I had my first child at the age of twenty and the responsibility of being a parent came as quite a shock to me. I had believed that marriage, children, and being a good mother would be the solution to the emptiness I felt inside. In spite of the relationship difficulties following the birth of my first child, I had another child the year after, but I still felt empty and overwhelmed. I put all the blame for my unhappiness on my husband and I eventually left the marriage to be in a relationship with someone else.
A Life of Dramas, Alcohol and Abuse
This next relationship was abusive to myself and my children, but I still chose to have another child. My daughter was sexually abused from the age of six through until she was twelve. When she eventually disclosed this abuse to me, I was unable to support her in a loving way. At the same time I became estranged from my two year old son, who was taken out of my care by his father.
My dream of a happy family was diminishing but I hadn’t given up yet; I married a third time and had a fourth child. By this time I was a very heavy drinker and life was just one drama after another. I had wanted so much to be a good mother but I wasn’t able to love and nurture my children in the way I had wanted. This was a great sadness to me and I drank even more to cover up that sadness. By the time the older children were teenagers, they had joined me in the use of alcohol and drugs, and the dramas continued.
My eighteen year old son died in an alcohol related accident when I was forty and not long after I decided to seek help for my drinking addiction. I stopped drinking alcohol and tried to take some responsibility for my life but by now the patterns were so ingrained that it was difficult to make any true changes. I felt guilty and believed I had damaged my children as they were now choosing self-harming behaviours including heroin and alcohol addiction, self-abuse by cutting and also gambling.
My life was dominated by the events in my children’s lives: I was unable to work as I was constantly ‘on call’ for them, answering phone calls in the middle of the night and responding to the many dramas in their lives. I was exhausted and suffered from chronic fatigue. I took one of my granddaughters into my care for five years and then my daughter moved into my home, together with her two younger children for another five years. I was dedicated in looking after everyone and running the whole of the household as I thought I could make up for the past.
My daughter lost her licence for many years and I became the sole driver for all the family. I was now receiving recognition for being a ‘good mother’ and ‘good grandmother’ but I came to realise that I was just holding everything together by myself and not allowing my daughter to take responsibility for her own life. We eventually agreed to live in separate homes.
Universal Medicine, Self-Love and Learning to Say No
At this time I started attending presentations by Universal Medicine and I began to make choices that were more self-loving. I also began to recognise my own need for drama and my need to be needed.
I started learning to say “no” to my family whenever I felt that helping them was only rescuing them from their own responsibilities.
I had allowed my daughter to build up large amounts of debt in my name and I began learning to say “no” to further loans. I started saying “no” to buying cigarettes and alcohol for her and I was eventually able to say “no” to lending money altogether, even when they ran out of basic necessities. This was difficult for my family to accept as they were so used to me accommodating their needs. My daughter reacted with anger and she would ostracise me and stop me from seeing the children. I allowed this to affect me and would sometimes revert back to my old patterns of helping them just to feel needed and accepted. I could feel it was not loving to be constantly rescuing my family but it was still very difficult to say no. I was still playing the role of what I believed was being a ‘good mother’ and I was still feeling the guilt of my past choices.
I concentrated on making more self-loving choices. With the support of Universal Medicine practitioners I began to realise that I am not the failure I believed I was and that I am actually an amazing person. I was able to view my past actions in a loving way and began to understand that I had acted from emptiness and that I was not a bad person.
I started to eat food that generally supported my body. Although by this time I was eating what I believed was a healthy diet, I was still filling up with many foods that made me feel bloated, or uncomfortable. I gradually stopped eating gluten, dairy and sugar and lost 16 kilos and started to look and feel fantastic – old friends tell me that I look much younger now than I used to.
I learnt to listen to my body and started going to bed earlier and waking earlier. I had so much more energy and was able to find employment in Community Aged Care which requires a lot of physical work, but I don’t come home exhausted as I am now more able to remain aware of my own needs while still supporting others.
The more I am honest with myself and the more I develop self-love and take care of and honour myself, the less need I have to please others to receive recognition, or to feel loved.
Accepting Responsibility and Learning to Appreciate Myself
Consistently living these changes is still a work in progress as I become more of me; I enjoy being the woman I truly am. As a result of these changes my relationship with the family has also changed. I can still offer support at times but am finding it doesn’t need to come from a place of need or guilt in me, or from feeling that I have a role to live up to, which in the past for me was a huge identification with ‘being a good mother’. The more I accept and appreciate myself and the changes I have made, the more I have to offer as a reflection to my family that these choices can be made by anyone. I am realising I don’t need to make suggestions for them to change anymore; I can just allow them to be where they are at and trust them to make their own choices.
