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.
I agree and as much as it felt very painful at the time it really was life changing for all of us. I am so pleased we gave them permission and the space to talk honestly with us and not feel like they had to play any games.
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.
It is so helpful when our family reflect back anything we do that is false and not our true selves. The true authority of our livingness is in our body and everyone can feel its veracity, and some are aware of that feeling, some resist it.
Every time I live the love I know is true, the ripple effect is profound. When I bemoan and berate the ripple effect is one that should not be put into words, what I can say though is that it not only harms them but also me as the complication I then need to walk back through is twice, thrice or more what it would originally have been.
We need to live it for ourselves first, absolutely true and a great reminder … if we find ourselves in any form of preaching we are in a picture or idea of how we think things should be rather than just accepting and observing how things are. And when we live it for us we claim it in our way in our bodies and it’s so much more real.
This was great for me to read as I can feel that I still measure and hold a judgement on those I live with. I expect them to be a certain way and when they are not that way I shut down to them, the hypocritical thing that you were talking of, of expecting others to change before you will.
Yes, I really wonder where this comes from. It is so prevalent in us, the criticism as opposed to the loving self-reflection. Perhaps that is what is missing, the loving bit, and that is why the self-reflection is so hard…
That makes sense Lucy, that the loving self-reflection is missing so it is painful to reflect as we don’t reflect but react and are frustrated with ourselves. And thus we take it out on the ones closest to us to make it easier for us by having them change themselves.
Quite right, oh dear. But how great is it that we even have these conversations because it would be too easy to just blindly pretend we haven’t noticed anything.
Yes it is. We are aware of these things that go on in all kind of relationships that we have but it is so normal to not be honest about this and pretend as if nobody notices. The silent contracts we have with each other to keep the peace but not change or evolve either.
Understanding that everything in life is an offering makes situations like this easier to be with. Instead of expecting another to be another way, how they are ‘is the offering’, how we respond to how they are, the opportunity to advance.
It is not sharing when there is a need to say something that is purely for self. I certainly have found myself doing this and it is only very recently that I have been aware of it. It’s not that I hold back but I realise that very often I do not have to say anything… my movements say it all.
Truly beautiful! Thank you for your open, honest and candid personal sharing of the harm of living from knowledge rather than from the application of that knowing.
We can learn so much from our partners, children, work colleagues, those closest to us if we pause and take stock at what has been presented. Even if we allow ourselves to be open and hear at what has been offered change begins to take place.
This is so familiar – spending some time away from home/work and coming back all inspired and full of ideas of how it all could be different. It’s like the head tries to start walking when there’s no body to actually do the walking. I just so love your honesty, Lucy.
I know I have been guilty of “Serge said” , especially in the past and I was so excited to share all the new and loving ways I was learning through The Ageless Wisdom. I too have learnt that we need to be in the livingness of these lessons rather than just sharing the words.
Thanks Lucy, your honesty is appreciated. I can feel how I have played this game with myself as much as anyone else. I would say to myself…and probably still do say…’Serge said…’ and hence turning the wisdom he shares into knowledge – and a way of justifying – rather than connecting to what I feel myself. It all feels very different when we go within and connect to the wisdom that is innate – following his example rather than ‘swallowing’ and regurgitating the words with no livingness in our bodies. As you share this lack of livingness is what can be felt by others who are understandably irritated by our lack of integrity. A big and important lesson learned.
So true, Richard, people may not be able to explain why they are irritated with someone spouts knowledge but does not live it but they can feel the lack of the livingness, and so it does not matter how good we are ‘being a swan’ it will always eventually be exposed. Lucy’s honesty is very inspiring, as like you share as resorting to ‘Serge said….” foe justification is so common.
So true, Richard, people may not be able to explain why they are irritated with someone who spouts knowledge but does not live it but they can feel the lack of the livingness. It therefore does not matter how good we are ‘being a swan’ it will always eventually be exposed. Lucy’s honesty is very inspiring, for as you share, resorting to ‘Serge said….” for justification is a common practice.
I am so intrigued by the irritation of the lack of integrity as well because let’s be honest, how many other areas of life do we spout off and have a lack of integrity but the reaction to Serge said is far greater. This is so much about energy and cannot be explained by logic.
Life can be very overwhelming when we take on the responsibility of other people’s choices, especially if we are invested in how and what they are choosing and wanting it to be different.
The control and manipulation is exhausting because you cannot control others and everyone just plays a game with no authenticity in the living at all. It makes for a very toxic home. I love that we have brought more honesty and that we are far more aware of the issues. Wherever we live and whoever we live with will always offer that reflection it is now our choice to be aware of it and do something about it or not.
I love the way you write Lucy and I absolutely love how real you are about this . . . I must say I cannot imagine you ‘putting it on’ and ‘swanning’ about. It just goes to show how we can present as the exact opposite of who we are when we are not prepared to be ourselves.
Children have a beautiful way of observing when we are true to ourselves or not.
Unfortunately I too fell into the mind trap of needing others to confirm so that I could live how I wanted to. As this did not ask me to look at myself and the way I was living. It is deeply humbling to accept the destruction this causes, but incredibly powerful to claim it and let go of the life of trying and begin to live the simplicity of Love.
I can relate with what you shared in regard to, hearing what Serge said and it making so much sense that I came home and likewise wanted to share with others and fix them before embodying and living it for myself, ‘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 appreciate your honesty Lucy, yes Serge Benhayon has always told us to feel what he presents and if it feels true to then live it, to be love, never to go out and preach about it.
I have taken on board a great deal of what Serge has said because so much of it makes sense, but when it comes to food choices, I falter. Giving up wheat and dairy and sugar has been no problem, the benefits have been amazing, and I have no reason to return to those foods, but the detail of what else I eat varies enormously, because I am still not fully sensitive to how certain foods feel in my body.
