As a child I grew up living in an environment of family violence and abuse. One of my siblings had an intellectual disability coupled with a complement of disorders that played out in regular psychotic and violent episodes. This was experienced as excessive controlling, manipulative and aggressive behaviour that exacerbated in puberty when physical size and strength intensified the periods of rage.
Whilst there was physical assault on family members and sometimes members of the public, the abuse extended to self-harm with cutting, punching windows and walls and swallowing fabric and toilet paper, which resulted in hospitalisation. It wasn’t uncommon to be threatened with knives and scissors, particularly as we woke from sleep, but most of the time these items were hidden in the strangest of places to protect us from physical harm.
I was the youngest child and my role was to be the ‘runner’ because I was fast. I had to run with my dog in my arms to protect her from harm, and I had to run to get my father to come and help with these episodes.
Each week there would usually be an incident and I would need to be locked in the house for safety. I watched out the window as my father tried to calm down my brother but his rage was overpowering. My father would be punched, hit and wrestled to the ground as he tried his best to defend himself. On many occasions my brother had to be taken to hospital and I would stay home with my sister to clean up the mess that was left behind.
My parents forbade us from talking to outsiders about what was going on in the home and we were told a story that we were to repeat if anybody asked. We had to honour my brother’s right to privacy – but I always felt the real reason for the silence was because my parents felt embarrassed, ashamed and blamed themselves. I honoured their wishes and kept the secret.
Living daily in this environment took its toll and I began to shut down from life. I became so deeply saddened and watched as my parents hardened from the pain of it all. They functioned of course, and provided for us, but they were struggling to cope with life themselves. The tenderness that I once enjoyed from my mother was replaced with panic, stress and nervous tension, and my father regressed into a depression where I could no longer reach him. I missed seeing the loveliness of my parents which I remembered all too well from those early years.
Quite often when an episode of violence subsided there was a short period of time where my brother expressed a genuine display of tenderness and concern for what had happened. As a child I felt these moments provided me with a glimpse as to who my brother really was, although it was never long before the threat of violence returned.
In my teenage years I found myself unable to deal with the relentless fear and anxiety as well as the sadness, anger and frustration. I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling, nor could I stand to see my brother control the family with threats of violence anymore. I chose drugs and alcohol in an attempt to dull the hurt.
One evening at a teenage party I was raped whilst intoxicated by alcohol and drugs. It was at this point I became more harsh and critical of myself, which was exacerbated by the cocktail of substances I continued to consume. The care I gave my physical body at this time was functional at best, and there was little true connection or tenderness for myself, let alone anyone else.
By now I had hardened myself to my brother and completely ignored him even though we resided in the same home. I cannot describe the level of anger and resentment I felt towards him, which of course would have been felt by him as well.
I had longed for the time when I could leave home and did so immediately after I completed high school. This triggered many episodes for my brother who wanted the same opportunities. Eventually an aggressive and violent incident placed him in the hands of the police and it was here that life changed for everyone. My brother was placed in a facility where his behaviour could be managed.
Returning to Love
Many years later at age 34 I started attending Universal Medicine presentations and with the loving support of a number of Esoteric practitioners and the student body I learned to pull down the protective wall that I had built as a child. I started to let people in and trust once again.
I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.
Seeing a greater truth and healing childhood hurts
I visited my brother only a couple of times when he left home as it was always so difficult to be reminded of the way it was in my childhood. When we met as a family, we would immediately settle into the same uncomfortable roles.
Recently, however, I felt it was time to reconnect and so I organised a visit. My awareness on this visit was so much greater than ever before and whilst much about the visit felt familiar, there was a lot that felt different too.
I could feel on this visit how much I cared for my brother and I could feel his loveliness too. My brother really liked people, and this came to me as a great surprise. There were many times when I was able to observe how open and trusting of others he could be and that he didn’t hold back from saying hello and starting a conversation with a stranger. He was reflecting to me something that showed that I could be open like this too.
It was touching for me to observe the genuine level of care and support offered to my brother by his care workers; it made me see that he too is being given the opportunity to evolve and to choose more self-loving ways. It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour.
There were many opportunities and reasons for my brother to withdraw from humanity because of the way that he was treated and yet he did not choose this for himself. As a child he was teased by other children because he was different, he became obese as a teenager and was watched and whispered about as he walked down the street. Now in his early 40s he has lost his teeth and his appearance is that of someone in their 70s. For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour.
In the past I had distanced myself from my brother but I realised after this visit that we shared a similarity – we held deep hurts and we reacted to those hurts with anger. The only difference was that I buried my pain while he exploded with his. These behaviours kept people out of our hearts so that we didn’t have to feel the pain that was inside of us, and we both suffered as a result.
Throughout my healing of family violence and abuse, I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me. I experienced first-hand that the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past. I now hold a greater understanding about my life and feel a newfound freedom to be my true loving self.
With love and deep appreciation to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for supporting me throughout my healing process.
by MAS
Related reading:
From Self-loathing to Self-love – Rediscovering my Inner Essence after Sexual Assault and Rape
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
‘the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.’ What a journey you have been on MAS! Whilst I haven’t had to live with the violence you talk of here, I can very much relate to the statement I have quoted from your blog. It does hurt much more to reject the love we are ourselves than to have another reject us.
Very inspiring, and very real and earthy sharing the realities of violence and trauma, as well as the strength of self love and the healing it offers. “I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.” It is a huge realisation to come to this, to see the power we have in our own hands to change our lives regardless of what we have experienced.
Being able to see and connect with another for who they are in their essence offers so much healing. And what I am learning is that this is not something we cultivate but that is actually who we are and we do know that love, and we are simply returning by accepting and surrendering to the amazing love that we already are.
If we do not know how to come back to ourselves and love and care for ourselves (or are not shown by another who truly lives this) its quite hard to do or know where to start … from experience I know this where I tried many many different things but nothing got to the root of my hurts, frustration, sadness, anger etc that is until I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and slowly slowly through a different way of living, like you, my life turned completely around. Very awesome to hear how this changed for you.
Understanding offers a way to heal our hurts.
Understanding is a wonderful support in many ways.
Often we have this perception that people with mental disabilities are victims of their conditions but reading this makes it clear that everyone, no matter what their circumstances have an opportunity to evolve and learn from their experiences.
It seems we go on learning as we continue through life.
I know so many people who have attended the workshops and presentations of Universal Medicine and by participating in group work at these presentations I have realised that we have for what ever reason not taken any great care of ourselves. We have not treated ourselves with the tenderness that we all deserve that we want someone else to provide this, we want someone to love us unconditionally as we are unable to love ourselves. I feel we have got it the wrong way round- if we loved and cherished ourselves first then we wouldn’t need anyone to fill the empty spaces as we would be so full of ourselves. Being full and complete with ourselves isn’t draining on another person which allows them the opportunity to be themselves.
The intensity of your home life MAS was huge and the fact that you now have deeper understanding of yourself, your brother and your family is amazing.
MAS, this is really interesting to read; ‘I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.’ I can feel the truth that it is us abusing ourselves and disregarding ourselves that is the more painful than someone else abusing us.
It is amazing how families protect themselves from outside opinion and perhaps reject possible avenues of help and support in doing so. It is lovely that you have been able to reconnect with the essence of who your brother is and that is something we can all do with everyone we meet and in whatever circumstances.
It is fantastic to complete and heal what we have felt hurt us from the past, we walk every day with everything we choose, so let’s make it a priority to heal.
We are given the miraculous opportunity to heal so so much through the teachings and tools given by Universal Medicine. Many upon many students have their own different flavoured story. Together we have how to live out of nearly every incident and event that any could experience. As a community we have the answers to a more loving society and place to live with love all thanks to Serge Benhayon for being the catalyst in love.
I agree, I have healed so much in the last decade and I have seen this occurring through the choice to heal and through the support of Universal Medicine. People making different choices and letting go of the shadow of hurt in their lives, these ripples will change and inspire humanity.
Wow your understanding of human life and how different people deal with the same hurts and problems differently is incredible. Ultimately whether we explode or withdraw it’s the same level of harm to ourselves and to others, and we all need to at some point learn to let go of what hurts us and call on something greater in ourselves to respond to life.
It is absolutely inspiring to read the understanding you have come to with your brother. So many people would not be able to move on from this. Universal Medicine offers the support to know that you can and it all starts with your own self-love and care. It’s so true that most of us carry hurts and what differs is if we display the reaction or suppress it.
I agree with you Fiona that Universal Medicines offers support to heal the hurts that keep us trapped in our own misery. It is this yearning for others to love us because we are unable to love ourselves first. We can see this is how we have built a society on a need for others to love us first and we can also see this will never work because the basic structure or fabric of our society is unsound.
This is a great example of what can be truly healed as many people carry hurts like this to their grave or believe that time heals all without arriving at a place where they can see the situation from every angle.
‘I experienced first-hand that the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past.’ This is gold MAS and key to dealing and healing with our hurts, love is stronger than any hurt we carry, and the more we live in a loving way the more we see the flow on effect love has to every area of our lives especially all our relationships.
It always starts with loving and caring for ourselves, only then can we extend this love and care to others, ‘I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.’
It is the most exquisite thing when we can see divinity in another, especially those who have harmed us.
MAS you’ve shown the world that true healing is possible, from situations that are more extreme than many you’ve resurrected yourself to the point of love. What an inspiration.
I find that it’s not always the event of abuse that does the most damage but how we feel about ourselves afterwards, and whether every moment of abuse or hurt chips away at our self worth until there’s nothing left. It’s amazing after everything you experienced you were able to fully restore your sense of self-worth, it really demonstrates that we never need to be at the mercy of what happens to us.
Life is by-and-large challenging. We are exposed to things that may be unique or not but which make us learn our way through life. We are exposed to movements that affect our way of moving and shape our sense of what is acceptable or not.
‘the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past’ This is a very simple yet powerful statement. It doesn’t matter where we start, just that we do…start to honour and nurture ourselves.
MAS, you have done an amazing recovery from dire circumstances!
I find this image of ‘running with the dog’ a sobering one that can be read at many levels. For in this situation, not only are we running from abuse, we are also running from love. I am not for a second saying that at a temporal level one should not run when there is the threat of imminent danger but more so that when we are given the task ‘to run’ for our own personal safety, we learn to develop behaviours that are security based and then we do not adjust these when there is no danger at hand. In this way we learn to live with a wall of protection around us and by the actions of one, we condemn the many. That is, because we are so hurt by the actions and behaviours of one person, we learn to keep the whole world out. Thus our life becomes about self-preservation and not love.
Most, if not all of us, have been in some way affected by this very scenario, albeit the play out of abuse being in varying degrees. Your experience here MAS is a great example of how we can turn this situation around and let love back in and out of our hearts by being open and willing to see and feel the part we have played in it all and also what is being reflected back to us through another.
What an incredible story, thank you for sharing – yes we are all on our paths of evolution, healing hurts and dealing with difficulties. Some of us show these in a more obvious ways and others have found clever ways to suppress what doesn’t feel so good, but eventually we will all have to deal with it all.
Letting go of all those layers of protection we have when we have shut down to people and life because of abuse or our hurts is indeed a blessing. As we get to feel our natural tenderness of nature and start to let others in again.
This is an amazing story that I would say is pretty rare. That you have been able to reconcile and heal old wounds and hurts to do with family from the past and as a result feel closer to your brother now rather than drifting further and further apart from one another or just not speaking to each other at all which is what usually happens. And I can see how the change happened inside you first and then you were able to view things differently from there.
There is such a depth of understanding in what is shared here, how in fact there is a step we can all take to love ourselves first and always no matter what .. we do not have to wait for another to do so, and the way to truly love others and let them in, is to love and deeply connect with us first.
What a tender and heart warming sharing. When you shared how you could see you were both hurt and expressing that hurt in anger but that one was more obvious than the other I could see how often we tend to judge and not take time to look below the outward appearance.
It is very inspiring to feel how returning to and reconnecting with our true essence allows us to come back to the absolute truth beyond the hurt, and because of this hurt, we are also able to be understanding of others.
To see that no matter how devastating a past we may have experienced, there is a way of coming back to an openness, love and tenderness that is truly remarkable. Thank you for sharing your story, MAS.
A truly inspiring blog to read MAS. A great insight into the devastating affect of behaviours acted out from personal hidden hurts and keeping people at a distance.
These behaviours kept people out of our hearts so that we didn’t have to feel the pain that was inside of us, and we both suffered as a result.
What a joy to read that you were able to find the support to connect to who you truly are after the experience you had growing up. It shows that we are not our hurts, and whilst we might take a lot on, underneath it all is the truth and love of who we are.
I agree Brendan, this story is very supportive for others who have gone through a similar situation to know you can truly heal and move forward from abuse and trauma.
‘How the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.’ This is a powerful statement MAS, to be open to this truth we allow the body to deeply heal and to begin to let go of the hurts that have imprisoned us and kept us further away from love.
The best part about this piece for me, is when you talk about seeing someone – your brother – as more than just his behaviours, seeing him for the both the hurt person that he is and the beautiful person that he is too.
Understanding allows us to see a bigger picture, ‘For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour.’
Incredible sharing the fear that you must of lived with as a child growing up is quite intense. It is so lovely to read your way back to seeing your brother beyond his behaviour and to learn from his strengths be inspired by his willingness to grow. It’s so painful how we protect ourselves from harm, which is the greatest harm of all.
What goes on behind the closed doors of many homes in our society and is considered normal in that home would completely shock others – and being aware of and accepting this fact supports us all.
Yes, we read about it in books or on TV but knowing how common it is can be a shock.
Learning to trust and love ourselves and others is deeply healing of our hurts.
The biggest abuse in this world is the lie we have told to ourselves that we have no say in what takes place in our life. It takes great honesty to finally admit, all the harm and horrible events, we were the ones playing a huge role in causing it. Thank you MAS for sharing here.
Energy is a world of only yes. So, being aware of what we are saying yes to is crucial. There are many situations where we are perfectly justified to alter our movements (in other words, there are situations that provide the perfect alibi to go down). Yet, to go down is a choice, to be carried by whatever is at stake is a choice, to make an issue out of something is a choice. If we say yes to whatever invites us to go down, we invite that energy to stay with us and to tone us (in other words, we expect the energy we invited in to settle and do its job).
It’s amazing what you’ve shared about feeling the freedom of enjoying being YOU without regrets or guilt that ‘you’ have done things wrong. We can create prison walls around ourselves by entertaining self abuse and self loathing, and this is what’s so crippling.
Once we shut down to one person or situation it’s just a matter of time before the next. The great thing though is that opening up and getting free also has this domino effect. We’re always on a role – it’s just which direction we’re headed to. Thank you MAS.
Love this analogy or metaphor – I can never remember which one it is- domino effect, our choice which way it flows.
” Recently, however, I felt it was time to reconnect and so I organised a visit. ” This is lovely its so important, not to give up. Its important to be aware that no matter what everyone has the opportunity and possibility to live the truth.
No matter how much violence and abuse we have experienced there is always a part of us that remains intact and not touched by the situation. This part of us can be tapped into and allowed to blossom whenever we choose to deeply connect with ourselves.
When we can put our hurts to one side the door is opened for a loving relationship that is free from baggage.
This article is great, it is oh so very possible to heal our hurts, which allows us to open and let those in our life whom have abused us or even annoyed us in to our hearts and lives. In fact as is shared here the more open we become, the more awareness is there for us to feel and deeply understand. The beauty in this is that we are dependent on no one. It is simply up to ourselves to bring back to our own lives, our love.
it needs a lot of honesty to oneself to be able to see that is is not only we who are hurt by life, but that actually everybody lives with hurts which they have contracted in life. Through this insight we find that we actually are all the same and in a way united instead of divided by the hurts we carry.
“I could feel on this visit how much I cared for my brother and I could feel his loveliness too.” what a profound shift and one that shows us all how its possible to u-turn our lives and make them one of love and truth. Deeply inspiring for all you’ve been through and a great confirmation for everyone who has been through something similar or indeed our own path of abuse.
Incredible that you’ve been able to see your brother in a totally different light, understanding that his behaviour, and his hurts aren’t him, and that you were both hurt but reacting in different ways. Learning to love ourselves by taking deep nourishing care of ourselves, supports our understanding of, and relationships with everyone else.
What a beautiful story of the power of understanding.
Understanding the true nature of who we are dispels the lies we have been carrying of the hurts from when we were young, for in truth as children we are love and we cannot get hurt but what we carry is the hurt of another who was not capable of embracing all of who we were.
‘I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.’ Waiting for confirmation from others we completely hand ourselves over to outside influences.
Hi Jenny, in a way you could say that we have conditions to live the love we innately are. If there is no love reflected to me from the world I will not live the love I am, that kind of conditions.. But this chicken and the egg story can only be broken by us choosing to let go of these conditions and to live the love we are to the best of our ability.
Extreme behaviour such as this requires the details of Love in its ways to re-claim back the truth of connecting back to our untouched pure essence. My experience has been – taking responsibility to connect to my essence is a far better intenseness than not, because there is a feeling of grace that will be felt compared to not feeling it at all or not recognising it as you because of the known abusive behaviours. Instead you have “These behaviours kept people out of our hearts so that we didn’t have to feel the pain that was inside of us, and we both suffered as a result.” a viscous circle. There will be intenseness always no matter if you choose love or not however, choosing the love and being responsible will result in the grace.
What we can manifest thinking we are avoiding our hurts and protecting ourselves is one of the most device tricks we can play on ourselves.
What an incredible blog MAS, there is no hurt to great that we can not heal if we are willing to make the moves towards love.
To choose love and healing is by far the greatest understanding one can come to with such a topic. Saying YES to what is our true potential reflects so powerfully to others who say NO.
Bringing love and understanding to situations can help in so many ways as highlighted in this blog.
A very powerful blog MAS, that shows how we can return from the deepest hurt to the Love we truly are.
To choose love when it was not offered from our families is a huge marker of the level of healing this writer has chosen to say yes to. I am deeply inspired by your transformation.
What an incredible story MAS, and I take my hat off to you for being so honest. What I love about this story is that it tells us that no matter how bad things have been in the past, we can still come back out of it, and that there is always another way to live.
I appreciate your honest sharing, and how you took responsibility to change your life, ‘I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.’
MAS its great that you were able to see past your brothers behaviours to the person he is underneath. I have had similar experiences with family members where I have become closer to them because I have dropped my judgements.
Thank you so very much MAS for sharing this. There is an incredible reflection here for me to choose to stay open regardless of what might be before me that is uncomfortable, and even threatening. Learning that shutting down our hearts is a truly powerful lesson and appreciating we are choosing this offers deep support and foundation to let go of the hurts.
Wow. An amazing story of how seeing and appreciating ourselves for who we are would allow us to see and appreciate others past their behaviour for who they truly are. It is very humbling to feel your commitment to love.
A truly inspiring sharing. Thank you, MAS, for such an open and honest account. We all carry unresolved hurts that we endeavour to protect ourselves from feeling, which result in unloving, social behavours that keep “others out from our hearts”. However, when you heal and resolve those hurts then, what you say here is so true “I experienced first-hand that the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past.”
The greatest abuse is self abuse. The self talk, how we move our bodies, how we care for it,or not, how we think about ourselves are just a few of the ways we self abuse. This behaviour is deeply painful, yet it is deemed as normal and how life is, so it is not very often called out for the true abuse it is. I love that this article points out that it carries a a pain equal to if not greater than the abuse we receive from others.
Very well expressed, Leigh. The greatest pain to heal and resolve is the pain from not honouring and loving ourselves.
What a traumatic childhood,quite extraordinary how, through the support of Universal Medicine you have turned your life around from blame to self responsibility.
This is such a great realisation –”the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me”. It is not so much what happens to us in life but how we are with ourselves within it that either heals or harms us. When we take it on that there is something wrong with us because of what we have experienced that is when things go very wrong. If we were able to stay steady with our own love when things happen in life and know that we/ people are not their behaviours we would be able to support ourselves much more.
We are not our hurts or behaviours. Learning to separate behaviours from the person is a huge gift to be able to observe and connect to people at their core first. In other words, when we connect to the essence of someone it is then simple to nominate or say no to the behaviour because it does not match the quality of the person – this way they feel held and safe to look at the behaviour themselves and not judged or criticised for it.
Thank you MAS for sharing your experiences and your wisdom. Learning to love, nurture and care for ourselves is certainly the key, along with appreciating the responsibility we are now taking and the choices we are making.
Thank you for sharing this MAS. Learning to love ourselves is very beautiful, claiming back our power to care and nurture for ourselves rather than try to get others to do it for us. The latter does not really work. We live in the loving beholding embrace of God constantly and yet, if we are not first loving with ourselves we are not aware of the fact. What an awesome reflection you offer your family and of course the world now.
