An adoptee’s journey of learning to receive

Words SANDRA MEEHAN

We have all heard that you should learn to receive more and open your heart to others. It sounds simple enough when it rolls off the tongue; yet, for those who have been adopted, it is one of the hardest things to do.

It is a well-known fact that our core belief systems are formed in the first seven years of our life. Every mother knows there is a bond that develops between mother and baby well before birth.

Spending nine months inside the womb hearing her voice and feeling her love, and then being placed into a cold crib straight after birth with no one to comfort your cries, has left an emotional scar on most adoptees. Many believe that if they were not worthy enough to receive their mother’s love, then no-one else will find them worthy.

My adoption journey was a little different. I had three mothers while under the age of three, and this belief was even more ingrained. As a child, each fortnight my grandmother would take my two brothers and me to the toy shop and buy them a toy matchbox car, and I would receive nothing.

Like most other adoptees I have spoken to, I became the martyr by always doing for others and never allowing others to do for me – never truly allowing others to get close to me in case they left. I lived my life behind many masks and was excellent at being everything others wanted me to be for many years.

This changed when I heard someone say that those who come into this world to be adopted are truly special souls, as they have come here to master the lesson of abandonment. This was the catalyst for me to learn to receive from others, slowly take off the masks and, more importantly, open my heart to fully receive from those who wish to give to me without any conditions.

So I ask you to think about this the next time you go to tell someone that they should learn to receive more and open their heart to others or judge them as being cold. Take a moment to ask yourself what has happened in their life to make them like this. I also ask you to see the amazing soul behind the human personality.

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