by Jo Billings, USA
I am a woman of 40 years old and have spent about 33 of those years dealing with depression, anxiety and self worth issues. I spent many years in psychotherapy and have been on and off antidepressants since age 17. I have delved into diverse healing modalities to try to clear the suffering. I worked with naturopaths, acupuncturists, healers and shamans for a long time… but was still living daily with emotional pain.
I was plagued with the feeling that not only was I not sharing love and joy (because I couldn’t feel it myself) but that I was just adding to the pain and misery of the world with my own suffering. I felt confused and didn’t know how to live my life. I felt so off track, so lost from myself. I kept saying to myself, “I want to know Truth”.
When I read one of Serge Benhayon’s books, I was moved by how true it felt to me. True, in contrast to all the self-help, spiritual modalities and psychotherapy I had tried where I was always left feeling that I needed to sift through the muddy parts (for example, the fact that the practitioners often seemed extremely drained, stressed, unloving or outright sickly).
I wanted to learn more about Universal Medicine and began slowly listening to Serge’s audio presentations and practicing the Gentle Breath Meditation. As I became more focused on being present and less distracted, I felt stronger in myself and more able to say no to the depressive thoughts that would previously have such a hold over me. I began to feel myself, not numbness or sadness or pain.
The teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have helped me understand that what I was experiencing (my emptiness, depression and suffering), was me missing myself and how to come back to me by not seeking outside for a fix, but looking inside to heal. With the support of audio presentations, classes, and healing sessions, I have been developing the ability to be more present, feel my feelings, accept where I am and to not give my power away to sadness or other people. I’m working on not undermining my integrity by comparing myself to anyone else. I had been trying to help people and do things to feel needed and receive acceptance from others, but I had not been offering loving attention and acceptance to myself, and that was not working!
I had often lain crying on the floor with exhaustion and had come to realise that I could not go on feeling everyone’s pain and sadness… that it was taking me out! I have also had aching kidneys (sometimes extremely painful) from childhood, which no doctors could explain. My introduction to Serge’s work came while living in Australia; when, in response to my describing how my kidneys ached, a friend opened one of his books for me to read a section about the different ways a person can deplete their kidneys. It described exactly how I had been living and giving to others without regard to myself. I was well into my own personal work of accepting the fact that my lifelong efforts to ‘help’ my family, out of this deep sympathy, was not truly helpful and that I was actually drowning myself in it. One of the courses I took from Serge (later) really helped me move with this. I can be compassionate instead of sympathetic. As I develop true compassion; learn not to take on other people’s pain and to trust others to be learning what they need, my kidneys and lower back have been steadily improving, not to mention I am not crying all the time!
By healing a lot of childhood sadness I have also gone from needing chiropractic support for my sacrum (a lot of pain and expense!) on average of 25 times a year (from age 14 to 38) to enjoying a half hour esoteric session about once a year with a shadow of the symptoms which are 90% resolved at this point.
Using simple tools such as breathing gently and learning to honor myself by not overriding what I know I need to do or say, I feel for the first time that I am Living my life, not just existing and surviving.
What I mean is that I am actually able to enjoy myself most of the time in whatever I’m doing. I ‘want’ to do things and I often enjoy connecting with people versus dreading waking up each day and experiencing anxiety around people because of feeling I was representing myself so poorly and unable to fulfill my purpose (of living / being me)…I am handling things much better now instead of feeling desperate about getting by.
I now feel more empowered and able to discern what is good for me and make supportive choices. This has changed everything about my life and it all comes from me. For example, I no longer crave and eat sugar or caffeine or take drugs and alcohol (or date unloving men) to escape unpleasant emotions or keep me going. After 25 years of trying not to eat sugar (as I could see that it greatly exacerbated my symptoms) I have found that it’s not about saying no or having a strong will; I am eating more how I need to because I can feel that it doesn’t feel good in my body to have these things. It is rewarding to be more in touch with my body! I also have chosen, for the first time, a truly supportive partner who is gentle and whom I respect.
I always felt so broken, like something was wrong with me. Now, for the first time in my adult life, I feel that I am OK and that I am really learning to take loving care of myself. I am more and more able to just be myself. I am beginning to feel a loveliness in who I am. I have a sense of purpose in working to re-learn how to live a loving life and I know I’m on my path!
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
“It is rewarding to be more in touch with my body!” – being in touch with the body asks us to be aware of its communications, and not just to be aware of them but also to heed what we feel is being asked as action. This second part is the harder part often to do as we tend to fight it with the rational mind taking over and telling us what it thinks the body should or should not need. But in fact the body has a voice and needs to be allowed to speak and not just speak but be heard and respected. This is a great reminder – thank you Jo!
