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
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.
There is a big difference between going through life wearing armour to cope and going through life open and full so that we are emanating our qualities, rather than sponging up what is going on around us. I am inspired by the latter approach.
It is our greatest abuse to not love, honour and cherish the depth of the beauty we each are. From here all other abuses are born.
It seems so small to not love, but as you say Liane, it is at the core of all the abuse in the world. It is all from the lovelessness we choose in life.
‘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 am so knowing this is to be true. I feel it as I walk and am practicing staying open and unprotected even when people are walking their dogs that I would have immediately assumed were scary looking and dangerous. Being open also means being connected and feeling when there is an actual threat, so it’s not being arrogant that there isn’t untoward energies about but also knowing that if I don’t come with judgement I can also present as being of little interest. If I stay in protection I only get to experience a life of contraction and fear, and not what’s actually going on or being there for people. There is so much joy and healing just in walking past someone and being open.
We can be our own worst critic and our most loving lover… the choice is simply ours to choose.
Yes, beautifully said, so simple.
The latter again please! Being our most loving lover is an ever developing relationship with large doses of understanding, appreciation, respect and of course, love.
Abuse comes in many shapes, flavours and sizes but no matter its form… it remains abuse.
One way of abusing ourselves is to allow ourselves to be easily swayed by others, even though we have felt what is true for us we then give our power away to others.
I’m finding that one of the biggest forms of self-abuse is not allowing myself to acknowledge how I am feeling, and also not expressing this. It leaves me with a whole load of unresolved stuff and a feeling of disempowerment.
“Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?” – a strong statement Peggy, and I agree with you, it is absurd when you put it like this, though although it may not occur in one’s thinking because it is an odd question to have and where one would have to agree [with you], abuse does unfortunately occur in our actions, as in, we very often do say no to ourselves because we have already said no to the actual living of (self) love. From our body comes the corresponding action. A body not already loving is a body already saying no to oneself and yes to being less than love i.e. abuse.
I have found I can be so quick to blame others that I am not in fact looking at the way I 1st am treating myself and my body. The more love and care I treat my body with the more I almost command others to treat me the same way. The same goes for the more I disregard my body the more I ask others to do the same. It can be a vicious cycle thinking the world and everyone is out to get you when they are not it is just a reflection showing us the way we are living.
Taking care of and listening to the communication from our body is the greatest responsibility of all, because we are committing to the absolute truth that is occurring in every moment.
If we accept that everything is energy – do we willingly put ourselves in the firing line? Do we poke an energetic fire? Do we play games that cause reactions in others, do we hold back that imposes on others? Abuse can be very sneaky.
Peggy thanks for writing this blog I am discovering that there are many layers to the abuse we all accept, and the more we peel away the layers the less abuse we accept from ourselves and then other people. We have all contributed to all the abuse we have in the world so we all have a responsibility to clear our mess up. To me the only way to do this is to become more aware of how we are with ourselves to clear ourselves first then I feel certain it will have a flow on effect for everyone else. We have to start somewhere after all.
Shutting down our awareness to the wisdom of the body only delays the inevitable that we must feel the consequences of our non loving choices at some point. Often in the way of illness and disease.
Being in life using our body as a guide that gives us a real marker of how we feel – it’s then for us to honour that.
When we react to something or someone then it could often be because we experience the behaviour of the other as abusive. That may be the case but it may also be that their actions remind us of times when we have been abusive to ourselves or others even though their actual action was not abusive at all. A good example is somebody who is simply loving in their behaviour – it can trigger in others the uncomfortable awareness of how loving or not loving their own behaviour is.
If we were to accept that self-abuse was a poison in the body then we would consider our choices more wisely.
Feeling the poison it is is a great first step.
When we are willing to realise the levels of abuse we allow, we lay the facts before us and cannot deny that we have choices.
‘my body is constantly responding to my way of life ‘ Thank you Peggy, this is absolutely the key – If only we would take a leaf out of the body’s book and respond back with the same level of love, diligence, care and honesty.
Often we have these messages from the body and then wait for things to get worse before we pay attention or do something about it. The same thing plays out on a bigger scale, as in how bad does it have to get for humanity to pay attention.
I do understand what you say Julie and you make a very good point. How we are going with all the abuse in our societies and in the world is clearly reflected in our bodies too. We are neglecting and trying to avoid, to not see and to think that everything is OK. But our bodies know. Our societies know and all suffer from these irresponsible choices.
“This was an invitation for me to look deeper to the roots of this and to be honest with it.” I love how you say this was an invitation. We have become accustomed to seeing illness and disease as a threat, as a nuisance, as something to get rid of. What you are offering here for us is to look deeper, to be open to be more aware, to ask us, what is really going on.
We poison and abuse ourselves so much – it’s often hard to tell the woods from the trees. But that doesn’t mean we should just give up and accept it as normal. Just experiment, investigate and go deeper with our Love.
We can be on a vicious cycle or a virtuous cycle when it comes to abuse. We can change cycles at any time but the more time we spend on one cycle the easier it to either stay on that cycle or come back to it. To get on the virtuous cycle, basic self care does wonders.
There is much to look at when we begin to consider all the ways we abuse our self. It is self-abusive for example to keep yourself up when you know it is time to take yourself to bed and go to sleep.
Ha, yes it is!
I feel I have reached an understanding within myself that I went into protection and disconnect because I cannot bear the disconnection, suffering and or the emptiness of other people. I hate the fact that we have abandoned ourselves and have given up on God. I include myself in this description. I have come to understand that even though we may give up on God he has never given up on us. I now Understand that there is an energy that constantly wants to express the given upness through our bodies. When we abandon ourselves we actually abandon our bodies and in doing this it allows this other foul energy to enter into the space that is left and actually take control. As far fetched as this may sound – checking out of life and giving up is the worst thing we can do as we then give control of our bodies over to this other energy and we just have to look at our current way of living to see the damage it is wreaking on our society.
Yes, when we give up on ourselves, strange things happen. These strange things are so common (depression, mental illness, serious physical changes) that we consider them normal but are they?
Why is it that we continue to abuse ourselves long after we know that what we are doing is harmful to ourselves, we have patterns of repeating the same thing again and again like a hamster stuck on a wheel. Seeing life as energy first completely changes our perspective on life and from here it is easier to see and do something about our loveless choices.
“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.” I melted reading this today, melted because you are learning to live with it, and that I am doing the same.
The honouring of who we are in our sensitivity and glory is very special and makes all the difference to our lives our bodies and are awareness of ourselves and others with love as our standard and anything less being abuse . This sets the standard from within and is a reflection for the world from here.
Honouring our sensitivity is a wonderful first step in saying no to abuse of any kind. As we go down the path of realising how sensitive we really are, there are many things that simply no longer match with the body.
‘Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?’ – Yes indeed, we are constantly being bombarded from the society, media, friends, family etc. that it is ok to dismiss our own boundaries, not only that it is ok but we are in fact incouraged to override what we feel and push through. Hence abusing our own body becomes the norm.
When I am the abuser of myself I cannot walk away. What you’ve offered here is gold. The great irony is that when I want to protect myself from a world I think is bigger than me, I am actually cutting myself off from my greater asset – my sensitivity and fragility. This is an abuse in itself and leads to very obvious abusive behaviours because I want to avoid feeling hurt. Once I start to really understand the dynamics at play I no longer have to fear the world but simply say yes to feeling it all and standing by my side. In this I also get to understand people and no longer wanting to run away.
What you show Peggy is how much we affect the body when we don’t honour our sensitivity vulnerability and tenderness, and choose to harden ourselves against the world instead.
Well said Alison. If we chose to not honour our sensitivity we either have to harden, protect or numb ourselves.
Our body is communicating with us all of the time but as you say Peggy . . .
“It takes a level of awareness and responsibility to be open to and want to listen to the body and hear these messages.” . . . we poison ourselves when we refuse to connect to what our body is communicating to us.
“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.” This has been something I have come to understand and appreciate. The more I live in my fullness of who I truly am and walk/reflect that, that is plenty for the world, I don’t need to go into the energy of doing.
If we didn’t abuse ourselves in any way would there be abuse in the world? I suspect not and this means we all have a big responsibility with the way we treat ourselves.
I’m observing the beauty of choosing spaciousness and being with me, above checking out with TV to fill an inner emptiness.
And the long term impact of this is beyond my immediate understanding. I actually enjoy this sense of not knowing exactly what will happen, whilst being surer and surer that living life in connection with myself is the only thing that makes sense.
Self abuse, fuels the catastrophic illness and disease statistics we have today.
The example that you give of the song-writer is a fascinating one. The ‘danger’ of music is that we are so conditioned to totally open ourselves up to it, it’s what we all do, without any discernment; truly we get “lost in music”….and then all these emotions get dumped in our body. But where music is particularly problematic is that we are then left with this poison in our body and have no idea where it came from…at least when someone shouts in our face we know exactly what is going on and can choose to deal with it there and then. Music sneaks, undetected, in the back door.
I know what you mean Otto, I can be in a store and catch myself taken with the music, even singing along to remembered lyrics, very sneaky how this happens. Then there are other times when I feel so assaulted by overly emotional lyrics in piped music, I leave the store.
What I am beginning to learn (and when I say ‘beginning’, I really mean just that!) is that it’s not even about how the instruments are played or what volume the music is at. You’d think that heavy metal would be more abusing than a piece of gentle classical music. But it’s got nothing to do with the physicality of the music – the notes, the instruments, the volume…it is all to do with what energy is coming through the music, what energy it was made in, and what energy was coming through its creators. It’s a huge science and humanity is miles away from accepting or understanding it….whilst, almost everywhere we go now, music of one sort or another is being fed to us.
Further to this…”passive smoking” has been one of the big health issues of the last couple of decades. When I was a kid no-one even considered it. Cars, airplanes, restaurants, houses were all filled with smoke…yet, now it’s an absolute no-no. Maybe one day we will have exposed ‘passive music’ in the same way. The only thing is, there is nothing passive about music, in that we willingly open ourselves to it and drink it into our bodies.
Good point Otto, ‘passive music’ an apt description. There are very few places where music is not played. I was somewhere yesterday where staff complained about the constant background music, they have no control over but are instructed from up high to comply and play. And of course music not only streams poison into our bodies, it is a profitable income stream for the music industry
I agree we get conditioned to open up to music, but first comes the conditioning that emotions are normal and desirable and that they are the way we can express ourselves. Even love that we know as pure and unconditional as kids is reinterpreted and lumped in with these emotions. This means that when we listen to music we accept the emotional dumping of the artists and do not discern what we are feeling.