Thank you MAS, no matter the severity and traumas we have experienced in the past we always have a choice to process what has happened and understand the opportunity we get given at all times to be more understanding, more loving and true to ourselves and others.
Beautiful how you can observe the difference in your brother, holding no judgment or prejudice and allow the past to rest, through building your own self-love and letting go of the hurts that we so often allow to own us.
Revisiting this blog MAS it is just as compelling and powerful each time I read it… there is no hurt too great to heal, and every person deserves the chance to do so. What you were able to observe in your brother once you had let go your own hurts, anger and resentment is profound, and is key for us all to be able to see who someone truly is… and not just condemn them for their unsavoury behaviours.
It’s something profound to come to the realisation that everyone and everything that appears in our life does so to reflect to us something crucial. There is no accident, coincidence at all. Perhaps we can hear this and understand in our head – but do we really let ourselves feel the extent of what this means? No matter the difficulty or issue we see, we are totally supported and strong enough in every way to see the true lesson that presents today – thank you MAS for being so open and sharing your path.
MAS a very honest sharing of the abuse you experienced and the violence you witnessed during your childhood, when we open ourselves up to love, there is space for us to heal those hurts we have carried around for so long, and as we build a deeper connection with ourselves, our self-love and confidence grow too.
We have to be aware that there are many possible formats for a family life that feels like a prison you cannot escape from. Violence is only one of them. The key is to free yourself in your body from the jail you have accepted (at some level) to be in. To do so, the help of esoteric practitioners is just invaluable.
Yes Eduardo Feldman domestic violence in one of the most obvious ones but there are many that are considered socially acceptable that are far from true in many family set ups. Have we considered culture, religion, gender and many more? The impact these make on how we are raised has lead to many levels of abuse in adult behaviour that may not show the physical scares of domestic violence yet bring the same levels of abuse to the body and how we live in the world today.
A powerful account of what was a very rough upbringing. What an opportunity it was to go back and have another look at what had happened and what was going on in your family. One part I read was funny in way where we look at someone in a rage as being worse then someone who chooses to bury the same emotion as the author has pointed out and yet here the two are bought into one. It shows to me how our perception still has eyes on what things look like and not on how they feel. In this way this style of growing up or house feels more like what I would think a war zone feels like rather then a house that genuinely nurtures us to grow up.
“As a child I grew up living in an environment of family violence and abuse.” These words can be claimed by far too many people, we have allowed a standard of living that accepts abuse as a part of it’s day-to-day runnings.
Working in homes that house people such as your brother, I can only imagine what life would be like if you don’t get to go home between shifts and have a break from the potential outbursts that happen. So much understanding is needed to not react to the violence and damage done. It is gorgeous that you have come to a place where you now have this and how this has allowed you let go of the pain and embrace a new way to truly love yourself.
Learning to love ourselves by healing our hurts and taking responsibility for how we live in the world is healing for ourselves and others. A great blog to come back to MAS, thank you.
MAS thank you again for sharing your story, there is an equalising and levelling for us all in your blog, as regardless of how we may seem on the surface or in our behaviour, we all feel hurts, we just may react differently to these. Essentially we all want love, understanding, and the opportunity to heal and reconnect back to the true essence of who we are within. I have personally found that it’s through healing my own hurts with the Universal Medicine therapies that has given me the understanding of others.
“I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.” Same for me too in the past. How can we say we truly love another if we don’t give ourselves that love first?
Every perpetrator is a brother or sister equal to us, and the chosen violent behavior although not to be condoned, has to be understood why, and this would be possible if we first get our own hurts out of the way. Growing up in a violent family situation is not easy to say the least, but it is an opportunity to live the deep love we have for ourselves, and to others when we have first experienced it ourselves.
With violence that happens within the family, we have to see beyond who is to blame, but to understand what was the energy that caused this to happen. Have we as family appreciated and confirmed each other and committed to harmony within our interactions in the family setting?
The irony about abuse is that often when you grow up in an abusive environment you carry many unresolved hurts from that time that can fester and knaw at you. If these hurts are not resolved, healed and let go of you may choose to bury or numb them with self-abusive behaviours which only serves to feed the whole cycle of abuse all the more.
Your blog shows that whomever we meet we should never judge as we do not know what their past and growing up has been like. Very inspiring.
I love the honesty of what you’ve shared MAS…. and your statement that “the only difference was that I buried my pain while he exploded with his”. It takes a lot of responsibility to be self-reflective in the face of what you experienced and to not just live out your life condemning him for his actions and abuse towards you and others. Developing understanding is very powerful and deeply healing for everyone and does not excuse or absolve anyone from their actions, but offers a platform from which they can begin their own self-reflection and healing.
This is a huge story and turn around. I can’t see anyone better qualified then you MAS to talk on these issues and bring a lot to light for us all as you have done here. To turn things around like this in what was a truly traumatic upbringing is huge in this day and age. I look at families around me and what we don’t discuss or let others know about and as we can see doing that doesn’t work. It maybe difficult or embarrassing at points to speak about things but we can all support each other just like you have done here MAS. Keeping quiet or keeping it within your own four walls isn’t supporting us and isn’t supporting our children. We don’t want to keep creating generations of silence around things we see and feel, we all need to open up.
The more we trust and build a connection to ourselves, the more this extends to others. Thanks for sharing your story MAS, and how your work to build a connection with yourself also changed your relationship with your brother, offering you both an opportunity to heal.
I love that you were willing to see the reflection of openness from your brother, so often when we react with hurt about someone’s behaviour we only acknowledge the behaviour and refuse to see that there is anything positive about that person which is greatly to ours and their detriment. In fact that world is fuelled by so many personal but also national hurts and the stubborn intractability of people refusing to see that there could be another way of viewing a situation. I was saddened recently when talking to a relative to hear the change in the tone of her voice when speaking about her sister because of the anger she still holds about a past incident with their mother many years ago and her resistance to seeing it in any other light than deliberately abusive. Being willing to work on and heal our hurts can be transformative in so many ways and I really appreciate you sharing your story from which we can all take so much.
It is so healing when we can see past someone’s behaviour and recognise our similarities rather than constantly focussing on the hurts we have experienced because of their behaviour. The tenderness that is expressed in this blog is very moving and inspirational, it proves that we always have a choice to heal from past hurts and how this opens up new beginnings for all involved.
When we choose to see someone as who they truly are behind the hurts or behaviours it changes everything. I love how you saw an openness and willingness from your brother to talk to people. That is something I don’t see much of in this world, and its very cool to see you observing not absorbing.
“he was more than his behaviour.” This realisation stands out for me as the turning point in letting go of all the hurt, anger and resentment and truly healing for both you and your brother.
Thank you MAS, your story is truly extraordinary. Tonight what stands out for me is the power of bringing understanding to the people that we react to or feel angry with. After all we are simply reflecting how hurts negatively impact our lives.
True change comes from trusting Love, firstly finding that love within ourselves and recognising that same love is within us all. Without this connection to love as our foundation, we are perpetuating further abuse.
“It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour.”…this line melted me this morning as did the rest of your blog. Your blog is a stunning testament to this line…that returning to love is there for us all – no matter what has gone on or what you have done.
Thank you, MAS for showing us the way how to observe and not absorb and show us that it actually allows us to be ourselves , loving and respectful at the same time. I am in deep honor to everything you have shifted and become to change within yourself for All. This sentence is very powerful: I realized how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.” GO , let’s set us free from any abuse we still hold in life. We are worth so much more to give ourselves and others.
This is a very brave blog and shows that we are all capable of healing much.
Having the courage to recover from an abusive childhood is an extremely admirable quality. It is a choice, and it needs to be known to the world that recovery and re-connection to self is possible.
MAS that’s an extraordinary story of healing thank you for sharing. I felt particularly touched by your understanding of the similarities between the two of you, the difference being that you buried your anger and he exploded with his. Healing usually involves this sort of equalising understanding of another we perceive to have been hurt by.
How often to we end up with two people in a relationship, both living behind a glass wall protecting themselves from getting hurt either by each other, or by the world?
We run away from unpleasant things when we are young, and though we grow big and get jobs and responsibilities underneath we are still running at full speed. It is like anyone who presents us with something we don’t like to feel gets cut out and run away from. Perhaps this then is the full toll of violence in our lives? Not just the bruises and broken bones but that we effectively continue to hurt ourselves and other people from fear? For when we stop running as you show MAS there is something beautiful that can come through. Other people can heal and so can you, for this fear is the abuse and is not true.
Learning to love and care for myself as the only true self healing is perhaps the most fundamental aspect of life.
Family violence can be relentless as you have described MAS. What strikes me is the understanding you have brought to your life and that of your brother and that love is there waiting to be claimed as the absolute foundation we return to.
Wow MAS reading this I am amazed at the steps you took to truly heal the abuse and violence you had experienced in your life and how you made choices that were more loving and nurturing – this is deeply inspiring and reminds us that it is possible to heal any trauma or abuse from the past with the true love and support offered by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Abuse from others is unacceptable and we all understand this in society. It is simply not okay.
However self-abuse is such an untapped issue and our understanding of it has not been developed.
Basically, if it is not love, its abuse. It’s that simple.
How the dynamics of our family life played out in our home as we grew up has a huge ripple effect on our entire life. In many ways it certainly can and does set the foundations and tone for how we live our adult life but as an adult we always have the opportunity to reflect on and heal our past by letting go of our past hurts with the grace of honesty and understanding.
When we live from protection, it is hard to see the beauty and essence of another – and they also are met with a wall that says they too must stay in protection.. so there is no way through this, as the separation only deepens and trust is destroyed… until we make the choice to open up and surrender to let go of the protection so that we truly can see and feel another and in this the other can start to trust and open up also – this true connection is what can help to truly heal any conflict, anything less will just be a bandaid solution that may temporarily abate the issue, but will never be actually healed.
I am deeply moved by your story MAS. I could not imagine what you have had to endure as your normal growing up. It is a real testament of compassion, understanding and ability to heal. This is an inspiration and a confirmation to me. Deep inside we are whole and unbreakable by life happenings.
A truly amazing story I am blown away at the roles that you all played to deal with the episodes, and how strong the desire was to protect you brother even at the expense of yourselves, love and fear are so powerful. It is also remarkable that given the opportunity to reconnect with your brother you chose so much love in that moment as well as honouring yourself and what you had been through.
This is a very beautiful story of letting go of abuse, bitterness and hurts. It is humbling and a little exposing to read about such cases of very real abuse in someone’s childhood in contrast to my own which was very safe yet I still managed to find ways to also develop and bury many hurts and even hold onto some issues which were of my own making – and are not fully cleared today.
It would seem that what hurts more than the abuse from another is the way in which we choose to abuse ourselves which only serves to exacerbate the situation whereas if we were to hold the love that we are for ourselves perhaps we would experience less (if any) trauma.
This blog is truly remarkable to show the levels of hurt we can live with and the choices to change and make life about more love and care.
Thank you for your compelling blog MAS. Coming to acceptance, understanding and love in any situation changes everything and allows for our relationships to evolve.
Yes Jenny I agree, love and acceptance allows the space for anything to heal.
Your blog reveals the level of healing of our hurts that is possible when we reach an understanding that another who has hurt us is plagued by their own set of hurts which have been played out through us. People are definitely more than our behaviour and it’s good to remember that. As you say, ‘the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour.’
It’s quite fascinating how damaging and debilitating shame and embarrassment can be in our daily lives which is an absolute shame in itself when you consider how imperfect human life actually is.
We shut down from life, finding many ways to blot out our feelings, because they are uncomfortable, but in doing so, we miss out on the deep joy of simply being ourselves and connecting with others.
This is so true Carmel, beautifully said.
Truth can be so painful and is why we resist and avoid it, well I certainly did. The truth was also this: ‘ I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me’. But the truth also sets us free. Allowing truth again in my life, has deepened my understanding and awareness and has evolved me.
Returning to your words again today MAS I was touched by them in a totally new way. The experience you had with your brother, seems like a beautiful metaphor for the struggle each and everyone of us seems to have with our own hurt inner child. Your experienced reminds me that we don’t heal these experiences by locking the pain away or being stern or harsh in any way, but by offering ourselves tenderness, consistency and a big loving hug.
It is so easy to hug others, but how many of us hug ourselves…. I have learned to hug myself lovingly in the gentle way I move, in the new food choices I make, in how I now self-appreciate and self-trust and in how I now honour my beautiful body and my precious being – the angel that I am.
MAS thank you for sharing your story – we so often see drug users and violent people are criminals without understanding the sensitivity that drives people to such behaviours. How beautiful that you were able to restore your sense of self and see beyond the behaviour of your brother to the sensitive man within. There is much we can do in the world when we approach life with this level of understanding.
You have not only cleared that energy that what imposed upon you growing up, you have healed many of the scars that the wounds of this experience has left and this is a modern day miracle.
its remarkable to read how you have come ‘full circle’ with these experiences MAS. You show us all that abuse starts not with a slap or a scream but with the choice to forget our responsibility to care and nurture ourselves.
This is an amazing confirmation of the difference Universal Medicine does in everyday’s life. Normally, this family was destined to keep in the huge momentum generated by the aggressive episodes. But, thanks to Universal Medicine, one family member was able to un-shield herself, increase the awareness and thanks to this was able to see again the truth behind the aggressive façade. What an amazing service!!!
Universal Medicine and the Esoteric Practitioners offer the experience of an amazing love free from expectation, judgement or labelling. A foundation of love and brotherhood exists in which we are all, already a part of but may not have felt in life. The true reflection offered to you MAS, is the truth of who you truly are. The healing and gift this offered to you and your brother changes lives. Re-connection to our innermost allows for miracles to unfold, thank you for sharing these with us all.
It is tragic that parents that have children with extreme, violent or difficult behaviours blame themselves and may even weather abuse and bear the weight of far more responsibility than is theirs to take. The self-blame and guilt must be very binding and blinding when parents sacrifice not only their own safety but the safety of their other children too.
Returning to love is the way MAS, as you have so clearly shared of your own experiences. Carrying our hurts keeps us locked away from people and by healing them, we are able to see that others are just the same, they are carrying their hurts too and that they are so much more than the behaviour they use.
Despite everything you have experienced MAS, you have shown that its never too late to return to love. What an amazing transformation self love has initiated, ending any repetition of the cycle of abuse to occur.
So true Johanne, self-love is the basis from which we can begin to correct and break the cycles of abuse we can sometimes be tricked into thinking we are trapped in.
Thank you MAS for sharing your understanding of how we all have hurts but may react to them in different ways, in bursts of rage or angrily and resentfully burying them. Also the understanding that it is harder to heal self-abuse than to heal abuse from another, this is very true on many levels. It makes sense of the saying ‘We are our own worst enemy.’
Thank you MAS, I love coming back to your blog, I can feel and greatly appreciate the transformation you have made.
Being self loving and taking responsibility for yourself are the lessons I take from what you have written; you are such an inspiration.
The feeling I got when I read your story is that you grew up in a war zone, never knowing whether you would be safe and when the next attack would be. Playing your part to keep everyone safe. What should be the safest place in the world – was not. I can relate to that and I know that I chose to keep everyone out and decided to only trust myself. What I didn’t realize is that the war was still in me, I brought it everywhere I went. Because of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I do not only know that self love is the key but I also learned how to get there and I will be forever grateful. While surrendering to the peace that is developing inside, the love that was always there but couldn’t find its way out is starting to break through the cracks ready to light up the world. From this love I can start to let people in while letting go of expectations and needs.
Thank you MAS. Every time I read this blog I marvel at what you have been through and how you have returned to being open hearted again. This is true healing and it is deeply inspiring and touching. There is so much abuse in the world and we have to find a way to heal from it and you clearly have. I agree that the only way to heal the hurts of the past is to re-connect to our own essence, which is love, and then to deeply honour and nurture this essence every moment of every day thereafter. Thanks to the support of Serge Benhayon this is how I too have learned to heal my hurts.
Thanks MAS for telling your story about experiencing violence and being able to heal the pain and hurt from this which is inspirational. So much of life is wasted when we choose to disengage with people and shut ourselves down. Dealing with issues and hurts allows us to reopen again to the Love we naturally are.
“how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me. I experienced first-hand that the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others”. I also experience how lovely it is to Truly nurture myself and feeling the Appreciation of it towards myself. I’ve noticed that if I choose to appreciate me, it than makes it easy to also appreciate others. I am experiencing in this period in time that I actually in every moment have a choice to appreciate or not. I’ve always been very good in noticing the ‘what is not’. Which is telling a lot how I am (was) with myself. Now as I Truly appreciate this is completely turning around. There is so much to appreciate. Only appreciating the hurts or physical pains is still something that I am learning.
Lovely MAS that was an other powerful and revealing blog from you. For me you raised an important topic: “I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.” That help me to understand more of my patients (I work in Mental Health) because for them it is so much harder to heal from the self-abuse than healing from the actual assault. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences – it is also very inspirational.
Wow – another truly amazing miracle! It never ceases to amaze me when I read your story and so many others about abusive relationships within the family home, how it always comes back to LOVE – LOVE can heal anything and everything – we just need to make that choice.
MAS what an extraordinary account of your life that have shared with. What really struck me was that you kept coming back to the fact that you knew his behavour was NOT HIM and even though you would walk away you would come back. As you gathered more understanding for yourself and then for your brother, you were able to come back and demonstrate the love that was there. It also goes to show that no matter how much pain we are in that Alcohol and drugs will only make it worse, and the hole that much harder to crawl out of. Well done for continuing to come back to love and understanding.
“For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour.”- I can so relate to this – facing somebody’s aggressive behaviour knowing it was not ‘them’, as they too had unresolved childhood hurts. This brought understanding and compassion. The more self nurturing I then gave myself I then learnt to speak up more and not allow abuse.
One of the greatest realisations in life is that we do not have to carry on the patterns that surrounded us in our youth.
So much healing has taken place for you MAS. It is true testement to the level of support and tenderness that Universal Medicine offers in looking at another way to live life. How amazing it is to have found true love and care from an organisation that is helping many many people re-connect to their own tenderness and care within themselves. Your story is beautiful and it is so refreshing to hear how much we can heal our emotional pain by the way we are living with ourselves day to day.
So amazing to have had a childhood as yours, resulting in brick walls of protection being built, to be able to be willing to knock down your walls and see what happens. A great inspiration to many, thank you.
My brother was more than his behavior……was for me a very important line. We often have identified the family member with a certain ill/hurtful behavior. But they are more than that. I have realized myself how I have been ‘clouded’ by i.e.my father’s behavior how he dealt with certain things. I judged and became focused on that particular aspect. Now I am opening up more and more to see there is hurt underneath that ánd there is still my own hurt. Love and care both to myself and my father is the only antidote to my reactions and judgments and an opening to feel the grandness of us both.
Thanks MAS, your love and understanding that you have now for your brother and for everyone shows what love can change even big hurts like you have had from your childhood. This is very inspiring for all of us to not judge people by their behaviour but connecting to their true essence they are and the fact that that love can heal all hurts.
A very powerful sharing MAS thank you. Through your lived experience you have highlighted how when we react to our hurts we cannot see clearly, appreciate or understand what is going on for ourselves or someone else. We miss connecting to the love that is there to live and share and instead we build a wall of protection so as not to be hurt any more. It is so beautiful to feel how you have returned to love with yourself and with your brother. How through taking responsibility for how we feel, healing our hurts we begin to re-connect to the love we actually are and appreciate that we are worth honoring and living this love for ourselves. And we can then appreciate and live this is equally with all. ‘I experienced first-hand that the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past.’ – beautifully said and truly inspiring.
I agree Carola – without the personal responsibility no true healing can occur.
“It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour.” This is cracker for me as I have often carried around judgement of others that literally stamps people with a ‘you can’t be this because of that’ attitude. IT is deeply harming and literally pegs them for that way of being not matter what – it’s like once they are stamped all you see is the stamp. MAS brilliant honest writing here that debunks all of this and says that we are all capable of connecting back to the love we naturally are.
Dear MAS reading your blog touched me deeply and brought up some sadness and also asking me to feel deeper into it as I first felt without words this must have been so difficult to grow up with that much violence and not beeing able to express and the revelation that you and your brother just ended up in different behaviours like burrying and exploding – so simple but for sure needed some time to come to this. Its amazing how you are now connecting with your brother and could leave the judgment by re-connecting to the deep and ever evolving love inside of you. It is inspiring…thank you for being so honest and vulerable and sharing you with all of us.
