Abuse is a very huge box in which so many things are happening, without always showing any clear signs to the outer world. I would like to look into the box and share with you a kind of abuse that we can call ‘self-abuse’ – an abuse of our own body, maybe without the awareness that we do this, or seeing it as a form of abuse.
At the moment we hear a lot about abuse in the Catholic Church, in sport and recently in the movie world. People are sharing their experiences and this can be a beginning to bring abuse into the light. But there is a lot of abuse in the whole world that we don’t see or hear about. Or, could it be that we don’t want to look at it as a kind of abuse?
Some behaviours are so common and accepted that we are not aware of the effects they have on us. For instance, if we are talking with an angry person, we could say, “Just let him talk, as long as he doesn’t touch me.” Or when people are talking in a not so friendly way about someone behind their back. Or a songwriter writes songs about emotional times of his life that he is still sad about. What are we receiving in these moments?
If we know that “Everything is energy, and therefore, everything is because of energy” (Serge Benhayon, 1999), then it’s logical that there must be consequences to all our behaviours, words, thoughts, actions and movements. This means that in fact we receive throughout the whole day all kinds of energies that are not directly visible. It requires an awareness to notice them and to allow ourselves to feel what happens in our body. Our body immediately responds to the energies and gives us signs, which are always our great marker.
These signs can be very physical and we are not always aware that they are the consequences of the choices we make in our life. Like, for example, an uncomfortable feeling in the body, cold knees, tense shoulders, bubbly stomach, making fists, losing attention, stiff neck. These are all communications from our body to ourselves that something is not right, either outside of us or inside of us.
It takes a level of awareness and responsibility to be open to and want to listen to the body and hear these messages. If we live our life without this connection to our body, then we will not hear them. It does not mean that they are not there. To be in connection with our body is so, so natural that it’s a very big question why we have lost it. Why do we live life in a kind of bubble and think that nothing can touch us unless we immediately have very clear signs?
I lived in this way for a very big part of my life. We all have our own reasons for making this choice, and for me it was a form of protection. It seemed easier to put myself in a kind of armour so that I would not have to deal with an energy that’s not from love. I found it difficult to deal with the things I felt around me and to accept that the world is like it is. I didn’t know how to handle my sensitivity and meanwhile felt the hardness, the disconnection, the suffering or emptiness of people. The reflection was too big and showed me my own struggle with life.
Whatever I did and wherever I was, I was in protection instead of staying with myself with an open heart. I abused my body by being in a hardness, shutting myself down, not being open with my whole heart, not expressing what was there to be expressed and by avoiding my sensibility. This meant that all my movements were made in and with that same hardness, a quality that was different from who I truly am. I didn’t consider the consequences of this to myself and to others. But what I know for sure is that energy goes everywhere and has an impact on everything.
My eyes were opened when I got psoriasis. Within a week I had spots on my whole body, like raindrops. I had light-therapy for this and it disappeared at first, but after two weeks it came back again. This was an invitation for me to look deeper to the roots of this and to be honest with it. As well as receiving conventional medical treatment, I also had some sessions with practitioners of Universal Medicine, which supported me in the process of understanding the underlying energetic causes of the psoriasis.
After one of these sessions, I understood exactly what the spots were really showing me. It was like I was walking through a nuclear building that was leaking radioactivity and when I came out the other end, of course I was poisoned. I was shocked to realise that I had walked through life like an open target. That I had absorbed many things that didn’t belong to me and that this was a kind of poison. For me it felt like a very huge form of abuse that was having an enormous effect on my health. I was swimming in the ocean with all others and picked up all the energies that did not belong to me.
I am learning that my body is constantly responding to my way of life and the choices I make. This asks me to be in connection with my body and to deeply care for myself. With these very clear signs on my skin, I cannot ignore the fact that my daily choices have an impact on my body. Instead of putting on the armour and thinking that this will protect me, I am learning to be open and allow myself to be sensitive, to be vulnerable, to be beautiful, to be powerful, to be precious, to be delicate… to be with me.
It helps me to put my focus on observing the external world, instead of absorbing its harmful energies, because when I am feeling my loveliness it is very obvious that such energies do NOT belong within me. This brings more understanding for my behaviour and that of others. If I can nominate what’s there and express it, then thoughts don’t come in and play their own game. There is more space for accepting myself, which results in more openness, more love.
Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?