This is a great and huge point. Indeed music (and countless other things; books, movies, tv etc) are all praised for exactly this; “it made me feel so emotional”…. etc…as you say the currency of ’emotions’ carries enormous value. Until this is exposed for the toxic transfusion that it is then we will never be ready to unravel the poison of music.
It sneaks in undetected and then we move our body with it. The movement cements what we let in and now we are on a path that was not ours to go down.
Well said. It is an exact science that needs to be learnt and exposed. But then, as I write this, I realise that it is already learnt and is already known – and is precisely, for example, why shops play pipe music into their stores. The less of you that you are, the more of them that you buy in to.
Today I was able to see the extent that I have been willing to continuously abuse myself and with this awareness I can now start to change.
It is great, humbling and most revealing to honestly reflect on all that ways we can self-abuse. It is an evolving awareness – we can always bring more Love.
I agree Jenny, the deeper we go with the honesty we can truly reflect on all ways we can self-abuse. It truly is a constant evolving of awareness and understanding, by bringing more love.
Wow, Peggy – it was so lovely to feel the absolute honesty and understanding that you are embracing in your relationship with your body. When I allow myself to be vulnerable I too am ‘ shocked to realise that I had walked through life like an open target’ and as I sense a greater depth of awareness of everything around me and the impact that I can feel as I live day to day I can also feel the magic of God is there forever calling me to return.
Something I have found is that to be abused by another I 1st have to abuse myself. This may be by something seemingly small such as dismissing and not honouring what I am feeling and overriding it, or the more obvious ones such as eating or drinking things I know are not supportive to my body and then all the self bashing thoughts. But for me it starts from not accepting myself and standing with the authority of the truth I know. Then it allows an opportunity for another to allow abuse through, directed at me otherwise I would not have the opening and so whilst it may come it would not affect me.
The reason we attack and abuse our body is because the body is the vehicle that allows God to come through. And when God is unreservedly being let through to express through you, we are just a vehicle, no recognition as individual, we don’t want to let that go, nor want to be powerful and not fit in.
The body is incredibly honest and pain is one of the loudest ways it gets our attention. We can pretend we don’t absorb what is going on around us as long as we want but our body will, at some point, let us know in no uncertain terms that it does.
Body is our best friend as it will never lie to us, it is constantly working behind the scene clearing and healing in the background. If we ignore the signs of abusing it, it will speak louder by making us stop with warnings.
it’s only when I went to presentations with Serge Benhayon that I was made aware of how we can absorb energies from other people.
That was my experience too, I had no understanding and awareness prior to meeting Serge Benhayon. The depth of awareness and ageless wisdom I have been awakened to with the support of Serge Benhayon is out of this world.
Abuse in the world is huge and can feel overwhelming when we listen to the latest sex abuse scandals from priests in the Catholic Church .. another one revealed today in the news. Starting with ourselves is the only way forwards to not abuse ourselves or accept abuse from anyone in any form.
It’s not like this abuse is new news; it’s been going on for decades, for centuries. So where have we been whilst this has all been happening under our noses? And, as you say, is it possible that abuse begets abuse? And thus how we are in our homes and communities actually feeds and enables the abuse that is carried out within the confessional boxes, vestries, dormitories and studies of these religious institutions.
We can poison ourselves through self-abuse more so than through eating all the worst kinds of food.
We sure can yet we can get so caught up on the food factor and make it the be all and end all. Yet we do not eat 24/7 (well most of us anyway) and so there has to be more that is affecting us otherwise it owuld not make sense. Food is great though as it is a very tangeable marker we have, it is the more subtle emotional forms of abuse and self-abuse which can be sneakier to catch.
It is hard thing to understand but it is very true, most of us have been living in this way of self-abusing and not realising that we have been doing this to ourselves. Serge Benhayon is the person I know of who has brought this to humanity in away that can be understood.
Bringing awareness to our bodies and what we feel As you say is taking responsibility for what we are living and expressing. To be open to see everything and listen to what the body is telling us.
Being super loving with and caring for ourselves is such an integral part of life that needs to be brought back into all our lives, as without the care and love we have for ourselves there will be no care nor love for anybody or anything else. And we all deserve deep love and care.
I am starting to appreciate the abuse that our thoughts can have on us. With out even realising it we can go through a marathon of abuse just by the thoughts we have. Understanding the teachings of Serge Benhayon and seeing the energy we are choosing and how that influences and determines the thoughts we have really explains why we do have the thoughts that we do have.
And with this understanding I am better equipped to make the choice as to whether to allow them in or not – a choice that I don’t always make, but at least I now know what I am doing. Thank you to Universal Medicine for giving me the tools to dissect the game of life.
By saying no to non loving choices we are in fact saying yes to the love that we are in essence.
Agreed Jenny, when we say No to something we are always saying yes to something else. I vote for no to what is not loving and by virtue we are choosing what is loving.
The more we choose to say YES the more is on offer to expand and grown in true service to ALL.
That has been my first step to true recovery is to say no to non loving choices and allowing the true love to flow through, what a life changer it has been.
The moment we lack awareness of what is happening we absorb what is happening. Now, if only overeating wouldn’t reduce our awareness….
Our bodies are a constant Geiger counter.
There is a real strength and power in being super sensitive, in that it enables us to actually read situations and feel the energetic reasons behind people’s behaviours, so we can then have understanding and avoid the absorbing of everyone’s issues through reaction that result in illness and disease. Shutting down that sensitivity to protect yourself from the hurt of it doesn’t work, as we never stop feeling anyway. It is a trick to think you are actually protecting yourself in the end through hardening because there is actually more harm being done to our bodies in that reaction.
Yes, super sensitive without needing to react more than the situation warrants. That works.
Beautifully said – I’m discovering that in order to read life and feel it energetically I have to allow my super sensitivity. Shut that off and life is only really what you see. But there is so much more that what you see, and we all have the sensitivity to feel it.
One by one, step by step we absolutely can and will re-write the culture of abuse that is our current normal. The only question is when?
We start now with our own changes which then reflect to others and it is through reflection and the ripple effect will soon everyone we be on the same page and we will have re-written the culture of absue.
We poison ourself every time we hold back from being all we are.
The key words here are ‘hold back’; and what you say makes so much sense because to ‘hold back’ or reduce any natural growth or expansion must require a negative ingredient of some sort…a poison.
Everything in life has to be full. If we hold back then we are not filling what is there to be filled. What is not us then comes into fill that space and that is what the poison is.
The only way to stop being so affected by everything outside of ourselves is through self-love and deep care. There is no quick fix that can do this for us, it is all governed by our choices to take care of ourselves or not.
I love how the body always shows us what is going on. What a great guide and friend it is.
Peggy I feel as children we are sensitive and when this is not appreciated or honoured then it is very difficult for children to hold onto their sensitivity when all around them they feel and see a society that has lost it’s sensitivity and crushes anyone who shows any signs of it. We have replaced sensitivity with all forms of abuse which we seemingly find far more acceptable, how lost are we ?
That is true, we don’t confirm to children that feeling things going on around us is a thing and in so doing we perpetuate the game that is incredibly abusive for generations. We are, however, each responsible for taking the next step and choosing for that not to be our normal and to walk it, not just talk it, as there are many children who do not walk away from their innate knowing and that reflection can be a very powerful reflection
Under this same banner, I am ‘re-parenting’ this ‘child-asset’ in me. We all have it innately, no matter how old, what has happened or how buried it may be and we all need to nurture it back to being our normal.
“Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?” – we only say no to something we do not love. The more we love, the less we abuse. And when there is abuse there is the call for us to deal with that abuse through deepening the level of love that we already have. Love through (self) understanding is how we can complete patterns of abuse.
It is super important for us to take real care of our bodies. When we begin to do this we begin to see more of how we have not. Not to feel guilty but so that we can deepen the level of care. With that we see that there is no end point to reach with how we can care for ourselves.
There seems to be a distinction between being aware of the symptoms a body is showing and being able to read the underlying energetic cause for that condition, and I would so love to be able to read straight off what exactly is the root cause of any and every condition, but I also am aware that we all need to make our own journeys with our own bodies, as forever students of the whole intelligence that each body holds.
I agree Shami. A wealth of wisdom is there to access; but I feel that the most important step in this is that first big YES. ‘Yes, I agree that the way I have been living and the choices that I have been making has been abusive, yes, I want to change, yes, show me what is going on, yes I am open to listening to what my body is telling me.” If we say this first big YES, then the learning can start and the tap-of-wisdom opens.
The more we can appreciate the awareness we do have the easier it is to honour it.
I found it quite hard at first, it was like wading through mud but the more I took the steps the lighter and brighter I felt. Well worth the choice to deepen the care and love we are with ourselves.
‘It takes a level of awareness and responsibility to be open to and want to listen to the body and hear these messages.’ – Indeed it does, our body keeps continually signalling what is going on. However we can easily shut down our awareness with all sorts of distractions, to avoid having to take responsibility.
The amount of self abuse we inflict on ourselves in life is enormous and this is a great expose of what is going on to look at and start bringing honesty and change to our lives and hence to the level of abuse in the world everywhere.
I have learnt that if I do not honour what I am feeling energetically in any situation then I am much more likely to ‘take on’ and absorb abusive energy into my body which does feel toxic like a poison. I then seek to do other things to stop feeling this which only adds to the problem. So the key really is in the full observation of what is happening not just physically but energetically as well.
The energy of abuse feels awful in the body and no matter how subtle it is, the poison is just as harmful.
I have seen that re-visiting old events and emotions like a class reunion can lead to a participant having trouble sleeping all night and even a single beer in such context having a big effect even though the event itself was good natured and gentle – the act of revisiting can be enough.
To fully understand the effects of self abuse and abuse in the world, without getting sucked in to identifying with the struggle and things being ‘too hard’, it requires a deep lever of observation and understanding.
Great point Susie – it is easy to get lost in the drama of it rather than seeking to truly understand what is at play.
Judgement on another, however small or expressing hate against a particular person is a highly toxic poison to our body.
“I am learning that my body is constantly responding to my way of life and the choices I make.” this makes perfect sense as I know when I am loving with myself my body feels that and responds, when I am not loving I feel super bad in my body. Simple but a great reflection of my day.
When we are truly honest with what is going on in our body, there is an entire universe of information available to us right there.
