by Lucy, Sydney, Australia
For many years I made it all about ‘Serge said’. I used to go away to this place ‘up north’, where it was quiet and there was only me to look after. There were lots of people around but none of them were physically asking me to do anything for them. I would come back and have all these grand plans to change lots of things that in my opinion had contributed to my overwhelm, and all of these changes were to be ‘implemented’ as quickly as possible. Yet the moment I walked though the door I would be faced with all that I had left behind. The way it usually ran was that I would have a major dummy-spit by the morning of day one – and usually before anyone had even left the house!I never really liked confrontation so my mind would work overtime to see how I could get my own way without being the bad guy – without standing out too much as being the person who was calling for change. I had done this from young: I would often say to my sister, “Dad told me to say you weren’t allowed to be nasty to me in front of your friends at school any more”, or some other thing I wanted to have happen. The key was to make sure that the person you said it to was unlikely to check with the person you said it about. I did the same here with Serge Benhayon and my husband and kids.
Never before had I felt something I had learnt to be true so strongly – I had felt this stillness in my body and I had lived it for two days. All of a sudden there was an alternative to the way I had been living, and in that space that I had connected to in me, I didn’t feel any overwhelm. It felt unfamiliar, but it came from me – I did it, it was me. So I had to ask… why couldn’t I do it at home…?
I don’t do things by halves and I wanted to feel like that again as soon as possible, so somehow I had to get these other people who lived in my house ‘on my side’ (I know it reads really bad but that is how it was!). I was feeling huge amounts of overwhelm and needed a way out. However… and this is a big however… I did not put it into practice myself – I instructed everyone else how to do it and then did a version of it myself. I created a picture of what I thought it looked like to live this way, trying all the while to re-create what I had felt during the courses. I think I lived like this, spouting must-dos from my courses, for about the first three or four years.
I had to ask… Why did I live with this ‘Serge said to’ mentality when he NEVER DID?! Serge actually said quite the opposite! He always said not to take his word for it and to feel it for ourselves – what felt right and what didn’t. He shared simple ways for us to connect to our bodies by doing a gentle breath meditation, then shared how important it was to take that into everything that we did – so it did not become a practice of doing one thing over here, and another the moment you get up. He said to discern if it feels right – give it a go, get to know your body; in other words, look after it by not ignoring it. Most of all he said try it for yourself BEFORE you share it. Well, that was the bit I chose not to hear.
I was a practitioner at this point, and I had made my identity about fixing everyone else, so I didn’t hear Serge Benhayon say work with yourself first. I have asked myself why so many times. All I can come back with is that I didn’t want to see that how I lived affected everything I did. The choice to look at myself and what I was choosing day-to-day was harder (or at least I perceived it to be much harder) than looking at my family and blaming them for my overwhelm and for how we were living. Besides, I could be one person in the treatment room with my clients, and then relax at home… couldn’t I?
We lived like this for years – everyone building up resentment towards Serge. My mental, ‘how-to’ approach to our life really frustrated my husband who was very outspoken about it. My kids had much less choice – I pulled the adult, ‘I know better’ card. I can only say that it became such a familiar pattern that in the end I didn’t even know I was doing it. I would hear Serge talk about it – people who lived from the knowledge yet didn’t apply it to their way of living, and thought ‘well that is not me, because we are clearly living it’. And we were… to a point. The picture looked good, but underneath there was such resentment about it that it was yet another situation in my life where it looked good on the surface, but was a mess if you looked any deeper.
One day my kids were old enough to point out the dual standards that I lived with and presented to different people, depending on my level of respect for them. The trigger for this comment came from what they had observed when people came to stay. The house would be cleaned to a different standard, what I deemed to be bad or rude behaviour was out, conversations changed. I did the ‘swan routine’ – all good on the surface but underneath my feet were going ten to the dozen to keep it all afloat. It was different depending on who came as well, so depending on how comfortable I was with what they saw; this was directly reflected in the level of anxiety and the picture to be upheld.
Apparently I was much nicer to our guests than to my children. Much more caring… I was dumbfounded – what did they mean? I broke my back for them every day; how could they be so ungrateful? Oh, there it is again, the martyr who finds herself in deep overwhelm. So this was the moment that created an opening for me to have a look.
It all came tumbling down. I could see that I valued some more than others, and treated them accordingly. In fact there was a direct correlation between the level of fear of being found out and the level of smokescreen put up. I didn’t want to be found out, I didn’t want anyone to know it was just surface because I didn’t know where to start if I had to look. In those years – and I suspect they are more than three – I not only irritated the pants off my husband and kids, but alienated many friends who I am sure felt judged by me. What a gift that my kids spoke up; what a gift they found the words that I could hear.
I shared with them that I was writing this and asked what it had been like for them. One of them said that it was really hard to listen to me because it all sounded like ‘blah blah blah’… another said that she learnt that other people’s opinions are more important than her own. Just writing this piece has meant we are able to talk about how harming what I did was.