Lucy every word of this blog was a joy to read. I felt as though you invited me into your home (without cleaning up or putting on a show). “try it for yourself BEFORE you share it” I should post these words up somewhere prominent. I get so enthusiastic when someone presents truth that I have not heard before but I’ve noticed that other people are not inspired the way that I am if I pass on what I have learned without living it first.
Thank you Leonne, I did! Re-reading this I can honestly say that for many years I lived with a fear of letting people into my home because of the judgement I felt that would come with it. I so wanted to be the perfect everything, always trying to be better so I would be OK – there was no part of me that needed to be great or stand out just OK!!! Thank heavens for the love of my family who loved me so much they stayed with me and how we have all worked together to bring a more true way of living to each other.
“I did not put it into practice myself” thus is The Livingness and not being owned by the pictures of how you think it should be. It is the most challenging way to live to be honest about how it reads, know it to be and where I am at. Am I expressing my truth or is it my hurt? Do I have an investment of being met for all that I am from another or am I meeting myself first? What is the level of my honesty – is it absolute? I certainly know the difference between the picture of how I think it should be or how it actually is – one just flows and life presents itself while the other hurts.
Reinterpretation is such a dangerous pastime as the precision, detail and accuracy of anything can get so distorted it becomes merely a shadow of the truth.
Our daughter who is ten years old spoke up this morning how she felt about the possibility of having a university student from abroad whom she had not met before coming to live with us during the lambing season. It was wonderful and incredibly confirming. Our children have so much to offer us if we are open and give them the space to speak.
How gorgeous that your swan routine was exposed by those who had observed what was happening, allowing you to reflect on what you were choosing and also unknowingly imposing …and giving you the opportunity to reassess and bring in truth in congruence. One of my greatest lessons in life was to be true to who I am and not manufacture or deliver a facade for another… and be okay with just being me.
Yes, no more facades. If we really get that in this life then what an incredible platform to stand on in our next lives.
I wonder how many times this has occurred in the past – great teachers presenting and students not claiming it for themselves but instead referring to their “teacher”. It’s great to claim it ourselves.
So true, and I can see from what you have shared here that it is how religions are formed and the teachings misinterpreted or re-interpreted.
This is such a beautiful blog to come back to, to hear how you, like many of us were so bowled over by what Serge Benhayon was presenting that we wanted to tell the world – before we were actually living it. I have since learned, like you, that speaking from just the knowledge of what we’ve heard or read alienates people, feels like judgement and does nothing to inspire change. It feels weird to learn that we don’t have to say anything, or give advice, we simply have to live in connection with our bodies and following the impulses of the inner heart. The authority and wisdom that comes from our livingness is way more powerful than anything we can say.
Lucy,
This is an incredibly honest sharing, one that I too experienced as I am sure many do. I for one could not begin to believe that how I had lived for all of my life had not been true. This belief stymied me for years. However slowly, but steadily, I too connected deeper to my body and what I had not wanted to believe was obvious, but no longer did it hold power, as in my body I found it easy to accept and to then adjust my level of care for myself. This then began to expand to the same care for others. A very powerful learning, that no one said so, but one that I know to be true, because I feel it.
Oh my gosh Lucy the only difference with your story and mine is that I have two boys and not a girl! But everything else so much sounded the same of what I have also done to my family and friends. Thankfully my husband also met Serge Benhayon and in that five minutes of being met, more than he had ever been in his life, it was very clearly revealed that the “Serge Said” that I brought home was a complete bastardisation and control of what my mind of ‘right and wrong’ wanted. My sons have also outed me, well the what is not me, more and more, and I have really appreciated their honesty and that they have spoken up.
There is no such thing as ‘Serge said’ it has been all fabricated by my reactions to the choices I have made instead of bringing a loving attention and awareness to them.
It is hard to admit we did that isn’t it but equally, it is so freeing to take responsibility.
This was a great blog Lucy, and a great healing for many closet ‘Serge says’ chanters. . . families across the world must be rejoicing that the truth is out after all they have had to put up with. . . I know that my kids, some 13 years ago, when I first started attending Universal Medicine, would mimic me and I would be horrified as I sounded just how I never ever wanted to be caught sounding . . .spouting hearsay like a crazed women; instead of living what had been presented I was just talking about it.
Ha ha yes, spouting hearsay like a crazed woman! Can I say I have been guilty of spouting the same hearsay about what the doctor said, or the teacher before that, or even the odd politician – because if someone in authority said it then it had to be true. What Serge has taught me is the importance of being discerning and not just taking things at face value and I am so grateful for the freedom of that lesson.
It is so easy to fall into the trap of hearing what we want to hear and misinterpreting the truth. Serge Benhayon never tells anyone what to do but shares the truth of the way he lives every day. The responsibility and inspiration is for us all to do the same.
I think one problem we have is living by so many rules generally that, when someone shows us a better way of doing things, we make that a rule for how we should live and then beat ourselves up for not following it. It’s not surprising that many people outside the Student Body accuse Serge Benhayon of creating dogma when in fact, as you say, Mary, he never tells us what to do, merely shares how he lives and it’s up to us to choose and to allow our feelings to guide us.
I hadn’t considered that it is simply a pattern that we transfer but of course, I remember doing the same …says with the doctor, my parents, the vicar, really anyone in, what I considered, a position of higher standing.
A supremely honest and revealing account of some of the patterns we can find ourselves in as students when we adopt new knowledge and in our enthusiasm or well-meaningness, attempt to impose it on others. You show how just being ourselves, making steady changes in our own choices, learning and reflecting along the way and having no expectations of others around us – ever – is the best way for others to feel the truth of their own choices for themselves and to then be free to choose different choices – but only if they choose. Mothering or smothering – love it.
It is an ongoing learning as well Cathy. So many years on from this blog there are still areas I can see that I impose. At other times it is not me at all and discerning the difference is important. I can only do something about my behaviour and that is where my focus rests.