Yes, the honesty allows us to observe – as simple as it sounds it is difficult to observe if we are not honest.
We have an expression that when we are in the mud we cannot see anything but the mud and this is true, if we are abusive towards ourselves we will be abusive towards others because that’s what we know. When we increase our awareness to how we are with ourselves and make the choice and put in the work to look at what gets in the way to stop us from being more loving, this naturally changes how we are with others. So if we really want to change the horrors that we have in this world it starts with us as individuals, we have all contributed to our current society as individuals we are the ones that need to clean our mess up.
“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 Peggy and to do that requires us to listen and respond to the innate wisdom of the intelligence of the body, which is far greater than that of the mind.
Thank you Peggy for your honest and deep sharing of your experience. It feels very revealing and takes me to reflect too in my own self-abuse patterns. Sometimes doesn’t feel so obvious, but are there. Being in contraction is a consequence of them, so take care of my body and honour its delicateness helps me to be aware of what is going on and not harden it.
Thanks for sharing your experience with psoriasis, Peggy, and the energetic meaning of this condition. I had never really heard of psoriasis until I woke one day and found large sections of my torso and legs covered as if I had been splashed with water droplets. This was well before my becoming a student of Universal Medicine, but it was huge wakeup call that all was not well with my body. Looking back I can see psoriasis was a blessing in disguise, as that is when I started looking at what might be behind its happening and started tuning into to how my body felt after eating certain foods etc.
That was thirty or more years ago and apart from a few persistent spots on my lower legs, the psoriasis has all but gone – time to look closely at where else I am still denying my sensitivity or absorbing energies that are not even mine in the first place.
“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” – and this just shows that this supposed suits of protective armour that we think we are wearing, dont really work at all. It is an illusion – and one that I have fallen for on many occasions.
It’s the protective armour that hurts the most!
How amazing is it to surrender to the body and feel our essence and then let go of any form of protection so we open our hearts and let everything in to feel the Love we all share. True Love is the only way to alleviate any ill way of being. As you have shared Peggy; “It is about living in the world in the fullness of who we truly are.”
‘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.’ – This is not something that is being taught to us as young, and hence we go through life unaware of the impact of our own choices. This then gets repeated in the next generation and so on, in a constant merry go round.
Understanding how we perpetuate things simply by ignoring our bodies and the sign posting they offer, is a fascinating study of how we get ourselves into predicaments and patterns.
I often want to see how much I can ‘get away with’, and continue to run with choices that I know do not support me. This makes no sense, because when I am making truly loving and supportive choices I feel so amazing. It’s crazy how we do this and choose abuse over love.
We poison ourselves whenever we react to something and take it into our bodies. The antidote is to constantly read and call out the energy that is in front of us, like the intention of someone doing what they are doing or saying something, then it stays outside our body.
Thanks to Universal Medicine I am once again learning to acknowledge the energy we all feel but have toned down to not feel through one reason or another. People seem to be talking more and more about energy these days and we are more likely to express what we feel without fearing ridicule.
Self-abuse is very simple if we don’t have a regard for ourselves and many people don’t want to be ‘selfish’ or life is so difficult that some abuse of the body seems worth doing for the numbing it brings. There are much better alternatives than abuse.
Poison doesn’t always come in the form of a bottle – it can be an emotion or even just a habit that prevents us from having clarity.
Very true, so often we think of it purely as somethign we ingest but some of the most insidious forms of poison I have found are emotions especially when we take them on from others reactions. Atleast if we ‘poison’ ourselves with food we have something to attribute it to whereas with emotions it can be hard to catch them.
It can be very subtle, even tone of voice and movement can be poison.
I am realising more and more how much life is set up to keep us in the dark, far away from truth and by staying disconnected from our bodies we will keep us there forever more. Only through reconnecting with our bodies and learning to once again feel energy will we be able to identify truly all the abuse that goes on whether it be in the world or if it is self inflicted and then do something about it.
It has been tempting to see myself as a victim of abuse in my life but the more I sit with it the more I see that I have inflicted abuse in myself through what I have allowed.
Any thing that is not absolute love is abuse. With that in mind how much abuse do we put up with?
Wow. Great question. First up I want to consider what absolute love is… the qualities that build this.
We like to think that in protecting ourselves from the world and possible hurts that we are in fact protecting our bodies. In fact the very opposite is true, for every movement that we make in order to keep the world out must be felt within the body. It actually hurts us to act against our truly sensitive and tender nature.
‘Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?’ – This is such a great question, why indeed would we want to abuse ourselves when most of us would not have allowed anyone else to treat us in such a disregarding way.
So much hides under the surface that we can ignore until it becomes so ugly that we have to address it. It seems we are governed by fear of rocking a boat that is sinking anyway!
So true Lucy, so don’t rock the boat jump in and “learning to still swim in the sea with everybody, without wearing an armour as a protection, but with my own body as my guide.”
Taking on emotions from around us is hard for our bodies to deal with, as it’s a poison that just doesn’t belong in us. Being aware of the ways we allow this is a gradual process that reveals more subtle layers over time. It makes sense that if we don’t allow this abuse in our bodies that our health and wellbeing can only benefit.
Our thoughts have such a critical effect on us but what I have really started to understand and see more clearly with the awesome support of Serge Benhayon and the teachings of Universal Medicine is that we don’t actually think what we think. We align to a source of energy and this is clearly exposed when abuse, be it self or towards another, is at play as the example of this blog shares.
We do not have any honesty with the extent to which we are poisoning our bodies with abuse, we can feel it, we know it is like we get kick out of the highs and lows.
It is so easy to look to others and blame them for our woes but what responsibility are we taking for where we are at and exactly what is happening to us. We can say blame someone for shouting at us or getting angry but what if we set if up by the way we were living and approached the person and it was not from the love we are and so the person reacted to that? The more I choose to see what is before me rather than trying to interpret it in a certain way to fit the picture I have created the more I get to understand life and how there is far more going on than purely what meets the eyes.
“Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?”. We have all sorts of reasons for why we abuse our body but none of them are valid. Our body is our best friend if we allow it to be and deserves to be treated with respect and honour.
Not understanding how the world can be abusive is not feeling and understanding our own vulnerability first.
“Our body immediately responds to the energies and gives us signs, which are always our great marker.” This is simply the truth.. It is the greatest truth we can give ourselves — to have an intimate and open relationship to our whole body. To clock and feel everything that is there to feel and understand what and how to respond to what is next. Its abuse not to.
Some forms of abuse even come in a gift box, as things to celebrate and favour, idealised as good, better, best – this is the abuse hardest to recognize as it is sugar coated with a flavour that appeals to our needs like recognition, acknowledgement etc.
Every layer of protection we put on ourselves is a layer that must be dropped. Not only do they actually not work we must return to feel everything that we have not felt or blocked from our awareness.
Before there can be abuse through another there is abuse of self: let go of who you are and you are abused by what you are not.
Very true and well said – when we simplify things life makes so much more sense.
Yes, can we abuse others if we haven’t abused ourselves first? Is that even possible?
I do not feel it is possible Christoph, after all if we are being love with ourselves then how could we be anything but love with another? So as you say 1st we surely have to have abused ourselves.
We often find it easy to give advice to others that we do not follow ourselves regarding self-abusive actions. Time to sort ourselves out first then offer a reflection of that to others.
A beautiful reminder to listen to my body right now and adjust.
When we don’t put those self expectations on ourselves, it is much easier to just be loving and stay connected to the vulnerability.
Before a physical or verbal abuse can affect us there is already a ‘preparatory phase’, i.e. there needs to be an opening for the abuse to enter. That is an abuse we have with ourselves energetically before the abusive energy and actions of someone occur, even when it is just a split second where we disconnect from our fullness to leave a gap for an outer to enter the inner. This highlights the extent of responsibility we have in being who we are.
The poison of emotional self abuse is worst then the poison of drug abuse. How do I know this? Because I have experienced both.
And worse even that we think that one is better than the other.
Bodyguard or bodyguide, that is the question.
Love it, Alexander!
One of the biggest ways we poison ourselves is through our thoughts, we can completely berate ourselves with the way we think about ourselves and our mistakes in life and we tend to forget that our thoughts are actually energy and have a massive effect. I know that when I get these thoughts I’ve almost definitely dropped the ball when it comes to the care of myself and my body.
There is a challenge with wanting to see the truth of what is going on in the world, with all its ugly corruption, in that the more we are open to seeing, the more awareness we are given. And it is easy to drop into a form of protection to not feel the unloving nature of all these actions (speaking from experience here), but if we just keep observing it with love and understanding, and not take it on as our issue, we can continue to gain even more awareness and use it to help the situation, not add to the problem.
‘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 have felt this too and observed so many guys these days building such a suit if armour in the gym to prevent them from having to feel just how sensitive we are.
I love how you point out the signs our body gives us in regards to energy. We take tense shoulders, a stiff neck, wobbly knees etc. as part of life but we never really question why it is so and what causes it. Yes, we refer it back to emotions, but what emotions are and where they are coming from we question not. That everything is energy makes so much sense and when we start to live with this awareness a whole new world of understanding opens up.
Yes, I like what you are pointing out here Jane, instead of taking everything in our life as something to understand ourselves more and grow we simply dismiss it as part of life that we just have to take on and live with.
Ignoring our body is really our first dishonesty in life, our bodies are super clear and super honest when it comes to how we are treating them, we don’t randomly put on weight, or randomly have an ache or pain – something we did initiated this change, but often we don’t like to see that we are the ones who cause abuse to ourselves because that means ultimately we have to take responsibility and make a change – you could say the power is in our hands.
It sure is Meg yet so often is is and can be easier to blame another rather than actually making the choice to change.
I love your ending Peggy, we are all swimming in the same sea with everybody, but allowing the body to be the guide feels the key to discern the energies around us so we don’t get wet.
Our body is an amazing rador of detecting energy, so we don’t get wet, we just need to keep connecting and listening to the messages.
If we understand just how much abuse we allow, we’ll start to see just how far from our true glory we live. So many of us are pale shadows of the beauty we naturally are.
Taking on others emotions or reacting in life could be likened to drinking poison. We are feeling energy all of the time…. and through our observation and awareness of this we can start to truly understand rather than absorb it all like a sponge causing illness within our own bodies.
I truly hate with all my love the hardness and protection we put on in life. So apart from expressing this is the case, I feel how truly vulnerable this is to me.
