by Barbara Horne
My Life before Universal Medicine?
Ever felt… “What’s the meaning of having this life anyway?”
OR even worse – thinking that you do know what it’s all about, and everything is still crap?
OR maybe you are like me and just didn’t want to know because that would mean a level of responsibility that we are just not ready for yet? That is, maybe my life was not so great because I was the one making it not so great?…
It was so easy to continue to not feel what my body was telling me. How I was living my life and not wanting to ‘truthfully’ know what was going on. How many expectations I had invested in others, how I floated through life taking on everyone else’s stuff. It was so easy to pretend things went wrong in my life because of others’ actions, so easy to point at others as the cause of my own unhappiness. You know the way it goes… We’ve all blamed life, people, circumstances rather than taking responsibility for ourselves.
Yet at the same time, there was a part of me that knew innately that the lack of meaning in my life was not a result of anyone or anything external. By attending Universal Medicine presentations and workshops I was then very gently shown a way to truly look within myself. Through the teachings of Universal Medicine and the living example of Serge Benhayon, his family, the practitioners and other students, I observed the level of love and integrity that they consistently held for themselves and all others.
Oh yes, I have always been described as a loving person, people have always come to me to talk things over or ask advice. But until I began attending the Universal Medicine workshops and began taking responsibility for my own health, my life and how the way I live each day affects myself and others, I realised that what I thought was loving, nurturing, caring, was not done in the true energy, the love that I know myself to be today. I have had many years looking for a ‘quick fix’ to life, but it’s not out there… Oh No!… I did find that it’s not so quick, and that actually it was within all along. I now accept that no one else can do it for me… I can’t hand my life over to someone else like a broken bicycle and say, “make that work again, will you?”.
I am on the way to truly understanding what my life is about, trusting my feelings and bringing in my full awareness to all that I am, not just reacting to life. I am taking time to ‘feel’ my way.
Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine present information, ancient wisdom, that when heard, feels like, “Ahhhh… I knew that!… So how and why have I not been living it?” Through listening to what my body was telling me, i.e. I’m bloated, noticing that particular foods makes me sleepy, etc. I slowly began changing my diet and eating habits a few years ago. I can say without any doubt that I have gone from a tired, physically exhausted, overweight body that only managed to ‘get through a day’s work’, to a vital worker each and every day who ‘enjoys a day’s work’ and returns home each day, yes sometimes physically tired, but never mentally exhausted and I sleep soundly at night. How many people can truly say that they are sleeping well?
Who hasn’t looked for happiness?…
When I first started attending workshops I was looking for ‘happiness’, I now know, through being honest with myself that my understanding of happiness was anything which stopped me from truly feeling how I had been, just getting through life. Because happiness was for me a fluctuating state of being that required something to feed it continually to allow it to be felt, and that it relied on others or things or thrills to bring about.
I found myself out… I became aware that happiness wasn’t really what I wanted at all! But if I didn’t want happiness, what did I want? Oh no… this meant I could no longer blame anyone else if I didn’t have it, whatever it was… ummmmm… There’s an awful amount of self-honesty required in all this!
I now have something very precious, true JOY in myself, joy in looking at life and really feeling this great gift of life itself. I now can be the ‘real’ me with my children and with my grandchildren, simple joy in their company, love without having to receive anything in return, the same love a small child gives, no reservation, no expectation in anyway that it will be reciprocated, a way of just truly being real in the presence of another. No one has ever had to tell me I was love, this has always been my truth. But Serge has shown me via Universal Medicine presentations and his living example how I can truly ‘live’ that love and hold a reflection of that love that is within me for others.
So?… I have not turned into anything!… I have become more honest with myself. I now hold an awareness that I am responsible for my own life, my own choices, my interactions with others, and I can truly just be the real me. Not the ‘me’ that used to make others comfortable as they too looked for and chased an elusive and fleeting happiness. The presentations, workshops and sessions that I have attended with Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine and various practitioners have supported my own inner wisdom to a point of realising that I know that I am truly no longer just getting through life but ‘living’.
I am on my way home to myself.