Thankyou for this blog Lucy. I can so relate. When I first came to the work I ‘knew’ I had all the answers – because ‘Serge said’ – which of course he hadn’t – and of course this annoyed many friends and I lost a few. I was coming from knowledge, rather than living what I had learned and been inspired by. I had gained some knowledge, but not the wisdom to use it – or be it – or live it. I now know that I just have to live being me in full. If others ask, then great – if not – then that’s cool too.
I agree, Sue, I was so inspired by everything Serge presented, I wanted the whole world to know, but no-one was interested in listening – of course not, because I wasn’t living what I was talking about, and they couldn’t feel the truth in anything I said. So now I share only what I live, and am amazed at the changes happening around me.
Lucy, the honesty here is disarming. It brings a real lightness and supports not to identify with our issues. Instead of giving us a hard time about them I can give myself a heart time and laugh about it!
yes I love it, a heart time! There is just no point in raking over the past but we must learn from it and let it share with us lessons that we can apply to the situation as we go round the sun again.
“…there is no need to share, to teach or to save.” There is no need to ‘do’ anything, it’s all about simply being; being all the love we are in full. Magic happens.
So true Barbara, hard to accept this sometimes as it is so simple. And hard to live it at times because “being all the love we are in full” means letting go of all the stuff we are not and we sometimes like to hold on to.
Highlights how we can’t change anyone, instead it will back fire.
Live your way and it will naturally show and inspire others, it is their choice to change or not.
Lucy, I really appreciate your honest sharing here and can relate to a lot of your story. When I first heard Serge Benhayon speak I tended to hear the information as something ‘out there’ that I should be doing, even though I clearly heard his words that everyone had to feel and discern for themselves if what they heard felt right for them. The key here for me was ‘feeling’ what was right for me. The idea of connecting to my body first and reading my next step from there was quite a foreign concept. This is definitely a work in progress but I do know that I am now clear that I have to discern for myself what is going on for me – before worrying about anyone else.
Great, because that way we leave others in their own space, just as we would like to be left in ours. Our waters have been so mudied by being told what to do and how to be that we have forgotten and there is an element of being paralysed if we don’t have a leader to lead us.
I can remember when I first attended Serge’s workshops or listened to the audios, It was about “Serge said”, The teachings hadn’t been embodied or truly lived and could only be spoken about. A beautifully honest account of you discovering you. Thank you Lucy.
Re-reading your blog I can feel so keenly within myself how I too have lived in the knowledge rather than the livingness of me. I too felt I made it about “Serge said” when I first began connecting to Universal Medicine and at no time did this come from Serge Benhayon but from my own desire for other people to “get” or “connect” to what I was feeling. These days while I still don’t live in perfection, I find the more I express from me that other people open up. My connections are becoming more honest, and I find the more I hold who I am, I naturally bring a depth and confidence to the connections and conversations I have with others. It never required living like someone else, in fact it required me being and living more lovingly the real me.
Lucy, what a great blog you’ve shared. I felt so relieved reading because your honesty is much needed in this world. I often feel like in all my conversations there is a huge elephant in the room! There is so much we need to just express honestly about how we feel, about ourselves and others, and about life. How refreshing to read your words. Recently I’ve been observing how easy it is for others to talk about another person’s behaviour, however it’s not so common to be blatantly honest like you have been about yourself. That takes great humility too. There is such a fear to be seen as imperfect and to allow oneself to be vulnerable in expressing the realities of how we are living, and perhaps be open to judgement. For me it was a huge healing to read your words. I definitely still carry embarrassment and shame about myself being imperfect, instead of seeing myself as someone learning. Thanks for offering me more self acceptance.
And accept ourselves we should. We are constantly learning and pretending to have it all or be it all is a great illusion that masks the underlying anxiety of not really knowing what on earth this life is all about! It is much healthier to be a student of life and discover as we go what works and what doesn’t work quite so well!
‘there is no need to share, to teach or to save.’ This is a tricky one as we can spot the times when we obviously do it, but sometimes it is more subtle – leaving a book out for a friend, in the hope they may pick it up or some little passing comment – these can all be loaded with ‘this is what you need, this will save you’ type of judgments. To know that we are making a difference, simply by being ourselves around others, is huge. There is absolutely no effort involved.
ha ha yes! The conspiring to make it look like an accident! This is a well worn path which paints us as the innocent bystander just as surprised as they were. But now I see the pattern of conspiring and manipulating has been there since childhood when we didn’t want to upset the apple cart but so want everyone to be more loving with each other.
a beautiful blog. Truly exposing to the way that we try and put on a show for people, so we can not truly be honest and open with people. I must admit I have also done this at time, but its good that my family won’t let me get away with it. Thanks for sharing it is always a great reminder to keep being open and not settling for anything less than truth in our relationships.
I am inspired by your honesty and commitment to love and truth, Lucy. I often fall into the same trap – thinking that if the rest of the family played ball, I wouldn’t be in such overwhealm. Over time, I am learning that all I have to do is live love and have no expectations of anyone else – still a work in progress for me.
A work in progress for all of us Carmin, it is like unpeeling the layers of an onion, (yes with a few tears as well!), the more layers you uncover the more you find. But I would not change any one of those discoveries because everyone benefits from the honesty and the freedom to be more accountable for their own behaviour.
What a great blog Lucy. I too have lived this way. It’s good to know that other people have had the same experience and yes there is love and support for us even when we do misinterpret things.
Love it, hilarious as I can completely see me in all of it 😉
Such an expansion and weight off my shoulders now as I deepen in my committment in living from Love, and drop the ‘preaching’ about it.
Lucy, I love how you share when you got home after having a ‘weekend of stillness up north’ you were always greeted by what you had left behind. No matter how much anyone wants to distance themselves from or even forget anything from their past or present, we always have to come back to what we have left behind. This fact is made infinitely easier when you view your everyday life as a constant clearing process. A process in which we are constantly letting go of the old to allow space for the new. Thus in the same way that you declutter your home with ‘stuff’ you no longer need, you declutter your life and address your issues, patterns and behaviours that are holding you back from living the fulfilling and joyful life that we all innately crave. Awesome blog Lucy, I loved reading it.
