I have came a long way to learn how to receive from others.
For many years, I didn’t know how to receive from others. I didn’t know that this was an issue to begin with.
I always thought it was perfectly normal to give much more than I receive. I thought this was how I should be & must be, in order to be loved & accepted by others & society generally. To receive, or even harbour the thought to receive, seemed morally wrong & unacceptable to me. It felt as if my act of giving was in fact tainted by my expectation to receive.
For many years, I subjected myself to a strict code of conduct on anything involving giving to, and receiving from, others. That I should always strive to give as much as I could to people around me. At the same time, I did not allow myself to receive anything in return, or even went as far as to reject or dismiss any attempts by others to reciprocate.
Whenever I needed to borrow anything from others, be it a piece of tissue paper or foolscap paper, it would usually be my last resort. By then, I would have mentally explored & exhausted all other options. Even so, it was very difficult for me to verbalise my request to borrow from others. If I could, I would much prefer to sort things out on my own, without having to depend on anybody else. Each time I borrowed from others, I always made it a point to promptly return what I borrowed.
For many years, this is how I remembered myself to be: Always giving, barely or not receiving.
If I could trace back to when it all began in this lifetime, I think it started with my family conditioning. I learned from my parents, who were my role models, of how I should behave as a person to others around me.
Since young, I witnessed how lopsided my dad’s acts of giving to his family (particularly his parents & siblings) were. My dad quietly paid the exorbitant amounts of hospital bills accumulated by his mother, each time she was sent to the most expensive hospital in Singapore. In addition, my dad was expected to pay generous amounts of allowances to his father, and indirectly funding some of his siblings & their families, in order to be loved & accepted by them. Over the years, the expenses included monthly bills to engage the domestic helper for his parents, generous annual allowances to his father, generous ad-hoc payments to his father to pay two of his siblings & families’ trips to the ancestral village of China, and many more.
Despite my dad’s selfless contributions to his family, nobody acknowledged his contributions. It often seemed as if his contributions were taken for granted. That my dad, being the eldest of six siblings, should take up all these financial obligations in his stride. It was his sole problem, not a collective responsibility. Yet, for everything that he had done for his family, unfortunately, his father and siblings often viewed him with deep mistrust & suspicion. To the extent that nobody informed him that his parents bought a bungalow & a sibling even held a birthday celebration there in his absence. On one occasion, I recalled how furious he was & how he demanded to speak to his father. What happened next was a scene etched in my memory even till now. His father stood on top of the flight of stairs, nonchalantly watching from afar as my dad shouted & struggled physically with his siblings, only to be wrestled onto the ground with two buttons ripped off his shirt. That was my dad’s way of airing his grievances of being excluded from his family, before he drove us home.
As I combed through my memory, I recalled another scene at a restaurant where we gathered to celebrate my grandfather’s birthday. Through my years of growing up, I always recalled my grandfather to be a highly extroverted person whom I describe as pompous & attention-seeking. He loved to be the center of attention in every occasion (even someone else’s wedding) and glorified on a pedestal. I didn’t grow up with a good impression of him at all. He made it mandatory for all his children & grandchildren to gather each year at the exact date to celebrate his birthday. On that occasion, I was sitting alone beside my elder cousin, away from my parents, while waiting for my relatives to arrive. My cousin suggested that we order a drink from the menu. Back then, I didn’t know where my boundaries were on such social settings, and I instinctively asked my mum if I could order a drink from the menu. My mum immediately relayed my request to my dad. Next I know, he glared at me and warned, “don’t you dare to order anything from the menu”. I looked down & didn’t dare to engage him further. I had no recollection of the celebration that followed, be it the lavish 6-8 course dinner or the cake-cutting ceremony. All I could recall was my dad’s angry face & words, and my mounting fear of what would happen to me afterwards. On our car ride back, he sternly warned me that everything on the menu incurs separate charges, and we shouldn’t owe grandfather anything. From then on, I became extremely mindful not to receive anything from others, in order not to owe them anything.
Since young, I also witnessed how my mum silently endured all the hardships that came her way, in order to be a dutiful wife to my dad, daughter in-law to my grandparents, and mother to her three beloved children. For most of her life, she had no qualms making huge personal sacrifices, in order to love & care for everyone else. When my dad was clocking long hours doing shift work as an engineer, she single-handedly brought us up, even when she was on my grandparents’ beck and call to help out for free at their hardware shop nearby. When my dad started his hardware shop, my mum quietly committed many years of her life toiling day & night at the shop. Even when my dad’s health worsened & couldn’t afford to endure the long hours any more, my mum continued to soldier on for all of us. For a long time, at every meal, she had the habit of giving everything to all of us, while leaving almost nothing for herself. For breakfast, she would even prepare excessive portions for all of us, while feeding herself with leftovers that nobody wants. On one occasion, I couldn’t take it any more and sarcastically commented that she is always waiting for leftovers from all of us, instead of allocating a fair & clean portion for herself. Why does she feel unworthy or undeserving of allocating a fair & clean portion for herself? She burst out crying, for my harsh & insensitive words hurt her deeply. I immediately regretted & apologised. From then on, my mum started allocating a fair & clean portion for herself. At a subconscious level, I was very much influenced by my mum’s actions of giving almost everything to others, without receiving anything in return.