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
What if this is the meaning of life? To be more and more honest with what you are feeling. Some of us may say they already do that or that this is natural for them but like life, everything changes in an instant, in fact it changes in every instant. If we are getting caught by something, shocked, unexpectedly blind sided etc etc then I would say we aren’t being truly honest and in that we aren’t truly living. There is a way to live that allows you to see everything, it has you prepared for anything and it’s not like you live like a robot. You still get hurt, upset, happy, sad etc but in your next step you don’t keep walking that way. You catch that something is up and you allow yourself to settle with that and you be honest with what you are actually feeling. Life isn’t about perfection or making a better human it’s about being more and more honest with what you are truly feeling and to see this we need to support ourselves in the way we live, you can’t just click your fingers for an answer. The way you are with everything sets forward what your next step will see, live blind and you won’t see, live with your eyes wide and you will see everything.
Thanks Barb, great to read your blog again, I enjoyed how you shared from such a realness and stated it exactly as it was, I’m sure many people could relate. The fleeting happiness that relies on outer experiences is so flimsy compared to the love and joy we can experience from within ourselves and learn to stay connected to consistently. I know that happiness path very well but having had the opportunity to study with Universal Medicine has meant I am also “on my way home to myself” and experiencing that love and joy within.
It is so much more simpler and effective to be inspired by a person who is a living example of what they share.
When we place expectations and conditions on others they without doubt feel the burden and imposition of them.
This is why I am a forever student, learning to take responsibility to a deeper level, ‘ taking responsibility for my own health, my life and how the way I live each day affects myself and others, I realised that what I thought was loving, nurturing, caring, was not done in the true energy, the love that I know myself to be today.’
Yes, it is very inspiring to see and feel the love Serge Benhayon and family have for all, ‘the level of love and integrity that they consistently held for themselves and all others.’
For me learning to take responsibility for my life was not as scary as I thought, I can now see how much harder and more exhausting is was to continually blame others and situations. Responsibility and love are two powerful ingredients that allow us the space to understand life, our relationships and ourselves in a true way.
There is no doubt whatsoever within me that for us all to truly get along with one another we have to look within ourselves and take responsibility for everything we create in our lives. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine from their livingness, the love they choose to live is inspiring me to live in this way.
Realising that self responsibility is a thing, is enormous in itself. We grew up imposing on others to do the work for us, to make us happy and deliver on our expectations. None of it ever works in the end, it will always leave us insatiable, because we never get what we ultimately want, and this is appreciating and accepting ourselves first…after that, we no longer ‘need’ from others, and are then able to just enjoy others as they are.
You were searching for happiness and what you found was joy, that is extraordinary in this world and something to bring to a normal for everyone.
This is such a beautiful blog Barbara, I love your honesty in seeing how you’re responsible for how you are and love how you note that you’ve not turned into anything, you’ve just become more honest with yourself. That is a great understanding to reach that we do not need to become anything but actually get real with ourselves and understand we hold the keys to our own lives, and with honesty we can choose what supports us and see what does not.
I felt to read this blog again because of the great wisdom that was shared.. Being you whether it is negative or positive is a responsibility. It makes sense then if I feel tension, feel sick, unsettled, in reaction or not being respected etc, I’m not acting in my authority of being myself. We all come with a great responsibility to be ourselves and act in life. If things are not the way we know they should be – are we being responsible and who we really are?
An intelligent read Barbara. A great definition between happiness a false ideal to Joy an innate feeling in the body that through your Livingness will determine how you can consistently hold it. A great read!
Life is our responsibility, living it in a loving way is our choice. And this brings an opportunity for everyone to come back to who they truly are.
“I am on the way home to myself” I love this line, its powerful in its simplicity. Being responsible is one of the things that is scariest to us as humans. Its much easier when we can blame the environment or big business or cancer or work. Bringing things back to our daily choices means feeling all we have actually inflicted on ourselves, there is a deep sadness when you begin to feel this but beyond the sadness is a heart that is in fact untouched, just buried but not broken, its whole and the possibilities from there are endless.
As long as we blame someone or something outside of us for the workings of our lives we completely disempower ourselves, in fact we blame others until we decide it is time to take the responsibility to do something with our life.
We blame the world and others so readily for what does not sit easy within the self. It is a penchant of our spirit, the part of us that would rather not take full self-responsibility for the living of our life in grace and the fullness of our power.