I never believed I could be anything more than my past – that I could move on from there and live a life free of the old patterns that held me so tight. My life now is changing all the time as I expand my level of self-love and I feel now that I can connect with others more openly. I don’t have to hide from others by feeling a victim anymore as I am now accepting responsibility for my own life.
I appreciate all that I have discovered about myself from what Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine present. . . and I also appreciate myself for making these choices to change.
By Anonymous, NSW Australia
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
When we have so many behaviours that are ingrained in us and we make the choice to remove ourselves from them, they attempt to sneak back in to take us back to those old behaviours. As life wants us to remain in these ingrained behaviours we become more addicted to them. It’s a vicious cycle.
Universal Medicine is exactly what it is, universal and everything about it is medicinal. It is up to the person whether their presentation supports them or not.
It is through this constant emptiness that I came to Universal Medicine and my life has changed since, because I made the choice to do so. We all have our reasons to make the choice to do something about this emptiness that is probably within all of us, but it is ultimately when we decide to take responsibility, that things change.
To have experienced the hardships that you have, one could understand a life of drinking and drowning one’s sorrows to continue till the end. However, there came a point where you know there was more to life and with the right support you were ready to make the change that no one else could make for you. A key ingredient was the willingness to do so – to make the change in other words to actually live it. This is very powerful indeed.
This is absolute GOLD: “The more I am honest with myself and the more I develop self-love and take care of and honour myself, the less need I have to please others to receive recognition, or to feel loved.” – it is all about valuing and appreciating who we are in way that no one can sway as we know the truth to the bone.
That statement is GOLD, it is when we realise that we and our body’s take precedent then anything else, that change and true support appears.
Wow Anon – this is an amazing turn around of your life. From living in a way that was not supporting you, to making choices and changes to look after yourself more and set boundaries and respect yourself as well as others, in effect taking more responsibility in life, has set you free. This is a gift worth celebrating. I too have left behind much drama and learned to set many boundaries and the best part for me is knowing that this is only just the beginning of what we can change in our lives when we begin the path of self care and self love. Things only keep expanding and unfolding.
It is possible to resurrect out of abuse, addiction, and poor health and wellbeing. What’s been described here is a truly amazing reflection of what Universal Medicine offer because usually such a family life repeats and repeats, everyone is stuck, and it can become generational, and often for many generations. Abuse is terrible to experience and often our coping mechanisms are more self abuse, like alcohol or poor diet, or a lack of self care. Universal Medicine are simply extraordinary with the simple and empowering tools they offer people to resurrect out of these situations – congratulations to the writer for overcoming so much.
“I never believed I could be anything more than my past – that I could move on from there and live a life free of the old patterns that held me so tight” – I can so relate to this, and I know how obliging we can be to keep repeating a pattern or playing a role, even though we know it’s not serving anyone. Patterns are addiction, and familiarity is comfort.
Learning to say ‘No’ to the attraction of being needed is to say ‘Yes’ to love for yourself and for others.
Loving and accepting ourselves changes so much, ‘The more I am honest with myself and the more I develop self-love and take care of and honour myself, the less need I have to please others to receive recognition, or to feel loved.’
What an amazing turn around and journey of self discovery.
There is this sense of emptiness in many of us that we try to assuage by running around after other people trying to fix them rather than stopping to fix ourselves. So for you to come to the understanding that you need support too and that you are not a failure but amazing person is such a healing and a lesson in self forgiveness.
Appreciating our loving choices inspires us to make more of them rather than waiting for outside motivation.
Appreciation is a great support for ourselves, ‘The more I accept and appreciate myself and the changes I have made, the more I have to offer as a reflection to my family ‘.
“The more I am honest with myself and the more I develop self-love and take care of and honour myself, the less need I have to please others to receive recognition, or to feel loved.” Love this observation, it is so very true – self love – the basis of any relationship.