I now know that changing our world is just not about doing something outside of us. It is about living in the world in the fullness of who we truly are. I need my body to bring this expression into the world, so it is important that I take real care of it. I am learning to still swim in the sea with everybody, without wearing an armour as a protection, but with my own body as my guide.
By Peggy Verheijen, Teacher, Belgium
Related Reading:
Self Care – ‘Walking the Talk’
Abuse – My Understanding So Far
The Art of Appreciation – Helping to Break the Cycle of Self Abuse
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
I feel the biggest poison we are often affected by is what we absorb of life and its carry ons. We are not taught how to observe and let things be as much as it isn’t pleasant to see. There are at times when we do need to intervene as long as we are not affected by it during the process, especially when we have an expectation or an outcome.
It is a different way of living. It is a living that feels true and allows us to observe life instead of absorbing it. Then our bodies are not affected or abused by self.
What I love is the fact that we can undo this by making the decision to live another way, and in that other way, we realise what we have allowed and what we can now change. It can be as simple as that.
Yes, it is important to observe, and not absorb life, or we absorb poison and can make ourselves unwell.
The levels of self abusive behaviour’s and patterns seem endless but eventually there is a light at the end of the tunnel as we re-connect to our Essences, Inner-most-hearts / Souls, and then we leave behind all the waywardness by our controlling spirit, so life becomes Harmonious and Loving, because we have realigned to our Essences.
Realising that the energy of events and people affects our body we can have an equal realisation that the way we choose to live has an effect on everyone and everything around us.
Mary spot on, it only takes one to be the light to show others that there is another way. The others will either be inspired and follow or they will remain as they are.
We all have an affect on one another by how we are living and expressing.
A part at the start stuck with me. Is not wanting to see the abuse in the world equally abusive? If we aren’t willing to see and/or address it then we allow it to continue..
True Leigh, we are complicit with abuse unless we are prepared to see it and call it out.
Peggy, this is probably one of the best take home messages to be reminded of: “I now know that changing our world is just not about doing something outside of us. It is about living in the world in the fullness of who we truly are. I need my body to bring this expression into the world, so it is important that I take real care of it.” – Thank you!
We live in an ocean of energy and we feel things all of the time. The question is how much do we allow ourselves to be aware of, whether we like what we are feeling or not?
We let those negative energies into our body and it happens so fast that we are not even aware of it. Sometimes its not until the poison has built up in our bodies so much that we then feel sick or tired that we realise that we have let it in and then we take the steps to rid ourselves of it. That energy can be anything that encourages us to look out sided ourselves such as comparison, jealousy, resentment, anger, sadness, self fury. And because the list is very long is that why we are always looking outside to confirm who we are rather than relying on what is within us?
Allowing ourselves to be sensitive, delicate, vulnerable etc, is like swimming against the tide of society it is seemingly not welcome as we have hardened ourselves against the brutality of life forgetting that we have all contributed to this way of life that we don’t like or want.
So much of what we hold as normal in human life is just abuse, and some of that comes disguised under doing ‘good’, as well as from ideals and beliefs. It’s really not until we begin to live from self care and self love, in their true energetic quality (not as a tick box exercise) that we can feel just how much abuse there is. Bringing everything back to the energetic quality exposes everything.
Peggy, I have discovered that living a life of protection and numbness to the world does not in fact protect us at all it is such an illusion one that I fell for, for many lives. I am now opening myself up to the world and everything in it and I’m finding this is a different way to live because I can feel other people and through that I can read what is happening all around me, so I’m not blindsided by something happening this makes me less reactive and actually more understanding.
Thank you Peggy, this is something I can really relate to, as I’ve often since childhood felt overwhelmed with what’s happening outside of me and what I can feel with my sensitivity, but I haven’t been as aware of what’s in me (as you say the “loveliness”) and staying with that and not absorbing what’s outside of me. This is such a great line “Instead of putting on the armour and thinking that this will protect me, I am learning to be open and allow myself to be sensitive, to be vulnerable, to be beautiful, to be powerful, to be precious, to be delicate… to be with me.”
It is easier to feel what the world is like and observe it as such (with all its mess and things we do not like) when we allow ourselves to be connected to the loveliness inside us. With the connection to the loveliness inside, there is less of a need for the outside to be a certain way so that we feel ok.
Self abuse can be very subtle, in small put-downs. Anything that isn’t about love could be said to be a form of abuse.
I agree sueq2012 yesterday I was with a group of men who have known each other for a long time their banter with each other was abusive which caught my interest because actually they had so much to celebrate in each other. But it was as though there was an unsaid agreement that they were not allowed to do this as it would appear unmanly?