Thank-you for sharing so openly about the blame you harboured Barbara, and the way expectations upon others to fulfil you, ruled your relationships. How powerful it is to truly take stock of this, and re-empower ourselves with the knowing that to harbour blame is to hold ourselves back from a love that is here to be lived, and shared, with all.
Hear, hear Barbara Horne, your words also echo my own direct experience: “Serge [Benhayon] has shown me via Universal Medicine presentations and his living example how I can truly ‘live’ that love and hold a reflection of that love that is within me for others.”
The power of just one person’s living example of what the real deal of love is, has transformed countless lives – including mine also. I can’t thank Serge Benhayon enough for being willing to tell it as it is, and shine so brilliant a light that decades (if not lifetimes) of giving up on what love truly means in our everyday living, can be transformed.
Babara I really appreciate what you have said about happiness. There is a real hook here for all of us to think that attaining perpetual happiness is it. When we get it it’s enough for us to keep on wanting more, like any drug, especially when happiness was being elusive.
Its quite an eye opening moment when you realise that you are where you are due to the choices you have been making… but also deeply empowering in knowing you can then choose to live a life that through self caring and loving choices, is deeply rewarding through the transformation that follows and the amazing and inspirational effect your choices have on others.
Honesty is the tool to come back to who we truly are, living in the joy of our own heart.
You know Barbara – what you write here is what countless sociologists have been writing and pondering about for centuries. The meaning of life, why we are so incontent with life as individuals in this society. And the answer is just so close. In fact it’s already within us. That has been said many times but no one seems to know how to bring it out. Until Serge Benhayon presented it.
The best thing do is to be on the way back to oneself – inside you can find everything. There will be a big offer outside of you but that will not satisfy as much as the true love you will find inside of you.
With every step we let go of behaviours/things that do not serve us truly we feel more of the spaciousness and joy life can be, so with every step more we can build upon the former to become more aware and understand that there is so much more to life than we had seen before.
To understand that life is about love and the responsibility that comes with this is huge, and then to say yes to this and live accordingly is a blessing for us all.
Wow Barbara – thank you. You reminded me that until I encountered Universal Medicine I had thought that happiness was the end goal of life. I can now see that the happiness I was seeking was empty, cold and very limiting. There is nothing that can compare to the joy of knowing we are living who we are.
Honesty is all that it takes, honesty about how we live. Taking full responsibility that only we got the means to change it for ourself, choosing love in all that we do is what is needed.
Great to read your blog Barbara, I felt really inspired by this line about being love like a small child – “love without having to receive anything in return, the same love a small child gives, no reservation, no expectation in anyway that it will be reciprocated.” There is such joy in remembering that this is how we have all been and can return to, thankyou.
‘I am on the way to truly understanding what my life is about, trusting my feelings and bringing in my full awareness to all that I am, not just reacting to life. I am taking time to ‘feel’ my way.’ It is life changing when we come to know and connect to our body and are able to be led by how our body feels.
Self responsibility is the clear message I get after reading your blog Barbara
I enjoy sifting through my life to find the small parts that do not serve. This is the process of constant refinement to live a naturally joyful life we all rightfully deserve.
“maybe my life was not so great because I was the one making it not so great?…” This was a truth I had to face up to when I started listening to the words of wisdom from Serge Benhayon. On the surface my life was all I could expect it to be in a troubled world but there was always a shadow of something missing, an occasional break in the clouds when a ray of fleeting happiness shone through only for the clouds to close again. Through Universal Medicine I have found the constant light of love within me as I too have found that something missing – me.
Loved every word Barbara! Your writing is so honest. Since coming to Universal medicine, you looked within and found the JOY that is you, I could hear you say this all day long. How lovely to hear the now you have a confidence and trust in your own love and let it out openly without an expectation that it should return.
“I know that I am truly no longer just getting through life but ‘living’.” I can relate to what you have shared here in your conclusion of this beautiful and honest blog about a true change. Getting through life from the outside in is exhausting always trying to escape the emptiness. Living from the inside out is pure joy, no matter what happens because this source will never run dry and provides a quality of truth and love.