Thanks Suse and it is a weight of our shoulders to understand that we don’t have to carry it around any more but equally a responsibility to lay seeds that feed us back opportunities that do not encourage us to load the shoulders. The ‘stuff’ happens because we do not consider that everything we do say and even the way we think has a consequence.
Thank you, Lucy, for sharing with such honesty, and exposing something I am sure many of us have fallen for – talking from the knowledge instead of living it. Reading your blog I feel so much appreciation for what Serge Benhayon has been presenting and sharing with us – simply to learn to live according to what we feel – not what we ‘think’ we understand by putting it against what we already hold as knowledge; and for his understanding and patience for us as his fellow students.
Thank you Lucy, for such a deeply honest sharing. I can certainly relate to this, but from the opposite perspective – I have shared very little and keep it to myself, with the occasional little bit here and there. The effect is exactly the same – alienation and my relationship and home makes it glaringly obvious what I am not bringing. I can feel an idealised way underneath provoking this too. If this happens, then it will be all okay – something along those lines. What I am coming to understand is that it’s not about us changing anyone, not even ourselves (for there is nothing to change), but accepting and appreciating who we are and therefore who everyone else is too and cherishing the moments that we all truly share.
So true Jennifer, because we can have judgement on the inside that we have got the right way and they will catch on eventually! It is all felt though and is just as yucky. Goodness, there is so much to clock about our manipulation and our lack of true understanding about how simple and freeing it is to simply bring honesty to the way we live and address what is there to re-imprint.
Amazing how we tie ourselves up in knots wanting everyone else to get what Serge Benhayon presents when all we have to do is LIVE it. They all then get to see the changes that occur naturally in us from that and can be inspired if they so choose. You’ve highlighted how damaging it can be when we don’t express from the truth of our own livingness – something I’ve been guilty of as well!
What a courageous, honest and inspiring piece Lucy – thank you so much. There is so much here that we can all relate to that supports us back to keeping things simple by returning to developing our connection and relationship with ourselves first. I remember about 5 years ago I was making it about others and how they needed to become more aware and change the way they were living – rather than looking to me and what I was doing and how I was doing what I was doing. After Universal Medicine presentations like you I was keen to share all I had learned with my family – but it wasn’t from what I had lived and truly learned – it was all from the head and ‘telling them ‘ what to do. So of course it just alienated them, and rather than building truly loving relationships, it was creating more of a divide between us.
Since then – as you did, I have come back to building my relationship with me, enjoying me again and I am just naturally me when I am with them – what a relief for them !! I don’t give them messages anymore , I am accepting them as they are more and more, and there are way more moments of real connection which is a miracle from where we were. These moments are just golden and feel like the stepping stones to us building true loving relationships.
Yes I love the idea of the stepping stones. It is an interesting question though about what happens if, when we get home, we are asked what the course was about?! I guess it is only a dilemma if you don’t share from being in the wonder of a possibility rather than a prescribed set of ‘must do’s next’.
Lucy thank you for this insightful blog. I feel there is much to contemplate in your sharing and I can see some of myself in it too. You are so right that we need to live what we talk about before passing on information using someone else’s name and words.
This is so beautifully honest – thank you.
I know I have been there and seen in others close to me the ‘Serge said’ mentality – but like you share here it was as if I was putting up a smokescreen to counter the fear of what I wasn’t living at all.
This is a great blog for me to read and really look at why my behaviours are what they are, and who I am really making choices for.
Building awareness is different for everyone and happens in the person’s own time What is true that there is everything around us waiting to support us, all we need to do is ask. As you have experienced Luzy, there is a huge difference in knowing something from your head and knowing it through your body because you are living it. A very powerful blog speaking honestly of the pitfalls we can all fall into and how by being opening to hearing the truth can truly change your life. Thankyou
Yes speaking from my head involves a lot of words! and speaking from my body requires much fewer. I have noticed that sometimes that is a great indicator to me of where I am speaking from.
Beautiful blog Lucy and a great lesson in returning back to love. Your blog shows me that we have to work every day on our return, since we cary many deep hidden beliefs that are frustrating us in living the esoteric way of life in full. If we have countered one, another will pop up. But I have also experienced that our dedication to the love that is living equally in all of us, will eventually always prevail because once chosen to return to love and by claiming that that is our way we want to live, love will be fed back to us in supporting us in all the work we have to do.
What a beautiful statement – “our dedication to the love that is living equally in all of us, will eventually always prevail because once chosen to return to love and by claiming that that is our way we want to live, love will be fed back to us in supporting us in all the work we have to do.” Thank you.
I agree, it is a reminder of the love we are held within that never leaves us and is always there to remind us where we are from and what we are made of. Feeding us back at every turn regardless of whether we are paying attention to it or not. A stunning reminder.
Lucy your honesty is so refreshing and I found myself squirming as I remember those “Serge said” days – the evangelical phase of my life! I remember being so excited that I had finally found what I had been searching for, for so long, and simply wanted everyone else to know as well. And as with your family, it caused a few challenging moments, but once I truly began to listen to Serge’s words and stopped preaching and starting living, my relationship with my family slowly began to change. Coming to your article this morning was so timely as one of my adult children who has been overseas for most of the 10 years of my journey with Universal Medicine, is back home and feeling very unsettled and frustrated that her mother is not the mother she remembers, so with your wise words to remind me there will definitely not be any “Serge said” moments, as she gets to know me again and me, her.
Yes, a bit of dating. I find that we have set ourselves up to be everything for everyone, thereby disempowering them from bringing it all to themselves. There is no lack of love, there is a deeper willingness to develop a relationship based on what is needed in any given moment. Yet when I have been the one who has got them addicted to me doing it all, I often get the “what…. you don’t do that any more??? So how is it going to get done look!”
