levels of knowledge will not be the foundation for a loving and supportive relationship with one’s self.
Absolutely Kate, a singular pursuit of such knowledge will in fact undermine any true relationship with self.
There are two types of intelligence and two ways that we can all learn. The temporal knowledge is important but not without the wisdom of the soul, developed through connection with the body.
I agree Joel, temporal knowledge is important but without love it is empty…
This is so shocking ‘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.’ Age 11 and on tranquillisers!!! It is beautifull how you have felt and seen the truth of all of this, I love what you share about experimenting with what you felt in your heart, that’s inspiring. Recently in the UK there has been a lot of media especially from parents saying they have had enough of all the tests their children have to do at a young age, how we need to let the children be children. I agree with this. Education needs to evolve to a whole different place where it is currently at. A very old consciousness needs to be broken here.
This is the kind of statement that ought to be put on Valentine’s day cards – “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.”. How great would it be if we dropped all the illusion around love and began to consider that we are love and all we have to do is express it?
“What was seen as ‘A’ grades on the outside was very far from my true story that was not told.”
This is the line that should ring alarm bells far and wide – for how can we put grades before the social and emotional wellbeing of our children – I work with a friend who threw herself into her studies and made life all about school work – despite being an A grade student she shared with me how empty, flat and washed up she felt by the end of school. Its stories such as these that we need to be sharing with children in schools – from one students experience to another.
“Loving myself was to constantly say no to what is not natural and choose to live the naturalness that my body knows.”
Adele what is hugely confirming about this blog is the consistent thread of awareness that the way you were living was not true. For no matter how far away we choose to live from our natural selves our bodies, our soul will always impulse us towards the truth.
You descibe how to self love innsuch a practical manner. This is beautiful Adele, as self love is the foundation of everything else.