Great explanation about happiness Barbara; ‘Because happiness was for me a fluctuating state of being that required something to feed it continually to allow it to be felt, and that it relied on others or things or thrills to bring about’ Happiness is asking for peaks and after the peak there is unavoidable the down. Living knowing the love that we are has nothing to do with happiness, it is asking us to be honest and live a life in awareness and to go from honesty to truth.
Barbara this is a lovely sharing and many of us including me can relate to most of it. How great to know that by truly being honest with ourselves and not shirking our self responsibility , how much we grow in Love and joy! So who wouldn’t take the journey!
So many of us want to become something/someone and spend lifetimes chasing after that, hoping that it would bring the big change we so desire. It feels to be a true homecoming when we finally get reminded that we never had to go anywhere and turn into something/someone else – just being more of ourselves is all that’s needed.
The blame game is constant. I hear it every day. If it’s not someone else its the weather or the prime minister. Accepting responsibility for everything that occurs in your life is quite an interesting journey because up to then it felt I didn’t own any of my reactions. Once I took ownership, it’s like walking around with a mirror 24/7, which made me change my thought processes instantly and made myself 100% responsible.
Barbara I relate to what you have written about happiness being a fluctuating state that is dependant upon something outside us, and joy that you feel within yourself, that confirms life as a gift. I loved your description of you being the real you with your family and everyone.
Who hasn’t wondered about the meaning of life? Or wanted to know the secret to happiness? Good questions and I have definitely asked both many times in my life but thanks to the inspiration from Universal Medicine I feel I am getting closer to the answers to both of these questions.
‘happiness was for me a fluctuating state of being that required something to feed it continually to allow it to be felt, and that it relied on others or things or thrills to bring about.’ – I can relate to this idea very much. Happiness feels like a bottomless pit, that really does requires a lot of work to fill. I can’t say that I experience joy everyday, but I can say that over the last few years, my commitment to myself has increased a steadiness within me that does not seek the peaks and troughs I used to experience, which, I find, is a much more enjoyable way of being.
‘I now have something very precious, true JOY in myself, joy in looking at life and really feeling this great gift of life itself. ‘ – It’s beautiful what you have shared with us Barbara and the best part is that it’s a gift that keeps on giving.
Yep Barbara, I recon many people can relate to what you have shared. My body too resonates with a ‘ahhhh, I knew that’ when many things are shared from the ancient wisdom. It’s lovely to hear.. Like an old story about your childhood being told again.
Taking responsibility of self is the first step of true healing and you have illustrated that well in you blog Barbara.
Barbara, I have just enjoyed a re-read of your blog. Most of us came to Universal Medicine searching for some answers to what was missing in our lives. Initially I found it both confronting and a relief that the answers lay within me in the way I live my life. It was confronting to have to ‘own’ all the choices I have made to get to this point yet so powerful to realise that joy, beauty and tenderness are all naturally part of me and that through a commitment to steadily building self love I could support myself to get back to this.
Barbara, I found so many parts of your blog resonated with me, especially your development to understand the difference between ‘happiness’ and joyful living. You have given me plenty to reflect on as I go about my day, thank you!
Universal medicines presentations and modalities all present and support the fact that we are totally and completely responsible for what happens in our life, what doesn’t happen in our life and how our life unfolds. To feel and accept the truth that ‘maybe my life was not so great because I was the one making it not so great?…’ means taking responsibility for all the choices you have made that have got you to where you are right now. This fact can bring out an ouch and a depth of understanding to how your life has unfolded that sometimes you just don’t want to feel. It also effectively removes blame from the equation and when blame is taken out of the picture we can be left feeling raw and exposed… and feeling the degree to which we are actually responsible for our own lives. Ouch again. Great blog Barbara!
Thank you Barbara, like you I have a completely different way of living responsibility, not having to be responsible for others, but learning how to look after my body and my nervous system, and my psychological well-being. I too now know the difference between getting by in life and truly living, thanks to Serge Benhayon.
Being honest with ourselves and taking responsibility for our life and all our choices is a game changer. Most people can agree with this, but most people struggle to make this happen, Universal Medicine is a huge support to help make it happen, and the changes are incredibly worth while.