On hindsight, the family conditioning was instrumental in shaping my foundational beliefs in my interactions with others – how I should always give to, rather than receive from, others.
For many years, I was very much guided by this belief of giving rather than receiving. When I was clocking long hours as an associate at a law firm, I was constantly giving in to the needs & expectations of others, at my expense. Be it trying to please my difficult boss & all other bosses, apologising for everything that I was being scolded for (whether rightly or wrongly), working & stressing myself to the limit in order to complete all matters assigned to me, to the point of overworking & torturing my precious physical body at my expense. Instead of feeling deeply satisfied with the money, status & reputation that I had acquired, I ended up feeling empty & meaningless about life. At one point, I even thought that there was no real meaning, and nothing to look forward to, in my life. It felt as if I was operating like a work machine, with no end in sight.
Despite my hectic schedule, I decided to sign up as a befriender to seniors living alone & at risk of isolation, in order to search for greater meaning in life. For five years, it became my weekly commitment to visit the seniors under my charge. My first three years were spent with seniors at the Ang Mo Kio region, and my last two years were spent with seniors at the Redhill region. Through my voluntary work experiences, I learned so much more about myself and life generally.
(1) Nothing is permanent in life. Even if we tried our best to cling on to our money & all other material possessions, all of us inevitably have to die one day. How then do we want to live our life each day, so that we have no regrets any time we leave?
(2) Life can be simple or difficult. It is up to us to choose what we want. We can strive to endlessly chase for things in life, or we can simply be contented with what we have, or anything in between.
(3) To yearn for love & acceptance by others is normal. It is human nature.
(4) It is exhausting to always give, rather than receive. Why am I always prioritising the needs of others, at my expense?
It took me a few years to understand (4) above. Similar to my parents, I found myself constantly giving to others everywhere I went. It reached the point where I was physically, mentally & emotionally exhausted. Even my body protested in the form of inflammation & chronic fatigue that refused to go away. On one occasion, the inflammation lasted for several weeks, and culminated in the form of pinkish-red spots all over my legs & a visibly red vein connecting from my left finger to my heart. After consulting my specialist, I was given steroids for two weeks, before the inflammation subsided. Even after I learned Reiki, I continued to have short episodes of inflammation in my body.
It was then I realised that maybe there is a deeper issue that I have yet to uncover within myself. Why is my body constantly protesting with the episodes of inflammation? How have I been treating my body & even my emotional well-being?
At that point, I realised that I have overworked myself. I didn’t allocate much time & space to rest & heal my physical body, or to achieve an inner state of harmony. Instead, I was often rushing around, trying to complete as many tasks as possible. At work, though I have changed jobs, I continued to take on people’s issues as if they were my own. Further, I wasn’t in a healthy space to cope with my voluntary work, as my joints were frequently in pain & I couldn’t enjoy listening to the seniors as much as I wanted to. To be in a healthy space to love others, I need to learn to love & prioritise myself first.
So I did. One difficult decision I made, was to end my voluntary work after 5 years as a befriender. By then, the seniors had grown attached to me, hence it was a struggle to hand over the reins to my buddy to continue. On one hand, I felt guilty for abandoning them, instead of seeing them through. On the other hand, I felt that it was a life-changing move for me, to finally learn how to love & prioritise myself first, in all areas of my life. And so, I moved on.
My focus on healing my physical body & associated emotional pain, then brought me to other modalities besides Reiki. That also brought me to my journey here today as an Akashic Records Reader.
I am glad to be here to serve, this time with a deeper understanding of myself & others.
Sending you lots of Love & Light! 💚🌟
Masters, do you have anything to share with us on this topic?
Be brave, my child, for everything that you are enduring in life right now. It takes a lot of courage to see each perceived mistake & struggle in context, to guide us to realise how we can truly assist ourselves & others in life. The learning opportunities exist everywhere, so long as the mind is ready to receive & embrace. You can be a better version of yourself each moment, each day. Nothing is impossible. Nothing is stopping you from discovering your infinite potential that resides within. You can do it! 🌞
If you would like to uncover deeper clarity & healing within yourself, you may want to consider a general or themed Akashic Light Reading & Healing session, depending on your needs. In addition, I have recently co-created with my Akashic Masters on a bundled themed session titled “STRONGER IN LOVE”, systematically focusing on exploring deeply on our relationship with others, family and self. Click link below for more details.