Spot on Sue, and this is like a standard that can be deepened/raised each and every day.
Absolutely, anything that is not love is a form of abuse.
Abuse is so much more common place than we care to admit to, particularly of ourselves which makes no sense unless we consider that there is a part of us which is addicted to such abusive behaviour.
Seeing every way in which we choose abuse is so important as when we see it in truth we can then make the choice to no longer choose that behaviour, way or practice. The more we build and deepen our connection, the more we can choose what is loving therefore no longer choosing abuse.
Saying yes to love, and no to abuse, and protection, ‘It seemed easier to put myself in a kind of armour so that I would not have to deal with an energy that’s not from love.’
Its a great question “Why do we live our life as if we are in a bubble?’. We prefer not to think about it, to stay cocooned and safe behind our bubbling illusion, and often the only thing that can break through is when our body shouts loudly enough (like a serious illness) that we wake up and realise we cannot continue to live the way that we have.
The poison of protection – so harming in the lengths we go to stop others getting to know the true core of our being!
With protection we think we are protecting but in fact we are denying our connection with our essence for when we say no to one aspect we automatically so no to the other aspect, and no one wins, everyone loses. The only way to stay open to our essence is to stay open to seeing all that we can see in the world whether we like what we see or not, and it is our connection with essence, that holds us steady to handle what we see and feel.
Thanks so much for writing this honest blog. I can relate to the struggle of maintaining my sensitivity and tenderness, particularly as a man and not going into hardness or protection in reaction to what I am feeling around me. And I agree the hardness gets you nowhere and sends you around and around in circles where as honouring how you actually feel, even if you are hurt is at least a more honest starting point of what is really going on and opens the door to a deeper healing of those hurts.
Peggy, thank you, for reminding me that not letting the fullness of what we truly are is an abuse to ourselves and to everyone and everything around us.
It’s no mistake or coincidence that the first thing I have written about is abuse, especially self-abuse. It has ruled my world — I have been a master of it. How is this the case when I am angel at heart? Exactly as you say Peggy because I have absorbed the tyranny that is abuse. . I have turned that around. Instead of turning my awareness back on myself I use it to show others the life that all would rather live.
‘Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?’ When it’s put like that, it’s very stark isn’t it, and it takes honesty to start to see what we’re doing to ourselves and that we do not have to do so, and as our awareness increases abuse that initially might appear subtle screams louder, and so we’re asked to go to another level and embrace our loveliness further for in that embrace we can clearly see what is not us. It’s an unfolding, and a constant call to love more deeply in our bodies and ourselves, and in doing so we love all others.
Have become more aware of the game being played within myself and choices made movement by movement. I’m invited to deepen and surrender to love and yet also observe my resistance and pull towards temptations and less loving ways. It’s all there before me and I sit, not in judgement of myself, but lovingly accepting where I am.
Yes indeed… Finding that place within, making the leap, finally starting to observe… And then we are not at the dictates of the energies that are flowing all around us all the time
I love this Chris. It reminds me of the stillness we are leaping into, the eternal pool of love we are from, so that we are not swayed by what is not of that love around us.
Most of the time, the English language doesn’t really make sense to me.. and it’s the only language I speak! But the word abuse makes sense – the ‘use’ of something, in an ‘ab’stract way. It may not be abstract the the ‘ab’ is referring to – but to me it feels very much to do with the body and using it in a way that is ‘ab’solutely not intended for us to be used or moved.
I like this turn on the ab’stract… its by not being present with what we are doing with our body, or not really feeling what the impact of what someone is saying that allows in a form of behaviour or outside influence that harms us, be that subtle or gross.
Until we actually stop with the momentum of getting things done at all cost and actually listen to our bodies and start to look after, care for and appreciate what they offer us then do we start to address the increase of illness and disease.
Bringing love, care, nurturing and honouring to our bodies is supportive in a world that is challenging, ‘I found it difficult to deal with the things I felt around me and to accept that the world is like it is. I didn’t know how to handle my sensitivity and meanwhile felt the hardness, the disconnection, the suffering or emptiness of people.’
To understand and appreciate that ignoring communications from our body which are indicating that something is not right is self-abuse brings awareness of self-abuse to a far deeper level of understanding than generally accepted and a far more responsible approach to self-care and self-love.