Putting others before us is exhausting, not only because of the physical demands we place on ourselves but when we deprive ourselves from care and nurturing the body has no fuel to run on. When we’re malnourished we cannot think clearly, when we’re sleep deprived we cannot focus. All of these can bring us to a state of feeling given up, this feeling of giving up can make us feel like we’re dragging our feet, being sluggish is also another symptom of somebody who doesn’t nurture themselves. All of these things are exhausting to the body because there’s no thirst for life, there’s no motivation, inspiration or something to look forward to. Life can become a drag of to-do lists and miserable days. These little things are so vital for our health and well-being, yet we seem to have forgotten them. No app, or piece of technology will ever be able to replace the little simple things like taking a nap when tired or eating a nourishing meal when hungry.
“With the support of Universal Medicine practitioners I began to realise that I am not the failure I believed I was and that I am actually an amazing person”. Thank you for sharing these words, as they are words I too could write. To come to know myself as the amazing person I am has been a gradual process of unfolding back from the woman who often felt like a helpless victim of life, to a vibrant and beautiful woman who knows who she is, and has committed to living all of her in this world. A turnaround in my life that many years ago I would have never thought was possible; but it was.
And how many more women and men out there think they are failures and write themselves off when in fact they are packets of gold just waiting to shine….We all deserve to be reminded of who we are, and then from there it is our responsibility to activate this and begin to live it. Thank you Ingrid for highlighting this aspect and how the seemingly impossible is actually very possible.
Saying no, especially to family, is not something we are taught to do in society today. We even get recognition, as you did, for putting up with non loving behaviour from others. Yet saying no can be what’s needed, for the other to learn certain life lessons. To say no to our own non-loving behaviors too, of course and to appreciate even small more loving changes that we make.
Making self- loving choices, the way out of chaos and into a more harmonious way of living. Thankyou for sharing your story Anonymous.
We save ourselves and no one else but the beauty of this is that the moment the saviour light is resurrected from within and lived, all others are bathed in the reflection of this whether they choose to resurrect that which also lives within them or not.
“I started learning to say “no” to my family whenever I felt that helping them was only rescuing them from their own responsibilities.” Learning to say NO is one of the more loving things that we can do for ourselves.
Helping others is not always about saying YES but sometimes we need to hear and say the word NO. For ourselves and others.
“The more I am honest with myself and the more I develop self-love and take care of and honour myself, the less need I have to please others to receive recognition, or to feel loved.”
Love this, it is so important. If we don’t have self love all aspects of our life suffer.
I have found that there are so many things we can do to try and fill the emptiness that is felt from continually living without connection with our soul, and yet, as none of these really ultimately work, the emptiness never goes away. Which is how the spirit runs the body until such time that this can be done no more, and the soul is called for once again.
What exhausts us is the constant chatter, out of control thoughts and the nervous tension we seem to be running on. We can do everything we are doing in a calm manner, in such manner the body is not overworked.
Self-love is such a powerful foundation to loving ourselves and making choices that support and nurture us. Without introducing self-love into my life I would still be accepting abuse in my relationships. I am so grateful for attending Serge Benhayon presentations and being offered absolute gold on a consistent basis.
Enjoying being you.. I think we underestimate the effect that this has on those around us, but when we see it and feel it in others, it’s super inspiring to feel and to be around.
When it comes to learning to be a mother/father and remain true to who we are I love this line “Accepting Responsibility and Learning to Appreciate Myself” it shows that we already have everything and all the tools but its about building that relationship with who we are first before anything else.
Inspiring to read how you’ve turned your life around by learning what it is to learn to love and support yourself, and how that then supports everyone around you, too. When we placate and please others out of sympathy or guilt, there is no learning, no responsibility and no evolution. It can feel so hard to not do that, if we’re needy ourselves, and needing to do something – to make another feel good – to gain recognition or acceptance from them. As you’ve so beautifully shared, turning this ingrained pattern around starts with increasing the love we have for ourselves, through our moment to moment decisions to take care of ourselves and our bodies. When we do that, we are so much better able to take care of and support others, in a way that truly supports them to take care of themselves.
When we make decisions from guilt it can really cloud our understanding of what would actually be the most supportive thing to do for another.
I made many of those guilt-loaded decisions over the years of my life, thinking at the time it was the best thing to do, but it didn’t usually turn out so well, for anyone. Guilt is an emotion that is so damaging, firstly to the carrier of the guilt, and secondly to all those around them, as any movements made in this guilt can be felt energetically. Guilt definitely clouds the truth that is always waiting to be expressed.