I love the honesty of your writing Lucy as it so reflects a way of being that I too have lived (perhaps still living to some degree). It’s so true that we can live life from knowledge rather than actually applying what we learn to our life and really embodying it. I can feel how this effects others, where if it is felt from your livingness what is felt is the truth of you – vastly different!
Such a beautiful ending to this blog Lucy. Super cute from your daughter.. I too have done what you have explained..Seen what it can be like and got upset when I went home and it wasn’t like this. Rather then being understanding and living life from me I would try and fix it to get it to be a different way. It’s amazing how understanding and patient those around you can be when your mixed up in all that.
What a great blog Lucy, so very honest. You expose the greatest mistake we make as Esoteric Students… to sprout knowledge instead of living what is known and speaking only from that. It’s something everyone does at times and I certainly have, but seeing the real harm is important as the recipient is left with nothing but the emptiness of words accompanied by the imposition of ‘I know better and here’s what you should be doing’. Nothing could be more alienating in truth… and nothing could be more of a turn-off. A beautiful piece of writing though, thank you.
Lucy this is gold. I realise now I don’t need to be selling anything to anyone, “I just need to get to know myself ” more. This has allowed me to reflect on where I am with my husband and people around me. This isn’t about Serge and Universal Medicine, this is about where I am in my livingness/ where I am with me being the real me
Yes and that just takes so much pressure off our shoulders to be right and have all the answers.
Our whole education system has been based on learning what someone says, and many erudite academic articles and books published around the world are based on quotes from other people. How refreshing it will be when all our schools encourage children to feel and trust their own inner wisdom, when we learn that what we FEEL guides what we know. We have that amazing opportunity to do it now, with a World Teacher who is already presenting that way of learning in The School of the Livingness.
Lucy this candid post is gold- as are you. You are a great lead example of swallowing your pride, becoming real and building a true life from within. I love how you appreciate and acknowledge your loving husband and family and how much they put up with as during this period the student is often stuck in thinking they ‘have it together’ and are a victim of putting up with their family when as you expose it is the opposite.
Yes, a very humbling time Deanne but I can see that I too was a great teacher for them in speaking up about what didn’t feel true. We are all teachers for each other and yet I would not have seen this had Serge not brought it to my attention all those years ago.
Thanks Lucy. I along with I’m sure many others have tried to pull the ‘do this because so and so said to…’ card. And if not that card, then certainly the card where we use someone else as an example of why we should do something a certain way. It’s interesting how clever we are at avoiding responsibility and being accountable for our actions.
Took me some time to realise that I wasn’t living my truth and allowing made up instructions to rule my life, while denying that I was doing that of course. Today I am far more aware of my behaviour even if at times I can feel myself slipping into self righteous mode and still choose not to stop myself. But, I stop myself more these days than I used to and the more I work on that the more of a true example I can be, rather than a false one.
Thank you Lucy, for speaking so openly about what I too have done in the past. It is great to reflect on it and see the changes in what I now say, how I live with the information presented by Serge Benhayon and how that is what is now mostly communicated, with great response. My livingness is what speaks, and it has the most beautiful things to say.
So right Lucy, and it’s so easy to get lost in the enthusiasm for when something feels so true, to want to share and expect others to get it instantly — but if we don’t actually live it ourselves, then we only bore our loved ones to death with endless rants about this great thing that they don’t see any proof of in front of them. Learnt that one the hard way.
ha ha yes boring rants! I guess we could apply that to so many areas couldn’t we – politics, the news, the state of our health. Oh dear, I suspect I have a few more rants to deal with 🙂
Lucy, I can so relate to your blog, both in the alienation of family and friends and in the huge turnaround towards genuinely loving and supportive relationships which has come from my commitment to my own relationship with myself, being more honest and willing to be vulnerable.
I still slip into telling others what to do, because I want things to be a certain way, and want them to be a certain way, for my own benefit. It certainly isn’t a loving way to be, it is controlling and trying to create an ideal way that I think is good. It certainly isn’t something I learnt from Universal Medicine or Serge Benhayon, it is something I’d developed long ago to cope with life, but with their support I have been able to see it and start letting go of it, to be more understanding and excepting of myself and others, allow myself to get to know myself, and make more loving choices to support myself so I don’t have to wait for what I want to come from outside. If we’re willing to be honest, there will be plenty of sure signs to show us wether we’re living what Universal Medicine presents or not…
There’s an immense pressure we place on ourselves when we’re endeavouring to live-up to an ideal.
My experience has been one of trying to be the ideal man (looks, cash, stature etc), you know the good old western ideal. Followed closely by the new Esoteric ideal man (gentle, together, connected etc). The second has been almost worse and certainly I relate to this article with it in mind.
Ever so slowly I’m accepting myself for the awesome I am and not persecuting myself for the ‘room to improve’ moments that come-up. The ‘try-hard’ in me is dissipating.
Great blog with bold honesty. Thank you.
Thank you Lucy for such a beautiful article, it is all about us and coming back to be with what we are truly feeling. This took some time for me to get used to, especially since I have spent most of my life being the carer and helper, and not wanting me at all. I love your words “I just enjoy getting to know myself”. This quote from Serge Benhayon touches me deeply “Enjoy being you there is no greyer joy”.
That’s so cute the way your daughter expressed that!
I had also gone into this way and had to be outed as well, there were signs along the way from family and friends but I didn’t listen, until the situation was more serious where if I didn’t change I would actually put my job in jeopardy and that is where I changed. It’s much better not living that way anymore and properly connecting with people, working hard and committing to life.
Lucy I love your honesty, it is so beautifully funny and so inspiring. I am sure many have made similar mistakes with our families before our awareness developed. Luckily the love and patience offered by most has forgiven all impositions as yours have. This is also such a gorgeous reminder that when we choose to connect to who we are and live that just for us and no other, that the depth and beauty our relationships can unfold with as you have experienced, is an additional delight on top of the loveliness we feel within ourselves.
Wow Lucy, the level of honesty in your blog in mind-blowing. As you said, you did a great dis-service to Universal Medicine. With attitudes like the ones you refer to, it is not hard to see why some partners and family members may profoundly dislike Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon for unjustified reasons.
