3.
I Am Not a Worthless Piece of Shit
M
y mother was born in a prestigious family in Indonesia.
She grew up with servants and chauffers running
around serving her. Then she was brain washed to
believe that China was her country and that she must return to her
homeland to help with building the future.
She was the beloved daughter of my grandfather. To satisfy her desire, he
sold the family business and moved the whole family to China. A couple
of years after they arrived, the Chinese Cultural Revolution broke out.
Mum was accused of being an ‘Indonesian spy’ who deliberately married
my father who was a communist member, in order to steal information
from the government.
Mum went through all kinds of hardship and trauma during that horrible
time. She managed to survive physically, but she was mentally quite
damaged by the trauma experienced through the revolution. She became
a very angry person.
In her angry state, which was very often, she would hit me and accuse
me of being a ‘waste of space’, ‘a worthless piece of shit’ and allegations
like ‘you have come to ruin my life.’
106 FREEDOM TO LOVE
Never once did I believe her.
I looked at myself and I was always in awe of my own magnificence. I
would think, ‘I am a human being, so my life is precious. I can see, smell,
hear, feel, talk, think and create. I can be anyone and do anything if I so
choose. I have been given so many gifts, gifts that money cannot buy.
‘I am not a worthless piece of shit and I am not a waste of space, far from
it. I worth just as much as everyone else and I am important. I matter.
‘I have a voice of my own. Only I can speak for myself. No one else is
going to force their opinion down my throat unless I allow them. And
I am not going to allow them.
‘No one else has control over my destiny!
‘I have the say. I am in charge of how I will turn out to be. It is totally
up to me. It is not up to the bullies; it is not up to my mother; it is not
up to my father; it is not even up to God if there is one up there.
‘It is me, who is in charge, who has the say, who has the voice to declare
who I am and who I want to be!
‘Nobody has the right or the power to determine who I am and
how I should live my life! The future is in my own hands.
‘Whatever seed I plant today determines whatever I am going to harvest
tomorrow.’
I knew I wanted to live a really happy, rich and successful life.
I noticed that the times I felt very happy were when I felt very grateful
about something. From that point, I knew gratitude was the major
ingredient for a happy life.
I started to only focus my attention on all the good things in life. Often,
I would be punished by my mum for talking back. She would lock me
in a storage room for hours.
What have I got to feel grateful about then? I would feel grateful that I
had a few ants as friends and that I would be fed a bowl of hot rice with
Breaking Free from the Bondage of Abuse 107
sugar on top when I finally got out of there. Mum always felt guilty after
she punished me, so she always tried to buy my forgiveness by giving
me special treats.
Many people who went through similar type of experiences would have
lived with low self-worth and low self-esteem throughout their adult
lives, but that did not happen to me, because I refused to give the abuser
my power.
No one can destroy your self-belief if you don’t allow it. It is only when
you give your power away that you can be destroyed. Let me say it again,
because this is very important. I found this out from my personal experience, so it is very true to me.
No one in the world can destroy you unless you allow them.
Ultimately, you are responsible for every choice you make.
You can choose to give your power away and be destroyed, or you
can choose to hold your power and create your desired destiny.
I had this insight from a very young age. Where did I get this insight
from? I don’t know, although I often feel I did come with some wisdom
learnt from the past before I was born into this life.
I feel every one of us had been born a master. I feel this truth in
my gut.
The world will be a much better place if we all dwell in the
magnificence of our higher qualities. We would be basking in the
glory of our inner light right now rather than struggling through
our inner darkness.
This knowing that I own my own life and I must be the light unto myself
was what got me through the darkest hours of my life; it was what made
me ward off the negative impact of abuse; it was what made me rise
above self-pity and respect my inner value.
After many years of self-study, I realised an even deeper understanding
of this key. One day after a long meditation, an awakening struck me. I
108 FREEDOM TO LOVE
was led by my higher spirit to see a profound truth which changed my
life forever.
I used to think my mother hated me, for why would she abuse me if she
did not hate me? But that day, a realisation was gifted to me.