I found myself reading your blog again today, Barbara and it was like reading a different blog. It is beautiful how we are ever changing when we make different choices about how to treat ourselves on an ongoing basis. Life can be ever evolving and beautiful once we begin to be honest about where we are at and to see there are many layers that have hidden away the way I was willing to manipulate life to convince myself that it was OK. As you have said in your blog ‘Through the teachings of Universal Medicine and the living example of Serge Benhayon, his family, the practitioners and other students, I observed the level of love and integrity that they consistently held for themselves and all others’. With the support of these reflections I am inspired to go deeper to find the true truth of what life is all about – and it is amazing.
Thank you Barbara for your lovely blog – it was lovely to feel that you are now: ‘on my way home to myself’. For me it was a great moment, when I recognised that after all the searching outside of myself, I had now arrived, that in the company of Universal Medicine students I felt at home. This has gradually built to a point, where I am now able to take this out into the world and to gradually feel at home with everyone.
I love the way in which you described happiness Barbara, a state that requires constant feeding. It sounds quite exhausting to constantly seek happiness, yet I know from speaking to a friend how much he dislikes the word joy, perhaps that is because joy has been bastardised in its meaning and gives the impression of being quite full on, or perhaps it is because living anything less than joy is a compromise that it hurts to accept we are living.
Thank you Barbara and Stephen. Feeling exhausted by chasing and feeding happiness feels so true. For many people life did not have true joy until they started to attend the presentations of Serge Benhayon. So why do people compromise by not allowing themselves to feel the hurts by chasing and feeding happiness? Our true joy comes with a greater awareness of the lived stillness that is within us all equally. The students of the Livingness now embrace joy consistently because we understand joy come from fire and is eternal!!
I love this blog Barbara – so very real and refreshingly honest! I too went “I know this” after listening to Serge Benhayon & Universal Medicine’s presentations. Great to hear your journey, thank you for sharing.
It is a magnificent path that Serge Benhayon inspires us to choose Barbara, “coming home”.
You words resonate with me so much Barbara. The absolute beauty that Serge allows us each to feel when he presents because he is feeling the absolute beauty within himself is remarkable. To have found true joy within your life and to be living this lovingly and consistently is what we all dream of but never really think possible. Your blog shows us it is indeed possible!
I can totally relate to your attitude about life before hearing presentations by Universal Medicine. I absolutely questioned what the whole point was, but then when I heard a few of the presentations I also thought to myself ‘I know this’, and what’s cool about that is that it’s not Universal Medicine that is giving us the answers to lifes questions, it is merely reminding us what we already know but have hidden away from for lifetimes. It all comes down to a choice about whether one is ready to start taking responsibilty for their own life or not.
‘I can’t hand my life over to someone else like a broken bicycle and say, “make that work again, will you?”.’
Loved this line, and although at first, I thought it funny, I didn’t relate it to me. However, on deeper reflection, it is exactly what I too used to do. Therapists and New Age/Psychics were my choice…
And as you acknowledged, I too first came to the work as presented through Universal Medicine wanting something from them!
We are blessed to have been met with such consistent integrity through Serge Benhayon and family as we are shown, as you state, that we do infact know and have all the answers to our own predicaments inside ourselves!
From being honest with yourself and taking responsibility for your choices, you “…now have something very precious, true JOY in myself…” That feels a beautiful outcome to achieve Barbara.
I remember wanting a ‘quick fix’ and it took ages for me to realise until attending presentations by Serge Benhayon/Universal Medicine that what I was really ‘searching for’ would not be given by any other – it was up to me to make those self loving choices and embrace all that comes with that. Thank you Barbara.
This blog makes a great point: we are a home for ourselves. This means that there is something about how we feel with ourselves that is crucial to our overall wellbeing. We were not educated about this. So, we used to search outside and found that there is no home in others for us. And that realisation was not easy to swallow because we crave home very much.
I love this, a home for ourselves – yes we are. And we try many other ‘homes’ out there to finally find that it’s in us all along and it’s just a matter of allowing ourselves to live in and express from that home.
It’s quite amazing that within us lies all we ever wanted and strived for, it’s just about allowing it out. I haven’t mastered it and haven’t let the flow out in full but I know it’s there and I’m learning how to bring it out and also what is stopping me from letting it out.