Reading your experiences MAS and some of the comments I am realising the profound effect of your ability to observe your brother and family rather than being afraid of whatever might happen. Reading the fact that you are able to feel your brother’s Love now has a stilling effect on me. It is revealing that I have in whatever situation I am or have been the choice to connect to someone’s Love or not. And that only if I choose to Truly Love myself that I will be able to Love someone else. I can feel a resistance of accepting that I have chosen to stop loving myself.
Reblogged this on florisvanderschot's Blog and commented:
How opening her #heart opened a whole new #perspective on her experiences of family #violence and #abuse.
Quite often when people in society behave in violent and despicable ways people feel these offenders need to be punished or harmed in return.
Perhaps what I have observed for my brother is that true love – which is gentle and tender but also firm, consistent and accountable – has been what was really needed.
As another emanates love from within, a love for themselves, we cannot help but feel that it is there for us too, and that we have made choices to not nurture that in ourselves.
From what I have observed in my brother’s life since leaving home, and certainly for myself, is that it has been love that has been the motivator of true change not the continual cycle of abuse. For in many ways abuse provides a comfort, it allows us to block our true feelings, and it uses the pain inside as a distraction from really facing our lack of responsibility and for the choices we have made.
It is love we need, not more abuse.
MAS this is so true. Meeting aggression with aggression just escalates the aggression but to meet aggression and abusive behaviour with love and firmness offers an opportunity to feel and let go of the hurts.
When I read what you have written here MAS I could feel a deep stop moment within me as I felt the truth of your words. It’s so powerful to express from understanding, acceptance and love for humanity.
Yes Michael , I agree, very powerful and healing.
This is such a powerful blog thank you and indeed so true that any self abuse hurts us much more than the actions of others
Yes it is amazing Vanessa that when we deal with our lack of self worth and start to self love the world changes around us.
MAS what you share here is incredibly power-full and very healing, thank you for your honesty. Your choices to begin to love yourself and heal from this abuse is deeply inspiring and supportive to many others who have lived through similar experiences. This line stood out for me – ‘ I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.’ – Very true what hurts us most is the abuse we inflict onto ourselves.
Thank you MAS for being willing to share the story of your childhood with us. Yes, it is a very big hurt and shield that you would have carried with you for a long time. How wonderful that you discovered Serge Benhayon and have been able to experience healing sessions with Universal Medicine practitioners and completely turn around your life. It is so great now that your brother is also receiving the support that he needs to live such a better life now, and that you are now able to recognise in him the beautiful qualities that you now find in him. Yes, you are no longer feeling a victim, what a freedom that must be for you. This is a very inspiring story, thank you.
It is a beautiful process where you have looked at your own hurt and the choices you were making – rather than blaming and being a victim of life. When we are victims we are waiting… waiting for the love to come and the first place it must come from as you have shared with us here is from within ourselves. Others can offer us love which builds trust and provides inspiration, however it is always our choice to let it in and feel the love that we are.
I agree with this Sarah, we can wait forever for our own circumstances to change, for something we perceive is good to come along, yet when we make the choice to love ourselves and let love in, then that is when life truly changes for us.
Thank you MAS this article clearly shows me how love inspires love and a huge appreciation for Universal Medicine and how I have healed some of my old ingrained hurts and traumas that have been locked in the body and held captive by behaviours and actions driven like a puppet on a string. Such a joy to be falling in love with yourself again. A deeply inspiring story.
The love and understanding MAS brought to the situation and her brother is a powerful reflection for us all in all situations of conflict and harmony. Whatever the reasons we have for covering up our shame with silence because we feel ashamed and blame ourselves, only shuts us down as we begin to lie by acting as if everything is ‘normal’ Having the awareness and understanding brings an openness to the possibility for change as we begin to feel and heal our past hurts. Seeing our own part in situations and taking responsibility for ourselves the world would be a very different place.
Wow MAS you have come through a very challenging childhood, to a place of complete understanding, you are inspiring and testament to – it is never too late to heal, and never too late to start over and rebuild a relationship with self and all others.
“Throughout my healing of family violence and abuse, I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.” You offer us all much here to reflect on MAS, by taking responsibility for your own self love you opened the doors for a massive healing. Your story needs to be told everywhere so humanity can see there is another way.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like to live in constant fear of physical violence. Your transformation is testament to your willingness to take responsibility and not continue to blame your brother for how you feel. What really struck me is how even though your anger manifested in opposite ways – one out, on in – the end result was the same – shutting people out. How beautiful that it was your brother’s reflection that supported you finally let people in. Thank You for sharing MAS.
The fact that you came to a deep understanding and compassion for your brother is so awesome Mas.
Tears welled in my eyes as I felt your pain and hurt; then your divine understanding and love for yourself
What a blessing for you and your brother and what a divine constellation.
What I have learnt by experience today is the abuse be it tiny or big is in fact all the same, physical, emotional, mental and it hurts ( obviously to varying degrees) but on a deep cellular level it is the same because it is simply not love. The exact opposite to the love many feel as a child. And to call it out with compassion, understanding and love for both yourself and the other is a huge marker in healing any hurts. It’s a learning process, one that was felt deeply in my body – when you express how you really feel about something and why it hurt in the first place. Not to get your point across, or prove you are right, but to express the truth.
“I would stay home with my sister to clean up the mess that was left behind.” something in this brought the realisation how I have played the victim, thinking it was up to me – very very arrogant indeed and imposing to clean up the emotional mess with people close to me. That is not my responsibility, and it is not love.
” I missed seeing the loveliness of my parents which I remembered all too well from those early years.” I can deeply relate to this line.
Dear MAS, your blog brought me to tears, your level of understanding and compassion for your self and your family is deeply healing for us all – no matter how subtle or extreme our childhood situations may have been. Dropping the protection and learning to love oneself is nothing short of miraculous. Thank you for sharing.
Your sharing MAS shows so clearly how life can be a prison preventing us from expressing us in full. The need to conform and be “normal” is massive and any deviation is seen as a failure. As you beautifully describe the understanding of the other and its hurts connects us and does not make us shy away from living the love we truly are.
MAS you have in one blog post shared with the world the very fact that our past does not need to own our future. In my experience with the UK Family Court system the most common discussion appears around the fact that the current abusive behaviour is due to childhood abusive experiences, drug use or neglect. There is so much in what you write that could literally change the face of social care in this country if understood, embraced and lived.
David, you make a very powerful point indeed. I have not had much experience of the UK court systems but I do know what I see and observe on a daily basis. I have also worked within the social work system which has very similar discussions.
“My parents forbade us from talking to outsiders about what was going on in the home and we were told a story that we were to repeat if anybody asked” – my feeling is that many families have done or do a similar thing when there are issues within the home. It may be as a way to try and cover up, ignore, or as you say they may be ashamed they are not living the so called ‘perfect, happy’ life, but in truth, though it may not be the same situation or levels of abuse, to talk about it and get support could save many unhappy marriages, family abuse, etc. instead of trying to put on a brave face. The more we open up and talk honestly, without blame, the more real life is and the greater potential we all have to heal our hurts.
Many families with children who have disabilities and complex behaviours do speak up but their voice can be lost in Agency red tape, legislation and decisions made on funding instead of what is truly needed. Families are not always heard and their situation can feel too difficult or complex to know how to handle. There were many things my family needed, but a true and loving connection with themselves and with others would have to be at the top of the list.
Wow indeed it could David. It feels like there is a revolution happening as many students of Universal Medicine are bringing this deep understanding and commitment to honesty and responsibility – it is deeply inspiring.
Yes Sarah, I can also feel this ripple effect going on. I have noticed that people are more willing to connect and to meet each other what is deeply inspiring and loving.
It’s huge what MAS has shared here, and David, your comment makes much sense. People are seen, judged and treated based on their behaviour rather than from the undersanding that their behaviour is triggered from the pain and hurt of the past.
“It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour”. Thank you for this truth MAS, it will be understood by all humanity when they are ready to take the step towards healing their hurts.
It’s amazing to feel how much our childhood can impact our adulthood, and the absolute power of healing childhood hurts.
I agree Danielle, I know for one I still hold onto things that hurt me from my childhood, I am working on this, but that’s 37 years of holding onto stuff. And often what I feel is that I project stuff onto a person or situation that has nothing to do with my childhood, it may just trigger a memory and not a hurt.
Very inspiring blog MAS, this is a great testimonial for anyone to read who has been brought up with violence and secrecy within the home, which I am sure happens more than is reported.
MAS you show the power of bringing understanding to a situation, how we can let go of judgement and start to heal our hurts. Thank you for sharing.
Your articles are always so inspiring to read MAS as the transformation to where you now stand is so enormous and the awarenesses you share that bring understanding to your past and those in it are so profound. You are an extraordinary woman and it is an honour to read your stories and learn from what your choice to return to love has brought you.
This is an amazing blog, with plenty of amazing insights. I really like the idea of allowing ourselves to feel another one who has hurt us in the past instead of keeping it in the freezer. Where is this person at may not have too much in common to where it was. Second, unlove (via rage or giving up) is just unlove. None of them is a ‘better’ or ‘worst’ expression. The blogs in this website give us an incredible opportunity to know first hand the place where people are emerging out and some of them are really dark. This brings even more appreciation for what Serge Benhayon offers us.
I really love this image of the freezer Eduardo, when you say, ‘I really like the idea of allowing ourselves to feel another one who has hurt us in the past instead of keeping it in the freezer.’
I had a whole allotment of people in freezers – anyone who had violated what I considered to be my benchmark of integrity and love! The world of course was getting to be a smaller and smaller place consisting of those I actually trusted to not lash out and hurt me. And then of course since I had this mad standard that I was using to protect myself even those I trusted would eventually do something I couldn’t handle!
How could I love humanity with this going on? I just had to look at my hurts and clear them – and then the freezers started to melt, and then the next thing I knew I had climate change happening. No more freezing and squeezing. May the heart truly open again and let everyone in.
I love the fact MAS that you have been given the opportunity to choose a different path, for most this would have been ‘ your lot in life’ and the past would have always been with you. Not only have you healed your hurts but you have brought such love to yourself and those around you.
What an incredibly honest sharing. I did not have the extremes you had with your brothers outbursts but l can relate to that closed off feeling towards your brother. As a child l tried so intently to be acknowledged and accepted by my brothers. I was the youngest and a girl. They made it difficult for me to join in with them and their friends. I learnt to fight them for attention. Literally. To this day l feel l hold them out because they did so to me growing up. It’s time to let down my guard and let them back into my heart and life. Your article inspires me to make a commitment to allowing myself to let them in again.
Thankyou Mas.
MAS, you are a wonderful example of what happens when we choose to deal with our hurts. No matter how difficult our past has been we all have that choice and when we choose it, everything changes. It certainly has for me.
Absolutely astounding what we can experience if we choose to momentarily feel what that hurt is – we tend to endure – and then heal it away. It opens life to us on an exponential growth curve.
MAS sure is an inspiration and a great example of how we can transform our lives when we deal with our hurts. For as long as we have the story going based on those hurts, we’ll keep attracting people and situations to keep reinforcing what we believe is true – how often do people say that they keep ending up in similar situations at work or in relationships…the common denominator being themselves. When we heal our hurts, then everything around us does change – that’s certainly been my experience too.
Great blog MAS, it really resonates. Thanks to the teachings of Serge Benhayon at Universal Medicine – I have come to realise that- after a lifetime of being in reaction to the neglect and abuse I endured throughout my childhood, and of using these as an excuse for my lovelessness and failures – that self-love is a choice. That letting my love out to all and likewise receiving love from others is a choice.
There is so much power finally knowing I have a choice to be my naturally open, loving and joyful self, in knowing that I am not a victim … unless I chose to be.
You decided to not stay in separation with your brother and instead chose understanding, which then let you understand yourself better and pathed your way of coming back to who you truly are. Isn´t it magical when we choose love?! Your shared decisions are truly inspiring. You hold your brother in love, which is the greatest support you can give to someone else.
So true Steffi, the love we hold others in is the best and greatest support we can give to someone else and this we can practise every day, in all situations with people. We can bring this change when we connect to our own love from inside. Magic happens from there!
It is quite endearing to read your childhood story of the level of anxiousness and lack of safety that must have been there. But as often it is with life, when things are tough people are great at just putting their head down and going for it and how well you did this when young. You were even the chosen runner who was entrusted with keeping the dog safe and fetching your dad. Yet years later you have come round to reflect back and see the impact of the events and your choices on your body and your ingrained behaviours.
It is great to see how situations and particularly our own reactions and ongoing strategies in response to the strategies may be with us right now. And to realise that the same scenario is no longer playing, and even if it was we are not a child any more, we can deepen our awareness of the cycle that is repeating itself, we have it within us to make completely different choices that remain honouring of our true essence of love for ourself and everyone. It is remarkable the change in your relationship with your brother.
Your compassion towards your brother where previously was anger, is palpable and hugely inspiring and you leave us a wake of absolute corkers of universal truth to ponder on about the convoluted ways we each contrive to avoid feeling our hurts at the absolute expense of ourselves and others.
So true Cathy, there are so many things to take from this blog, learn from and feel inspired by. To feel our own hurts, just releases us from the prison of judgement and despair, it is unbelievable to feel that spaciousness that does come from owning that and MAS, you have certainly shared just how real and the evidence of what can happen when you do.
Coming to a place of deep understanding is so liberating – I feel it every day as I learn to observe life with a wider view rather than just isolated incidents relating to me. This frees me from taking things personally and opens me up to so many fresh, new, transformative choices. Thank you, MAS
I love your comment Matilda – I can feel the beauty and truth in what you share here. I’m finding too that letting go of the stories and taking things personally really does free me up to see the bigger picture and brings so much more clarity – makes me realise what a little box I’ve been living in!
I agree matildaclark, bringing understanding into situations is liberating as we don’t take things personally and also we get to understand why others do what they do without judgement.
MAS, you were not alone, there were many students who, while not having experienced what you had in your life, still managed to creative a protective wall around themselves from young to shield themselves from the hurts of the world. My shield lasted for 60 years until I started to attend Universal Medicine presentations and like you, ‘learned to pull down the protective wall that I had built as a child.’ Also, once I ‘started to let people in’ my life changed beyond recognition.
Great story Mas, the world would be a different place to live in if everyone had the opportunity like us to attend Universal Medicine presentations and to understand how and why we behave in certain ways.
The understanding you have been able to bring for your brother is inspiring – to see the core of the behaviour without judgement and to bring about your own healing despite what you suffered, through self-love. There is much here for everyone, MAS, thank you. I wonder what it would be like for those in violent domestic situations now, if they had access to Universal Medicine…
Brilliantly said Jennifer – I completely agree
Indeed I completely agree, imagine the true healing we could access if we all brought the understanding of the bigger picture to all situations of conflict and disharmony. This would require as MAS has so beautifully described seeing our own part in situations and taking responsibility for ourselves.
Exactly Jenny – the bigger picture is the key
It would be life-changing Jenifer.
I am beginning to fully understand the power of understanding. It dispenses with judgement entirely and leaves us free to re-claim responsibility and heal – your story, MAS, will be a forever inspiration. Thank you.
The love and understanding MAS brought to the situation and her brother is a powerful reflection for all.
So true Matlida, true understanding, as MAS reached here, not understanding as we sometimes (incorrectly) think it to be, where we try to put up with or tolerate that which is unacceptable, or make excuses for another.
So true matildaclark, understanding is powerful and allows us to see and feel where another is at without any judgement. It also drops any expectations we have on another person because through understanding, we allow them just to be with no investment in them changing in any way.
Having read this blog before, I have learnt so much about the power of understanding and have deepened my awareness. Thank you MAS.
Understanding is the key to accepting not only others but ourselves for exactly where we are, imperfections and all. Well said Matilda.
Yes, or in any case of domestic abuse, including non-violent abuse. How much would having an increased understanding change the dynamics and the situation?
We say that ‘time heals’ when it is actually the understanding developed over time and not time itself that heals.
Indeed Christoph – it would change our world!
And well said about ‘time heals’ Abby – developing understanding over time is the key!
Abby, spot on with what you say here. To understand oneself and others offers a love and truth for all.
That is a very beautiful expression. To not hold judgement for her brother but to fully heal her hurts to then confront and deal with the issues that effected her so deeply in the past… This is real strength.
I agree Jenifer and Jenny, so often it can be all too easy to blame another and judge, what I have learnt and am learning is to stop, not re-act and ask , with absolute honesty, what part did I play in this, before I look at anything to do with the other person. Only then can I be clear in what I feel and take responsibility for my actions and words. With understanding and compassion we can bring to ourselves – we have the opportunity to bring this to everything and every one else. The entire world would be in a very different place if this was the case.
Thank you for sharing your story MAS. I could really feel how difficult it must have been for you to be yourself when you were younger. So beautiful that through a willingness to heal you came to understand why you behaved as you did and this paved the way for deeper understanding and compassion for your brother. What a lovely healing for you both.
Through MAS, her brother now has a true marker of love – a reflection that will be with him forever to draw on.
So true Donna. What a healing MAS has offered to her brother by being Love.
Reading you blog, I felt a deep level of understanding and acceptance that you have come to with your brother.
I feel we all judge and close down to people who we feel have hurt us, and how no true healing can happen for either ourselves or the other person when we hold them in Judgment, or lack of understanding.
When we allow ourselves to feel our own hurts and our tenderness and fragility, and the hardness we have been with others and ourselves, it become very hard to keep up our walls of protection that we falsely think will protect us, but in fact only hold us in the hurt.
Thank you MAS for your courageous and totally inspiring blog.
I love the way you have capitalised the word ‘Judgment’ Thomas. It stands there revealed as an old-fashioned stagnant pillar of a completely crazy way of living. I was on the other end of a massive ‘Judgment’ recently when someone insisted that I must believe that Jesus died for our sins and took all our sins on. When I replied that didn’t make sense for me, I was told in a very domineering and imposing way that I would never make it to Heaven. It was such a freeing experience to be able to stand and observe the hurt this person was in, and the fortress of belief they have built to protect themselves and hang onto . . . like a drowning man hanging onto a piece of shattered boat. My heart-felt thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal medicine who have encouraged us to emerge from our own protections and re-connect with our shared observational love.
The more love we choose in our lives the more understanding we have about others and that the hurtful behaviours they choose to hold onto is not who they are but is the easiest way to feel safe and not deal with those hurts. it is very inspiring how you chose to offer this to your brother and the opportunity for him to truly heal.
It has been shared in Universal Medicine events that giving up on ourselves is the most painful hurt that we carry, even more so than giving up on others or on life. It is so true what has been shared here that we can lash out or bury our anger and pain, but it only consolidates the same giving up. It was through Universal Medicine presentations that I connected with the possibility that our essence remains pure and intact, despite all the behaviours and thoughts around giving up that are chosen and acted on. By embracing this as a possibility to explore, a space opened up for me to let go of so much and just to reconnect to that part of me which is so lovely and loving. Every action and thought chosen from that connection since then, has confirmed it is true and equally so for all – nothing is served by giving up and continuing to bury the pain and much served by choosing not to.
MAS your blog also highlights for me that if being violent is a form of comfort to bury our hurts, how crucial it is for everyone of us to not remain in comfort–so as to say NO to violence.
There is so much exposed in this very simple sentence. We jump on the merry go round too easily, accepting the ways we live as the norm. But if we were to step back and see why we were choosing this it would be much more beneficial to us all as the comfort would not seem so comfortable after all.
Thank you MAS, living in a violent household , I am inspired by your sharing that ultimately it is my responsibility to live the love that I am. To be in the stillness of myself and to not accept any form of abuse, to read and understand the reasons behind another person’s choice to express in violence, to ask for help and not bury the feelings that arise, to see how even more important it is when facing a family member (or anyone for that matter) to not stop reflecting the love that we are. This reflection maybe the opportunity for them towards the trusting of their own love, and if humanity all trusted their own love, would that not be the ending eventually of violence in the world?
Having had first hand experience of violence and abuse at home, I can relate to your experiences MAS. It takes a lot of honesty to share what you did. Control and abuse of violence when directed at us is one of the ways which force us to disconnect with ourselves. Rage and violence frequently is initiated from a strong reaction in someone who has felt such a loss of control in the lack of connection within themselves, exacerbated by the lack of connection around them. Saying no to abuse and violence is crucial, and this also comes from a connection and relationship we first have with ourselves.
Beautifully said Adele. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you MAS for sharing your story in this blog, I felt you close while reading it.
Family violence is a very much a hot topic in Australia at present. MAS, it would be wonderful if you could take your story wider. Government-funded programs and awareness raising is only part of the picture – you have found a way to actually heal this for yourself.