Yes, it is so important to be honest and take responsibility for our part and then to recognise where we can re-imprint. There are elements which are down to me and there are elements which have nothing to do with me, discerning which are which is actually very freeing.
Lucy thank you so much for sharing and I loved your description of the swan routine (along with feeling a big ouch at my own version!). You have revealed the different layers of imposing what you want to happen on other people rather than just getting on with living and making different choices. I was arrogant enough to think I didn’t do this because I never went round saying ‘Serge said’ because I knew it would turn my family off having grown up with parents who tried to impose their beliefs on us. I am now realising I have still been manipulative in trying to get my own way and done a lot of judging others rather than just taking responsibility for my life and choices up to now.
Yes, the manipulation can be overt or covert, either way it is manipulation and we have been on the receiving end of it for so long it is very much part of normal daily life. The freedom that is felt within the body when we move our bodies without the need to get approval or be noticed is amazing and builds a foundation that then spreads to our words and every part of our expression.
Thank you Lucy for your honest account. I am guilty of the same mission. Just a little different setting as I don’t have kids, but I played it out with my family and friends.
It makes such a difference to share it with them from the joy of living it rather than preaching about something I heard someone said could work.
Thank you for sharing so honestly Lucy. I wonder how many people initially say, ‘Serge said’ and judging another rather than looking within? I know I certainly did. Like Gyl I love the last sentence, “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.”
I love this blog Lucy, thank you so much for sharing. this last line blew me way “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 depth of the truth you share has really resonated with me Lucy. It’s great that you’ve given this gift publicly because it’s just what so many need to hear.
To me, “work with yourself first” is just about the best suggestion for all practitioners to follow. How can you help someone when you have no idea about similar problems in yourself and are not living what you recommend? The same could be said for anyone, not just practitioners, as all of us are in some way supporting the healing of others in the way that we live and that we relate.
I love this ‘all of us are in some way supporting the healing of others in the way that we live and that we relate.’ Isn’t it amazing what we can offer once we start living it rather than trying to impose on others?
Yes it is absolutely amazing!
Thank you so much Lucy for putting the record straight on this “Serge said” business. Gosh I have heard it a thousand times and the Truth is SERGE NEVER EVER TELLS YOU WHAT TO DO. It is me, you and all those who chose to re-interpret and mis-interpret what is being presented.
Like you Lucy, I do not do things by halves so it was full commitment and on board trying to make choices in the beginning and then expecting my husband to change because that is what I heard was going to work. Utter utter nonsense. Nothing ‘worked’ and in truth nothing really changed.
What I have come to realise after 9 years is that my body has its own agenda and its time. My job is to listen to it. Giving up certain foods because I heard what it does to the body will not work. I had to try it for myself and then when I could feel a reaction or an aversion, I was ready to give it up. Example – raspberries had to be eaten to fill the boring bus or train journey. Last year I felt aweful as my breathing had changed and I got off at the bus stop and chucked them in the bin and actually said “goodbye”. I have never ever had the craving or the feeling to even want to buy them again. My body dislikes them now and I will honour my body. This is one food and I am doing this with other foods too, slowly slowly and knocking out any beliefs I have about them and letting my body be the decider.
ha ha I have to share that raspberries were my treat for going food shopping! I would always get an extra punnet and eat them before I got home. Now there is nothing wrong with raspberries – don’t get me wrong. But how I was eating the raspberries and the way I was eating them was no different to having a shot of tequila. Once I clocked this in my own body, and why I felt I needed the shot, my need to reward myself went away.
How good does it feel to be outed like that! its a big ‘Ah-hah’ moment. and a lot of weight drops off your shoulders. I played a similar role in my family and tried to be the leader (controller) but now I realise that just by giving everyone space, we have much more love in our relationship, and we are having a lovely time as a family together again. This is more beautiful than anything the other way.
Really beautiful blog and thanks for sharing!
Thanks Lucy – this is very easy to relate to, and I can so clearly see the damage of playing the ‘someone says’ game with friends and family. It is a disservice both to Serge Benhayon and his work, and to those that I am trying to persuade. As a way of communicating it definitely does not work.
Lucy, that was wonderful. What I found most interesting is that the least loving person was the one who told other people what to do. I am lucky – I get a fierce headache when I tell other people what to do but otherwise there is no telling how much I would be tempted to tell other people what to do.
It is really strange how this great urge to tell the world doesn’t work. We have to live it first and then the urge to tell others what to do goes away.
That is very cool that your body tells you so bluntly that you are telling someone what to do! It brings far more personal responsibility than waiting for someone else to tell you how you are being, or what you are saying or doing feels like.
Great blog Lucy about taking responsibility for our own choices.
I can absolutely relate to passing the buck in this way. I was so eager to FIX everyone around me…in fact my entire focus was on “them”, my loved ones. I felt most of my problems came from my families unhappiness and pain…so if I could just FIX them then I wouldn’t have to feel all that hurt…
I finally understand the meaning of ” try it for yourself BEFORE you share it”, and I can see and feel how its not just ‘TRY it’ but it is “be doing it, be living it” before it will make any sense to anyone else.
I can see my patterns of focusing on other people as a way to avoid the really hard/scary stuff; my own work and self awareness! I am finally seeing real change in myself and my life, now that I have let go of many of my old ways of avoiding myself!
Oh I love that, I love that you are seeing real change now that you have let go of your old way of avoiding yourself. So overrated!
Thank you so much for writing this. It shows a process that many of us go through because we go to our default position of living life from our heads and not our hearts and certainly not our inner hearts, which makes the esoteric what it is. Thus we pronounce ourselves esoteric when we are far from that and we become alienated and others become alienated from us and/or the esoteric way of being.There is so much here for us in your blog. I feel touched by your honesty and willingness to share as you have and feel what a great service it is to everyone.