“I had often lain crying on the floor with exhaustion and had come to realise that I could not go on feeling everyone’s pain and sadness… that it was taking me out!” – Exhaustion is the first step to depression, and on some level many of us have experienced this, and touched base with depression, even though we may not fully have realised it.
“what I was experiencing (my emptiness, depression and suffering), was me missing myself” – this is a key sentence that shows that it is not about a trying to fix things, just simply the body saying that we know the truth, miss the truth and hence just need to connect to it. Not an easy thing to do when one is caught in the depths of dispare, but yet so easily accessible to us deep within.
What gives the quality of truth to Serge’s words are not the words in itself but the Livingness of it in every movement he does. This is really transformative, firstly in his life and then, consequently, to those who attend his presentations.
I used to remember feeling depressed and withdrawn and I couldn’t stand to be around other people because I didn’t want to be around myself! That’s now completely changed and I love being around people as I love being more with myself.
Jo this is such a simple line but I absolutely love it for that very reason, “I am beginning to feel a loveliness in who I am”.
Serge Benhayon’s books are amazing in many ways, and share much wisdom, ‘in response to my describing how my kidneys ached, a friend opened one of his books for me to read a section about the different ways a person can deplete their kidneys. It described exactly how I had been living and giving to others without regard to myself.’
This is a very inspiring read, Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine support so many people to turn their lives around.
“I began to feel myself, not numbness or sadness or pain.” This is the beauty of what the Esoteric way of life and healing offers, a reconnection back to our true selves, and one day it may be understood that the separation from our essence or soul is the cause of all human maladies, physical, mental, or otherwise.
Learning the difference between sympathy and compassion has been life changing for me and committing to taking responsibility for myself rather than distracting myself with other people’s problems allows them the grace to come to their own conclusions/solutions when I get out of the way.
There is a wealth of gems here Jo, much wisdom shared, thank you. There is such a self respect in this line “I’m working on not undermining my integrity by comparing myself to anyone else.” And I can relate to this “I had been trying to help people and do things to feel needed and receive acceptance from others, but I had not been offering loving attention and acceptance to myself, and that was not working!” I’ve found that when I am like this people do not respect me, as I have entered into a relationship not feeling that me just being me is enough, but rather it’s about what I can do for others.
What you say about sympathy and compassion, and about the kidney energy, is huge. No wonder so many of us feel so exhausted and drained just by existing.
I agree Fumiyo – Sympathy is very draining and I have experienced it first hand, and yet I still can fall for it, when I don’t allow myself to see the full picture but only choose to see a part of it.
Oh my, wow, this is some blog, I deeply appreciate you sharing your life experience with us.
Absolutely amazing what true love and true healing can do.
This is interesting what you have to say Jo, I suffered from depression and mental illness but didn’t realise it was me missing myself! How much easier would it have been if someone, one of the many doctors or the psychologist I was seeing for years had explained that to me. As it makes so much sense the despair had to have come from somewhere.
Again I was triggered by what you say about the combination of comparing oneself and undermining our integrity and it makes sense we have to leave ourselves, the connection we have with who we are in order to compare with someone else. The moment we do this we are no longer able to discern our own quality.
Comparison is a poison that disconnects us from our own essence and we lose our inner knowing of what is true for us.
It makes sense if we are missing our connection to our true selves that we need to look inside to heal.
Reading one of Serge Benhayon’s books is really in contrast to all the other self-help and spiritual modalities that are available. It is booming business..so we have to be always discerning what is true and what is not, what is love and what is not. Actually there is no way we can compare his books to anything else that is on the market.
The search for relief from our symptoms can be lengthy because we just want what we are feeling to go away. I so get that. I also get that alongside the medicinal support we have to change our movements and consider the way we approach what we do and why we do it, because otherwise we are just working on the end result, the what, without considering the why. If we don’t consider the why, it will simply manifest again somewhere else, some time else, and we will be back to trying to find a solution.
BrOKen inside is only four letters away from OK inside. We are never too far away from our essence, yet often times the few meters that separate us from US feel like galaxies away.
I love the play on words Eduardo – and this is so true, something that is deep within and surrounds us completely can sometimes feel like it is too far away for us to reach – what an illusion that can get us, and yet it is just an illusion which once discovered has no power or potency what so ever.