‘Throughout my healing of family violence and abuse, I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.’ This is such an interesting point, MAS. It’s almost as if early and or repeated exposure to violence and abuse not only instills a ‘given up-ness’ in us, and a tendency to turn the pain we feel in on ourselves, but role models a way of being that fosters and normalises self-abuse.
Thank you Mas for sharing so openly and honestly your experience of your life story.
There is a lot of obvious beauty in there that you reveal as your article progresses, and I feel the Love that truly shines as your story unfolds. I found it to be quite a humbling experience reading you blog as you were able to reflect the love that we all are intrinsically deep within. How awesome it is that we have the choice to connect to this love, as we have been made more deeply aware of this choice from Serge Benhayon and the presentations of Universal Medicine.
This blog reminds me of something that I’m coming to learn quite thoroughly – and that is the most aggressive or angry or annoying people (so it seems), are often the most hurt. Certainly, there’s no justification in this, but having a greater understanding for all of those around us, including ourselves, is key to relationships full stop.
A good, simple observation Oliver. And a practical approach to our reactions to people displaying their hurts or us in our own: develop the understanding.
An amazing journey MAS – thank you for sharing
It really is quite extraordinary what can happen when we heal our hurts. Your article MAS is a wonderful example of that.
Thanks MAS, this blog is a great reminder that we all have deep hurts that need to be addressed and by burying them deeper with alcohol and substance abuse is not a good option. Self love and nurturing is a great way to start . I love how you can see that your brother is reacting to the hurts as well and there is no judgement of him.
What a beautiful read MAS, it’s so inspiring to read of your journey and understanding of the abuse you and your brother both experienced and played out but in different ways. This line particularly stood out for me ‘I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.’ Why is it we wait for others to be the love we are before we choose it for ourselves? This has been my story too but through the teachings of Universal Medicine I now know that it is each of our responsibility to be that always and perhaps in turn we may then inspire others to choose it to.
I have enjoyed rereading this blog as it has reminded me again and again that the level of violence or disrespect which is allowed from others no matter how big or small is not okay and that is felt within us all. Making the choice to be more respectful and loving of myself makes no room for these hurtful actions.
What an enormously difficult thing to experience MAS, but also wonderful learning and healing to come out of it – to be able to separate the behaviour out from who your brother truly is, and also your own realisations of the similarities between yourself and your brother and how you each reacted to your hurts. This blog has been a really inspiring read, I’m amazed at your courage and inspired by your healing. Thank you.
We certainly are not our behaviours although we are responsible for the energy we choose to live from.
That’s true, Margaret. Though in the case of people with an intellectual impairment, the matter of responsibility becomes obscured. MAS’s family made an important choice of their own – to eventually choose not to live with an energy that was harming. Having safe places for people with diminished capacity to live, cared for by people who are trained to support them, is a key component in ensuring the well-being of others.
You just gave me a chance to ponder on my family history… I considered a level of violence as normal. I easily gave up love and self worth as well as my tenderness. I used to excuse the rage and violent fury my dad had. We were also always supposed to not speak about what’s going on in the house. I excused it because I was feeling his essence. But what I didn’t get was that by accepting that behaviour, I had given up on myself. These hurts need to be addressed in order to truly heal. Thank you for your detailed and open report.
I echo that and had a similar environment though with a different family member. We also had neighbours for a period of some years who were violent towards us as a family and this too was normalised. This suggests to me the widespread legacy of violence and the degree to which we have as a community – as a humanity – have accepted its presence in our lives. Thank you MAS for bringing this vitally important matter to our attention.
It’s great inspiring to re-imprint the sense of normal concerning violence. Once experienced over a longer period of time it sneaks in to be considered as normal on a certain level. Rebuilding love with self is the first step. Trough that I can sense when I or others are not treated with love. Disregardful or even violent treatment can be nominated and stopped through that awareness.
Wow – what a blog. It’s amazing how our hurts can control our WHOLE lives, and bring us behaviours we would never chose… thank God for Universal Medicine for showing us that we do not need to carry these hurts and behaviours for the rest of our lives and that they can be healed.
Thank you MAS for sharing your experiences growing up in such an environment and with such extreme behaviours around you. It is beautiful to feel and hear how you have turned things around for yourself and have found and developed your connection with your innate love and tenderness. This is truly to be treasured, and an inspiration for us all.
Thank you MAS for sharing such a story of a difficult upbringing in the extreme. Your love and courage are truly inspiring.
Treating ourselves the way we were treated when we were young is an astounding way to live, but it it is common to virtually all of us. The line ‘I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth’ touched that same part in me, how I had done exactly the same thing. Returning to love has proved a challenge and there is no end to how deep I/we can go, there is always more. It is importent to appreciate how far I have come, with support of Serge Benhayon and everyone involved with Universal Medicine, I look forward to the opportunity that the rest of this life offers. Thanks MAS.
“Treating ourselves the way we were treated when we were young is an astounding way to live”. Wow Mark, this sentence sums up what we do to ourselves. I have never seen it so clearly…
Me neither Rebecca. Yet this is how we get to normalise less than loving ways of living. And by learning from what we see. I saw very few examples of self-love growing up!
I love the way this blog views behaviour on a spectrum: people without an obvious disability can be still far from being themselves, with similar behaviours to those with a disability, but it can be invisible to the casual observer. And it is great to observe the similarities rather than isolate others as ‘different’ or ‘unhealthy’.
So true Lyndy and Jane. Some people who drink alcohol or take certain drugs can exhibit the same kind of violent rages described in this blog; others still might not need any additional encouragement… yet their behaviours might remain hidden from the outside world. The more passive behaviours can be equally harmful, as you say.
So true Victoria , Jane, and MAS. So many thanks go to Serge Benhayon for bringing to light the harmful part that passive behaviours and ‘nice’ behaviours play in the abuse dynamic. We all have the responsibility to bring love, observation and understanding
.
I watched an interesting segment the other night on a current affairs TV program about the problem of adults suffering huge violence from their teenage child. It was interesting to see how at first the violent boy looked like the monster and the mother and sister were the victims. Then at some point the journalist asked the boy was there anything that his sisters said that made him angry and he said, ‘yes they call me a retard.’ One could so feel the hurt he was suffering and how these little taunts were enough to set him off. It was a family configuration. I could just feel the love in my heart holding them.
As we let go of our hurts we gain a deeper understanding of what is really going on for other people underneath. This helps to bring more love to the situation, to ourselves and other people.
This is a great article MAS, what stood out for me this time was, ‘I could feel on this visit how much I cared for my brother and I could feel his loveliness too’. I am starting to see the loveliness in my family, after many years of holding judgments, I am now starting to appreciate them for who they are and not have expectations of how I want them to be, but to enjoy and appreciate them and connect to them and let go of trying to change them.
‘the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me’ – this is such an amazing turn around and so powerful to see it in words. Thank you, MAS, for inspiring me to stop perpetuating the ‘victim’ game and realise the power of responsibility.
This was very honest to read, and it astonishes me what people go through in their lives. There is a deep courage to face all of these things and to continue to love and to live in the world. Reading this has given me the connection with tenseness that I will live with today in all that I do. Thankyou
I truly appreciate you writing your story MAS, thank you. It so touched me how you eventually become aware of what was really going on with you and your brother. How you could see him for who he really is and not his behaviours. Then eventually become aware that you both held deep hurts and reacted to those hurts with anger. The only difference was that you buried your pain while he exploded with his. In your words: “These behaviours kept people out of our hearts so that we didn’t have to feel the pain that was inside of us, and we both suffered as a result.” But through your clear understanding of what was really going on and connecting to the love that you are…..you now have a new freedom to be your true loving self. Thank you MAS for writing your story.
Thank you MAS. I was deeply touched by the depth of understanding that you have come to know with your brother. Seeing the equalness in us all in that we all have hurts but express them in different ways. A beautiful healing for you and your brother and an acceptance and allowing of where we are at.
Thank you MAS for sharing your story and your growing understanding. Being able to embrace your brother as you are now is so beautiful and inspiring. What we react to in somebody else is more often than not something we need to address within ourselves too.The expression of the hurt may be different from person to person, but the cause and the hurt beneath all that is often the same.
Very true Esther, whatever our reaction maybe it is always protecting a hurt. MAS has shown an incredible depth of love to be able to see through all the anger and violence and to truly understand its origin. We are such sensitive beings and we can hurt one another so casually. True responsibility is about ensuring that our actions and words do not hurt or offend another and when we do so, we build true trust in our lives.
MAS that was a deep story to tell. It is hard to know how to provide self love in a situation when we have nothing around us reflecting or teaching us. We have walked blindly for so long without true reflections of love. The repercussions where felt in your story of what lack of self care and love can do to people. I loved reading how far you have come and what point of love you have come back to with your brother.
You tell this story without holding back, with such understanding of how you hardened against your brother to protect yourself. It was a natural reaction to do so, but how wonderful to have found the greater truth and healed those childhood hurts. carrying them around forever would only have hurt you more.
Wow MAS that is an amazing story, I could not imagine living in the fear and violence that you experienced on a daily basis. It amazing that you were able to connect back to yourself and then reconnect with your brother and see how you were similar, and see and understand him. Beautiful, thank you for sharing.
What you have shared here is truly inspirational MAS to come from such difficult circumstances and to turn that all around within your own life and be the way for so many. No-one can dispute that outcome as it is totally felt in your awesome sharing of it, which is absolute proof (if we really need it) that, love is everything and brings everything back to itself in its own loving time by clearing the fog that stops us from feeling it and knowing it IS only ever, all there is.
Thanks MAS, I really appreciate your honesty in reflecting that you and your brother had similar things going on, only you internalized it and he exploded outwards with it. Your understanding that one is no better than the other has allowed you to now see the situation without judgement or blame, and this is inspiring to feel.
I agree, it shows true healing and true compassion.
You have shown such love and understanding towards your brother MAS. How beautiful to feel the similarities and equality between you both. This equality is shared by all of humanity.
Well said Lee, we are so much the same, even if we appear very different in how we deal with life and the issues that present to us.
Yes so true, the temptation to stay with the hurts and build a life of excuses can be very strong, but to choose to truly sit with all the pain and see the delicate, tender love underneath all the violence and rage is a very powerful commitment to life and humanity. MAS has demonstrated the miraculous power of compassion, recognising that what lies inside one, resides in us all. True observation brings understanding, but in order to observe we must first feel and heal our own hurts, not easy when life has been so traumatic and disturbed.
Thank you for sharing MAS. I had not considered all the effects of growing up in this situation and it is beautiful to hear with such honesty how you felt and how you lived and moved through this and came to a point of such love.
I agree Beverly, MAS would be the person we would say in society has the most excuse to not be loving, to have problems and be justified, and yet instead there has been a commitment to live life with love and this has brought about amazing changes.
It’s amazing how one person can tolerate such a level of abuse and yet not educate them to release their tension without lashing out. A truly inspiring blog.
It is great how you came to understand your brother and such a good demonstration that underneath our hurts we all do, in essence, have a loveliness that is not tainted. This is a good point you make here that ‘the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me. Self-doubt and lack of self-worth is a form of self-abuse as we leave ourselves and then became dependent on love outside. Allowing any form of abuse is also self-abuse.
To allow ourselves to look and feel beyond the walls of protection we have built around ourselves is like realizing that we had locked ourselves into a cage by wanting to feel safe and now we have had the door openend and realize and remember, that there is an endless, beautiful world out there ready to be explored.
The key words here for me are ‘we had locked ourselves into a cage’ – there is no escaping the fact that we are therefore the key holders.
I can appreciate this: “I experienced first-hand that the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past.” I know that I have learned to be more open to other people now that I am working through my old hurts and letting them go. There is more to come but it is definitely something that I have felt.
This blog so clearly shows that functionality doesn’t work and is not true. There is a profound depth to our love for all that sits patiently and waits for us to let go of whatever hurts stand in the way. Function is another layer of protection that keeps us away from our hearts. Thank you for sharing what you have MAS and inspiring others to know they can feel what is there to be felt and over pain to see what is really there, love… always.
After digesting more of your experience and revelations here MAS I am so greatly inspired by your massive step in Responsibility. You took responsibility for giving yourself the love you always wanted to be given.
‘I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.’
Well said revans917, it is a huge step to take as one can get very caught in the trap of looking for others to provide this essential care when in fact we are the only ones who can truly do that for ourselves. MAS has shown us that we can come through a very troubled childhood and but that we are not those troubles, we are much, much more and its all waiting inside to be re-discovered and expressed.
Yes so true revans917, thank you for your expansion. We are so much more than our choices and so-called issues. We can carry our stories around and present them as an identity, but this is existing less than who we truly are. I am certainly learning to really see people for who they are and not what they choose. In equal-ness and in Essence.
So true revans917, it is our responsibility to live and express the love that we are. Only when we do, another may, but that is also their choice to or not to give themselves this love. Abuse and violence is a nasty force that wants to knock us from any connection with ourselves, but when we take the responsibility to be loving to ourselves, not only must we say no to abuse, we become more understanding to ourselves, to the other person and to the situation.
Such an important point you have noted Rachael. How harmful living in function is, it becomes a place of comfort, a comfort that is filled with pain to hide the pain. It become a illusional prison we have locked ourselves in and put the key in our own pocket.
Here here kimweston2. We indeed hold the very key to our salvation. As Serge Benhayon presents, that key is within the pocket of our inner heart and always there waiting for us to choose it.
Great points Rachael and Kim – harmful living and abuse for some can become a comfort, and a way of hiding the pain, with even more pain.
A great revelation of a pattern here, that has become clearer and clearer as we deepen our awareness. Who would have thought, a few years ago, that abuse and anxiousness, for example, are a ‘comfort’, a place we go to because it is familiar and numbs the greater pain being held? Awesome!
Very true, how violence and anger towards others and ourselves is a form of comfort. For someone who is locked deeply in their pain–whether it is expressed through outward explosions or inward implosions, this comfort is hard to let go of but not impossible when the trust in their own love resumes. As a world then, can we afford to not live the full extent of our own love? When violence is affecting the world so much?
Wow, thank you MAS, just honesty and learning.
“The only difference was that I buried my pain while he exploded with his. These behaviours kept people out of our hearts”. It was amazing to read how you were able to re-connect to your brother, actually learn and be inspired by your brother, and begin to open up with your brother, with the support of Universal Medicine, and dealing with your hurts. I really liked how you said you had to love and nurture yourself, and realised that the biggest pain was you not treating yourself with that- it wasn’t about what was going on on the outside.
Me too Arianne – it’s amazing MAS was able to re-connect with her brother; although abuse is certainly unacceptable – MAS has shared a great example of how when you see what happened with UNDERSTANDING rather than anger, it is much easier to let go and deal with the hurt.
Wow MAS thank you for sharing your story and how you returned back to love. This is a story to share with many people who experience the challenges of have a person in their family with this level of illness and disability. A very powerful healing and revelation.
A very powerful and beautiful opportunity for us all to never fall foul to being a ‘victim’, but accepting and celebrating the learning that is always on offer. Thank you
Yes so true Matilda, MAS has truly shown us that what ever we have gone through we can make a choice to understand the lessons of life that we seem to be unable to control or choose. To emerge from such a traumatic childhood and re-connect to love once more is a true testament that we can heal deep wounds and learn a great deal about ourselves, life and humanity in the process, real lessons that teach us compassion and appreciation. When we can understand why another person acts in the way they do, we can respond appropriately to their needs.
Agree Simone, this story presents a very different approach to what one might normally hear, it is empowering, tender, respectful and genuine.
So true Heather – ‘this story presents a very different approach to what one might normally hear, it is empowering, tender, respectful and genuine.’
I agree with Simone, MAS, your story on how you returned back to love is a story that needs to be shared by many.
Thanks MAS your article shows me clearly how love inspires love, how the loving unimed community inspired you to begin loving yourself and how as you as you loved yourself more you could open to the love you had for your brother. Very beautiful, thank you.
Great summary of how we heal 1timrobinson. In a similar way I can say, with huge appreciation for Universal Medicine, (and for me) that I have healed some old ingrained hurts also. It is amazing how formatively locked in our bodies certain traumas can be, invisibly driving our subsequent behaviours, and how nothing I have come across until Universal Medicine has supported me and my body to truly let go. Thank heaven for Universal Medicine!
“Thank heaven” indeed Kate. What Universal Medicine has presented and offered us is life changing, in fact it is a real game changer giving us the opportunity to take full responsibility for our choices and our life’s. Like you Kate, I have found so many traumas and hurts which I have been carrying around for years, ones that I can now let go of, which I thought were not there but were actually affecting, albeit subtly, the way I have been living ever since.
So transfomative that moment we feel how much we are affected and still carrying this stuff around with us, and then in seeing it, let it go. Total game changer in the body and in life. Cannot say enough, Thank heaven for Universal Medicine.
It really is a game changer Kate, we can carry with us incidents which have happened long ago which affect the way we speak, move and interact with others – it is crazy how much we mould ourselves to fit in and conform with others.
I agree, Kate. I experienced a lot of this myself as well and without Serge Benhayon I would probably still act from them.
Me too christophschnelle, what a difference it makes not to be held captive and have our behaviours and actions seemingly unconsciously driven by past hurts, like being a puppet dancing to the past…so totally liberating when they start to hold less sway and we no longer ‘act from them’. For me it was like finally not being run by the old worn out repeating broken record. Thank heavens for Serge Benhayon.
‘ingrained hurts…invisibly driving our subsequent behaviours’ – brilliantly put, Kate, thank you. Being open to this has meant that I am so much more understanding of myself and others – more and more judgment gets ‘kicked into touch’ and I give myself the grace to observe, unravel and relinquish some old and ill-serving patterns.
Yes it is a great summary 1Tim and absolutely true. When you are met just for who you are, with no expectation or need to be anything else, it restores trust within that enables us to open up to love again. The love we met with in all the Universal Medicine gatherings seeps into us like water, our bodies absorb it, our hearts drink it up and before you know it, you can’t help falling in love with yourself and with people again.
Absolutely! I am falling in love all over again, can’t help myself and don’t want to!
Beautiful, rowenakstewart. True love is irresistible, even for the most protected hearts. I can attest to that!
How goregously you have expressed it. The love with which I was met by Segre Benhayon and Universal Medicine, the fundamental acceptance that I felt – which was as if the surface issues did not hold any weight but I was seen and held by the richness within me – it has had a profound impact on my relationship with myself, with life and with all people.
Gorgeously put rowenakstewart – such a joy to be ‘falling in love with yourself and with people again’.
Love inspires love – it’s true. I’ll take that with me today!
Yes Tim, the process is beautiful.
Thank you for sharing what it is like growing up in a home with a sibling who has an illness that has angry outbursts associated with it. I can imagine it could consume your family by being the main focus. I can imagine this would deeply impact all members of the family and how they relate with each other. It is inspiring that you have been able to go back and heal the hurt you carried from this time of your life.
What an amazing degree of personal revelation you came to, MAS. ” For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour.” That is a deeply beautiful realisation for you to have attained after the great distress you experienced in your childhood. You feel to me as though you have reached a place of genuine and deep equality within yourself which feels beautiful to behold. Thank you.
‘A deeply beautiful realisation’ – one that inspires me greatly as I come to understand more fully the power of taking responsibility – thank you Coleen and MAS.
Beautifully said Coleen, this is indeed a humbling revelation that can take the assumed strength out of our hurts. We and others are NOT our behaviours. To feel this equally and meet people for who they really are rather then what they may do is deeply healing and something I am aspiring to myself.
We do hold back from talking about our private lives, but little do we realise that it can be read in our faces and in our bodies everyday. We can’t really hide what is happening, because putting on a brave face is something that people recognise as a way of coping that try’s to conceal the hurt and fear underneath
So true, absolutely everything can be read in our bodies and our faces and the sooner we choose to heal and be more love the quicker we can come back to harmony and wellbeing within ourselves and others.
Very correct Brendan – giving up on ourselves is not just an issue, it’s an epidemic, because (as you said) most if not all of us do it to a certain degree. Could it be that this global lack of expressing all that we are, and instead burying all of our issues, hurts and feelings in our bodies could be linked to the rise of illness and disease? Just a thought to ponder…
I can understand your parents predicament as you were growing up as I was witness to a family with a mentally disabled daughter. She would physically attack the father but was never disciplined as she was handicapped, this lady was in her early thirties yet very much a child in her behaviour. Her parents were deeply ashamed of her as it was like they had failed but there was no way that they were going to have her put into a home for like minded adults. As a child I clearly saw that this woman had full control of her family and that is what she wanted. Looking back I can see she was never given the love that she wanted so she had outbursts to at least get some attention. The affect this had on her parents was huge, even after she was eventually put into a home they struggled to come out of their shell. I feel it is a belief that you must stand by your family no matter what and also take what you are given that caused a lot of this family’s upheaval as whilst all this was going on there was a great deal of animosity amongst the other children.