I get this, poisoning ourselves, I can feel it if I react to something, the emotions flood my body and they feel toxic, if I observe life more I do not react I instead know what is needed. Less doubt, complication and delay. Emotions poison us, so important to not assuming things are normal but rather honour how we feel, and what supports us instead of churning and entertaining thoughts and behaviours that harm is.
We often refer to cutting toxic people out of our lives, those who create drama and issues and make life more difficult and well, toxic – but we don’t apply the same thinking to ourselves and our own toxic behaviours that need to be cut out just as much
Great point – we can cut out many relationships in an attempt to heal, but without looking at the relationship with ourselves we can not truly heal. It can feel true to choose to say ‘no more’ to someone, but unless we heal ourselves that toxicity comes with us, regardless of whether we are with them or not.
Exactly – if it is something within us that seeks toxicity, complication, drama, issues, harming behaviours then that is what we will find and what will be drawn to us – when we deal with this it becomes ease to say no to anything or anyone in our lives that contributes toxically.
One sign of self abuse i always found funny was how I would get covered in bruises and have no knowledge of how I got them, totally oblivious to the hard, brash way I was moving my body through life until the bruises would appear
It is crazy how we move in harness and not realise the abuse we are putting our bodies through, something I too have become aware of and have been working on changing in my life.
I agree – and the impact of that hardness can be really subtle, something we don’t truly feel the extent of until we fully let go of our bodies.
“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” This is so true, listening to our body will create an opening to observe the connections and discover patterns to the point that we start to recognise which choices lead to which consequences.
We have a tendency to ‘manage’ our issues and then forget about them. This happens a lot in society, in respect to ill health and in fact every area of life. Managing and controlling something does not mean it has gone away, sooner or later it will blow up in a relationship issue, a social breakdown, an illness, an injury or the like. Yes we can make ourselves comfortable and blind to the abusive choices, but does not mean the poisoning has stopped.
As humans we appear to have an amazing ability to completely destroy ourselves, through abusive behaviours, relationships, even things that we think are good, like extreme exercising and over-working. But you don’t see this in babies. So why is this? Are we choosing another energy, calling in some kind of force, that sets us up to forget who we are, and how amazing we are, and instead choosing to believe that we are less? When you consider that we actually have to decide to a) take on and then b) make the effort to keep reproducing these self harming ways, it seems even more crazy: a whole lot of effort to avoid just naturally being who we are. Avoiding that responsibility of showing others that there is a different way to be and live in the world.
‘Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?’The way we live and poison ourselves with self abuse and the way we accept this as normal is very harming to us all and the earth. Only with the true understanding of energy and how we live and our innate divinity can we change things and the awareness of what is really going on with responsibility and quality of livingness.
Yes, why should we say no to ourselves?! It is a well trodden path from childhood but as adults we have an opportunity to re-imprint and embrace who we are without the need for walls and perhaps the fortress we have built around us. We are so much safer when we actually feel the energy of what is going on rather than building walls that stop up feeling anything therefore ill-equiped to cope with what is presented!
I know when I have poisoned my body with food. My hands and feet become puffy, my tongue is also larger, and I feel like I have a cushion of protection around me. This is poisoning of the body and I know I have eaten more than what I need.
Self-abuse is addictive in all its forms because it keeps us identified with the ‘self’ and not working towards a greater dissolution of self whereby we can be of greater service to others. It is the responsibility of this that causes us to shy away and or downright refuse to live the full magnitude we are.
Yes actually any identification with self in fact, whether self-abuse, self aggrandisement, self- consciousness. While we are distracted by the fragment we can not see the whole we are a part of, and yes the response that this calls from us.
The more and more we observe and not absorb (quote the awesome teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine) then as you have shared the more we get to feel the true us therefore let go of everything that is not us .. something I am still very much learning! ‘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.’
I can not remind myself enough that our body knows exactly what is going on, we simply need to connect to it, listen to it and respond….simple
We under estimate that our bodies do know and we just need to surrender and connect, in that we get the awareness to make the next step.
Children come into this world full of love, joy and vitality… and an innate connection to their bodies and to their essence. What they see and feel around them is not this. They observe the abuse going on around them, whether it be overt or covert, and with no other role model eventually align to this. If people around them are self-abusing even in their thoughts, the energy is still there to be felt and modelled by our young.
“To be in connection with our body is so, so natural that it’s a very big question why we have lost it.”
Children are naturally connected to their bodies and the messages they receive from them, however when we are young what we see in the world is the lack of connection and so we enjoin. How would it be if those around children were connected to their bodies – wouldn’t children naturally hold their connection too?
There really is a true power in allowing ourselves to live with an open heart, be sensitive, delicate and with that be aware and responsive to life on many levels, something I too am learning to unfold in my everyday…
Beautiful Fiona, there absolutely is true power in our allowing ourselves to live with an open heart, I too have been working on deepening this.
Self abuse is a poison. Just because we don’t drink or inject it doesn’t negate that fact.
Here, here; to change the world I know now that I need to contribute love not more abuse; in other words it is my responsibility to live in a way that is not self abusive, I need to accept and respect who I am and what I have to bring.
Before we can start to change the outside we must first start within.
Absolutely, we must start from within, self responsibility first.
I love how the skin is the most amazing organ in the body and clears so much for us, whether it is a little spot, acne or psoriasis. Our observation and interpretation of this brings us the truth of how the body serves us so brilliantly.
We harm ourselves most of all and first and foremost when we are in protection, have donned an armour, What we don’t realise is that this protection (which doesn’t really work) also shields us from the things we want to feel and would enjoy feeling. Armours don’t fall that easily, they have to be nominated and the underlying hurt exposed.
There’s also the example of being in a customer facing role and being expected to take all sorts of abuse in the name of service.
It is what we have allowed as a society, but we can change it, we have to start living the truth and stopping this abuse.
Have we ever considered WHY it was psoriasis, diabetes, breast cancer, a broken shin, left ear infection or chipped tooth, and not any other condition from the thousands that exist, or another part of our body that we damaged? There is a specificity to disease and injury that is yet to be fully explored.
I find it amazing how often I can go to say something seemingly supportive or loving but it comes out with a bite or put down even if it is a very subtle one which shows the responsibility we have when we open our mouths. Often I find it is most hurtful for another when they have opened up to us and we then sting them, even if its not our intention to, just trying or wanting to help another means we are not coming from absolute love and so do not have full say over what energy passes through us. So we could have all the ‘right’ words but if they are not delivered with love they can easily be interpreted as a put down.
It’s interesting what you say about the physical signs and symptoms of inner distress that we ignore. I used to walk with my fists clenched, and it was only when someone pointed it out that I reflected on why I was holding on so tightly…this was a huge revelation to me about an entrenched pattern of protection that had become the norm.
The armour of protection is something the majority of us carry, in one way or another. So many of us have been hurt throughout our lives by the simple fact that we ourselves contract away from being loving because as I am learning – regardless of what is hurled at us, if we are love nothing can hurt us.
One big way I abused my body was by overeating, comfort eating it is called, the only comfort was that I couldn’t feel the misery of my life. I had everything, husband, children, house, outdoor swimming pool, great job, but still I was miserable and that was because I wasn’t being me. I was being everything I thought I should be, but not expressing the truth of who I am. My body responded by becoming 50Kg overweight. And that made more miserable because I didn’t like my body at all after that. Only through learning about self love and changing the foods I ate did the weight start to drop off and I eventually returned to the weight I was at age 18. There were times that I felt 18 too, because my vitality changed. I still overeat from time to time but there is a much greater awareness and I can feel my body more clearly than ever before.
It is a lovely point to make on how the human bodies that we each enhouse are interacting with the world of energy that we live in, and how it responds accordingly. And it is interesting to consider how sensitive and delicately it does respond, even though the mind may be pushing through and creating situations, the body, in its sensitivity will continue to respond.
How easily we are encouraged to soak up other people’s dramas and fight their battles for them, rather than learning to take a step back and appreciate the choices behind all things. While it is natural to want to help others, it is important to know how and when to apply correct support that enables us to see the effect of our choices and hence determine whether we make the same choice or a different one next time round.
Our thoughts can be cruel and abusive, and often we tell ourselves that we are at the mercy of our thoughts. This is true if we do not call them out for what they are ‘lies’- they are lies because we know love and if our thoughts are less than loving then we are allowing the abuse.
When I am curious rather than critical about the way I do things and any self-abuse that is built into my habitual behaviour, I am much more open and honest with what is going on; this offers a strong foundation to see things as they are and make changes.
Abuse is not only the traumatic events we read in the newspaper. We are made of love and any choice that does not come from the immense love that we are, is abuse. We can feel abuse constantly (proof that we are made of love) and to observe and not react/absorb this abuse, to accept that we do live in a world which has made abuse normal, is our responsibility to step by step care and love ourselves.
Poison is what we are feeding the body when we choose not to live the love over the abuse that has become so normalised in our current society. The downplaying of the most subtle forms of abuse are soft blows but are still blows to our body that over time become the standards that are far from our true levels of self – care and love that we all deserve and cherish.
And on top of that, “when we choose not to live the love over the abuse that has become so normalised in our current society” we are also through this choice engraining that normal.
When Peggy says: “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”. We are the ones incrementally adding to the poison or clearing it through our choices.
‘Why do we live life in a kind of bubble and think that nothing can touch us unless we immediately have very clear signs?’ – we ‘think’ we can get away with living irresponsibly, when the opposite is true. Every action has a consequence and everything is recorded, leaving an energetic footprint. Not only are we dis-honouring ourselves when we choose to ignore the truth of what is being shared with us, it is also harming us and everyone else. We are all affected by the irresponsibility that we are currently choosing to live with. Just as we are all blessed when we choose to live with love instead.
I find that I feel quite poisoned even from something as simple as being emotional, even for just a short time.
Me too Christoph, I find it starts with something small and if I do not deal with the energy I have chosen then soon enough I find myself doing things which are completely out of character. The key seems to be catching ourselves when we drop from the love that we are as soon as possible rather than taking more steps away as each step away from the love we are then has to be walked back so we can return to the love that we are and deepen our love even further.
No wonder – being emotional stands out like a sore thumb or a dog’s balls to be more graphic. It is a poison, whether we like to hear that or not.
‘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.’ I felt I went into this hardness today as I felt the old familiar feeling of shutting down, it was painful to actually feel in my body, i started to mentally berate myself but realised that once upon a time I would never have even recognised it as abuse, once i nominate it i can let it go and learn to give my body the loving care that I deserves.