“I want to know Truth”. We think that Truth is out there somewhere when in fact it is in us just as much and has been known to us for aeons. Having support from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine allowed you to come to this for yourself and trust yourself in this. Thank you for sharing your journey and getting to the place where you can feel your own loveliness and a purpose, a ‘purpose in working to re-learn how to live a loving life’; a loving life in Truth, far from the emotional neediness that the false idea of love has us entangled in.
It is fascinating how so easily we can ‘fall’ into states of depression yet also how easily we can come out of them. No punishment or anything almost too quickly for our mind to comprehend. Which shows that to stay depressed we have to continually be choosing that energy otherwise it is simply not there. So then what are we getting out of being depressed? Recognition, something to talk about, a reason to not get out of bed, an excuse to not take responsibility for the choices we have made? The list goes on.
“The teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have helped me understand that what I was experiencing (my emptiness, depression and suffering), was me missing myself”. The answer is right under our noses but nothing in life tells you that you are not the problem, it’s that you are not being you and deeply miss that.
Fiona I agree with you think how much money could be saved on our health bills if we were taught that the illness and diseases we manifest are because deep down we miss ourselves. The teachings and presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine show that by reconnecting back to our essence which resides within each and every one of us we can completely turn our lives around. There are thousands of people who are the walking talking models of this successful way of living. It cannot be disputed as there are so many people out there in the world that have truly benefitted from the Universal Medicine Modalities. They stand out against the back drop of ill health because they are so vital and healthy. Sooner or later people will start to ask their own questions and seek for the answers.
The Universal Medicine therapies are like miracle workers. I know so many people who have had real and lasting improvements in their body after only one session.
Great to hear of such a transformation
What an enlightening expose on your experience of healing from depression. Committing to ourselves and not giving up on bringing ourselves more fully and engaging in life can be a powerful healing.
I love how no matter what has happened in the past we can at any moment turn our lives around and not by getting anything rather returning to our connection within that has never left us we have just covered it up. Universal Medicine has given us all the tools to do this. The more we apply this daily to deepen rather tha simply restore our wayward ways the more we will come to see the game we have been playing all along and live the love we are without thinking it is an effort or a strugle in any way.
Yes, it is not about being bad, it is about deepening the conversation our body has with us as we live life. We are perfectly imperfect and if we see ourselves as forever students then we take the weight of pressure off our shoulders to have all the answers and get it right all the time. We may just need to take a bit of a long road round to find that we did have the answer but we were not looking in the right spot.
It is a massive pressure we take off our shoulders when we realise and accept we are imperfect and not innately ‘bad’ rather just can and do make silly unloving choices at times but these are not us, simply stemming from an unloving energy we chose. So no condemnation rather learning is all that we need to do, easier said than done though!
I understand this feeling of feeling broken. It is a horrid place that can be so all-consuming. And I reckon that there are many many people all over the world who have also experienced this and who, like you and I, have sought many different ways to deal with this feeling – some may be successful, some maybe not. But the real gold in this is how common an experience it is to feel broken because then, once we start a common dialog about this shared internal turmoil, perhaps we can start to unpick what is really going on in the world.
Jo this is a delight to read, thank you. A testament to the power of true healing – where someone gets super honest about what is going on in their lives and about the way that they live effects their bodies. And then takes steps to shed what is not true, and live more of what is. With so many lies printed about Universal Medicine, why is the media not picking up on these stories? These are the true stories, the true miracles of everyday people, letting go of anxiety and depression, and living their lives in full.
and p.s. I’d love an update!
A lot of us carry some levels of this grief…”I had often lain crying on the floor with exhaustion and had come to realise that I could not go on feeling everyone’s pain and sadness… that it was taking me out!” We are sensitive and we do care…how we go about living with feeling the level of abuse that we and others choose is what heals us, can we walk in it without reacting to it, it is something that I continue to learn.
We are not here to fix another, simply to be love and provide a reflection of being love, not absorb another’s energy, ‘As I develop true compassion; learn not to take on other people’s pain and to trust others to be learning what they need, my kidneys and lower back have been steadily improving, not to mention I am not crying all the time!’
Thank you Jo, an awesome account of healing, and how powerful we truly are.
I can relate to your blog as I’m sure many others can too thanks for your honesty because it supports us all to be honest with ourselves as we reflect on our lives.
“The teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have helped me understand that what I was experiencing (my emptiness, depression and suffering), was me missing myself and how to come back to me by not seeking outside for a fix, but looking inside to heal.”