My husband met Serge on a number of occasions and every time he was the same, they got on really well. Serge met him as he did everyone else – it didn’t matter that he didn’t go to courses and had no intention of going. It didn’t even matter that when my husband met Serge he was carrying this frustration that ‘Serge was telling us all what to do’, because the moment my husband met Serge, it was clear Serge wasn’t asking us to do anything – never had and never would! It was all my re-interpretation. It was the same when he met the rest of Serge’s family. What I know to be true is that if my husband hadn’t met Serge and his family and spent time talking with them, we probably would not be together now. I did a great disservice to all that Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon stand for, I alienated my family from a way of living that is simply about love, and made my marriage so complicated. Where was the love that I had been living?!
My husband and children put up with way more than I would have! They showed me in the months and years that followed what love was. They are very willing to change some of the raciness of our day-to-day, and enjoy having me less distracted and therefore less irritable. The mothering (or smothering as I like to call it) has reduced and we are developing a much more supportive relationship. We often have conversations about situations we are all experiencing, and between us, we share. My daughter’s lack of trust in herself is a reflection for me as mine is for her, and we have installed a large radar – which if it were physical would definitely need planning permission – which is on the hunt for any hint of the old way of talking from my head!
I watch for it every day, but now the pressure is off and having been ‘outed’, there is no need to share, to teach or to save. I just enjoy getting to know myself and seeing what consequences that has on my stress levels and in the house. It took a little getting used to – no-one asked for my opinion or advice for ages, and it wobbled me… but I just kept bringing myself back to remembering that I must do it for me. If I don’t, then I have learnt nothing, and that is not the case. The patience and love that my husband, children, friends, Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine showed me has inspired me to remember who I am, to choose to feel it all, and only speak from experience without a hint of “Serge said”!
I asked my daughter if she found life different now… She didn’t answer, just reached over and changed the track on the CD I was playing to get to ‘Claiming It’, looked at me… and smiled.
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
When we use the term ‘someone said’ in trying to convince another, there is a dishonesty as we dis-empower ourselves and are not claiming it for ourselves.
Knowledge simply serves to build ones repertoire of information whilst wisdom holds a real and practical side to it that honours the being and the body and hence can only come from a lived experience.
Lucy, thank you – I absolutely love your honest and refreshing sharing and in this there is so much that I too can relate to! It is actually a little embarassing to look back at the re-interpretations and impositions that I too have allowed, but the most amazing part is to have learned from this and hence taken home the take home message of living something first before we share it with another.
There is also the harm we cause when we make anything we do about ‘ourselves’ rather than humanity.
I love the layers we unpeel to get back to the heart of who we are. When we hide and put up smokescreens, we are teaching our children to not trust themselves and what they feel, we are teaching them that other peoples opinions matter more than their own. No wonder we have so much anxiety in children now.
We can also observe what happens when those layers have not been peeled back but solidified. When we act a part all our lives, put others before ourselves, be the ‘good’ but false mother, for example, and not truly know or value ourselves. When we reach old age we get back from others (including children) what we have given ourselves. To not value ourselves invites others to not value our worth or treat us with true respect.
There is so much to learn from the reflections we get from life and it is a process to surrender to that rather than bring in ideas or pictures of how we think it should be.
Lucy, I just love this blog for its honesty. Many will relate to the double standards we adhere to unknowingly and brilliantly exposed by your children. How we live with ourselves when there’s ‘no one’ around reflects the true quality of our Livingness.
There is no ownership when we defer to another to validate statements. We are more claimed when we express from our bodies and what we share more likely to be received by others.
Agreed! It is the difference between passing knowledge on, which can be imposing and often stays as a theory in the head and a knowing of what you ‘should’ be doing but are unlikely to and feeling it from the body, knowing you are equal and therefore what is shared is more an offering with more space to see it as a possibility. I have found those two ways to be very distinct.
This is a brilliant blog and I love the honesty of your subject. I was cringing as I read it because I did this too in the early days the ‘Serge said’ when actually he said try it for yourself and see what happens. This bastardisation of what was presented has got many people into a lot of hot water as it can induce negative reactions with family and friends that didn’t need to occur.
I love the honesty in this blog, many of us, myself included came back and opened our mouths too much, instead of just living, to the best of our ability, what we felt in the courses, ‘I did not put it into practice myself – I instructed everyone else how to do it and then did a version of it myself. I created a picture of what I thought it looked like to live this way, trying all the while to re-create what I had felt during the courses.’
It feels amazing when we can allow ourselves to feel and speak from our own authority. We don’t have to try and be anyone else, we are enough already.
Yes, what a great point, we don’t have to be anyone else, we don’t have to impress or try, we simply are who we are and ‘just’ that is amazing.
We can all tell when someone is just sprouting information they have read or heard somewhere but don’t actually live what they are saying. It sounds hollow and not authentic.