Injuries or illnesses can be frustrating as they really do stop us in our tracks, but ignoring the opportunity that this offers us to reflect and recalibrate our lives doesn’t make them go away! Do we use them as a platform to deepen and be even more solid in ourselves and our relationship to our body, or do we see them as big black hole and let them become one…
A beautiful sharing that makes absolute sense and changes everything bringing the true love and awareness of our body to being our connection guide and discerning way. Very powerful and a real understanding of the extent of abuse we allow in our lives and the accepting of this with ourselves otherwise.
Anything that is not tender, honest and loving towards another is abuse, but as we live so far from making being tender, honest and loving our normal every day way of living it is a measure that is not on our radar and we accept subtler forms of abuse as normal.
I agree Rachel, it may be and seem so far away for most people but if we start with what we deem to be love as less than love than all we are doing is setting ourselves to fail. It is only when we use love as our true marker of normal then we can start to really see what is not love as abuse, and as you say these can be extremely subtle things.
One subtle level of abuse in the Catholic Church is in the words of the mass were the congregation repeat the words ‘Lord I am not worthy…’ and to me that is a guaranteed way of keeping us feeling small and with low self worth.
The way I have thought about myself over the years has poisoned me more than anything as it was, and sometimes still is, totally abusive. It was not even conscious as it was a learnt behaviour because I was brought up believing to think highly, lovingly or even favourably of oneself was a sin.
The fact that abuse is generally exposed after a long period of occurring shows that we are willing to go as long as it takes to be quiet and not speak up at whatever cost as long as we keep our security and comfort. I have found myself doing this recently too.
Poison is a great word for self-abuse because it really can be that toxic in our bodies and our minds.
To begin the process of opening up to responsibility and the fact hat everything is energy takes a big step into honesty, with this cracks in what we think is normal occur, this can be scary, this is an ongoing process for me to consider and review in life.To let go of the self and be living with and for all changes life and in truth although there are some shaky self crack in the normal moments, it is a rich, deeply nourishing and beautiful exploration.
I have tried many approaches to ‘doing’ life: fitting in with the expectations and norms; isolating myself in the ‘protection’ of keeping the world at arm’s length and now most recently opening up to what each day offers – the people I meet, whatever work brings, my quiet moments alone – and it is this, being open, that is really working, as in making sense of why we are here, what we each have to offer and the joy of learning through life.
I was once one of those people that had come to a point in this life of asking the question of; ‘is this it’, there has to be more of something to life than what I have been living? Yes, being open has always been the door waiting for everyone to walk through.
We make issues far bigger than they are and in the process abuse ourselves with negative thoughts and disconnection from ourselves.
Thank you Peggy, this is so beautifully written and shared. You are a wonderful teacher and this is exactly what everyone and especially our children need to hear.
I very much agree!
Peggy, I can feel how much we self-abuse and how we do not call it this; ‘self-abuse’ – an abuse of our own body, maybe without the awareness that we do this, or seeing it as a form of abuse.’ I was out later than usual last night and was feeling really tired, my eyes were going blurry and my throat was getting sore. I stayed out a little longer and by the end this felt like self abuse as I was so tired my body could not function normally. This was great to feel the effects that overriding the tiredness had. I was not smoking or drinking but just the staying out late in itself felt self abusive and was a great learning for me.
You really do start to feel and become aware of the poison that our choices can have not only to ourselves but everyone around us. I love being reminded how it’s not only just this that we are apart of in fact it has an effect on the universe as well and everything in between.
I can relate to this, Peggy – “I abused my body by being in a hardness…”. When we shut down and build walls around our heart in protection, we are constantly hurting ourselves and putting pressure on the body, as we are going against our natural way of being.
Yes. There is a constriction I feel in my body, that is very strangulating when I harden and hold back.
A great reminder to observe the situation around us and which we are part before we respond to them else we take on the energy of them which is not of us in our reaction to them.
The smallest thorn in our bodies if left unattended can cause blood poisoning. Therefore when we understand the nature of energy, the smallest piece of emotional energy can do exactly the same. Learning not to go into sympathy was a major life changer for me, still picking out the thorns, but at least I’m not ignoring them anymore.
The septicaemia caused by a thorn of emotional energy… this is revelatory science, Rowena… thank you.
Yes… sympathy, and all those emotions we take on that don’t belong to us, are a poison in our bodies that if not dealt with eventually create dis-ease and illness.
I agree Doug and the way we abuse ourselves is so common a lot of waht we call ‘normal’ is actually abusive to our bodies. Just like drinking alcohol or coffee for example.
It is extraordinary and the consequences can often be very extreme but because we deem it to be ‘normal’ and acceptable we say ok to it. I know for myself personally a lot of this comes from the sympathy I had carried and had with others not wanting to expose the lack of love we largely live with, and so have stood back and not expressed and lived fully what I know is love.
I agree Doug, somehow we can think that its not my place to say that, or what difference would I make but what if so much of what we are given to express is not for ourselves to hear but for the other person or people and so by holding back we are not allowing them the opportunity to hear what is there to be heard?
Very true, so the antidote is then to make it about the other person as we have a responsibility towards them as what we are given to express is for them and not us and so by holding back we are holding the other person back as well.
We are all one when we simply are ourselves! I love the pun on words how the mind cannot really assimilate or fathom the grandness we are from.
Wise words Doug and very true.
Starting with the fact that ‘everything is energy’ and that we are love 1st and foremost means that then anything or energy which is less than the love we are is essential abuse to our being. It can be easy to look outside and see the atrocities in the world as abuse yet come closer to home and we do not always want to see the reality of the way we are living.
It really does hit home when another calls out the abuse I have been living in. It makes me stop to question my movements, let them go and re-imprint them.
Yes this is a very good question. The more we deepen our love and also be open to see what is of abuse then it will be shown. When we allow ourselves to see something we can then make a choice about whether we choose to be part of adding to it or not.
“Everything is energy, and therefore, everything is because of energy” (Serge Benhayon, 1999),”
This line alone is the answer to everything in our lives. All we need to do is be aware of the energy behind everything. We each are the ones responsible for the actual body we are in so it is up to us to choose the quality, movements and energy that is true and natural if that is what we want life to be.
It is difficult or near imposable to swim with others when we are laden with our armour and sink into the murky deeps?
What I love is that you take your psoriasis not as a punishment but as a possibility to heal from deep within. More of us should take their illnesses to have such a look at it.
“I cannot ignore the fact that my daily choices have an impact on my body….” Our body is loud in its response to self abuse and self love choices, we just have to pay attention to these signs and symptoms.
It takes some time to see all of the abuse that we allow. We cannot see it or feel it without building a loving foundation for ourselves. It takes time, and a willingness to be loving with ourselves and willingness to be open and as honest with ourselves as possible.
It’s like a code of silence, I won’t tell and expose you if you don’t tell and expose me. We all continue to live irresponsibly together.
‘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.’ – our body will continue to lovingly send us messages and those messages will become more an more intense until we have to stop and take notice. These stop moments are an enormous gift to deeply consider how we are choosing to live and what led to that moment, we can offer ourselves an incredible healing by being honest and allowing the space to appreciate all that’s being shared. If not, the stop moments will continue and will become louder and louder until maybe it’s too late.
To routinely abuse ourselves, makes us more susceptible to accepting abuse from others.
I agree Doug. Equally, we’re quick to spot abuse in others, but rarely see it in relation to ourselves. For example, to place ourselves at the bottom of the list of importance is a measure of our self worth and makes self abuse inevitable.
Peggy just re-reading your blog, what came clear to me is when we brush off what we are feeling then this is a form of self abuse – as we are shutting ourselves down. Our body is the marker of truth and when we feel something, the simple procedure is just to be aware of what we are feeling and then from there honour that. But very often we allow other things to interfere, for often what we feel and what we would like to do may not fall into the picture of what is ‘prescribed’ to be done in such a situation and we do not want to look like we have done something that is seen as ‘outside the box’. And hence the compromise. And so this is not honouring what we feel, and the more frequently we do this, the more it becomes our norm and abuse becomes normalised. But what if it really is that simple – to just come back to feeling, listening and heeding what we feel, always holding ourselves as equal to others and always with the same deep love and care for self and others? Could it be so simple? There is only one way to find out, to really give it a go.
When self abuse becomes habitual it’s accepted as normal. And even when the body becomes diseased many fail to relate it back to how they live, and relate to self and others. It’s self abusive to live at the expense of self, compelled to always put others first. And when these patterns are linked to deeply held cultural or religious beliefs, they’re almost impossible to shift. One person said to me ‘ it would take a catastrophe for me to change’, not sensing they were already living the catastrophe but not yet fully aware of it. As friends and family we are called to support yet stand aside until they themselves see the light and find their way out of the tunnel.
When we say no to what our Soul impulses us to do, we turn our back on truth, Love and our essence. It can be a seemingly small thing – it still hurts us and is a huge form of abuse.
This is a great topic to raise Peggy, because so many of us are living with self abusive patterns and behaviours that we either aren’t aware of, or we are neglecting the effect that they are actually having on our life.
I totally agree Susie, for so many of us we have patterns that are so much part of our lives that we don’t even consider they are abusive.
I agree Peggy we need to take very loving care of our body so as to be able to rely on our body to say NO to all abuse. If we allow self abuse we will allow abuse from another. We need to have a loving marker with ourselves first then we will be able to call out abuse when it is comes from another.
It is easy to see how when we deeply care for ourselves as you have so beautifully shared that naturally flows over to everyone else. This is true responsibility and love.
‘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.’ An awesome reflection Peggy
By having extreme forms of abuse in the world, we have turned our backs on the very subtle forms, thinking it is not that bad – but what if by accepting the smallest of things, we are saying yes to the extreme actions?
I love the responsibility you took in seeking out the true meaning of what psoriasis meant to you and how you could heal this from making different life choices. If we all did this our healthcare systems would not be bankrupt and maybe there would be less illness and dis-ease?
Our body never lies we just need to be in it so as to hear the messages
Wearing the suit of armour of protection and security only creates further separation and abuse to oneself and others, and is totally disharmonious to our particles that are in natural alignment with Universal rhythms.
The day we realise abuse is just as harmful to us as nuclear radiation is the day we start to realise there is a responsibility to life that is far greater and grander than what we have considered responsibility to be.
The more I reflect on it the crazier it seems that we choose to harden up and build an armour of protection which dulls down openness and sensitivity, which ironically are the exact tools we need to walk through life with the love, awareness and wisdom that could ensure we and everyone else is equally cherished and taken care of.