This belief to stand by your family no matter what is huge, and can be hugely detrimental as seen here. There is a fine balance between what is supportive for another and what is truly loving for yourself.
It is a huge belief, as a youngster we were quite often told to stand by your family through thick and thin. This belief gets taken to the extreme as it is quite common for families to conceal ‘secrets’ which can be anything from knowing a family member is a thief to knowing they are a murderer. In MAS’s blog and in many cases do we just put up with what we have even though it is causing us great harm, through our fear that if we express what is going on in our family then the person who is acting out will feel rejected by us?
This is a great point Jenny and Tony, our loyalty to our family can actually inhibt the way in which we interact with each other, we have a much higher level of tolerance and thus the family members could grow up with an unacceptable behaviour, all because they were never told it wasn’t okay
Thank you MAS, you show us all that that there is no past, or relationship that cannot be healed when you choose true love.
Thank you for sharing your story MAS, it is inspiring to hear of how you have been able to open up once again and to let people in, and how your brother has also shown you this way of being with people.
What a beautiful unfolding to see reflected the trust, love and understanding you both now share. From this blog I sense how linked we all are and how we are all given the opportunity, support and love to expand from our contracted selves into the freedom to be who we truly are.
So very true Kathy, and MAS, what you have shared here is very beautiful, showing us that Love IS all that is needed, it IS everything.
I felt a bit of sadness reading this. I haven’t had the turbulence you experienced but I do feel I’ve missed a level of intimacy I feel could be there if I’d allow it. Luckily it’s never too late to change things around which I have and it’s well worth it.
Thank you MAS for bringing family violence out of the closet. This is a topic that needs airing. My suspicion is it is more common than we think and because it is not discussed, no one knows how to deal with it. Many families instead suffer such abuse silently.
Very true Victoria. So much family violence happens behind closed doors and is never talked about or addressed. Blogs like these can help to raise the awareness needed to start healing this issue on a deeper level.
This morning as I drove to work I felt deeper into this sentence – “… I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth …”. For many of us the world keeps presenting to us that we are not love and not worthy and it has done so ever since we were little. But there is a moment here where we do make the choice.
When the world says you are not worthy, you are not pretty enough, you are not smart enough, you are not adorable enough, we have a moment each and every time where we can either agree and fall into the hurt of these false beliefs or we can feel that this is not true and know without any doubt that we are amazing, we are awesome, we are beautiful and we are love. Perhaps we need to make this choice only once, or maybe we need to make this choice thousands of times. But each time is a choice – a choice to stay committed to the knowing of who we are and understand that it is because of the grandness of our love and light that these ‘lessening’ experiences present.
If we don’t make ourselves small when abuse or lovelessness presents, then we have the chance to feel the truth of what is really happening around us.
Thank you MAS, from your honesty I can really appreciate what you are sharing here about everyone holding their own hurts and how they may look or play out in differing ways; yet beneath the protections we are all the same, and seeking of true connection, warmth and love.
Your humility is felt reading your words MAS with the deep understanding you now have from these experiences.
“I experienced first-hand that the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past.”
Thank you for your powerful sharing of your healing.
Thank you for opening my eyes a little further and your deep honesty with this sharing. I had always thought of domestic violence as stemming from the father, and never considered that it could occur in this way with a disabled sibling. And it is a great point you share about deepening your understanding as to what was truly behind the violent behaviour.
Yes me too Adam – domestic abuse within siblings is not commonly talked about. Nowhere near as much as when it stems from the father or partner.
Wow MAS thank you for your honest sharing. I love the understanding that you now have for yourself and your brother, this was very touching to read. It is an everyday miracle that you are healing the hurts that stopped you from being loving with yourself and open to people. Your unfoldment is very inspiring 🙂
I can feel the tenderness and love that you write with now MAS and it is a deeply intimate sharing. You have shown the power of healing our hurts in how your relationship has changed with your brother – seriously amazing. Thank you.
Thank you MAS … so many people have such deep and buried hurts from our pasts, and to understand that there is a path of literally liberation from these tentacles attaching us to what is no longer us is inspiring. Thank you again Universal Medicine.
I was totally engaged reading this article both by its beautiful honesty and openness, and also by what true understanding and acceptance truly brings. Thank you MAS for your powerful sharing.
A very honest and touching article.
” I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.” This is a profound insight that can relate to many, as would your sharing that honouring and nurturing yourself, allowed you to be more trusting and open with others and have greater understanding and love in life.
“I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.”
These word are very powerful, they can change our whole lives, when we realise that we have to love ourselves first, and that that love presents us with different choices that can change our whole lives and those around us.
Thank you for sharing your story here, a quote that stood out for me was: ‘I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.’ an amazing realization, as evidently when you did start to love yourself you were also able to see the love in others and the love you actually have for others, which was once also hidden. A true testament to the work of Serge Benhayon, and yourself.
Your blog is evidence that protecting yourself by hardening against those who have hurt you is actually poison to your body. People who seek to hurt those who hurt them (seek revenge / retaliation) are twice deep in the stew of the loveless act. Developing love for myself is the only way to gain understanding and move forward. Wherever did the teaching come from that if you are hurt, you should carry the hurt and protect yourself in hardness till the end of your days? I wonder why it so widely and readily accepted in the face of so much heartache and broken relationships.
True Jinya. Revenge is just deepening what already hurts. Though you are right it is seen as a ‘victory’ when people act this way.
MAS has shared that out of all the hurts she could of let define her – she chose to come back to herself. Amazing.
MAS thank you for sharing your story with such honesty and openness. Your journey is representative of what is possible in one lifetime as you moved from love to shutting down to reclaiming yourself. I was particularly stuck by your words ‘… the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past.’. They are a powerful reminder to me of the power we all hold for our own healing.
I feel like the greatest pain of all is what you describe in this line ” I had given up on my own love and self-worth”. It is devastation when we give up on ourselves.
What you say Elizabeth feels so true. I am only just allowing myself to feel the awareness of the buried devastation of having given up on myself. In all honesty it has run very deeply and has hurt more than words can express. Although it may sound melodramatic I have/had been carrying it around for a very long time and had numbed the feeling of it living life through a filter that I thought/pretended was the truth, but with its heavy veil in tow, like Marley’s chains, ignoring the fact that it was there! In having done that, giving up on others naturally followed. Yuk! What a heavy burden!! How amazing to be letting all that go with some new found lightness and appreciation for what I bring…
Very true, Elizabeth. Giving up on ourselves is also giving up on having love in our lives, and to live without love is excruciating. The support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine is so strong, consistent and never, ever gives up on anyone. It is this level of love that has allowed thousands across the globe to open their hearts up again, because they cannot deny that they are truly loved and can love again.
Janet, you have expressed this with divine beauty. I have read this paragraph over and over and truly felt what you have expressed. So very beautiful and all gift wrapped in love and understanding.
Wow, MAS, thank you very much for sharing so openly. A huge story told without drama but deep understanding, this is truly inspiring and proves to me without doubt that we can change anything if we choose. Thank you again, deeply so.
Yes matildaclark, MAS’s article shows that anything can be changed and Universal Medicine offers the tools and support to do this.
I agree Matilda, this blog had me completely engaged and connected to the words and the quality in which it was written felt to ensure that there was no emotional hooks or drama to be caught up in. I could read and relate and felt the space between the lines to appreciate the experience of another without sympathy or emotion to take me away from the real message.
Thank you MAS for sharing this amazing story showing how love is always there for all of us, awaiting our return.
MAS thank you for your honest sharing. Your return to Love is awesome and to know that Love never leaves us … we leave it allows us to return, reconnect and start afresh.
Unconditional Love what a blessing
What a real honest sharing thank you cms the healing and love felt here is an inspiration to others especially those who have had difficult abusive experiences in life also. It shows we really can turn our lives around and make changes and this has been reflected to us by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine over the last decade. True love and nothing less is shown to us to feel and your story highlights the power strength and wisdom we all innately have .thank you .
So often we identify a person as being ‘bad’ because we only focus on the things they have done wrong, but your ability to see past your brothers behaviour to who he truly is, is what I would call true love.
It’s true, we can easily tar another person with a judgement when we are in protection from getting hurt by them and yet when we are working on being love and allowing love in for ourselves we get to bring compassion (true understanding) to our relationships.
I agree cheriseholt, I had an experience yesterday of at first being really hurt and frustrated by my friends choices, and then coming to an understanding of the pressures she was under and have understanding for where she is in life. But see my investment and bringing some understanding I can see how the relationship can grow from here.
There is such honesty in what you’re saying and I love the confirmation that no matter what there is a way through – and so much to be grateful for, and appreciate, as a result of the support provided by Serge Benhayon and all those associated with Universal Medicine.
Thank-you MAS, for sharing such a deeply honest account, and most powerfully, where you have brought yourself to following such traumatic experiences, and as you’ve shared, your own self-abusive behaviours that ensued.
Whilst I have not endured what you have by any means, your blog speaks deeply to me, of how, by holding onto the pain of the past, we so readily abuse ourselves, and withhold our own ability to deeply cherish and nourish every part of our being. Without Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine’s astounding work, I would also be living a far ‘lesser version’ of me than I am now… It’s all come down to truly healing the hurt and the pain, and letting it go, and being seen for the amazing, loving person I truly am.
It is truly powerful that you have also offered your brother this great gift, in turn – that of seeing him for who he truly is.
So true Victoria, how by holding onto old hurts we abuse ourselves and we offer a lesser version of who we are to others. I have deep gratitude to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for showing the way to heal those hurts I was carrying for so long and to be more of the amazing love that I am and share with others.
And boy is your love amazing Franciscoclara8. What has occurred for so many of us, as students of Universal Medicine, is truly and nothing short of miraculous.
Beautifully said, Victoria. Until we let go of our hurts, the world misses out on the real us, as we construct a persona that protects the hurts and our essence does not get to shine through as brightly and naturally as it might. It is gorgeous to feel your re-connection to your spark, MAS, and your knowing that it was right there all along.
I agree Janet. You have voiced this perfectly in regards to the ‘persona we construct’ – that actually isn’t truly us. How strongly we can identify with this persona as who we are though, often with a strong and wilful resistance and stubbornness towards dropping the whole game. Crazy, when what is underneath is so pure and it feels nothing but amazing to ‘let be’ once again, in the light of day…
This story from MAS is so deeply inspiring, and reveals a true use of our Will, that is willing to go there, to deal with and let go the pain and hurt. Oftentimes in such a process, we have no idea as to where ‘we’ may end up, or how we may feel… but in truly letting go, there is but only the beauty of who we naturally are awaiting there to meet us. And it is with such joy that this can be lived and celebrated.
MAS it is amazing what you share. You inspire others to see beyond people’s exterior – how they act and look – and to feel the loveliness that is naturally there. How you came to see that you and your brother were both dealing with deep hurts but in different ways is revelatory. Thank you.
This is a deeply moving sharing of your past life and the healing you have come to. Hurts can destroy our lives as you shared, as we live in reaction to our hurts, hardening up and so forth…its in the opening and nurturing towards ourselves that begins a true healing and an unfoldment of so much love that is within us all.
The opportunity to return to love is always there, the great healing you experienced whilst attending Universal Medicne presentation and workshops, goes to show that there is true healing starting with self love.
Amita, as you say ‘there is true healing starting with self love’. This has also been my experience and the experience of others who have chosen this path. As with many of my generation, I was brought up to believe that I had to consider others before self, and hence I was a long way from understanding what self-love was, let alone accepting it. As with MAS, the turning point was when I started to attend Universal Medicine presentations and heard what Serge Benhayon had to say which felt so much truer in my body than the false ideals and beliefs I had been taught!
Dear MAS,
“The only difference was that I buried my pain while he exploded with his.” I wonder if there is more to it than that – you chose to harden for protection, he didn’t need to harden as much because he made everyone else feel his pain directly.
MAS, what an extraordinary process you have been through and are exiting from with such grace. Thank you for sharing about the magic of awareness and how it brings a whole new perspective on things – I love your words, ‘It was touching for me to observe the genuine level of care and support offered to my brother by his care workers; it made me see that he too is being given the opportunity to evolve and to choose more self-loving ways. It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour.’ Such a deep and beautiful understanding of our purpose here on earth, that has been hard-won and yet very certain.
Beautifully said Lyndy.
So beautifully express Lyndy and yes this is indeed the whole purpose for us here on earth’s school.
I want to say that I’m comforted by the ‘happy ending’, but it feels a bit dismissive of the enormous hurt you lived with for so long. To be able to come back from all those years of violence and abuse is nothing short of a miracle. To be able to forgive and accept that your brother is not his hurts and to see him for who he truly is after the horror of what you experienced, is inspiring. It’s evident how much of your own hurts you’ve had to accept and let go of before you were able to let go of your brothers, and that alone would have been extremly dfficult. But, you chose to come back to you, the real you, wow and welcome back!
Thank you for sharing this very personal story. Your ability to see in your brother the loveliness that he truly is and understand all that he must have gone through is testament to you and your willingness to truly heal from your past hurts and come back to love.
Wow, what a journey. I am never ceased to be amazed at how it is always possible to find the key and unlock that great big gate that lets others in and ourselves out. Your story is very inspiring and as much as I struggle with my own unlocking, reading your story MAS I realised it is all possible.
I agree Nikki. What MAS has described here, is clearly but a ‘snapshot’ of the pain and hurt long-experienced. It IS truly miraculous, that someone can return to themselves and re-open their heart again to love and be loved, when one’s life experience has given seemingly every reason not to do so. A very powerful and poignant story.
Beautiful Nikki thank you for the reminder that when we let people in we let ourselves out!
How beautiful to feel you opening your heart MAS, and be able to see the tenderness in your brother, and recognise that he reflected something back to you of yourself. This shows how the Serge Benhayon helps us to release what we build up as protection and find the true love within, Thank you for speaking out, this is so important for people to hear.
Exactly joanchristinecalder, it so important to hear that it is possible to open one’s heart and feel the tenderness in another who may appear to have abused us in some way. It would have been so easy for MAS to have become a victim in this situation and lived a life of contraction instead of embracing the way of love and healing and showing others what is possible when you are willing to let go.
Thank you MAS, what an incredible account you have described, and I am deeply touched by your experience. What brought me to stop, was reading your description of how you described how we all have hurts, but what we differ only in the way we deal with them. It certainly reminds us the importance of bringing understanding to behavior, and connect to a person to who they truly are.
“I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth.”
Our outside pictures may appear different but there are so many of us that lack love and self-worth within ourselves.
It is with this knowing that we can begin to heal firstly ourselves and then we can offer this knowing by way of reflection, to all others.
Thank you MAS for this inspiring and honest sharing.
‘It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour.’ this is very powerful and so true MAS. Thank you for sharing yourself so lovingly with all.
This is an amazing account of the deep healing you experienced whilst attending Universal Medicine presentations and workshops.
I am so inspired by your story that shows what a complete turn around is possible if true healing is at hand.
“It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behavior”. This is a great reminder MAS, that no matter what we have done or where we have been love never leaves us; it is there for each and very one of us to re-connect to when and if we so choose.
Yes Anne, love never gives up on us, although we may for a time give up on love. It is always there patiently waiting for us to connect to.
I think that is amazing Anne – the truth that love never leaves us alone, we just step away from it.
Yes Dean and self care and self love is the way back.
It is the most important way that we will ever take in life.
So true Anne, we all hold such a beautiful innocent love within, always there waiting for us to seek it regardless of what we have done or what has happened to us. There are many articles on this site that bear testament to this fact.
Beautiful and powfully expressed Anne – Love never leaves us it is only us who choose to leave love.
Beautiful Sharing MAS, I can very much feel what you share about that everyone has the opportunity to return to love is there for us all, this is something to always realize when we have judgement on others, but actually we are al the same, and have the same opportunities.
Healing our hurts is a powerful way to connection and compassion for others. Thank you MAS.
There was one other thing this blog reflected to me and that was the love of other people that we can so often overlook, when we care caught up in our own hurts. When we are free from this illusion that the world revolves around us, it is so much more simpler to step back and actually observe there is true care and love in this world.
Indeed when we are able to heal our hurts, it is then possible to read and understand others behaviour at a deeper level. I can feel MAS how you have come to a place of being able to let your brother back in, despite the impact he had on you growing up.
Yes, I find this to be inspiring too. I agree that as we let go of our hurts we gain a deeper understanding of what is really going on for others under the surface they may present. Such clarity brings a richer experience of life and so much more love and compassion for others in general.
This is so true Gyl, I have found I find it vey easy to dismiss all the love that is there in everyone and when I open up and allow myself to see this I find the love that people are quite amazing
Well said Gyl.
Gyl this is so true. I have often lived being oblivious to the love that was around me but I never let it in. I often see this in others and am surprised at how it is definitly a choice to refuse to let these expressions of love in. It shows me how I have been and how we are the ones that build the walls thinking they are protecting. I hadn’t understood that this is a little like putting a blanket over a light bulb – the whole world is plunged in darkness.
So true Gyl. When we get caught up in our hurts and in the illusion that life revolves around only us we forget that everyone else carries that same thought pattern with their own hurts and think that life revolves around them equally. What a mess this proves to be for when we are all thinking in this way there is no true connection nor understanding between us to build the true relationships that would support and nourish us to work through our hurts together and heal.
“I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.” this makes me smile. Isn’t it amazing and sad at the same time, how we are lead to believe growing up that love is something outside of us and comes from someone else. When all along this simply isn’t true and the greatest love we could ever want and have been searching for, is actually inside ourselves. What an amazing opportunity and gift we have been given from God, to connect to and deepen for ourselves the love we all innately are, and naturally express with others when we feel our own love.
I really do love this blog and all the wisdom and love that you have shared. There is so much in here that will offer I am sure many an opportunity to reflect on either themselves, their family, friends, other people and humanity as a whole. You really have exposed the love we are all being offered equally to evolve, even though it may be in different ways for own our personal journey to unfold.
MAS I am touched by your honesty and sharing of some painful experiences but even more deeply touched by the understanding you have come to through healing your hurts. I love how you now know you and your brother both held deep hurts “the only difference was that I buried my pain while he exploded with his. These behaviours kept people out of our hearts so that we didn’t have to feel the pain that was inside of us, and we both suffered as a result” It seems we have become very good at keeping people out by holding on to our hurts and yet your story shows the joy that comes with letting people in.
Michelle, this is so true – I know from experience that it ends up being very exhausting to keep people out – it is life changing to choose the opposite, to let people in. Joy indeed.
Yes, I agree Michelle and Eva. We can end up living as strangers in our own family when each member is protecting their hurts, and this can continue for years, decades or a whole lifetime. I love how MAS has seen beyond her personal struggles and opened her heart up again.
I totally agree Eve keeping people out is an illness in itself. To begin to let everyone back in again is Universal Medicine.
Yes me too Eva, having spent a life time of shielding myself from people, it is such a relief to finally dropped the guard and let people in. I found that so much of what I was afraid of is just not true. I always imagined people were out to hurt me, but in recent years have found that is just a lie I told myself to justify my behaviour. I am learning that there are some very lovely people out there and its a joy to connect with them.
Beautifully expressed Eva. I also know the debilitating exhaustion of keeping people out. It is so wonderful to feel that this is not truly me. I am not the hurts that have developed this protection. Letting go of this protection step by step is truly life changing.
I agree Michelle, it is a very touching and beautiful story
I too am deeply touched by this blog. It is shocking to see the situations families and individuals alike must bear. What touches me most though is the understanding that everyone can return to love, for themselves and for others.
Yes I agree Heather it is shocking to realise what families go through and how many lives are disrupted by domestic abuse and violence. MAS has shown great courage in not only sharing her experience, but in doing so with no blame or judgement and after all she has been through, re-connecting to the love insider herself and the love within her brother. A true miracle and one that has been enabled by Serge Benhayon’s true compassion and wisdom.
Thank you MAS for sharing your life and showing how self-love returns us to our natural way of being and also releases old hurts that we needlessly hang onto to.
Needlessly hanging onto our old hurts is not at all healthy for anyone as it keeps us floundering in the vicious circle of those same patterns until we allow the grace of letting them go heal us.
MAS, I love how you have shared so openly your experiences growing up with an aggressive, abusive brother. The path you took with drugs and alcohol is such a common reaction to these types of childhood hurts – yet many continue on this path, abusing their bodies and burying hurts, until they die. It’s amazing to read how you turned all of that around and learnt to love yourself. The flow on from that, of then being able to reconnect with your brother, is really quite astounding. The transformations so many have made in their lives after coming into to contact with Universal Medicine is nothing short of amazing.