It’s profound what you’ve shared about how changing the world starts with us. We can be a great inspiration through how we live rather than just in doing grand things.
“We can be a great inspiration through how we live rather than just in doing grand things.” Yes we can Susie and if more people stayed simple and true to life it we express to others The Way of the Livingness through our movements, not words.
Yes, our be-ingness, our quality in living, is so much more important than what we do, yet is less valued in the world of today.
Our bodies are constantly showing us what we are saying yes to, it may not manifest in this life it maybe in our next life but our bodies never lie and are always a result of the choices that we have made.
I react in life because put simply, I have lost the connection to self. Making the choice to connect to self is all that is required to observe and not absorb what is going on around me, living life from the inside out rather than the outside in.
‘Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?’ That is a very good question and one to ponder on. There are so many little subtle ways that I abuse myself, whether it be not honouring what I am feeling, staying up late, getting distracted, eating foods which do not support me, getting caught up in emotional conversations, the list is pretty long. But we have to come back to the question as then it makes no sense to the unloving abusive choices I may be making.
“I am learning that my body is constantly responding to my way of life and the choices I make.” Our bodies hold intelligence way above and beyond the intelligence of the mind. We would all do well to pay more attention to what they are sharing with us.
True Sandra, we could really do with paying more attention to everything that happens around us, As Peggy says, there is so much in the world that is abuse that we accept as a hit without noticing it, but our bodies receive it all the time.
Yes and through observation rather than reaction as a reaction in itself is abuse to the body.
That’s true Gill, it reminds me of how important it is for human beings to build and live from self love so all the abuse that we have made normal in life is exposed and discarded.
“I now know that changing our world is just not about doing something outside of us. It is about living in the world in the fullness of who we truly are.” So true this is the illusion we live under that to change the world we need to change things outside of ourselves and so we put our focus there rather than seeing that change happens in the world through the changes we make in our own lives. A totally different way to understanding true change.
When I do not respond initially and be honest with how I am feeling I am directly poisoning myself with abuse.
So true and simply expressed.
Taking care of our body is not a chore, or a target to be reached, but a daily care akin to that of caring for a child, where tenderness, simple detailed activity and the wonder of who we are is a norm.
Our posture can even be considered abusive if we are not holding ourselves in the love that we innately are.
In just one day I wonder how much abuse do we allow to take place, even just the way someone speaks to us can be abusive.
Clearly we can dismiss this responsibility in the way we are living and impose that on everyone around us, denying awareness and knowledge that the way we are affects others. Or, we can embrace the possibility and build a way of living that offers grace, space and Love without imposition.
Gorgeous Lucy and beautifully expressed. So in other words we can try to control everyone around us to conform to the way WE want the world and them to be or we can live the love we are and by doing so allows others to also do the same.
Yes James. I am starting to realise how utterly abusive it is to control as it negates the divinity we are from and makes our will greater than the Love we come from and are made of. My will means control is essential and exhausting.
Control sure is exhausting and I find it means life becomes super stressful as when I try to control things I need them to be a certain way rather than embracing what is before me and what is on offer for me to learn and by doing so deepen the love that I am.
“Why do we live life in a kind of bubble and think that nothing can touch us unless we immediately have very clear signs?” Very good question!! why do we need the big, in your face, kind of conversation to recognise what we have already known from subtle conversations along the way? It is a great opportunity to say, OK, let me be aware of the small things that I have chosen not to notice….then hold on, observe and just breath 🙂
Thank you for sharing your experience Peggy, we can learn so much from each other, and how we abuse ourselves through the choices we make, and how we can change those choices.
We abuse ourselves in different ways, it is important to be aware of those ways and then we can do something about them,’I abused my body by being in a hardness, shutting myself down, not being open with my whole heart, not expressing what was there to be expressed and by avoiding my sensibility.’
It’s ironic that we think that putting up a guard to protect ourselves will keep us safe from the ugliness that comes through others and yet we are abusing ourselves at the same time.
We abuse ourselves in many ways, ‘Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?’
Self-abuse is the pattern of movement of someone determined not to fulfill his/her own potential who on top punishes him/herself for doing so and guarantees the reproduction of that place by accepting to swim only in the misery of his/her own creation. Totally cut away from anything that is divine.
Your blog reminded me how being aware and connected with our body is the first line defence of abuse and self abuse, and the second line defence is simply saying ‘no’ to what is not love.
We ought to appreciate when we get sick as it’s our bodies way of showing us that the way we have been living is not working, it’s our bodies way of saying we are more than this plane of life and your choices do not reflect that.