Whats so clear here is that its not the abuse we receive from others but the abuse we choose for ourselves that is the most deadly.
I hadn’t realised until recently how much I absorb of other people’s dramas. I only knew I hated Christmas shopping – I know now it’s because I was taking into my body all the emotions and stress of everyone around me. Within the last year while visiting my partner in hospital I was affected by everything happening around me and found that exhausting.
‘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.’ This reminds me of when working with young children and how I used to zone out from their ‘chat’… this did not mean that the words were not expressed, it was that I was shutting myself off from the sweetness, simplicity and connection on offer. It is the same with our bodies… always there, always supporting and communicating with us, we have a choice as to whether we ‘hear’ or not.
Yes Matilda, so true, our bodies and children expose where we are at from the sprained ankle, flu, heart attack etc to not ‘hearing’ a child speak. I can very much relate to ‘switching off’ when my children would speak but as I acknowledge this within myself I am becoming much more aware of what is on offer in those moments; not so much about what is being said but about my connection or the absence of it to self and therefore to them and everyone.
We can go through life taking on so much energy that is not ours to take and one thing that I have struggled with is to still care about people and things going on in the world without going into sympathy, which is so important as what I have learned is that taking on the energy of sympathy is not so easy to clear.
Sympathy is a big one to break. Many think it’s a good thing but the truth is that being in sympathy doesn’t help another and actually causes us to enjoin therefore leaving us without the true clarity of how to support them – that is of course if we have taken the steps to truly support our own bodies to allow the clarity to be there.
I know sympathy well and I have noticed then when I have chosen it, I feel heavy in my body and overwhelmed, by the seeming task of sorting things out. It also assumes that some can not help themselves and that you can, or a better in some way…there is lots to this sympathy it really is something to look at.
I used to think helping others involved sympathy but learnt all that does is mean that I take on other peoples emotions rather than staying the love I am and by doing so offer them the opportunity to come out of what they are in . Enjoining someone in abuse or lack of love is never the answer even it may seem to be the most comfortable option at the time.
Abuse can disguise itself in very subtle ways – thank you Peggy for sharing your experiences so openly and supporting us all to see the very ways that we can abuse ourselves by not listening to what our body is communicating to us, and the very answers that we essentially know so well deep within.
Yes the subtle ways are often the hidden ways that we can mask abuse as the norm.
Agreed Henrietta time for us all to be open to the incredible subtle ways in which we allow ourselves to abuse ourselves, of all the types of abuse that are rife in the world – if we start with self-abuse we take responsibility for our part in the world and from there can support ending other wider society forms of abuse.
Peggy what a great sharing and I love what you have said here: “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 used to think this was a very selfish way to live but know see it as the opposite after all the quality I bring to myself is the quality I then take to everybody else. Treat myself less than the love that I am then that is what I bring to others. Life the fullness of who I am and everybody gets the real and whole me so it is a win win for us all.
The way we are with ourself really can be abusive in quite a subtle way, like undermining thoughts, being judgmental on ourself or not appreciating the great qualities that are actually innate in us, and sometimes so familiar a way of being that it doesn’t even register that there is another way to be with ourself, but the more we can clock those kind of thoughts and recognise them for what they are, the more we can be aware of if we are running with them and if so to let them go…
It really makes no sense that we choose abuse over love time and time again, unless we consider that there is energy passing through us.
We are on ourselves for eating certain foods when the real harm comes not from the food but the way we reacted after we ate the food which we know do not suit us.
Thank you for sharing the understanding you got from exploring your psoriasis and how by accepting this tangible example of how we are poisoned not just by what we allow in but by not respecting our bodies and saying No to abuse in any form you are being guided by your body and reflecting a different way to others.
“With these very clear signs on my skin, I cannot ignore the fact that my daily choices have an impact on my body.” It is a huge paradigm shift to see expressions of dis-harmony in body as communications from it reflecting to us the consequences of our choices rather than the body being at fault, which is the common approach at present.
‘But what I know for sure is that energy goes everywhere and has an impact on everything’ This is true whether we like it or not, whether we choose to become aware of it or not. Our body registers it even if our mind chooses to blank it out. And as we see with illness and disease, there comes a point when we cannot ignore the body anymore.
‘If we live our life without this connection to our body, then we will not hear them.’ And in doing so we avoid the responsibility to respond to what we feel and this highlights why we have so many activities and behaviour to not feel our body and it’s signals. Reversing this is easy when we make one different decision at a time to be in more regard of our body and the intelligence it holds.
Once we increase our awareness of abuse, we see it everywhere where we previously didn’t see it. I am so surprised how much I didn’t notice, how much I accepted as the ways of the world I cannot change, and this had dampened the impact of abuse. But with more awareness of it, I can really feel how it sneaks in and affects so much in the world. Yuk!
The crazy thing is abuse doesn’t sneak in, it’s actually emblazoned across the totality of our lives, we’re literally swimming in the stuff but we do such a convincing job of pretending that we don’t recognise it and all in order to keep the whole theatrical charade of life alive.
We become more aware of abuse, the moment we begin to care for and love ourselves and all others equally.
And the more that we care for and love ourselves, the more refined what we consider constitutes abuse becomes.
I agree Alexis. It’s as if our sensitivity to abuse is heightened and we feel it immediately whereas previously we may have ignored, accepted or participated.
or actively welcomed it Kehinde, as I did for most of my life! Abusing my body with food, exercise, emotions, alcohol etc provided me with what I felt was a welcome relief from the constant gnawing agitation that I lived with. But the abuse simply added to the agitation and so around it went and around it went until my body just kind of imploded out of sheer exhaustion and fatigue.
Serge Benhayon has been saying from the moment I met him in 2003 ‘observe and not absorb’ and ‘swim in the sea and not get wet’, but it has taken me a long time to really grasp what this has meant because it is something we all do, but once I got to feel how horrible it felt in my body and what it felt like to absorb the energy around me, that I began to observe life and not absorb it.
It really is life changing and is an amazing way to live life and with the observations comes a deeper awareness that there is so much more to life than we allow our eyes to see.
I like what you are saying here that it is not what we do in life but the energetic quality we do it in that matters. We tend to get so caught up in doing things that we forget about the energy bit.
Yes, indeed. The interesting thing is, is that if we do take notice of the energetic quality, we actually ‘do’ far more than the eye can see or the mind that judges what we do. Love knows no boundaries
I know so many people who would benefit from reading your blog, Peggy, especially the teenagers I work with who live with such anxiousness because they are absorbing everything around them and not yet discerning the truth for themselves in how they choose to live. It is really important to support others to come to the realisation you have shared here.
A wonderful post Peggy of self-discovery – through being open to seeing the level of abuse we can inflict on ourselves to then bring even more attention to the way we are living, and our body changing as a result. What comes up to surface, is what has come up to clear.
I know it’s very hard to see abuse within ourselves if we are neck deep in it. From my own experience I needed the support of other people to point out to me my behaviours and how they we so self-harming and then unraveling those behaviours and the intention behind them. I have discovered a lot of the self-abuse was from previous lives and that made sense as to why I was neck deep in self harm not knowing where the core of the self-harm was coming from.
The beauty is that we are never left in the dark, everything around us and our body itself communicates constantly. It is just a matter for us to be aware and astute and to be willing to read and respond.
Something we don’t always realise is that we have to say no to all that is going on around us in the sense that we should not take it on and in our bodies as it does create a poison that is not easy to deal with. We can’t really stop the world from doing things we don’t like right now but we can change how we are in ourselves so we naturally don’t take everything that happens around us on and in.
‘To be in connection with our body is so, so natural that it’s a very big question why we have lost it.’ Reading this Peggy I can feel that it is not the ‘norm’ to read the signals from our body when in fact this is a very natural way for us to be. I used to ignore and override these signals and very much to the detriment of my body. Now I listen and mostly honour these signals – living life in connection with my body feels very honouring of me and others and feels like a very natural and loving way to live.
The amount of hidden in everyday view abuse is massive. All abuse, does affect all of us, but when it is not physically touching us it, is more comfortable to ignore? The sex slave trade is alive and out there but until the story’s that expose this abuse and brought to light, like; the UN peacekeepers running a child sex rings or NATO involved in trafficking women and girls into sex slavery. There were the comfort women the Japanese army held women from Korea, and other occupied countries were forced to become military prostitutes from 1932 to 1945. What else will be exposed, that we do not want to see or feel?
Walking through the nuclear building is a great analogy… You can’t see radiation but it still inevitably poisons you.
Yes, I love this. It’s not about needing to see something to believe but about trusting what we feel from our bodies.
A great analogy Chris – it makes total sense of this powerful quote by Serge Benhayon in 1999.
“Everything is energy, and therefore, everything is because of energy”
‘I need my body to bring this expression into the world, so it is important that I take real care of it.’ – so true, Peggy. I’ve lived most of my life with the false belief that my mind is all powerful and my body just responds. I now realise this is completely upside down. The truth is that my body is my window to endless unimaginable wisdom. It is my greatest support and confidant – only ever sharing the truth and nothing but the truth, consistently working in it’s own magical rhythm to restore me to a state of harmony. It’s through my connection with my body that I have the choice to live and share the divinity that I am.
‘This means that in fact we receive throughout the whole day all kinds of energies that are not directly visible.’ … and unless we are very present with our selves, feeling the connection with our body, we absorb these energies, without even realising and they affect us. Which is why at the end of a day we may feel very irritable, tired, just not ourselves, without any clear understanding as to how or why this is so. Maybe we over-react to something someone says and blame them, when in fact it’s not them, it’s the gradual build up of poison that is affecting our body and, therefore, how we feel – as a consequence of taking on other people’s energy, that has nothing to do with us. This can then lead to all sorts of abuse, towards our selves and others in our attempt to numb how we are feeling.
This is a great explanation of what is going on, Alison, and why people can end up feeling ‘out of sorts’ with themselves and the flow-on behaviours that result from that.
If poison is self-abuse, then self-love is the antidote
“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.” – This description of what happens when we absorb the emotions and issues of others was really helpful in showing how this kind of exchange of energy is happening all the time, even though we can not see it, and I feel is at the core of many of the same skin conditions I have had in my life. Why take on problems that aren’t even our own?
I can relate to this and I have found that the more I clear what I have taken on, out of my body and clock whats going on around me and that I choose then, my body, the whole of me, feels so much more healthy. “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.”