This is a really inspiring blog to feel how to get over abuse from others as well as self abuse, which the self abuse seems to hurt us the most. I particularly found this supportive ‘the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past’.
I love what you share about your deepening appreciation of your brother “He was reflecting to me something that showed that I could be open like this too.” It is a wonderful moment when we can appreciate others and the loveliness that they are, and let go any perceived hurts that we once held.
I agree Samantha, moments of understanding and appreciation are a great way to dissolve those hurts held between us.
I find that deeply beautiful too Samantha. When I understand why someone acted in a certain way, I am able to see them truly – see how lovely they are too. I find this the most beautiful feeling as being in protection around someone is hardening my body and I then do not feel the appreciation of me nor of the other person.
“Living daily in this environment took its toll and I began to shut down from life.” How beautiful MAS that you realised this was not the sort of life you wanted – or deserved – for yourself and have found a way through to now having a “greater understanding about my life and feel a newfound freedom to be my true loving self.” Gorgeous.
Wow what a story MAS , a path of self love opening to love ,understanding and acceptance that we are all offered evolution in the choices we make.
So true Paul. It’s all in our choices.
What a powerful blog. Amazing how once we realise that we are hurting ourselves much more (by not being true to ourselves) than anyone else can hurt us, it brings a depth of understanding and connection to the true essence of others.
Yes when we recognise that our hurts are because of our own choices much more than anyone else can hurt us, we can stop the heavy guarding, and open up to truly seeing and feeling others for who they are.
Lovely MAS and very healing too, in particular the realisations that it is self-abuse that hurts most, and therefore self-love and nurturing that provides that healing. For me, the moment we choose self-love over self-rejection, self-abuse, self-neglect et al – is the true turning point in our lives.
“For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour”. What a beautiful realisation if not revelation that we ARE not our hurts and that underneath that hurt person there is a lovely fragile and tender being that is waiting to be discovered. Thank you Mas for such a powerful sharing.
Beautifully written Mary, ‘we ARE not our hurts and that underneath that hurt person there is a lovely fragile and tender being that is waiting to be discovered’, this is great to remember with all people whatever their behaviour, this brings a greater level of love and knowing that the way the person is behaving is not them, what a difference this would make to the world if this was a widely known truth.
Thank you for sharing your story, these are deeply painful experiences and yet you have managed to find your way back to love, nurturing your self-worth and finding understanding with your brother and the different ways we express our hurts. Very evolving and inspiring to not ever let anything get in the way of our connection back to ourselves, truth and ultimately love.
I agree Jo. How deeply inspiring it is to not let anything get in the way of our reconnection back to love.
I buried my pain while he exploded with his. This statement has us understanding that we all cope with our hurts and pain in different ways. Healing our hurts and knowing that everyone does this in their own time allows a deeper acceptance of others also. Thank you for sharing this personal story about your beautiful family.
Yes sallyscott888, to accept that everyone needs to deal with their own hurts in their own time is crucial – letting go of the need to change another is huge.
So many people are all doing the same things, just with many and varied ways. Burying their hurts and not wanting to feel them. Knowing that the root cause of so many behaviours is the same for all of us, allows for a much greater understanding. Especially when the way that another buries their hurts is the cause of hurts in another. It halts that awful merry-go-round.
What a fantastic article MAS, I relate to it in many ways. I feel inspired to look at some of my relationships anew.
Thank you MAS for your beautiful honest sharing. Although there was nowhere near the level of threatened violence you endured, I can relate to this as I too have shut out family members due to past issues. This is great testament to the fact that when we are prepared to truly open ourselves up to self-love and self-care we can start to heal any of our past hurts.
Yes definitely; MAS is a living testament to how self-love and self-care can be of true benefit, and are key in the process of healing our past hurts.
Mas your ability to move beyond very traumatic early life experiences is very inspiring. I agree with Janet that it’s a testament to you and to the power of love, self-responsibility and the support that Universal Medicine brings.
A truly tender account MAS of the impact and true damage that violence brings. You show the implications and after affects our coping mechanisms have long after the original incident. What a deep sense of acceptance there is at the conclusion. Beautiful to feel how this is there for you, your brother and us all equally.
Thank you for sharing your incredible story and your journey back to self love and nurturing via Universal Medicine. In life we really don’t realise what others go through, or the intense family situations people live with because of secrecy and shame. What I deeply appreciated was the way you opened me to much greater understanding of others via your openness to understand your brother and those around you. You are a very inspiring person, your story is deeply supportive to read and very touching. I will be reading this many times, thanks again.
Understanding is so important isn’t it. It is like a doorway to love.
Thank you MAS. You show us that no matter how harrowing one’s life is or has been we can always reconnect to ourselves with tender loving care for ourselves which then naturally extend to those around us.
Your story Mas is both revealing and inspiring. It is a miracle that you have chosen another way because who knows where you would have ended up if drugs, alcohol and hardness continued in your life. It is a miracle that at some point a choice can make such a difference to the outcome of our path through life. There are many paths in life, it’s are we going to choose the Love path or an array of options that avoid the truth of who we are.
Thank you Mas for such powerful writing which allows us to feel and understand how our hurts can play out and hold us back and avoid the truth of self responsibility and love.
wow such an amazing and honest account of your childhood and growing up. It shows me that no matter what our hurts, there is always Love underneath.
This is a powerful read and while many of us have experienced nowhere near the same level of abuse that you have, there is so much to relate to in what you say. This line in particular stood out: “These behaviours kept people out of our hearts so that we didn’t have to feel the pain that was inside of us”. How often do we build our own prison in order to not get hurt, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the pain of shutting down our love is the greatest hurt of all – doubly so, as it is our ability to love and be loved that is our greatest strength and our best ‘protection’.
What an incredible journey Mas ,one that you have come through and returned to Love, with the help of the Universal Medicine Practitioners and Serge Benhayons teachings. There is much learning to be gained through your blog for those of us who may be in a similar position or helping those in this type of situation. Your words that “The opportunity to return to Love is there for us all ” is so revealing and will be helpful to remember no matter what the situation. Thank you for sharing a very painful past with us so we may all learn from it too.
Hi MAS, there is so much you are saying in your amazing blog, lessons that are so relevant to me, to events that happened in my life that were so overwhelming that I just buried them like you in drugs and alcohol. Such a lot to ponder.
Thank you for such a powerful blog MAS. “For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour.” What an amazing revelation to have about another. We are all want to return to love, no matter how crazy or insane our behaviour can seem at times. It makes me realise more deeply how easy it can be to give up on ones own self love and self-worth when we focus on others and get hooked into reacting to their behaviours.
A powerful story indeed, thank you for sharing MAS. Reminded me of the fact that we can allow our hurts to be bigger than us and exist in that prison, or we can choose love and be reminded that we are that we come from that divine essence.
Thank you, MAS. So many would stay identified with such a traumatic upbringing, however you have let go of the past and are ready to face your own choices and the ultimate freedom this brings. Your story is an amazing testament to the power of self-responsibility, as presented uncompromisingly and with absolute love by Universal Medicine.
Very true Janet, it can be so easy to identify with the hurts and trauma that we have endured and not truly move on. There is a huge difference between “putting the past behind us” attitude, where we attempt to bury the memories and hide the pain and truly healing the hurts we have experienced. The teachings and healing offered by Universal Medicine has in my experience enabled me to heal the deep hurts of a traumatic childhood and truly move on, so I no longer consider myself a victim of anything or anyone, but know I am fully responsible for all that happens in my life. Serge Benhayon’s wise and loving teachings have restored true love and joy to life again, because they engender true self responsibility, compassion and brotherhood, essential principles that when lived bring about the miracles that MAS has shown us, the ability to understand another person’s behaviour and recognise how we all feel the same things and all have the same deep quality of love within.
How many wasted lives are there where people are put down for reasons beyond their control.
Thank God for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for showing us how
to heal ourselves with love.
We all carry a level of hurt or abuse from childhood but we are innately love and loving. Meeting people in that knowing is profoundly healing for everyone involved.
MAS thank you for a very powerful understanding that we are all innately love and loving. As you say we are this love regardless of what we choose our behaviors to be. Through your sharing you have offered much to ponder on. The shutting out of a family member because it is all too difficult and painful is real and at the same time brings no true relief. It is a tension that is constant and still hurts because it’s not addressed.
MAS, it is truly powerful how you have come to the realisation that the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than any abuse from the outside. An important reminder for us all, to look at how we treat ourselves, how we hold ourselves and stand up for ourselves no matter what is going on around us.
Thank you for so touchingly sharing your story and speaking about the abuse and hurt that went on in your family. I know this happens a lot and is kept secret as you describe so it is great that you speak about it. It is also wonderful how you bring love and understanding to the situation and present how everything that happens in life is an opportunity for evolution.
Yes I agree Nicola. It is so great that MAS has shared this with us allowing others with situations to feel that their is always opportunity to evolve.
As I observed and appreciated the way Serge Benhayon related with everyone, steady, unwavering love and honouring, speaking to everyone as if he can see right into their heart and as if they are the most precious person in the world, I could not work out how he can manage to do this even when the person is far from gracious. Over the years I slowly learned about the importance of understanding the evolving that myself and everyone goes through, each in our own time according to our own choices and acceptance of people and loving them in their essence while clocking the parts that are obviously not them without judgement. I have been working on this and though still a long way to go, the amount of change that has happened has transformed my life. As I read through your article I knew you too have been working on this area and your choice has transformed your life. I was very moved to read about your process and the transformation of your inner view of life and your relationship with your brother.
We all carry so many hurts. You make me feel a humble man, MAS. To observe the beauty of how you can see your brother now, reminds me of how I can see every man and woman, my friends, partner, family, clients, neighbors. Wow, what consciousness you broke!
What a fabulous sharing and great healing for all who read this. You have honestly shared a very painful upbringing that made you transform yourself and your family to something they are not. It is beautiful and amazing that you are self loving and can now see through the situation and behaviours and see the true people in your family. Thank you for sharing. I have leant a lot from reading your blog.
Thank you for such an honest sharing, it is very healing to be able to understand that people are not their behaviours and in essence we are all divine. And that by choosing to live in a way that creates more love in our bodies we can feel the same is present in others.
This is such an amazing blog. I’m inspired by the humbleness of your being inspired by your brother.
It’s so beautiful to read, ‘It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour.’ I’m realising it’s only ever my condemnation of myself that hinders me. Thank you
Thank you for sharing your story, it felt deeply healing to read and I was touched by that you not only came back to you but also you could see that the level of care and support of the care workers are offering your brother an opportunity to evolve and to choose for selflove. We can all return to love!
This is an incredible story you have shared MAS. To return to a level of self love from what you experienced growing up is both incredible and should be shared with so many. Coming to the realisation that your brother too was feeling the hurts is an indicator of how far you were willing to go with your healing. Inspirational piece that touched me deeply.
Thank you MAS, your sharing has touched and inspired me and many others. You have shown the great importance of bringing understanding into even the most harrowing of experiences and that no matter how difficult our situation it is always another opportunity to learn how to love our self and really feel our own worth and see that other people are not their behaviours.
I love this reminder Kathleen, that no matter what situation we are facing, there is always an opportunity to learn to be more love in our lives. Thank you.
Thank you MAS. One can feel the depth of your pain that is poured out onto this page. The amazing loving aspect can also be felt. The love and freedom that you now bring to yourself is also being felt by your brother.
The more I read of this very honest and responsible approach to healing, the more understanding it brought me about seeing people for the incredible love that they are and not the hurts that they hold. Thank you.
Yes, I agree Vicky, people are not there behaviours and to remember this supports us to connect to who they are within, which can at times be well protected by all sorts of behaviours.
Behind every hurting behaviour that we receive from someone, there is an unresolved hurt that that person carries and this has the power to change the way we live with each other in humanity. And my thanks go to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for their loving teachings.
This is very beautiful and has allowed me the space to feel how from anger, with violence and deep hurts many of us choose to live our lives, almost expecting that something will change and hoping that we will be rescued. You took responsibility MAS and have allowed a great healing for many in the writing of your experience, thank you.
Great point Lee, I agree. I read a line somewhere once that said ‘Anger is sad’s bodyguard’ and in that I could really feel how that is what we do to protect ourselves. But such a bodyguard has no measure to the saviour light that is our Love. Responsibility and Acceptance seem to be the key as is the awareness that such light comes from within – we need only give ourselves permission to go there.
Thank you MAS for your open sharing. The sentence that stood out for me:
‘the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me’
What we do to ourselves with numbing, not dealing with our hurt and shutting our hearts are the most painful of all. Beautiful to read you made different choices and are living a life with love for yourself and others.
“The more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past” – This is amazing. I also love when you said your brother was far more than his behaviour. MAS, thank you for sharing your story, it is very inspiring how you came to understand your own issues, and grew intimacy with yourself and with your brother. Beautiful.
Well said Jane. Underneath our behaviours and our hurts we are all the same and we all have a beautiful essence.
You have shared so much here, how hard it can be for families to cope with someone in the family who has a disability, how it can affect parents and siblings by shutting down what they feel and hardening, and even how families want to deal with things themselves until it gets to a breaking point. With what you have also shared here ‘I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.’ shows how we all (or many!) look outside for love and acceptance instead of being able to give this to ourselves. It is touching to read and feel how you have changed and how you can see and feel the same love within your brother.
I really appreciate how you shared that when you opened up again to the love you shut down to, you saw the same in your brother. Isn’t this so with so many experiences in life and teaches us how we are our own masters of what we choose and how we can appreciate life.
Yes Simon – this is a great example of the fact that what we send out always comes back to us.
Thank you MAS, feel I shall be returning to this as I am about to support a little girl whose brother has challenging behaviour and has already suffered serious physical injury from him.
A very powerful reminder of the power of love and how important it is be stay connected as we walk through life, we never know what is happening behind the closed doors of those we meet.
Kathie, how simple it is. To remind all family members through your own loving reflection and expression that they are love, they are beautiful and so very powerful. The violence will never take away that part of herself which is her true self … her loving essence. Of course the little girl has to choose it for herself, but to have this level of support presented to her will make such an incredible difference to her life. Simply to be seen for who SHE is.
How different could it had been if this family had known Universal Medicine way back then!? How different could it had been, if they had been able to hold their own love for themselves even amongst the violence? In many ways, it shows the responsibility we all have in the world to be love and it’s not just for ourselves.
Now there’s a recipe for true care and support of others – ‘hold there own love for themselves’ – the basis for the future of social care?
To understand and know we are not our hurts makes it possible to see them for what they are and so heal them. Thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Yes I loved that point too and recently had it confirmed with the passing of my father where on his death bed he was fully in with his essence and it was as divine as the day he was born, it remains untouched by how we live.
Thank you MAS for this very personal sharing. What I get from your blog is how keeping secrets out of embarrassment and shame also deprives us from getting help and keeps us as a prisoner in the situation. It is also beautiful and powerful to see how after you rediscovered to provide yourself with love, care and tenderness you where able to see your brother in this same way.
This is so true diana1975, your reply has clarified and cleared something for me – “keeping secrets out of embarrassment and shame also deprives us from getting help and keeps us as a prisoner in the situation”
I’ve seen this dynamic in action too, and it’s definitely not helpful. Being honest about what is going on, getting past the social or personal embarrassment is the first step, after which it’s usually discovered there’s a raft of others in exactly the same boat – and a host of options for support that can make all the difference.
What I also feel diana1975 on the point you raised about keeping secrets, is that it tells us when we are little that our situation is bad and something ‘to be’ ashamed of instead of allowing family members to talk openly about their hurts and suffering. I can see how this leads to trust issues with people as we grow older.
Very true Maree. By keeping our hurts, suffering and situation to ourselves because of embarrassment, it can become challenging to let yourself out which leads to a hardness that won’t let people in in. The situation is so embarrassing that you don’t expose yourself. If given the support to talk about it at the time, the hardness that builds over time, wouldn’t have such a strong foundation and quite possibly wouldn’t build to the extent that does when we keep it all to ourselves.
Thank you diana1975 for these very wise words, they resonated so loudly with me: “how keeping secrets out of embarrassment and shame also deprives us from getting help and keeps us as a prisoner in the situation.” They have summed up so beautifully a time in my life of secrets and shame, and until the moment I read your words I never considered that I had been a prisoner of this situation, but now I can see so clearly that the choices I made truly did imprison me. I broke free from this prison some time ago, but some of the emotional scars remained. It has been as a result of learning to love myself again that these scars have healed, and the healing has been supported in so many ways by the presentations and love of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine .
That is so beautiful Ingrid.
Diana, how important that is – to recognise that the way we see ourselves is how we see others too.
Completely agree Diana, thank you for raising that point
Wow Mas, what a journey you have been on from living with the constant fear of the erratic and violent behavour of your brother, to now learning to love, not only yourself but also your brother. Your blog demonstrates how we can choose healing no matter what hurts we carry from our past. I feel deeply inspired by the openness and honesty with which you have shared your story.
We can indeed choose healing over hurts. The hurts can so easily keep us hooked and we can identify with them. But we always have the choice.
“Throughout my healing of family violence and abuse, I realised how easily I had given up on my own love and self-worth, and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.” This is a huge turning point and not one that everyone can get to easily and then also have the commitment to work on and bring such change in their lives. ” I experienced first-hand that the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past.” Thank you for this, I have found this to be true for myself too and appreciate this reminder that there is no end to this process.
Thank you for sharing the painful experiences of your life. It is truly courageous and freeing for you to have done so.
Once more we are shown how the power of love, firstly towards ourselves, followed by the understanding of another persons plight gently unfolds so that love can expand to those we had closed ourselves off from. A beautiful story.
Wow MAS your level of understanding towards your family, is inspiring. Your childhood sounds extremely intense, and I can’t begin to imagine how it would be to live through that for years and years, but for you to now say that you no longer feel the same resentment and blame towards particularly your brother, is amazing.
This is lovely Jane, it’s always great to be reminded of this fact, ‘whatever our behaviours are like, or however our bodies are, deep down we are all the same and we all have a beautiful quality and essence.’
A beautiful and powerful recounting of coming back to yourself. Thank you for sharing this.
MAS I can relate to so much of what you have written about how you have felt and feel now and yet there has been no abuse within my family in the ‘traditionally understood’ way in which the term is used. I certainly hardened, I certainly kept everyone out, I certainly was angry and at times even livid. And yet now through the practice of self love I am allowing others to come right into my inner circle, not only that but I am welcoming them in. What a difference to my experience of this thing we call life !
The blog really puts things into perspective, an amplification of what plays out in many households, that by being so much more extreme highlights how easy it is to shut down to your own self love. It’s humbling to read, and quite lovely to hear that you are healing, and in so doing are able to reconnect to your brother and see the love in him too, and not just the illness.
This blog offers so much inspiration on how we are able to heal ourselves of our hurts and therefore observe and understand another in their behaviour that is based on their hurts. Beautifully and tenderly expressed, thank you MAS.
Thank you MAS -o let go of “the runner” and that you walk your way now in love. Inspirational.
Thank you for sharing your story so openly, warts and all. I am sure it is something that goes on behind a lot of closed doors to this day. I also find the way you can now see your brother’s true nature as separate from his behaviours very humbling and inspiring and it shows just how much is possible when we return to love in ourselves first rather than demand and expect that the world and others provide it for us.
This is so important Gabriele, for when we see past the behaviour and straight through to the person we are able to see things very differently. It is much easier to look to others for them to change rather than look within ourselves.
Thank you MAS for your honesty. This blog shows a real Love Miracle . You are a true example for many people of how to come out of self abuse, sharing your consciousness, your understanding and the help received. Very inspirational.
Thank you for sharing your story. It is truly inspiring to read, you have chosen to return to love and heal your hurts with deep appreciation and understanding, this is incredible. You took responsibility and made loving choices to allow yourself to reconnect to your amazing, loving self, to be open and trust people again. You have deeply inspired me and I can imagine many others too, to do the same.
Wow, what an intensity there was around you as a child MAS. Thank you for sharing your experience and the transformation you’ve made. The realisation you share about so many of us carrying unresolved hurts, and reacting differently, either squashing it all within in stiff upper lip hardness, or in excessive outbreaks, but both being from the same cause, is gold, as here is the answer to so much of life… If we are running our lives on the compromised foundation of unresolved hurt, we filter everything, and all our behaviours become based around avoiding hurt and ensuring a version of protection, which however the surface behaviours are, is barely living, and so restrictive, (and as you say so often self abusive, which is worse than the original hurt!!!). Love how you share that as you healed and were supported to release the traumas that had been locked in the body, the openness began to return. Tangible and inspiring.