What a wonderful blog Lucy, I did cringe a bit knowing that I too have done ‘Serge said’ before beginning to deal with my own issues and learn to be me. It was from enthusiasm for the truth I had heard and felt but it doesn’t bring truth when I am not living it. So beautiful that now your family embrace the love you are living.
This is so beautifully reiterated Judy, that I have to quote you!
“It was from enthusiasm for the truth I had heard and felt but it doesn’t bring truth when I am not living it.”
I was puzzled and frustrated why this amazing truthful stuff just bounced off my family at first…and even caused reaction and anger. ..I was not living it then. Everything is shifting for the better now in me and my family as I live it more and talk about it less!
Lucy, I chuckled nearly the whole way through this. I can relate completely to what you have shared having done exactly the same myself in the pure over excitedment (if there is such a word!) of finding this truth and love that I had been shown and then reconnected to. Unfortunately I was too arrogant and impatient at the time to let others choose their own path without judgement and I am still having to rebuild relationships I pretty much single-handedly tore apart. What is beautiful though is that I am now able to build from a much truer foundation, because I am much more aware of myself within the world. In that the relationships are not laced with undertones of neediness, recognition, acceptance, or whatever else may have been at play before. I am constantly learning and evolving thanks to the undisputed commitment and love bestowed upon me by Serge Benhayon, his family and Universal Medicine.
It is excitement when you first reconnect to what you know to be truth and bring it back into your life and it must be very odd to be around that level of enthusiasm! I have no doubt I will be continually learning about what is imposing and what is not.
What a joy of a post Lucy. ‘Swan routine’ – priceless! And you must have seen me ‘swimming’ close by 😉
What is so super amazing about Serge and the way he is, is that the words he utters when presenting are not believable because of their dictionary definition but because they arrive from the way he lives – he doesn’t engage in a ‘semantic game’. We can all say whatever words we want, most carefully chosen, laced with politeness, kindness, niceness and all the ‘nesses’ of this World, but if we do not live them, they remain just that – bare words.
Your story has left me with the most beautiful smile of contentment, even though my eyes swelled up with tears towards the end – tears of joy. Thank you doesn’t express adequately, but the feeling is what you will get 🙂
Lucy, thank you so much for sharing so honestly and so graciously. I loved your post and could relate to much of what you (& all those who have commented) have expressed. Ahhh… at times, I too have been guilty of living a version of ‘Serge said’ and espousing knowledge in favour of ‘living’ love (particularly with close family – Ouch!), and then blaming and/or judging the reaction or unwillingness of others, as ‘them’ not being prepared to ‘get it’, and as a means to avoid me truly taking responsibility for my own choices and the way I am living (or not living as the case may be). Although I am not as imposing as I first was when I started with Universal Medicine, some of my impositions have become much more subtle, so your post has gently reminded me that this is a work in progress and that all I need to do is feel me, feel my body, ‘be’ me (to the best of my ability) and be love. Thank you.
Thank you Lucy for sharing this wonderful and honest story of yours, as it provides an opportunity and reflection for so many of us to help us come back to who we truly are. Another wonderful chance for deeper healing and awareness of how we can live our lives thinking all is great when really we are avoiding being the love we are; why are we avoiding being that love and owning up to the harm that is done to those around us can be a big moment in our lives. Thank you for lovingly expressing this issue which supports these moments in our unfolding back to ourselves.
Lucy, oh how I could relate to your story. When I was first introduced to Universal Medicine and Serge by a friend I knew straight away that I had finally found answers to my many questions about life, myself and what made us tick. I felt so excited with what I had learned through Serge and his presentations and workshops etc that I wanted to share it all, all at once to as many people as I could. I went home and started preaching to my friends and son about what they should and shouldn’t do because serge says…
And even after a while when I could feel how yucky it felt in my body, I would conveniently override that and keep going wondering why they would change the subject or react and then I would go into defence.
I also would do this with food and as soon as Serge said this or that food has this affect or does that to your body, I would immediately stop eating it because Serge said, which I eventually found is definitely not the way to go, and in dropping foods in my own time, when my body says I can’t eat that anymore, feels so much more complete and self loving because its something that you have come to naturally in your own right time.
I now realise that my excuse for using, Serge says… was so that I didn’t have to take full responsibility for myself/my life, it was a deflection away yet again from me and a true commitment to knowing me more fully and choosing to be truly responsible. But I was stalling the inevitable, because once you know truth, you cannot turn back, you may flounder and wobble from time to time, but that love keeps pulling you back to truth.
Thank you Lucy, for sharing your story so that my story could be lovingly owned.
And I love the fact that you did, because we have done a disservice to the work that Serge Benhayon has presented. This way we can set the record straight and own our part in the learning.
Thank you for your honesty and sharing it with us all. It is something we can all learn from, it is so easy when we are not confident within ourselves to say Serge said as a way of trying to endorse something. All it does as with your family is alienate and irritate as they can feel what we are saying is not true, especially if we are not living it. I have done it too, especially when I first met Serge as my enthusiasm to let other people know what I had learnt was too much for some, especially my friends, I could see their eyes glaze over. I was saying these things but they were coming from my mind, from them wanting to get it not from the love that I had yet to build in my body.
Thank you for your honesty Lucy – it is healing for all. What you shared helped me continue to reflect on parts of my life where I have been contracted but have been pretending not to be (who am I kidding right?).
I remember at the first EDG I attended, hearing something that was presented by Serge along the lines of un-lived fire being more harming than lived prana. This is the great equaliser for me – for no matter how comprehensive my knowledge, or fancy my actions, without living the love that I am first, whatever I do will be harming. I too have ‘come clean’ to my family (many times) for hurting them – this can be overt like shutting them down or very subtle (holding judgement in my mind about someone).
To hear honesty like this from the student body for me, confirms and deepens my experience of brotherhood – as when one person commits further to love, we all feel it.
Thank you Sarah, together we can support each other to live more true to ourselves.