I can relate to this and I have found that the more I clear what I have taken on, out of my body and clock whats going on around me and that I choose then, my body, the whole of me, feels so much more healthy. “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.”
Yes I agree. The feeling of being able to live in life without absorbing the radioactivity is properly inspiring and refreshing and once felt it is difficult to dismiss, ignore or not honour and work towards deepening.
I love what is shared here, and the reminder to be in life feeling it from our bodies. Thank you, I needed to hear this today.
Yes there is the obvious, out-there physical, verbal and emotional abuse but there is also a huge amount of self-abuse that is never clocked let alone exposed. Our thoughts, not only about ourselves but also others, can be highly toxic for us all.
Well said Paula and essentially we could say that any form of talking oneself down or sabotaging oneself in any way, is actually a form of abuse! Wowza!
Thank you Peggy, there is so much for us to value and appreciate in what our body shows to us and how opening up to this can support us to live in a truly harmonious way.
So true Peggy. Building a loving relationship with our bodies is the most essential responsibility we have if we are to really express of our amazing wisdom in full. An essential ingredient within our selves is our sensitivity, a trustworthy navigation tool that guides us safely through choppy waters, even when we don’t consciously realize its true worth and purpose within us. What a joy to claim it in full and embrace all of you in the process, the world enriched as a consequence.
We think we need to ‘armour up’ to protect ourselves, but in truth our loveliness needs no protection, neither does our sacredness, preciousness nor divineness. It is a complete fabricated lie that we have been sold and eaten up. Good on you for unravelling this deceitful web, and lessening your armour and upping your connection to your loveliness. the world needs that.
Yes, exactly, “the world needs that”, we all need to see and feel that it is ok to show our tenderness and live it and that there is no need for being tough and rough.
And one by one, as we relinquish this armour, we change the world…how simple and sweet is this responsibility.
I notice when we choose to self-abuse, this already opens our body up for an energy to come through us to potentially express further abuse to others. Self abuse can be very subtle, they can be things like putting ourselves down, over eating, feeling jealousy, comparison, moving our body in a harsh way etc. subtle forms of abuse can often go unchecked and unnoticed, and then what happens? It can lead to further abuse of more extreme forms and feed energy back to the cycles of abuse.
Beautiful Peggy and the analogy of walking though the radioactive energy shows that all our beliefs about our protection (hardness, keeping people out, holding back, contraction etc) are utterly false. All they do is leave us ignorant of the damage that is done. We cannot protect ourselves from life, but we can become so full of ourselves that there simply is no room for other energies to enter.
“We cannot protect ourselves from life, but we can become so full of ourselves that there simply is no room for other energies to enter.” Yes, so simply put. When we know who we are and live it with every step we do nothing else has a chance to come in and disturb this rhythm.
I agree Ariana and the more we do this the more truth we get to see along with the lack of truth as well. We cannot just choose what we want to see rather see it all so we know the responsibility we have to live the truth we know. After all if we don’t who will?
It is amazing how easy it is to look at others and see the abuse yet to disregard things we do as being ok and not abusive. For me it comes back to what do we base life on? If we base it on the love that we all are then anythign less than this love is abuse. There is no its ok, or a little bit wont harm – fact is it is abuse. But how willing are we to truly come from love no matter what anyone else says or does?
It will indeed and at times is not something I really want to admit as I know how much I hold back from living the depth of love that I know.
This image of walking through a building that was radioactive is a brilliant example of how we so often walk through life – almost if not totally oblivious to the energies that we are allowing into our bodies that really do poison us. Thankyou Peggy for this striking analogy.
I’ve been hearing a lot about autonomous cars – and reading this blog Peggy I am touched by the fact that in many ways, with our body we already have thatsystem in place. It’s just instead of Tesla etc there are two suppliers – our spirit or soul and it’s just up to us which one we will run on. But after the initial choice is made all the actions, moves and decisions are taken care. So which will we choose Love or abuse? It’s that simple.
“Abuse is a very huge box in which so many things are happening” totally agree with this, I used to think of it as something small, one small part of the something extreme but the reality is its everywhere.
Some abuse is so entrenched in our every day that we do not even see it as abuse, and the term ‘everything in moderation’ gives us a get out clause.
‘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.’ And the more I open up and let my armour go Peggy I get to see the more subtle ways I abuse my body and have a choice to change my movements.
And how beautiful to be taught this by a story-teller like you Peggy; amazing the way you make this so relatable, accessible and alive. It’s really awesome. They say that you can only ever explain something to a child when you FULLY understand and have lived it yourself – otherwise they will see right through you. The way you write about this, I can tell that you have really felt it and lived it; hence a great teacher of it!
And why I love the analogy of walking through radiation is the twist in the story…in that, immediately one would think to put on the protective suit, to shut ourselves off….but, actually what you are explaining is that true ‘protection’ comes from living, expressing and claiming ourselves to such a deep level that we can observe, see and know the radiation, know it isn’t us and thus it doesn’t touch us. I love this. It’s like we are superheroes, creating an impenetrable force-field of love all around us that means the radiation rays just bounce off us.
Super sweet, powerful and playful, Otto, thank you. A ‘force field of love’ that not only ‘protects’ us from the radiation but also diminishes it leakage in the world.
And so, when the going gets tough, when the radiation increases, when we find ourselves in a toxic zone, all we need to do is pump up the love. Protection, reaction, defence all destroy the force-field, they shut it down immediately….I’m imagining some sci-fi movie “we gotta get to the main reactor (pun intended) and disable the source-field”!!
The analogy of walking through radiation is extremely helpful in deeply understanding the toxicity of the forces around us. This is a superbly educational blog that makes the science very accessible. Thank you for your brilliant writing.
When I look back at my life at times and know everything I’ve done has a consequence, thoughts actions, words, emotions it really freaks me out but it’s great to know that through a loving Livingness I can right the untrue self abusive way of living of my past. A work in process I must say!
Me too Kev and just is great to know that simply by making loving choices now what was before no longer needs to wear us down with guilt or shame. We are here to learn after all not be perfect.
I know what you mean Kev, when we start to realise the impact we actually have in every moment and with every movement, it is enough to make you freak out. But at the same time it is a blessed moment as from then on forth knowing this will support us in making ever more loving and responsible choices and movements and with each of these we have just as big an impact.
When we behave in unloving ways, it can very much feel like poison – sometimes it makes me feel really tired or heavy and lethargic, sometimes i feel sick with anxiety because i haven’t supported myself in whatever situation I’m in. Looking after myself is like taking an elixir that supports us mind, body and soul
Yes very true, looking after ourselves does make such a difference in how much life can ‘overrun’ us. Deeply looking after ourselves creates a knowing of what this feels like so we don’t take on everything that is happening around us without even realising.
So well said Lieke – when we run ourselves down we don’t have the tools to deal with life, and it gets on top of us. When we care for ourselves we develop a steadiness that then sets standards for what we accept in life
Looking after ourselves and listening to feedback from our bodies is great medicine.
Best of all this medicine comes without a price tag and any life-threatening side effects. In fact that’s what happens when we don’t tune into what is happening to our bodies and dismiss the messages it is endeavouring to bring to our attention to take note of so we don’t do that to ourselves again. Ironic really when you stop and consider the way life currently unfolds for humanity on the whole . . .
self-abuse is the most prolific and often unquestioned kind – at school getting totally smashed on a night out was not only normal but encouraged – those losing weight from eating disorders where seen as inspirational and being healthy when really they are consumed with self worth issues. We don’t acknowledge just how deeply it goes in our cultures and society and just how much damage it does us.
Yes.. abusing our bodies in the simplest and most obvious of ways, from what we eat and drink to how how we move, how we talk to ourselves and others, is what we’ve come to accept as our baseline ‘normal’, but this normal is far away from our body’s natural way of being.
I agree – some of my self-abusive tendencies are so subtle or so often done that I don’t recognise them, but they have a profound impact on my body
The extent that self abuse is seen as a normal way to live is the first thing that we have to unravel and to call out the preposterousness of it to be able to actually make the move to self love.
It is interesting how many different ‘lifestyles’ there are to choose from, self abuse being a part of many of them – no one ever asks us what it would look like for us to live our own life, free from all the outside influence, free from what we are told we should be or from what everyone else is doing.
Thank you Peggy. The more we allow self-abuse the more we allow abuse in society therefore we have a responsibility to learn to love ourselves.
Beautifully expressed Elizabeth, it is a responsibility that is so worth taking, our life becomes richer, more loving and our relationships blossom through deeper self-love. What’s more, we then contribute back to society love instead of abuse. If everyone on earth embraced this level of responsibility, I am sure our world will change over night. To bring harmony to our world it will take every single one of us to embrace responsibility consistently, and this responsibility is not just put on one especial person or a chosen one, because this level of responsibility requires everyone to be onboard in order for our world to truly change from abuse to love.
Observing our children is a very humbling experience as quite often they are very much in and with their bodies and they be in life how they want to be, with very little fuss. Could they be providing a teaching for us all?
Yes I agree that they often live with much less protection and can be a great example of how to live this way and children also show us that it is our natural way to live like this.
Thank you for writing this article. It shares just how vulnerable we are when we think we are protecting ourselves with hardness and how truly supported we are when we allow our vulnerability to be felt.
When we do start to talk about it I have experienced a feeling of being united and not needing the armour that has me believe that no one else is feeling the same.
“I need my body to bring this expression into the world, so it is important that I take real care of it.” I love this Peggy it is so true, what better reason to care for your body than to know it is how we are going to express the love, truth and joy to one another.
I could really relate to the fact that we (from conversations with others and I include myself in here) haven’t wanted to see the full extent of what is abusive. Drifting off into thoughts like another is talking I would now class as abusive as that separation can be felt when we allow ourselves such sensitivity. Abuse runs far deeper than we’ve collectively mainstream accepted as the definition of Abuse.
There is only so much abuse our bodies will take before they make us stop… and then it is up to us to heed the message or not.
It is crazy how we choose hardening rather than the joy of our open hearts… no wonder heart dis-ease is so prolific in the world.
Our bodies are incredible markers of our daily choices, of how we are choosing to live… and when we ignore them for long enough they will shout loudly with illness and disease so we have to pay attention to them – and then we are shocked or surprised! What is this about – we wouldn’t ignore our children like we do our bodies.
How practical life becomes when we bring the understanding that everything we do can be abusive, as you have shared Peggy “everything is energy therefore everything is because of energy”. So what we think and share or discuss about another has two energies abusive and Loving there is no middle road while we make up our mind.