I was led to see that my mother only ‘appeared’ to hate me. Her hatred
to me was a form of love, a twisted, retarded form of unconscious love,
from a person with a victim mentality.
In an unevolved human mind, love and hate arise from the same Fear
of not being good enough; they are just delivered in a different way.
When she was buried deeply in her own psychological pain, and when
she was trapped in her deep guilt, love was expressed as hatred towards
the person she wanted to love.
This explains why people often hurt those they love the most. My mother
abused me out of her fear of inadequacy. Violence is fear screamed out
loud. All violent people are scared and weak people who have no inner
power.
Once I had this realisation, compassion instantly arose in me towards
my mother. Years before, I swore that I would never let my mother come
near my children. But once I realised my mother’s inner suffering, I
immediately brought her over to Australia to live with me in the hope
that I could heal her.
By that time, I had a thriving natural medicine healing centre with ten
practitioners working for me. I was a very successful Chinese Medicine
practitioner, with a waiting list of four to six months. I used to spend
ten hours at work and then come home to a mother who would criticise
me for not folding my laundry properly.
Nothing I did was ever good enough for her. A lot of people suffer from
the same problem with their parents. They feel they can never satisfy
their parents’ expectation. There is no end to the so-called success that
the parents want them to achieve.
Breaking Free from the Bondage of Abuse 109
One day, Mum was sitting at the dining table complaining about
something I did not do right. Normally, when she complained, I tried
not to look at her. But that day, I looked her in the eyes when she was
complaining.
What I saw astonished me to the core of my being. I saw a profound
sadness in her eyes, a really deep grieving kind of sadness as if she was
mourning the death of someone she loved.
Suddenly, I realised she was mourning the death of her own dreams. She
was born with the voice of an angel; she could have become one of the
country’s best opera singers if it wasn’t for the revolution.
Her mourning had turned into a kind of bitter jealousy towards my
success. The more successful I became, the more her bitterness grew
towards me.
I went over and sat in front of my mother. I reached out to touch her
hand, but she pulled it back quickly and stared at me with hostility as
if I was an enemy who was going to attack her.
At that moment, I saw a very scared person, a person who felt so inferior
that she had to pretend to be someone tough. The only way she could
feel better was by putting someone else down in order to give her a fake
feeling of being superior.
I started to cry. The realisation of her deep profound sadness opened my
heart to feel her pain. I could feel every bit of it – all her broken dreams,
regrets, pain, guilt, shame and remorse.
I felt her, all of her and I cried. Tears were flooding out uncontrollably.
My mother pushed the chair back, stood up, then screamed at me, ‘What
are you crying for, you worthless piece of shit?
‘You are the one who is successful. You are the one who always gets what
you want, so what have you got to cry about?’ Her face was turning red
and blue, her arms were waving in the air. She was raging.
I did not react to her rage, because the rage was just a cover-up for her
deep-seated fear of inadequacy and a sense of failure. She judged herself
110 FREEDOM TO LOVE
so badly inside and all she was doing was projecting her judgement
outwards towards me.
I realised it was not me she was accusing, but herself. When she screamed
at me ‘you useless piece of shit’, she was screaming at herself – she was
calling herself that, not me. I was just a fake target, as she was her own
enemy.
With this understanding, I let go of all judgements against my
mother.
I walked to her, held on to her arms, looked her in the eyes, then slowly
spoke out these words: ‘Mum, look at me. I love you. You are a good
mum. You did the best you could.
‘I love you. I don’t blame you. I really don’t. I understand you, I understand
your pain, and I want to take it away from you, but I cannot do that for
you. You have to let it go yourself before it kills you.
‘It is right now killing your joy of living. What is the point of living like
this? It hurts me seeing you hurting yourself. You must let go of the past.
You can’t live in the past.
‘Today is a new day. Tomorrow is a new day. Let us look forward, not
backward. Mum, I want you to live a long life. I want you to be at my
children’s wedding. You are my mum. I am grateful for you. I wouldn’t
be here if it was not for you. I am grateful for you, truly, Mum.’