The flavours of self-abuse are too numerous to mention, and what one person considers abuse another would not. Identifying abuse first in ourselves is a huge step in our evolution.
We get upset when we get ill but surely we should celebrate -for the body is letting go of poison we have put in. It is letting us know there are habits and ways of being that need to go.
Because we are from love we do have a very sensitive antenna for any abuse that is happening. It is interesting though to observe that there are so many hidden forms of abuse in our lives, in our societies and in the world. What does make us so blind for that while we are made to be the Sherlock Holmes when it comes to find any abuse that is out there?
While we think that protecting and hardening ourselves is the way to deal with the abuse in the wold. To me it is the opposite – it is the cause of it as, in that protection, we do not only hurt ourselves and others but also add to the abuse in the world and we to are keeping it alive and do not stop it at the root, that is with ourselves.
Wisdom of the ages captured with exquisite practicality. Very supportive blog.
I am realising how much my negative beliefs I have held about myself have poisoned my body and how I am in the world. It is for me to change this and I am letting them go.
I can see how abuse has been so common in the world that it has become accepted as normal and is allowed to continue when really abuse is not our natural way and we can all feel any abuse in our bodies.
Yes and we need to say when we feel abuse from another, we need to get honest about what is abusive otherwise nothing will change.
We think that by staying at, keeping ourselves away or keeping quiet on what is harmful is love. To not cause a scene or to be nice. But the world would never know what is harmful when we do not speak out.
Yes that Nice energy is one I can slip into and I really feel the effects it has on my body and on how I am in the world, and I also feel the opportunity missed to contribute to saying No to abuse.
Our body is a gift that shows us so much – what a great learning is shared here – from the trauma your body took on to you wanting to understand what was behind it. When we want to understand, it starts the healing process of us living in a way where our bodies do not have to go to the extreme before we listen and honour them.
“I am learning to still swim in the sea with everybody, without wearing an armour as a protection, but with my own body as my guide.” Beautiful and a real inspiration and an end to the plague of self abuse so insidious and harming in our lives keeping us less and destroying feeling our innate preciousness and love.
When some examples of self-abuse were presented to me, such as not going to the toilet when I needed to, it stopped me in my tracks as I realised how abusive I had been to my body over the years. Initially I began to give myself a hard time that I had been so abusive, often very subtly, but I soon realised that was also abuse and quickly stopped. These days it comes down to the reality that anything I do to myself that is not done in love is abusive and does not have a place in my life. It’s still a work in progress but one that is priceless.
Thank you Peggy, to come to the realisation we poison ourselves much more than the world poisons us is huge. And to take responsibility for our own detox programme a blessing.
I’m beginning to feel exactly how much I take on throughout the day if I do not call things for what they are or express what is there to be expressed. We can have a gloriously clear body at the beginning of the day and end up laden with heaviness if we do not remain aware of what is going on around us.
Admit what abuse truly is and we will be need to look at the way we live everyday. Better it seems to ignore and ponder about cancer and war but our bodies are telling us we can’t sustain this way any longer.
As I realise the finer detail of self abuse that I still partake in and deal with the hurts and avoidance around that, my body responds instantly with a beautiful fullness and ongoing expansion.
The protection we put in place so called to protect ourselves for the harsh world outside, is in fact harming us the most.
Yes Nico, I agree. Protection is ‘lock down’ and forms a hard exterior, locking in all the hurt, anger, frustrations that need to be explored, understood, and released, not cast into stone inside our own bodies.
Indeed Kehinde, all that we hold in our bodies needs to be looked at and deeply felt and not protected, so we can release it and move on to the next.
This makes so much sense Peggy, that if we let in all the energy that does not belong to us that this reacts as a poison in our body. While we think we are not aware of this energetic truth, we do know all of it to its tiniest details but because at times we are so much invested in the world we have created we ignore this knowing and thus knowingly are poisoning ourselves.
And in saying no to ourselves are we not saying no to others, the seed of abuse really does start with us and that is the place to start to address it in life….as the collective quality we live with is determined by the parts (us) that make up the whole.
The real poison abuse does to our bodies and we accept from ourselves and others is something we really do not like and choose not to feel .The real honesty of allowing ourselves to feel and know energy and how it affects us is so important to honouring who we are and everything we are communicated through energy and our bodies and supports us to live in a different way of harmony flow and loving connections with awareness of the all.