Reading this article I felt that although I always had an underlying angst at life, or a feeling of something not being quite right I actually thought that I knew the answers. All I needed to do was be the best at a certain sport or many sports, get people to know and recognise and like me, finish that degree, do good in school, be good looking, dress well and have a good boyfriend and so on and so on. I was completely sold that my angst at life or lack of deep ‘happiness’ would fix once I got all of these things. The interesting part was that once I achieved all of this I was even more devastated then when I began, the years and years (over 20) of hard work to achieve to discover that once I got there I still felt like something was missing. No coincidence this is when I met someone who suggested that all we miss is knowing who we truly are and being able to live connected to this. Universal Medicine is the only organisation I know who shares that life can be about connecting to who we are first and living from here first, with no need for outside goals to feel good.
Cool Barbara. Reading your very real life approach to how you’re on your journey to finding you, the real you, rather than a substitute called ‘happiness’ is awesome!
Taking time to feel your way through life again, trusting your feelings and bringing full awareness to all that you are is just an absolutely gorgeous way to live your life. Thank you for sharing your story.
I love how you describe that you are no longer just getting through life, but now truly living. When we look around us, outside of ourselves, to look at ‘normal life’ – it looks like it is normal to be stressed, normal to be tired, normal to eat junk food, drink alcohol, over exercise or not exercise at all, etc, etc. What if this is not normal? What if what you share, the way you live, is normal? That it is normal to enjoy work and not be exhausted and to connect to the joy in you and therefore in all others around you? Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be responsible and ask the question ‘what is normal?’
I noticed you wrote this blog in 2012 and I can clearly say that you are bringing even more of who you truly are today in 2015. Knowing you personally: it’s in your eyes!
Keep going Barb – you are an inspiration to many, as is this blog.
I can certainly relate to what you say here: “Ahhhh… I knew that!… So how and why have I not been living it?”. I too have had many moments like these. Thank you for reflecting to us the value of looking back. Looking back to the point in our lives where our past choices had led us to feel that there was more to life or that ‘this’ was not working, and so we had felt to make new choices that introduced more love and truth in our lives. Your story has inspired me to look back and appreciate the love and truth I now choose to live.
Hi Barbara, I so completely relate to that feeling of hearing Serge Benhayon presenting the most profound revelations and at the same time a deep sense and recognition that I not only know that but have always know that. So it is a great question you ask “how and why have I not been living it?” – I have been looking at that too and it is quite a shocker. I also love your last line: “I am on my way home to myself” bought tears to my eyes.
How often do we look for the quick fix or someone or something to rescue us from the things we don’t like about our lives? It is so easy to blame things outside us or complain about them but for me, when I do this, it really means, despite my protests, that I am not really looking for change but pretending. Only when I take full responsibly for how I am living and how this is playing out in my life am I really asking for a change to the status quo.
Spot on Andrew. That’s why I so loved Bianca’s and your quote:
‘I can’t hand my life over to someone else like a broken bicycle and say, “make that work again, will you?”.’Only when I take full responsibly for how I am living and how this is playing out in my life am I really asking for a change to the status quo.’
“Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine present information, ancient wisdom, that when heard, feels like, “Ahhhh… I knew that!” Its these ‘aha’ moments when something is presented that feels at once so obvious, and at the same time so profound, that keep reminding me of how life can be, rather than how I have accepted it to be.
Thank you Barbara for sharing your journey home to yourself and how Universal Medicine presentations have opened your eyes to taking responsibility for everything in your life and the quality that it is lived in.
I love the simplicity and the honesty of your article Barbara. These are standout lines….”No one has ever had to tell me I was love, this has always been my truth. But Serge has shown me via Universal Medicine presentations and his living example how I can truly ‘live’ that love and hold a reflection of that love that is within me for others”….thank you for sharing
Barbara, great article and so true. We all need to take full responsibility for all our actions in life as if things go wrong, we are the ones who have made the choices for ourselves. Universal Medicine is a great source of inspiration to me.
I enjoyed reading your reflections on your life before attending Universal Medicine presentations, and also how you are now living life as the “real” you, which will benefit every one you come in contact with. Barbara, thank you for sharing this article.
Great article about being prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and the lives that we live.