Thank-you so much Lucy, for so deftly sharing and elucidating us on experiences most, if not all, of us have had our ‘version’ of (as Gayle expressed). I can very much relate to the sense of feeling more of ‘me’ (my own love), and then reacting to those close to me, because it’s not reflected back (in the way ‘I’ want it to be…). Not being honest with the hurt I’ve felt at times with this, does lead to reaction and the need to control. And that’s what I love about your piece here – it feels like the most loving ‘unravelling’ of yours, mine and all of our ‘controlling ways’. We don’t need them – yet it is a great learning (& heart opening) to so honestly see them, and thus step along on our way of making the love we know, real.
This is the sort of article that would be of such great service in a regular magazine on the true living of the way of love (“The Livingness”). A ‘must read’!
I remember when my brother listened to one of the Universal Medicine online lectures for the first time, he commented on how light and non-prescriptive Serge’s words were – he was surprised because from my earlier accounts he had expected some hard line set of rules. I had been trying to force my enthusiasm onto my brother just before this. And that was quite a feedback!
Since then I am far more confident in claiming my own truth for myself and have stopped making Serge or Universal Medicine the authors.
I now have a gentle non-imposing way of sharing, where I am connected to my inner heart, and I am drawing on the wisdom gained from trying out/living my knowledge and understanding.
However, if I am honest, I must admit that I am still not free of that hard line imposing way. Whenever I react to a situation and think things “should” be different, up pops that old desire to impose my own way, together with a massive download of re-interpreted knowledge as a confirmation! Fortunately I am getting more wise to this and can stop the process earlier and earlier.
Your example of the “swan routine” made me laugh – all good on the surface but underneath the feet going ten to the dozen to keep it all afloat. I have known that scenario so intimately through most of my life.
Thank you Lucy for writing such a loving, honest and light-hearted account of your journey. It has helped me see the changes that I too have had in my life and the areas that still need attention.
The swan routing is discovered in layers, just when you think you are not behaving as a swan you find another layer of it!!
How brave you are Lucy to put it down on paper for us all. I’m sure many people have experienced themselves being just as you were, I know I’ve caught myself in the doing esoteric and not the being. The relief at realising that and unloading is awesome and I can feel you’ve peeled so much away – so inspiring. You can truly serve others now. And I just love the response from your daughter, how much more confirmation do you need to know you’re on the true, right track?!!? Thank you 🙂
Hi Lucy, I suspect many of us have some ‘version’ of this story because we have been taught / programmed to live from our heads. For me it was natural (later discovered to be a false sense of natural) to intellectualise the information and knowledge before I figured out how to live it. And we all have our own timing. What a lovely story that your family was patient enough to wait for you to get to the livingness of it. Thank you for sharing your version.
Thank you Gayle, it is true isn’t it, we have been taught to live from our heads so it is not surprising we find it so hard to live from our bodies.
Lucy, you have peeled back a bandage that I feel many of us are yet to fully claim. I certainly wanted to make others around me ‘more esoteric’ to make it easier for me to be. Or felt so amazing I wanted others to know and ‘get it’. And yes, the messages from Universal Medicine were opposite to this. It was not until I really, truly (to the best of my current ability) took responsibility for myself has this imposition reduced.
I still feel bad that I went on and on about it! Well not bad but a little awkward. I use this awkwardness to ensure I don’t repeat the pattern.
Oh yes, how I recognise what you describe – thank you, you have described so clearly, the ‘Serge Says’ approach to life. Sadly I’m no longer with my husband, he has another partner, but he was subjected to all my new discoveries, and neither he nor my son ever met Serge, but my daughter has, and she understands how I’m learning just to be me, and not to preach to anyone. It’s making a huge diference to all my relationships!
It is a long article, but worth reading it! Thank you for sharing this with us. Everything you have experienced I can put my name under. I did it the same. It was so strenous, exhausting and seperated me from my family and the rest of the world. Now I am learning to accept myself where I am – and to do it for me. And guess what? I have a greater understanding for others, and we all suddenly move closer together.. my family, friends and collegues. By just being.
Lucy, this is amazing and your honesty touches me deeply. It takes great courage to own our mistakes and thank you for showing us how easy it is to avoid our issues and slip into living from knowledge rather than from our true feelings. So many of us have done the same and then suddenly one day, our defences drop and we get it – Be Love – don’t preach about it, get on with it! What an amazing family you have!
I have to own up to the same Rowena. It wasn’t so much the ‘Serge said’ bit, but my interpretation of it. I did things from a base of applying my new awareness to every situation with my life and friends, rather than feeling it for myself, and when I reflect on that, yes it was defensive. I’m sure I became very dull and boring. Now the defences are almost down, I’m getting on with love, and the joyous child I remember is coming out to play.
It is exactly that, finding our way through our livingness, nothing more nothing less. Because we have been taught to follow from such a young age, we can apply the same routine to Serge Benhayon, yet he breaks the mould because that is not what he is asking for or sharing at all. He is sharing that it is through us discovering the relationship with our body, who we are and what we are made of that will impulse different movements that offer us a deeper connection with ourselves and therefore all others.
I love your honesty Lucy, what courage and l completely agree. Very inspirational. Yes, we can only truly look to ourselves. Thank you, Julie
Thank you Lucy and Julie, ‘claim It’, do not ‘preach it’ seems to be the message.
I found this piece deeply touching, with echoes of that experienced in my own life. (I typed lie, would you believe!) I felt I was living it, and when the situation became clear that I wasn’t, I panicked and hid. But one can’t hide forever and as you so touchingly said – I am just enjoying getting to know myself again, and its rather a relief. Thank you for sharing. It has touched my heart.
We can feel such shame when we realise we have been the instigators of much of the complication in our lives and yet we have to commit to be in our lives to change the movements that find us in any situation! Hiding and succumbing to feelings of shame don’t hold ourselves with the same love that we would hold others with, so time to turn that around and bring understanding to why we do or did what we did and then plant seeds that inspire different outcomes.