Thanks for sharing MAS, I used to have a lot of hurts that I was not aware of and would often end up in outbursts of rage and anger. What is great though, is that since being inspired by Serge Benhayon and all that he has presented, along with the healing courses I have taken and all the support that has been offered to me, is that I no longer have these crazy “tantrums”. Sure I get angry at times, I am far from perfect, but the rage is no longer there and even the anger is totally different, more like a frustration than an anger.
From what you experienced through your childhood and to where you are now is truly amazing, Your deep understanding, which has enabled you to be able to let go of the past is humbling and your being able to see beyond your brothers behaviours is inspiring. “I realised my brother had his own hurts and he was more than just his behaviours” Thank-you MAS for sharing so openly your story, there probably are other stories in the community similar to yours and this gives them the opportunity to read this and realise there is another way to deal with their situation.
This is such an amazing blog and a strong testimony that love is there for us all no matter what. I love how you’ve healed your relationship with you and your family, and your insight that often others are just as hurt as us but reacting in a different way is spot on.
‘For the first time I realized that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour’. Thank you for sharing this inspiring blog MAS.
It’s lovely that you honored what you felt to re-connect with your brother and were given the opportunity to see through his hurts and to see the care he was receiving. What if your parents had asked for help instead of hiding away the difficulties with your brother – your story MAS shows openness and honesty is the only way for the good of everyone.
This is a beautiful blog and I feel how much healing has taken place for you over the years. It was lovely to hear your acceptance of your brother and the similarities that you share. I feel like we all have hurts and choose to deal with them all differently .. For some it is internal rage, some outwards aggression, for some it is alcohol abuse while for others it is running a marathon. It is different for all, but the hurts are still as painful.
This is a pretty incredible story. Moreover, that claiming back your love for yourself is healing the most damaging aspect of these events (that of giving-up on your own love). Thank you for your openness in sharing.
Thank you MAS for sharing your story with such honesty. While reading your blog I pondered on the fact that I had not been brought up in an environment of family violence and abuse, yet I also shut down to an extent in my late teens. A line near the end really jumped out at me: “…how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me”. It truly is our lack of self-love and care and disconnection from out true essence that hurts us most, and is therefore also the place to start to heal.
This is so true Carmin, ‘it is truly is our lack of self-love and care and disconnection from our true essence that hurts us most’. No matter what our situation or circumstance, this truth applies equally to us all. Very humbling.
‘The more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others’ – a great reminder. Thank you.
“…the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me.” I think deep down it is often the things that we do to ourself that are the most painful or hard to accept.
Wow what a touching story, great expression and such honesty. What I got from this was no matter what our family (or friends) do through abuse or their behaviours, that they are always reflecting back to us something that we need for our own evolving, in addition to us reflecting back to them too. That what we see in the world and from people – is just ourselves. Acceptance of, and embracing this as opposed to instead numbing or hardening to not feel or see, opens us up to people where we can let them in and see not just where they are at, but where we ourselves are ALL at, and from there move on with love.
MAS, you have shown an enormous amount of courage to share your life here. The take home message for me is: It is only when you have care, love and respect for yourself that you can see that others are more than their behavior, and you can offer them care, love and respect.
We are all the essence of Love, we are all the same deeply. The choices we make in order to survive the temporal world are our own and even though they may differ the end result is the same. A deeply beautiful and tender sharing illuminating the truth of who you truly are MAS, Thank you.
Well said ch1956
I love how you said that “for the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behavior.” Thats such a great reminder how easily we judge people by their behavior and not see their loveliness. Thank you for sharing your story.
An amazing blog, its beautiful to read the unfolding and understanding you came to with your life and your brother – there is no greater amount of love than to see a person as first amazing, then where they are and fully accept that.
Such a humbling and deeply touching article. No blame towards anyone or anything, this is a gorgeous story that shows how when people are hurt they become something they are not and perpetuate that hurt, impacting many others. The moment we start being supported with love and choose this love for ourselves, all our relationships and life as a whole can completely turn around.
Indeed Katerina, the blame and perhaps the anger and resentment we may feel towards people who have hurt us disappear when we realise that we only perpetuate our hurts if we don’t heal them.
As I began reading your story, I felt shocked about the situation that you grew up in, but I can see how the hurts can be just as deep and affect us in the same way, even with out the dramatic situation. If we are unable to love ourselves and treat ourselves with care and tenderness, then the issue or the hurt is just the same, however it plays out in life.
Thank you for sharing this powerful story. After everything that has played out in your life, it is deeply inspiring to feel that there is no blame or judgement in your words, rather an openness and understanding of your brother, the family dynamic and the responsibility you ultimately have to love and care for yourself.
I was taken a-back by the level of understanding you brought to this situation MAS. You made it super clear and less attacking/personal by understanding that the other person had hurts too but they dealt with them differently. What a great quality to have- to bring understanding to life.
This is one powerful story MAS. For you to have lived in the fear you faced so often and now turned that fear into an understanding of where your brother was/is coming from is astonishing. Being able to see that you and your brother are equals and were simply reacting in different ways to your hurts is miraculous as I can’t imagine going through what you have.
“I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself”.
This is a powerful realisation, being responsible for the love that I am.
Thank you MAS for sharing this very honest and intimate account of your family life – a topic that is not often spoken about with this degree of open-ness and understanding. I learned a lot from what you have shared here – thank you again.
I loved reading your blog and took the sentence below as a daily or even moment to moment reminder for me to deepen taking responsibility for giving myself love. “I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself”. Thank you for your beautiful sharing.
Thank you MAS for sharing this. I enjoyed its simplicity as it shows how much we can learn from each other.
Wow, an inspirational read that shows healing and returning to ourself is possible no matter what our start in life was like. How different your life is now you are no longer living as a victim to the hurts. Incredible – thank you.
MAS this is so beautiful I’m moved to tears! I love how you see how beautiful your brother is, that’s just gorgeous because it means we are so much more than our behaviours and you’ve healed your hurts to see who he is. I get that with my Dad who was a very angry, sometimes violent man.
I can relate to your recognising how you felt you’d so easily given up on your own love and self-worth. It’s very powerful to read, ‘I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.’ This week I realised this too.
Sure I’d known in my head about being self-loving but I hadn’t taken the next step – to actually love myself because I wanted to, not because it was a second rate option after saying no to a relationship that was all about the comfort of having at least that someone who loved me when really the relationship wasn’t loving because they were needing me to love them. A real arrangement where neither of us loved ourselves.
This blog shows that whilst there were not many times when MAS was able to see her brother’s true essence, the fact of the matter is that sometimes she could. So there was proof that this essence is in all of us … including your Dad, K.
It has made me reflect on those in gaol. I know in my own life that when I was living tough and hardened so as not to get hurt I could take quite a lot of abuse (or so I thought), but the love of Universal Medicine and our and their gorgeous Esoteric Healing practitioners made it so hard for me to keep this up. It took a couple of years, because I was stubborn, to let go of my protection, but now that I am living my true tender and extremely delicate self (this is true) I know that true ‘rehabilitation’ for those in gaol needs a whole lot of love. They wouldn’t need bars, just a whole lot of tissues.
I feel a deep sense that you have really accepted your brother for who he is, no judgement, and just a whole-hearted love from yourself.
This is through compassion and understanding for him, I feel.
Wow, thank you. This is a really powerful blog and I appreciate that you have shared such a personal experience for us to understand the importance of seeing how what we witness as children can have a profound effect on our behaviour as adults. The coping mechanism to protect ourselves from the hurt of what we see and experience. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is only now being appreciated for the profound impact it can have. What you described really helped me see how tender, dedicated loving care for yourself rather than waiting for it from someone else is how you re-engaged in life and with your brother. It really turns so much of what we thought was the way to protect ourselves on its head.
MAS, thank you for your open and honest blog…it’s deeply touching to read how you’ve come from being shut down from the hurt to being open to love again, and so beautifully said here…”I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.”
It’s odd that religion talks about going to hell after death, whereas in reality for many people hell is their waking lives, due to lack of connection to love. What a powerful story of re-connecting and understanding life anew, MAS, thank you.
Interesting observation Dianne, it is so true that for many the reality of life is extremely tough, and it is no surprise when we see stories like this one and the kind of upbringing people have where they are not given love and safety, and so don’t know love as an adult.
It is so true that we all have the opportunity to return to love and beautiful to feel that it is from a deepening of this love for yourself that allowed you more understanding towards your brother and deeper trust in the love from others.
How inspiring for anyone in this world who has experienced abuse and violence to know that with more loving ways towards ourselves, we can trust in people and let the world in again.
Wow MAS, what an amazing blog. It is so amazing to see what truly lies beneath all those reactions and emotions we call our life and the truth and how the responsibility to change our lives rest with us – and us alone.
A great comment you make michaelkremer2212 – “the responsibility to change our lives rests with us – and us alone”. This word ‘responsibility’ is something I used to run from. Living irresponsibly was normal for me and blaming anyone, anything and everything was just what it was. Not once did I even think that ALL my issues were something to do with me and my choices. What I say today to myself is: ‘your choices got you x,y, z and your new choices will change that’.
Living a life of true consistency is a life of true Responsibility.
I certainly KNOW what true Responsibility is – I Live that to the best of my ability.
I am responsible and accountable for ALL my choices and that includes the ugly ones.
Wow thank you for sharing MAS. It is amazing how much your perception of your brother and your relationship with him changed when you looked to understand his choices/behaviour instead of judge.
There is something so refreshing and healing about not judging. It’s like we are giving ourselves permission to just be and allowing others the grace of being where they are at, with no need for them to be different or anywhere else. It’s very freeing.
Totally agree Shevon
Thank you for sharing this MAS. It feels very touching that you are now able to share a more loving relationship and a deeper appreciation and understanding of your family and yourself. A potential that is always there for all of us.
Thank you MAS for your raw honesty expressed here. I feel both humbled and inspired by your blog, every sentence is a gem. What a great step for healing this is – “For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour”.
The sensitivity and understanding that you write with is so touching, it moved me to tears and I have felt a deep hurt in me. What it also highlighted and brought home to me is that regardless of what has occurred we have a natural propensity to be love and feel love in ourselves and others. Thank you for writing this.
Yes Shevonsimon, we do have a natural propensity to be love and to feel love in others. This simple piece of wisdom is what needs to be held at the fore front of our minds, as it will guide us to choose our love in the face of where ever we find ourselves moment by moment.
Spot on and so true Leigh. Often we can give up in the face of feeling hurt, but to continue to connect to the love within I am understanding is the only way to go.
I am finding the same thing Shevon, when feeling hurt it can be quite a challenge to go deeper than the hurt and feel the love and honour the understanding that this love brings. Yet each time I choose my love in these challenging situations, I am gob smacked at how differently I respond and how this so affects the out come of the situation.
Thank you for your very honest sharing. It’s lovely to read that your healing allowed you to love yourself again and let people in. It’s also lovely that you began to see your brother, despite his previous behaviour, as having his own hurts and “..was more than his behaviour”, and that he to was reflecting something beautiful to you.
I agree Peter, it is a beautiful sharing and something we can all learn from, by letting people in, holding them in the love that they are, that we all are and so having an understanding of why they may be behaving the way they are changes completely the way we see others and interact with them.
Understanding is the key to compassion and acceptance. I know that is lacking in the world, and it’s a daily practise for me.
Only by reading your story, I could feel how my body hardened. I have a glimpse of that what you have experienced. It is beautiful to read that you could heal those childhood experiences, but what is even greater is, that you could find a way to and understanding for your brother. And that you could see that acutally both of you carried the same hurts but just reacted in a different way, the one exploding – the other burying it. Thank you for sharing, dear MAS.
Thank you MAS for your openness and willingness to share your childhood experiences and the affect it had on you growing up. It is amazing how much we can hold onto our hurts and how they then play out in our behaviours.
I agree alisonmoir it has been extremely revealing quite how many of my childhood hurts or traumas I had held onto and carried with me into my adult life. The behaviours which I made to cope with them then become almost like auto pilot and second nature to me, so I would not question them even though they were largely destructive behaviours and definitely not loving ones!
Thank you for sharing your experience & the healing & realizations you got from it all – one can learn a lot from great tribulations.
Dear MAS, wow thank you for sharing such a deeply personal story of your life. Many of us don’t appreciate what is around us in every moment and your story reminded me of that, the appreciation. I can see the huge amount of ‘work’ you have done on yourself to be able to see who was brother is and what you are now bringing to him and your family. It is a very brave step by you and one that is supported by Universal Medicine as you said. Again thank you for what you shared, it certainly opened my eyes.
You have shared a very deep and personal story that takes great courage to do, and the learning along the journey has been amazing for you and your brother. What I can relate to is that no matter what was happening behind closed doors in families, is that our parents wanted to show the world that all was fine, and put on a pretence that it wasn’t happening. It feels so much healthier to be honest, work on it, and move on.
To be able to share this story is a miracle. To be able to share it with such wisdom, grace, insight and lack of judgement is divine. A gigantically revealing testament to the truth of who we are are. And a gigantically powerful testament of everything that Universal Medicine is.
Beautifully said Ottobathrust.
Thank you for sharing so openly and honestly. How inspiring to read how you have turned your life around and built a new foundation for your relationship with your brother. That you can now appreciate his tender openness with others, his ability to let others in. It is immensely powerful to be able to separate the person from their behaviour.
Such a beautiful blog written with so much humility. Thank you for letting me in to your life.
It is hard to imagine the constant tension and anxiousness that must have been in all of your bodies. We believe an ‘ideal’ family is one where you feel safe, supported and nurtured. This ideal would have contributed to the shame and embarrassment your parents felt. It was lovely to read about the development of your own understanding and the changing relationship you have with your brother and yourself.
I think its extraordinary how our shame of not living up to our ideals, beliefs and expectations leads to such immense harm, when a more honest, open and accepting approach actually helps arrest the situation and heal us in a fraction of the time we choose to go on suffering in silence.
This is very true, I have experienced this myself growing up as a child. It is extremely harmful to try and hide and keep up the illusion that everything is fine when it is not. The exhaustion and dishonesty in this way of living creates an immense toll on life. It is our choices that can lead to a healing or harming way of life.
MAS your blog is truly inspiring. I loved how you were able to see that you both carried deep hurts and that you both reacted with anger and the only difference was that you buried your pain and he exploded with anger. Often we tend to judge the one who explodes as being worse when in fact as you say same ..same.. no difference.
MAS thank you for sharing so openly. I really appreciated reading your blog.
I am touched by the tenderness and understanding you hold for your brother and for your own ability to take full responsibility for all that unfolded in your life.
It is so true what you say, we are much more hurt by the years of self abuse than we ever are by abuse from others. I would have to totally agree.
I definitely agree with your comment Rebecca. This is so true.
I so agree Rebecca, the self abuse is constant and doesn’t seem to let up. But what I am now noticing is that this never comes from inside my body, ever, so now having felt this truth it is much easier to call it out for the lie it is and choose not to comply with it any more. Choosing instead the steadiness of my love that pulses from within.
MAS, your honesty is disarming, such a powerful tribute to understanding and true compassion. ‘It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all..’ You have shown this magnificently in your expression and it is an inspiration to read your autobiography, or part thereof! What a gift you have given to ALL. Thank you.
Dear MAS,
I have never been witness to the abuse that you describe here. It must have been terrifying. Then as you say so very saddening as you felt your parents retreating, hiding them selves, hardening to cope with the situation. For you to have transcended these many hurts to write what you have written with the love that is felt in your words is a miracle. A celebration of true love. How much can people like your brother be supported, if we but stop to feel what is really behind the bursts of anger and address the many, sometimes daily hurts that are felt, and not expressed. It can be a difficult thing for any of us to do, talk about our hurts. It must be ten times harder for someone who has difficulty connecting to and communicating with others.
Thank you MAS for this super honest and inspiring blog. Its really confirming to read how as you lived more of your love you could feel and see the love that your brother always was rather than his superficial violent behaviour.
This is a powerful story MAS, thank you for sharing the understanding you have come to, and that in honouring and nurturing yourself instead of looking outside of you for that, you were able to see your brother for who he is rather than just his behaviours. Thats awesome.
Thank you MAS, this is a beautiful example of dealing with our hurts to be able to open up again to others. I love the understanding you brought of your brother, and the tenderness that was there beneath the violent history is now being enjoyed by you.
Thanks for sharing your deeply personal story. It is a remarkable quality we all posses to see past the behaviours of another to the love that resides in everyone. The more we are able to love ourselves the easier it becomes to see and feel this same quality in others. It is beautiful to feel that you have chosen to deal with the hurt of your family history and open up to a new way of accepting yourself and seeing your family through different eyes.
I am feeling very humbled by your story and the honesty of your sharing. It is very revealing to feel the different ways we all hide or manifest our pain and you have shown us how healing can come with self love and nurturing.
Thank you MAS for sharing your story. It has given me a greater understanding that none of us are our behaviours, and that deep down we are all love and just acting from our perceived hurts.
This is beautiful. Having worked in disability for many years, it was only thanks to Serge Benhayon that I too began to allow myself to connect to the beings living underneath the disabled (mentally and/or physically) bodies and truly begin to meet them allowing, as you stated, them too the opportunity to evolve. I can recall one clients family being tearfully grateful when I supported their son to eat food on his own. A small achievement for most, but huge for him and seemingly impossible to his family. You have re-connected me to that deep place within where there is only appreciation and no judgement! Thank You, deeply for sharing your inner-most beauty with us.
Thank You MAS for sharing such a personal story . As a reader I can really feel the healing through your Truth And Honesty . Thanks with love Ann-Brit x
I love and appreciation how things happen in life, there is never any coincidence, but perfect constellation and timing from our Soul and God. Such as reading this blog to support in a situation that is occurring in life. That is asking me to feel, let go of childhood hurts, understand and deeply love. Thank you MAS.
Dear MAS thank you for sharing this with the world, many people with be deeply touched and supported from the openness, honesty and love you write with. I am in no doubt this will offer an opportunity for many to heal or start to heal past childhood hurts, and also the way we shut people out. Not because we don’t love them but because we have chosen to not love ourselves. It is really beautiful to read and feel how we and life can truly change when we choose to love ourselves, let go of old hurts and protection and open up. It also shows how we are really all the same, we are all looking for love and to connect with people, with ourselves. . And that love and connection is there, equally inside of us all.
This time must have been very stressful for you and your family, it was lovely to read how with support, as you say ‘It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour.’ and that you can now see your brother in a different light.
Wow MAS. You are truly courageous – working with a steady commitment to bring a greater love and tenderness to yourself and then through this see your brother for who he truly is from seeing this in yourself first.
an amazing story. It just goes to show that we all experience something very similar and that is we get hurt, but how we react to that hurt can be different for everybody. I personally used to react outwardly when I was hurt, and i would let everybody know. But i developed a way of trying to hide those emotions. Thanks to Universal medicine I have had the support in healing those issues and getting them out in the open so they can be understood. It was such a blessing.
No matter what our past hurts, current behaviours or choices may/have been there is a love behind all of that that can be felt and when connected to breaks down all those barriers we have placed between ourselves and others. Thank you so much for this MAS.
Thank you for sharing your experience MAS. To see your brother in a different way is beautiful to read and that you are healing from the trauma of your childhood.
I feel so honoured to read your beautiful story with so much pain and fear being healed to open the door to love that gently arises to warm and lighten like the sun. Thankyou so much for what you have given me through your very lovely writing.
It seems so easy to shut down and put the world outside of us because “the world” brings in something that hurts…but that leaves us alone and sad because in truth we are love. Yes, we need to be connected to the world and we miss it dearly if not so.
Your blog is very honoring & sharing MAS, it shows us the consequences of giving up on our own as to the world and the lovely way back by taking responsibility for our choices and hurts, taking responsibility about our love -for us as for others.
It’s a strong and deep sharing. And I guess we all have someone in our life we can blame for our hurts – but at the end this just keeps us separated. Great you found your way back to your brother by choosing your way back home to your love. This is the power of connection.
I feel so honoured to read your beautiful story with so much pain transformed.
There is so much to say MAS that it is hard to know where to start.
What I felt throughout reading is how we get embroiled in the dynamics and dramas of our own family lives. We do not step back and provide ourselves with the space for reflection. Without this pause we keep going in the same old way, wondering why nothing changes.
The police taking you brother away was the stop point that allowed everything to change. No more trying to be good, keep it a secret…so everyone was set free from their own tyranny.