With these words, she collapsed in my arms. I held her close to my heart
for a long time while she let out her sorrow, pain, guilt and shame in her
cry. She never called me ‘a worthless piece of shit’ after that day.
She still went on criticising me, as nothing I did was ever good enough
still, but she tried hard not to give in to her impulse to complain. I saw
her trying hard to restrain herself from judging me.
Mum has been living in Australia for fifteen years now. She is the happiest
she has ever been. My love for her slowly but surely has been healing
her pain.
Breaking Free from the Bondage of Abuse 111
I want nothing more than her healing before she leaves this earth. She
once wrote me a letter and asked for my forgiveness. I thanked her for
the letter and told her that there was nothing for me to forgive. She did
not do anything to harm me.
She could not harm me because I did not place myself under her power
to be harmed. However, she was harming herself in inflicting pain upon
me as well as herself.
All harm done to others is self-harming.
All abuse to others is in fact self-abuse.
I helped her to realise that and helped her to release herself from the
bondage of self-blame. I told her that her abuse to me did not affect me
in a negative way; on the contrary, I was very grateful to her.
She was a reflection, a mirror of who I do not want to become. Without
her abuse, I would not have grown the way I did.
As a result of this experience, I have become a much better mother to
my children. She loved me through her pain, but I chose to release my
pain through loving her.
The only way you can heal pain is through love.
One day, she told my daughter that I was the best mother any child could
ever hope to have and that she was sorry for hurting me for many years.
My daughter Grace, wiped off her tears and kissed her on her cheek.
Then she said to her, ‘Don’t be sad, Grandma, it is not too late to start
loving my mummy. Just start now.’
This is how people heal, through enduring love, compassion, acceptance
and understanding, not through righteous judgements. Right now, a lot
of people out there are still suffering from family relationship breakdowns.
It is a real shame that families cannot be close. It is in every person’s dying
wish that they have better relationship with families.
Please do make it a priority. Open yourself up for healing, look inside
112 FREEDOM TO LOVE
yourself, be brave enough to confess that you are suffering, know that
you don’t need to suffer and you’re going to stop this nonsense.
POINTS OF REFLECTION
FOR YOUR DAILY CONTEMPLATION:
1. I am going to learn the tools from this book to stop
suffering and heal my life.
Life is truly precious. Don’t give up on it. You may believe there
is life after death, but you can’t be sure. No one knows what will
happen after we die. We will have to die to find out the truth
for ourselves. What if this is the only chance we have?
Please love yourself, your parents, your children, your sisters and
brothers no matter how ‘badly’ they appear to treat you.
Love them, without judgement, without being righteous about
who did right or who did wrong.
2. Time is running out. Every day that goes by is a day closer
to the end of life.
Stop spending your energy in fixing broken things; instead, spend
the energy in restoring relationships.
At the end of your life, you are not going to regret not having
repaired a broken chair, but you will regret not having healed
your relationship with your brother, parents and children.
Breaking Free from the Bondage of Abuse 113
At the deepest level, you will regret not having healed yourself
and leaving this world with unfulfilled wishes.
I hope you do take this very important message home.
3. No matter how much you have been abused, no matter
who abused you, you can never be a victim unless you choose
to be one.
You only ‘appeared’ to be a victim. Your ‘abuser’ did not pick
you. You have attracted him or her into your life to create the
circumstance for you to become a better person through inner
evolution.
All my abusers can break my body, can try to destroy my mind,
but they cannot touch my spirit, which is who I am in the highest
sense of my existence.
In the spiritual reality, my soul has called upon my abuser to
come and induce my inner growth in the process of asserting
my inner power and learning how to truly forgive, let go, detach
and move on.
4. To end suffering for good, we must be willing to become
more conscious human beings.
We must bare our hearts open to receive the higher form of
love, the conscious love, the love that enables us to forgive our
enemies.
This is the road to the Kingdom of Heaven, according to Jesus
and Buddha, and it makes perfect sense to me.
So I am on the path. I hope you do join me on this path of love,
freedom, peace and everlasting happiness.