Spot on Andrew – there is an emptiness when it does not come backed with the lived experience.
I have seen this happen a lot, and experienced it too myself. Feeling so inspired by time spent with Serge benhayon and then going home and finding it a bit awkward. And the one thing that I can share most greatly from this experience, is how important it is to be honest and open with your family and to share with complete honesty all that has inspired you, why it has, and how you feel that you personally would like to change. And then, to take things slowly… very slowly…. and to let life work itself out as you work yourself out and find out who you are again. Because the one thing that must not ever happen, is for family members to feel isolated, rejected or confused. Everyone can be embraced by this inspiration, but not everyone has to attend the courses. It is simply your love that makes the difference.
You bring a really pertinent point here – that when you come back and want to change everything, the people living with you who thought everything was fine to start off with, can feel judged and hurt without understanding why.
It’s about how we live, with us first and when we’re busy trying to fix another it’s a sure sign that we’re avoiding something in us … and to have those around us who show us clearly when this is the case is such a blessing.
So true monicag2, ‘ when we’re busy trying to fix another it’s a sure sign that we’re avoiding something in us …’.
Thanks for sharing Lucy and highlighting what can happen when we try to change others before looking at our own behaviour. It also shows how we can complicate something that is ultra simple.
By us living in a loving way we can inspire another, they notice how we are, how we move etcetera, so we do not really have to open our mouths.
Trying to shape and control life from pictures and from what others say doesn’t work when compared to feeling how to be in life and not ignoring my body!
We have such a long tradition to try to control life by force that we do not even realize how forceful we are.
Thank you for sharing that Ariana. I suspect it will take quite a while to see the many layers of my enthusiasm but I do know that the more I feel things from my body, the less I feel the need to impose on others.
Yes, I suspect it will be a constant learning about what is imposing and what is not.
I love this honesty Lucy, so real and down to earth. This is a great support for many who will find themselves in a similar situation.
Lucy has spoken for many here and this is a beautiful way of tuning into what needs to be shared and openly spoken about so that it can be let go of and re-imprinted.
Lucy, I so appreciate your honesty and the huge learning curve you have gone through.
So many of us do not want to take responsibility for the fact that everything we do has a cause and effect because everything is energy …fact. We are not taught this basic principle anymore. It was known and taught when we were young many life time’s ago but the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom have always been attacked and or bastardised for this very reason. In just the same way it is being attacked today because people do not want to know that at the end of the day we are totally responsible as an individual and collective for the way we live today.
“What a gift that my kids spoke up; what a gift they found the words that I could hear.” Yes and that is where true love is, in speaking up even though people might not want to hear it straight away, in time they will often appreciate the pull up.
I love that Elizabeth.
What a trap life can be, but when we open up with total transparency and explore our own ways then this is what wil bring us to our own true lessons and learnings in life and what they are all about as what we present has to come from a Livingness and not what another has shared as you have presented Lucy!
So true, it is a disservice to everyone because you don’t give people the space to discern for themselves. The ripple effect is huge.
I feel such a level of sadness re-reading this. I can see how living this way contributed to so much complication and I can also see that it contributed to the abuse that has since been directed at Serge Benhayon by others. Why do we not take more responsibility for our own choices and instead choose to blame another? Serge Benhayon has offered me my freedom to choose back, and for that I will be eternally grateful to him and honour what he has said all along – this is for us all to experiment with ourselves – do not take his word for it. Well I have done that for 14 years now and I have not a cell in my body that does not know he is sharing a way of living that is more true, honest, loving, playful and has the potential for more joy than the way I was hooked into living before.
We learn to repeat what we have learned but if it is not a lived experience it is just a repetition of what someone said. So it is wiser to not talk about what someone else said but about the impress it had on us and how it is related to our life.
I love the honesty in which this blog is written Lucy, it is a great illustration of how we devalue ourselves and those around us when we say ‘someone said’ and how much more power there is when we live the truth ourselves and others will naturally follow.
That is very true, we devalue ourselves and therefore don’t even take time to feel something for ourselves. Rather we say someone said so we put them on a more learned footing than ourselves.
Serge Benhayon is not responsible in any way with what we do with the teachings. He is responsible for living in a way that allows him to deliver the teachings. For good or bad, the rest is up to us. How we go about them ourselves and how we go about others if we happen to live not on our own is a sort of unknown territory. Even if we make mistakes, we learn from them. The importance thing is to never attribute to Serge something he never said. If we do, this is manipulation for our own gain.
Good point, Eduardo, that mis-quoting anyone is manipulation for our own gain – I have in the past deliberately quoted something I thought someone said to create a drama, or a shock horror reaction, or an emotional response that in truth does not serve anyone. If words are not delivered in the full livingness of the person who initiated them then they are no longer true.
Thank you Eduardo you are absolutely right and it is time to bring a level of honesty to our intentions so we can bring back the truth of what has been shared.