For a long time, I did not realise that I was living as if my existence needed justification.
I believed, quietly and consistently, that I should not take up too much space. That I should grow up quickly. Become capable early. Learn to stand on my own without asking for help. These were not ideas I questioned — they were assumptions I carried, formed long before I had the language to examine them.
I grew up in China in the 1990s, largely between my grandparents’ home and the city markets where they worked after retirement. My parents were busy, absent more often than present. I was told I was independent, sensible, easy to raise. At the time, I believed this was praise. Only much later did I understand it was a role I had learned to play.
I knew my parents worked hard to provide for me. I knew I should be grateful. And somewhere in that understanding, a simple definition formed in my mind:
love meant provision, not presence.
My task was to be obedient, undemanding, and never a burden.
There were other messages too — half-spoken, casually repeated. I was told that because I was a daughter, I was less welcome in my father’s extended family. I heard words like “the last one,” “the end of the line.” I did not fully understand them, but I absorbed their meaning. I began to believe that I was something unexpected — not rejected, exactly, but not quite what was hoped for either.
So I decided, without announcing it to anyone, that I would make myself undeniable.
I competed with boys, not because I wanted to, but because I thought I had to. When people said boys were naturally better at science, I pushed myself toward it. I ranked at the top of my class in physics and chemistry. I told myself I was proving something — that I was not less, not weaker, not a mistake.
What I was really proving was my right to exist.
This misunderstanding followed me quietly into adulthood. Even as my life changed on the surface — education abroad, career achievements, independence — the internal position remained the same. I learned to give first. To take responsibility early. To absorb pressure without complaint. To believe that if I carried enough weight, I would earn my place.
I did not realise how deeply this belief shaped my relationships.
When my father became ill, I returned to be with him. He had lung cancer. Most of his lung was already compromised. He could barely speak. Yet whenever I was present, he gathered what strength he had and spoke to me as he always had. Calm. Clear. Protective.
After he passed, I found letters he had written to me — words he had never spoken aloud. Only then did I learn how much he had sacrificed without showing it. How little he had allowed himself. How he had quietly emptied his own life to support mine.
He was not distant because he did not care.
He was distant because that was how he knew how to love.
Realising this did not bring immediate peace. In some ways, it made the grief heavier. I understood too late. I loved too late. I grew up too late.
For years after his death, I lived as if he were still somewhere nearby. It took a long time — longer than I care to admit — to fully register that he was gone. That there would be no second chance to give back what I had hoped to offer one day.
In the absence of that unresolved love, I looked for outlets. I gave too much in relationships. I stayed longer than I should have. I tried to repay a debt no one had asked me to carry.
Eventually, something in me reached its limit.
I began to step away from people and situations where my care was expected but not respected. I ended friendships. I walked away from relationships. There was a period in my life that felt like erasure — not dramatic, but deliberate. A clearing.
What followed was unfamiliar territory.
For the first time, I stopped giving automatically.
I stopped offering my energy as proof of worth.
I began to ask myself a different question: What allows me to feel steady?
Healing shifted my internal posture in ways I could not have planned. As I worked through old patterns, something fundamental changed. I no longer felt compelled to exhaust myself for connection. I learned to respect my own limits. To treat my energy as something finite, valuable, and deserving of care.
And slowly — almost reluctantly — I began to receive.
Not grand rewards. Not recognition. Just quiet forms of support. Safe spaces. A home that felt gentle. Companionship that did not demand performance. Work that aligned with my values. Clients who met me with trust and respect. Moments of being helped at exactly the right time.
I realised something important then:
being held is not the same as being dependent.
I had confused the two for most of my life.
I was not a burden learning to survive.
I was a daughter who had never learned she was allowed to rest.
The Empress, in this sense, is not an archetype of abundance or outward nurturing. She represents something more difficult for people like me: the ability to accept care without guilt. To believe that life does not need to be earned through exhaustion.
This chapter of my life was not about doing more.
It was about stopping.
Stopping the constant self-correction.
Stopping the need to justify my existence.
Stopping the belief that love must be repaid in advance.
I began to live differently — slower, softer, more honestly. I allowed myself time. Space. Recovery. I treated my body and spirit not as tools to be used, but as companions to be listened to.
And in that shift, I understood what I had misunderstood for so long.
I was never a burden.
I never had been.
I was always worthy of being cared for — not because of what I could carry, but because I was here.
I was never a burden.
I never had been.
What changed was not the world, but my relationship with myself.
As I began to recognise myself without conditions,
the world reflected that recognition back to me.
Love did not arrive to save me.
It appeared because I was finally able to see it —
and receive it — without believing I had to earn it.
— Yanting