I know that for me meeting Serge Benhayon was a changing point in my life although I didn’t fully appreciate this at the time the support I have received for my depression from Universal Medicine has been invaluable I now lead a completely different life to the one I was struggling though before I met him. This man does actually have the answers to life’s dilemmas if we are willing to work on ourselves then the world becomes our oyster so to say again.
Thank you for your beautiful honesty Jo. There is so much of what you have written I can relate to, especially these words: “I feel for the first time that I am Living my life, not just existing and surviving.” I was a master at survival yet all the time I thought this was living, that this was what life was all about, and many of those around me reflected that back to me too. How misguided I was. Life is for living, but living in connection to who we are, in our absolute fullness and glory.
What a remarkable resurrection Jo, to no longer be owned by such a debilitating condition simply by reconnecting to the true you. Very inspiring.
Thank you Jo. Depression is such a debilitating illness so to read a blog about moving from depression to love and joy is super relevant for people and also super inspiring.
Yes, I think we have decided it is a life-long curse and yet it isn’t if we don’t define ourselves, or others by and with the struggle.
‘I am a woman of 40 years old and have spent about 33 of those years dealing with depression, anxiety and self worth issues’.Gosh that means at the age of 7 you were depressed, anxious and had lack of self worth! Where are we as a society when a 7 year old girl feels this? It shows we have seriously got it wrong and are not truly evolving. What I can say is that is truly AWESOME to hear how your turned this completely round for yourself but there is still a lot of work to be done as there are many people in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s as well as children and young people who still feel this and have not yet found the true answers or true support to turn this around for themselves as well. Universal Medicine is a pretty ginormous blessing to Humanity ✨
I can connect with so much that you describe here Jo. At one point in my life I just felt like a soggy sponge, quite pathetic and overwhelmed by sadness. The real power of Serge Benhayon’s work lies in empowering us to re-connect to our inner essence, buried underneath our pain, hurt, sympathy and ideals, a beautiful, compassionate and wise energy that once reclaimed shows us all the way out of our self made misery.
” (for example, the fact that the practitioners often seemed extremely drained, stressed, unloving or outright sickly). ”
I had the same experience – there was all these practitioners telling me how great their modalities were , but everyone of them had a personal sickness of some sort so what they were saying did not add up.
“Using simple tools such as breathing gently and learning to honor myself by not overriding what I know I need to do or say, I feel for the first time that I am Living my life, not just existing and surviving.” This is so inspiring Jo. Incredible that something as simple as the Gentle Breathing technique and honouring yourself more deeply has had such a deep and lasting positive impact on you and your body.
Jo the way you’ve turned your life and health around is incredibly inspiring .. from the simple choice to self-love through honouring your body, it’s brought the true riches of life: living in connection with the soul is the enricher of life.
This is always a powerful read for me Jo, you highlight the human condition of depression so well, and you include the behaviours that deplete the kidneys and can bring about a depressive state. Your life is a true miracle Jo, be great to get an update on how life is for you now. Please keep writing as you have a beautiful way of expressing, very clear and relatable.
To have over come 33 years+ of living with depression is huge and shows that there is nothing we cannot let go of when we truly say yes to living our life based on the love that we are. Universal Medicine gives us the very practical tools so we can all do this for ourselves.
It is quite remarkable, to have overcome 33 years of living with depression, and shows how powerful we are when provided with true support.
I agree it is remarkable and something which needs to be shared so no one else ever has to live with 1 day of depression let alone 33 years.
It sure does and yet it is only one story of many which goes to show the possibilities are endless when the truth and love we all deeply know are reconnected to.
Letting go of our hurts from childhood is huge for all of us, we can walk around crumpled and in blame for what has passed instead of living in the present. Walking free of this (Universal Medicine Modalities are an awesome support for this) enables us to fully flourish and stand tall in life.
The thoughts we are able to produce are not alien (cannot be) from what we have said yes to.
To feel a victim or powerless in anything we have to first choose to not accept our part in it, that is, the choices we are making that lead to what we feel powerless about.
Very true Thomas we are not simply innocent victims rather we have had a part to play in everything that has happened to us and will happen to us. The moment we take responsibility for our choices the picture becomes clearer and we are no longer simply at the mercy of forces at play rather on the front foot saying yes to the love that we are and anything less than this love sticks out like a sore thumb.
Or is it the other way round? To feel a victim or powerless in anything do we first have to know deep down that we are all powerful and divine human beings that are able to choose to not live the all powerful beings that we are. We can’t stop ourselves from being all powerful beings but we can choose to not live that in our current lives, which is exactly what most of us are currently choosing.