Even if we do not have the extremes of this situation what you have described applies to all family dynamics. We can all relate to the dynamics that hold us bound in patterns we hate but feel helpless to change.
Absolutely Rachel I can certainly relate to the dynamics that kept me caught up in patterns that I felt powerless to change until I attended Universal Medicine presentations and was given simple and very practical tools to make different choices and return to a more self loving way of living.
This is a very touching story you share here – BIG Thanks MAS.
Very few could write to openly as you have about the pain and abuse of family violence without judgement or blame. I can feel the Love you have for yourself and your brother as it comes through the words.
The bit that struck me the most was when you said ” For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour.”
‘He was more than his behaviour’ – how incredible that you could develop that amount of understanding after all that you have been through. This is what I call real true deep healing – thanks to the work of Serge Benhayon, a man who consistently shows us there is another way to live and heal our buried hurts.
It’s miraculous how acceptance and understanding unfolds when there is a steady rhythm of self love to step from.
Thank you MAS for sharing your story. The understanding you now have of your life with abuse and the love you have for yourself and your brother, seeing him for who he is not his behaviour, is truly inspiring.
This is a ground breaking sharing of what goes on behind closed doors for so many families with children of disabilities such as you describe. I have had people talk to me about very similar experiences. What is amazing is that you arrive at a place where you feel your equalness with your brother both in your ways of dealing with pain but also in how you can easily connect to love.
There is so much ignorance on my part that this sort of thing is going on… a product of the fact that it remains hidden and not talked about. This just adds to the damage created by the situation, spreading it out across the other family members and potentially ruining the rest of the lives if they don’t find help themselves.
Simon, I too am in much ignorance that families live in this sate of tension. Part of it is the fact that it remains hidden and not talked about, but if I am honest it’s also because I actually do not want to know as I find it painful to hear about. On reading this blog yesterday I actually felt shock at the intensity of MAS’s experience and didn’t know what to do with it. Knowing that this is not an isolated case, but that there are many who live with this fear and anxiety, is something I just didn’t/don’t want to feel. To see just how far we have come, as a humanity, from our natural, tender, loving nurturing ways isn’t easy. I can feel just how far from the truth I have also lived, whilst thinking I was doing just fine in my comforts, but not living anywhere near the love and truth Serge Benhayon has shown. What if more of us lived in the same amount of integrity, love and understanding as Serge: would this not enable those that struggle to see another way?
So true Simon, when a problem like this occurs in the family so often the family struggle to contain and hide it, often feeling ashamed of this situation. It causes untold damage as MAS has shown us. But it begs the question: why should people feel they have to hide it? What has happened in our society that has made us want to shield our problems rather that supporting us to be open, honest and ask for help?
Thank you MAS. I loved reading how you could discern your brother’s loving qualities once you were open to seeing them and that they had been there all the time! This is such a powerful story about how the revelations of our choices can be revealed once we are open to looking at them.
Thank you for sharing your inspiring story of healing from your past of family violence and abuse and lack of self love. You are a shining example that it is always possible to choose to heal the hurts that we have experienced. I so appreciate the honesty with which you have shared your journey and the understanding you have come to about the similarities between you and your brother and your openness to feeling the reflection that he provided for you.
Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us MAS. It is so beautiful to get to the point in our lives when we are able to see through all that outer expressed anger/frustration knowing underneath there is love.
It is beautiful to feel the love and understanding that you now share with your brother after all the years of turbulence. Love does have a way and when we allow it can change and heal the most extreme circumstances.
Allowing yourself to feel and heal the depth of sadness rather than continue to live holding it inside is inspiring and seeing your brother as the love he truly is and not the behaviour he was presenting shows the healing has taken place. Thank you for sharing this in such a way that we can all learn from it.
Thank you for your sharing MAS, and how wonderful that you are now able to visit your family and see them for who they truly are. ” I realised that I had avoided taking the powerful step to provide myself with love, care and tenderness and was instead waiting for someone else to show me love, as I did not love myself.” The same can be said of myself and I suspect many.
Thank you fro sharing your story MAS, the line which struck me most is: ‘For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour”. It is so very easy to forget that most peoples unloving actions usually are seeded in some form of hurt, out of protection so as not to feel it. We can focus on the outward action or expression and so react to it or we can see through it and understand more clearly why the person is behaving the way they are.
A very wise and big picture view James, learning to look beyond our selves and have an understanding of what is happening for the other person can radically change our point of view. Its a great antidote for the judgement we can be so quick to make of others.
simonwilliams8 in my experience it is the only antidote I have found for judgment without turning to suppressing what I am feeling or allowing the frustration, jealously or resentment to build up in me waiting to explode!!
Yes Mary I felt the truth in how I had avoided looking after myself and waited for someone else to do it for me.
Sharing this blog will bring such healing to you, your brother and all those around you – and what is more your voice will inspire many to speak up. Thank-you MAS for taking these powerful and steady steps to self love, allowing people into your hearts and sharing your unfolding awareness of family violence and abuse.
Thank you for sharing this personal story and your healing of the family violence and abuse you experienced. How beautiful you are now able to see your brother as more then his behaviours.
MAS, it is absolutely true that we know the exact behaviours needed to keep people out of our hearts – as you say.
Wow – what a childhood – Especially when you were told to keep quiet and play small but there was just as much to express as your brother.
I really appreciate your strength in choosing to look at your past behaviour, and reconnect with your brother again.
Its never too late to look in our own back yard and be honest with the hurts we carry around.
MAS what you describe is a terrifying ordeal for any parent, let alone a young child. What stays with me is how difficult it was for your parents to ask for help, until things reached crisis point. Trapped by ideals and beliefs and concerned about what other people might think, prevented them from getting the support they needed. Your journey through and out of this minefield confirms again that past hurts can, with commitment and loving support, be healed. And when we heal ourselves it is possible to re-visit past relationships, even those that caused us much hurt, to reconcile and heal. Your return to love and willingness to heal your relationship with your brother is a shining example to all and testimony to how far you’ve come.
Hello MAS, I appreciate your willingness to express your story and I admire the way you have been able to deal with and overcome the volatile environment you were in when you were younger. The comment you made about anybody being able to return to love is so true and achievable by all.
It is so interesting that we can blame others for us not wanting to let people get close to us but this is not true. It is actually OUR choice to keep people at a distance, no-one else makes this choice for us, only we do. I wonder if it is the hurt that comes from this choice that we keep covered by putting the responsibility onto others?
An incredible sharing of your experience and how you have taken such responsibility for your own hurts and moved from closing off to love to opening up to love. A beautiful and inspiring blog, thank you MAS.
Wow MAS, what a story of your childhood. How challenging to live with this level of violence in your home. Your story of recovery and discovery is inspirational. And your love for your brother can be felt.
This blog show the power of opening up, re-connecting with self ánd the other. Beautiful how you choose to start loving yourself again and taking deep care of yourself. That seemed to be the doorway to reconnect to your brother again. You were able to see the loveliness in him. And feel that you both have hurts, only different ways of expressing them. Your experience with your brother is a great example of the Power of Love.
This is an incredible blog with such insight in to human nature and understanding. I love how willing you are to be honest and to share your journey with all of us.
Thank you MAS for the very honest sharing of your upbringing and how it affected the way you behaved as a young adult. Despite the difficulties you have faced, it’s inspiring that you have healed old hurts and changed things for yourself with the help of Universal Medicine. I loved this line that came near the end of your blog – “I now hold a greater understanding about my life and feel a newfound freedom to be my true loving self”. I have experienced a similar thing in that now that I am more self loving and understanding with myself, it has made me the same with others who I may have previously judged or kept myself apart from.
Thank you MAS for sharing your story, I was in tears reading it,it is an amazing turnaround from being shut down to truly loving yourself, this is beautiful to read; ‘the more I honoured and nurtured myself, the more naturally I allowed myself to trust and feel love for others, including those who behaved unlovingly in the past.’
Thank you for sharing so openly your journey to healing, MAS, it is very powerful. Your awareness of your similarity with him through your behaviours to protect your hurts keeps people out of our hearts particularly meaningful. I can relate so much to that as I am sure so many can.
Dear MAS, your account of how you changed the way you cared for yourself and became more tender and understanding with yourself and your brother shows how empowering love is. It is the missing ingredient in so many conflicted people and situations. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Wow what an deep honest account of your life and the amazing healing you have shared and reached in your life. This is a true testiment to Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine practioners and yourself and the love you have built in your body and is a real inspiration for everyone to read. It is beautiful to see how we can openly feel and share the deep love within us all and how we can see things so differently and truly as a result.
Thank you MAS for sharing your journey. What a huge revelation to realise that you and your brother felt the same things, just reacted differently. The stress of living through such violence must have been immense for all concerned and especially so if the family were sworn to secrecy and had to hide the real horror of the situation. It seems that the only difference between you and your brother is that you could put up a shield to hide your hurt and pain and he could not, hence the evident self harm and violence. What is more stunning is your ability to re-visit and re-connect with your brother, having learnt how to come home to love again after meeting Universal Medicine, to be able to see and love your brother for who he truly is.
What an amazing journey out of darkness. You are a testament that we are not trapped by our past. No matter what live forces down on us… the real person that is loving and tender is unharmed inside, just waiting to come out into the light again… as you have shown.
I agree sjmatsonuk, when we think we are weighed down trapped inside a prison of inevitability and uncontrollable consequences in fact we have the key to the door in our own pockets
Dear Mas, I was very touched reading your article and what touched me the most is the way you have been able to see through your brother’s behaviour and know that his behaviour is not who he is. That is a great example of true healing.
Thank you MAS for sharing your experience, it is very humbling to read.
I was so touched by your story Mas. When you said that you knew that your brother was more than his behaviour, that he had his own hurts, his own way of expressing them, it moved me to consider that all our brothers and sisters in humanity are that too, and how wonderful it would be if everyone had that understanding you have come to. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your story. Serge Benhayon has presented us all with the understanding of how burying our hurts can affect us in different ways and can result in shutting ourselves down and keeping others out and not feeling the essence of love that is within us all. I have found it deeply healing to understand that people’s behaviours, however destructive, is not who they are and that underneath all that we do we all share the same love.
I have found that having the willingness to deal with and heal those child chood hurts is life changing, it changes everything as we slowly begin to trust in ourselves again, and from there we begin to trust in others. Thank you for sharing your inspiring transformation MAS.
My goodness what a story! Thanks so much for sharing it. How beautifully your openness and love have returned.
Thank you MAS for sharing your experience and bringing to light that love is always a choice. It doesn’t matter what we have experienced in our life, we can hold onto what has hurt us, or we have the choice to heal those hurts and choose love. You have clearly chosen love, thanks for the inspiration and reminder that love is the leading way.
Wow, this blog makes me feel really humble. This sentence stood out for me: “and how the pain from years of self-abuse hurt much more than the actions of those I had allowed to abuse me”. In the end it is not the actions, choices nor behavior of others that affect us most, but how we are with ourselves and the choices we make in reaction to what happens to us.
“For the first time I realised that my brother had his own hurts and that he was more than his behaviour.”- How beautiful and freeing it is to come to that awareness MAS.
I too can relate to this when I ponder on my father’s aggressive behaviour growing up.
In knowing that it was the loveless behaviour that I was reacting too, this has allowed me to heal my childhood issues, and knowing that deep down my father was also a tender, loving man.
Dear MAS, your story has moved me too tears. Your line “It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour” is phenomenal and powerful. And you are an absolute living testament to this, and that we are so much more than our hurts. And when we choose to heal them, we can simply be the amazing love that we all are. Thank you – you are deeply inspiring. With love, Sarah.
Dear MAS, I found your blog very touching. It is heart warming to hear that you have allowed yourself to re-connect to your true loving self and recognised that we all have the opportunity to do the same and that there is a beauty inside all of us however we are and whatever we do, and I love your line ~
“It became clear that the opportunity to return to love is there for us all – notwithstanding our ailments, disability, past hurts and prior behaviour”, so inspiring, thank-you for sharing.
Wow M.A.S. What a story. This blog reminds me that I can choose love at any time and it inspires me greatly. Thank you.
Wow M.A.S. What a story and what an ending. Sometimes I entertain thoughts that I cannot connect to love or that I am unable to change something about myself that isn’t right. This blog blows those lies out of the water and reminds me that I can choose love at any time. Thank you.
I could feel the truth, honesty and the love that you now have for your brother and yourself it is an inspiration to me, thank you so much for sharing.
MAS, thank you for your honest sharing. It is great to see how you were able to heal your hurts and turn into a woman who appreciates and nurtures herself again. Your sharing is showing that no matter how difficult the childhood might have been, it is how you choose which makes the difference.
Wow. The pain and despair that you and your family had to endure is extraordinary. Yet what is so remarkable is how you have been able to open up to life and love again through the support you found at Universal Medicine.
And this poses the question: How many deeply hurt people are there throughout the world who do not find the opportunity to heal as you did, and instead, continue to be drawn to harmful behaviours?
Your story can be an inspiration for many.
I was one Rod, and Iike MAS was supported by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to open up to loving myself, others and life again.
Thank you.
My heart starting to melt as I read the blog. When your brother met and connected with you the spark that is all within us was felt. In that divine connection suddenly everything that happened in the past did not stop you to see through the tender boy with hurts. For me, it is a confirmation that when we are connected and met we come back to the divinity we are. Thank you for sharing!
Wow Mas, that cannot have been easy, but the wisdom and understanding you bring to this situation is very inspiring. Every one of us has our own healing to do, perhaps differing in intensity but in the end the same, to heal all that has separated us from the love we all are. Love equally supports us all to return to our true nature.
Thank you for sharing your story with this honesty and openness MAS. The part that touched me is the fact that, without any judgement, we are constantly reminded through life that life is about love and that every moment there is the opportunity to evolve and to choose love, independent of our current behaviour and previous choices we have made. It is a great healing to read that by you choosing love, your relationship with your brother has changed and now you are able to see his true essence and are able to reconnect to the beautiful tender and open man he actually is.
How grand is the love we all live in!
This is true nvanhaastrecht, it is amazing what transformations come when love (in the real sense) is made the center point for life and our choices.
…… thank you Joel, miracles happen “when love is made the center point for life and our choices” and this is beautiful to witness.
Powerful sharing MAS, thank you. It’s hard to imagine that level of abuse, but I know it doesn’t take much hurt to shut down and keep others out in protection – except that protection doesn’t work as everything that then happens is perceived through the light of attack or threat, because there is no love there, and you have lost the connection to the other person, and to yourself.. And as you say the other feels that too, and so the same goes on for them… and so the spiral goes and the hurt escalates. for me the steps to begin to heal this pattern was commitment to self-love and to love… and then potential to open up and let people in. I am still learning but it’s fun to practise :).
Thank you, MAS, for this heartbreakingly honest sharing of your growing up. The bit that really resonated with me was: “we shared a similarity – we held deep hurts and we reacted to those hurts with anger. The only difference was that I buried my pain while he exploded with his.” If we as a society were to bring such understanding to those with so-called ‘disabilities’, what a difference it would make! And if we were to acknowledge that we all hold deep hurts -and we choose what we do with them (bury them inside or explode outside) – this would also bring more understanding of ourselves and our behaviours.
From a personal point of view, I found it enlightening when you said that the point where you became more harsh and critical of yourself was after being raped whilst intoxicated at a party -I realise now that this is exactly when I started to judge myself harshly (as this happened to me too). Thank you for this insight.
Wow Joan what a great sharing. I also thought that emotions were feelings. Not anymore thanks to Serge Benhayon, the Universal Medicine workshops and sessions with esoteric practitioners. I love what you revealed about Aristotle and Freud. Why did we allow ourselves to be misled down that path instead of staying with the teachings of Socrates, Jesus and the Ageless Wisdom where true truth resides?
Mas the reflection of true love and support for yourself radiates so beautifully . Thank you.
Your story, MAS, is a miracle and absolute testament to the power of Truth, Honesty and Love as presented by Universal Medicine. Not only have you healed your own painful past, you are now offering the world a True reflection of deep understanding, acceptance and self-love. I thank you from the innermost depths of my heart, where I can truly connect to you and all you shared. You have blessed us all with your courage and grace. Thank you.
MAS I felt very touched reading about your experiences as a child and your willingness to heal from this. How amazing to now be open to understanding how it was for your brother. Very inspiring.
What touches me here is what families live with behind closed doors and how many people and families quietly struggle with all sorts of challenges, be it physical or mental disability or illness, behavioural problems with young children, drug, alcohol and stimulant addictions, violence, dementia, Alzheimers and ageing family members. These life challenges seem to be endured and for some can be a lifetime of agony and buried in so many heavy emotions that become inter-generational just as the writer here felt her parents change under the strain and the writer herself. Humanity has always deserved a deep love and understanding yet we are falling so short of the mark as a community. While information dissemination and services have improved Universal Medicine is the only outfit I have come across offering real answers and understanding of the many afflictions people are quietly enduring in their family dynamic. Universal Medicine balances being responsible for our life circumstances while holding others with love and understanding. Universal Medicine delivers a loving hand up – not a sympathetic hand out.
I completely relate to that Deanne,
we have a saying: ‘Don’t hang your dirty laundry outside to dry’. What will the neighbours say, that is a concern for many. But not realizing the neighbours also have ‘dirty laundry’!
It would be such a relief for many if more honesty was allowed.
I love what you have written here Deanne, that Universal Medicine delivers a loving hand up – not a sympathetic hand out. Nothing is done for us, but support is offered, it is then our choice and our responsibility as to what we want to do with it.
That’s it Rosie and the hand up is very empowering.
Awesome comment Deanne “Universal Medicine offers a hand up – not a sympathetic hand out.”. This is a defining difference, when we have a broader understanding and are given the tools to make the changes for ourselves, they are ours to stay. We are our own ‘saviours’ so to speak. That is true loving support.
Wow, what powerful story of the difference between feeling and owning the inner turmoil and what happens when we pretend it is not there.
It’s very revealing here with what you’ve shared so openly and honestly is the amount of damage that can be done through judgment. Had your brother been truly embraced for who he is and not rejected by those in society how potentially different your family’s outcome could have been. It highlights the responsibility we have to bring a loving understanding to others and ourselves in whatever situation. What an amazing turnaround you’ve made by making the choice to embrace love and understanding firstly for yourself and then your brother to then come to the point of understanding that it was the hurts he held (from a lack of understanding and being judged by others) that led to the outward behaviours. It’s wonderful that you’re both now allowing people back into your hearts through being truly met.
So powerful and deeply moving to read your blog MAS, and to feel the incredible healing journey you have been on. It feels nothing short of a miracle that after such an an abusive situation you have been able to come to the depth of love, understanding and freedom you have. It speaks volumes about your dedication, the power of self-love and the amazing work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Thank you for sharing such a huge process MAS. How lovely that you saw the sameness in your brother and yourself. Two people caught in the pain of lovelessness and choosing different ways to deal with it. Recognising that your brother could be open and loving and that you too could open to people. An awesome blog and one that I can relate to.
MAS, what an awesomely open and honest blog that gave me much to consider… one of the main points being that while the more obvious behaviours can sometimes be identified with hurt, in truth, many of us are carrying hurts that manifest in a variety of behaviours – everything from withdrawal, to agression to idenfitication to being controlling etc. – in other words any behaviour that is not reflective of who we truly are. I loved how you expressed all of this and gave us all an opportunity to consider the potential in all of our relationships when we take responsibility for addressing these hurts, and to come back to the relationship with ourselves in the first instance as a foundation for our relationship with all others.
Beautifully said Angela to a powerful blog by MAS. As you say, many of us are carrying childhood hurts. The way MAS has shared the journey through her childhood, her way of coping and subsequently the healing, is truly inspirational.
Wow what a powerful experience of healing, thank you, this writing shows so many the possibilities for healing that are there for us all.
Powerful blog and powerful healing. I really appreciated reading this.
Thank you for your honest sharing MAS. The story you tell from such a horrid childhood, more or less fearing for your safety everyday. Then going into substance abuse to deal with this. It truly highlights your commitment to yourself and the commitment to your family. As you now speak about not seeing your brother from his behaviours anymore but from a place where he was also a deeply hurt person. You are proving with deep understanding and clarity love can be brought back into any relationship.
Wow MAS. To actually get that you both had the same anger, you just internalised yours is quite a revelation. And to understand that love and care can come from ourselves.. in fact it must.. we cannot be waiting around for someone to give us this because it won’t fill the hole that is created when we don’t have this within ourselves for ourselves. This is a deeply honest and very insightful look in at life. Thank you.
Yes, I love the exposing of the external expression and the internal expression of anger. Both just as bad as each other, just one more obvious than the other.