We tend to think of poison as being something like a liquid we swallow or a food that is toxic to our system, but other things in life are also toxic to our bodies. The way people speak to us can be toxic, our thoughts can be toxic, the way we move can be toxic, basically anything that is not love is toxic to our body.
Great point Carmel. I notice we tend to make life based on the physicality, denseness and form, and dismiss the fact that we are energetic and multi-dimensional beings. No wonder so many people are confused about life and are searching for answers because we have disconnected from the truth of who we are and often desperately searching to find ourselves again. What you’ve share Carmel shows that we can absorb a lot more than we think and our body is a vessel for energy to pass through us constantly.
Yes, why would we choose to abuse ourselves? It seems like a very odd behaviour, but we all do it. A little bit of awareness can go a long way in helping us out of this pattern.
A great and timely reminder why it is so loving to truly re-connect and listen to our bodies.
Absolutely, being more aware of our body and what we feel and sense helps us to re-connect with what truly supports us…
Thank you I know that I put up with more than I need to of other peoples anger, resentment bitterness etc. and that I need to be more vigilant in cutting this energy or removing myself from it.
Great blog Peggy. It goes to show that we are abusing ourselves the moment we are not living our fullness and wholeness. But then what is our fullness and wholeness? Have we become so used to living less than who we truly are that we do not realise or even feel we are living less?
This is a great conversation to be having because if we can be honest enough with ourselves to see and feel the daily abuse we put ourselves through that would be massive. Even hanging onto a pee because I just want to finish up something on the computer …20 minutes later my body is still waiting to go for a pee that it needed an hour ago! Some of us may not think this is abusive but it is to our bodies, they are like finely tuned racing cars and as such need our care and complete attention.
“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 Peggy. Even that invisible suit of armour weighs so much! We are so much lighter when we take it off.
Very true Peggy, I know I carry out much abuse towards myself choosing not to be aware at the time of the consequences yet I know that for every ailment there has been an abusive movement. It is my willingness to be present and question my connection and the love I have for myself in that moment.
It’s our choice to make but as you say at the beginning we don’t even realise there is a choice, we have accepted a way of being like that as normal. Serge Benhayon has been the only person I have met that presents the possibility that we have a choice and it all has to do with energy and what we choose to align to.
It is crazy how we think we are protecting ourselves by hardening up but in reality it has the opposite effect and because we are not living who we truly are we are more open to absorbing energies that play havoc with our bodies. As I become more willing to listen to my body I am recognising more and more where I have allowed abuse and still can.
For most of society abuse is either physical or tangible and is usually seen as directed towards us by someone else, but we as yet, have not been willing to see the level of abuse we direct towards ourselves. When we do, and that anything that is a step away from love is abusive we will begin to see the harm we do to ourselves and the impact this has on everybody else. This is when we begin to take responsibility for our choices and our actions.
If we did not deny and hide our personal abuse then perhaps there might not be so much abuse in the world?
I agree that we deny our personal abuse but I don’t agree that we hide it, in fact we display our personal abuse so freely that we have all just come to know it as ‘the life we are all living’. The entire way that all of us choose to move is abusive, as all of our movements are out of step with God and being out of step with God is the origin of all abuse.
That is very true Alexis. I would also suggest, though, that it could be perceived that we endeavour to hide it from ourselves by following ideals and beliefs that profess to be beneficial. Personally I look back at my past life as a kinesiologist and convinced myself and others so well that I was being ‘good’, that I hid the denial from myself and was confirmed in this others also hiding the denial from themselves. Of course in truth nothing is actually hidden from ourselves, that is yet another denial.
It’s a bit like throwing a child’s jacket over an elephant and pretending that you can no longer see the elephant!
Yes it is like the proverbial, ’emperor wearing no clothes’.
Great question Jstewart51, our society is currently accepting self-abuse in many forms and this inevitably leads to further abuse on a wider scale. It will take great honesty and willingness for each and everyone of us to address all forms of abuse in order for our world to begin to shift and clear its current fog of abuse that is polluting our world.
Through the loving example of those who have the honesty and willingness to address abuse the ripple effect will be so great that the critical mass will be such that abuse will no longer be the acceptable norm.
Spots, acne and rashes are all ways that the body can show signs of and get rid of excess poison, and it’s true that we can evaluate this deeper and see whether we have been absorbing emotional poison, issues and even stress that may be a contributing factor of why our body is clearing.
Another form of expression from the body; a loving message.
Beautiful post Peggy, thankyou. Learning to observe and not absorb is something I am still learning. It’s interesting that although I love my volunteering jobs I can stil feel more tired at the end of the day, so I’m needing to up staying with and loving myself whist with others.
‘With these very clear signs on my skin, I cannot ignore the fact that my daily choices have an impact on my body.’ How often do we dismiss rashes, spots etc., as unimportant in the grand scheme of things? But in the grand scheme of things they are telling us something that we really ought to be paying attention to because if these early warning signs are not noted, then the consequences that affect the body will be much more extreme later down the line.
Reading your story Peggy, I felt, why would we choose this abuse? I feel it becomes an insidious trap, a habit that sneaks in and we are almost unaware we have chosen this abusive way to be. I am noticing it starts with a single thought that sends me down that route, and here is where we can catch it.
Very true, Richard, …. just because we don’t ‘think’ that something is harming us, as we have no physical wounds or internal feelings of being ill, doesn’t mean that we aren’t being harmed. Our bodies are an amazing barometer in this regard, they are always communicating with us, working to keep us in a harmonious state. The more we deepen our relationship with our body, the more aware we become in terms of what supports and what harms us.
Thank you Peggy you open up our eyes towards life that bring a clearer and deeper view. We are not isolated bubbles but swim in a sea of energy that surrounds us all, thus everything effects everything, so how very important it is then to constantly be aware of the quality we choose to be in and of th equality that surrounds us.
‘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.’ – I love this, Peggy …. self imposed armour isn’t actually truly supporting us at all, it keeps people out and prevents us from feeling what’s going on inside and outside of our selves, but this doesn’t change the reality of what is going on, we are just far less aware and, therefore, more likely to be hurt.
Having worn a ‘protective outer shell of armour’ for most of my life, I can say with absolute certainty that as far as self-abusive acts go, very little comes close to it. It’s about as protective as wearing a suit of armour studded with needles on the inside.
Learning to acquire a taste for straight whiskey or the mind, convincing the body that flavoured poison is palatable. What about learning to wear high stiletto shoes and ignoring the pain. Ballerinas and what they do to their feet is just nuts. These are all self-abuse that is accepted as normal. When we shut down our five senses, our body uses, are leaving the mind in charge, like a small child, left alone without any adult supervision?
Peggy, this is a great reminder; ‘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 can feel reading this how easy it is to get caught up in trying to fix things outside of us, without making taking care of ourselves the priority and knowing that this changes things around us naturally without all the trying and pushing.
‘To be in connection with our body is so, so natural that it’s a very big question why we have lost it.’ – particularly as it’s our love barometer that supports us to make loving choices and clocks when things are ‘off’. Without this innate wisdom, we lay ourselves open to being heavily influenced by external harming energies.
‘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.’ Peggy, I can relate to these words and know that I have abused myself this way too. It is important that we unpick where abuse starts so that we can halt its escalation to the more extreme versions down the track. I am thinking that all abuse has its root beginnings in how we are with ourselves first.
When we weigh ourselves down with an imaginary armour for protection we sink beneath the waves of abuse but when we free ourselves of the burden of protection and stay light we can ride the waves and observe all that is going on around us.
I agree – when I am connected with myself, it becomes easier to observe what is going on around me and not absorb and go into reaction. Stepping aside from this connection makes me prone to overwhelm and even a whiff of responsibility starts to feel way too much.
We also find it uncomfortable because those that are in comfort using abuse don’t want it to be exposed… including ourselves.
“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…”This is a huge step of self awareness, and healing, that invites self-care and self-love to become more foundational in our life.
When I read the words: “I abused my body by being in a hardness” I realised that I too had done exactly that for a great percentage of my life. No wonder life was often a struggle and that most of the time it didn’t make sense. Living with constant self-abuse can not but take its toll on our body and on our life; it is the ultimate poison.
Thank you Peggy I appreciated reading everything you shared and felt it was quite a learning and healing to receive. It is great the way you have simply defined abuse by listening to our body and to the best of our ability always being true to who we are. “Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?” A powerful question to ask ourselves.
Great questions Richard, and when we understand how energy works and how it affects us, we get to understand that everything matters, every choice, movement, expression and interaction definitely contributes to everything in life and beyond.
Brilliant blog Peggy, thank you for sharing your experience. The level of care and responsibility you went to to understand what your body was communicating to you is amazing. You’ve beautifully highlighted here that there is more to our conditions and symptoms when we are willing to look at the energy aspect of it. You inspire us to look deeper into what our body is truly communicating to us. This level of healing is what our world needs, and you are inspiring people to go there and explore further, and be open to learn and grow from everything we experience in life.
Our body is our first true friend – the more we can let in it’s love and the truth it shares, the more we will know and allow other friendships like this in life.
Also as the armour goes is learning how to allow your depth of love to be shared, seen and experienced by others and allowing this to come back to you. I think we master handling tensions but learning to live a quality of love and having this returned to you is another step and requires much acceptance.
Not being in connection with our body is abuse. So without a connection everything that we do is loveless. That said, returning to love is a process. So no matter how small or inconsistent the steps, each and every one of these steps are to be appreciated. For in critique rather than in surrender to our choices made from disconnection is even more of an abuse.
This is beautiful Peggy. I love how your came to such a clear understanding of what the psoriasis was showing you about absorbing poison (an energy that is not love). If we make love our foundation, then anything that does not come from this love will fall well below this mark so it can be seen for the abuse that it is. We allow abuse because we do not first set this standard, but we could and we should because love is the essence of us all and thus we are worth being held in its quality. As the body is the marker for all truth, it serves us greatly to listen to its signals and messages. The more love we allow to express through our body, the less abuse we will allow.
I’m discovering how abusive and poisonous it is when I take responsibility for what someone else has chosen and waste my energy sorting it out. This not only affects my body but also affects the other person because they are not feeling the consequences of their choices. Doing this has showed up in my body as bloating, lumpy breasts and tiredness.
Yes me too. I loved the detail examples in this blog that brought this attention to my body. It just goes to show the power of reflection.
Over reading this blog Peggy – what great insights into the shocking layers of abuse that we imprison ourselves with. This sentence stopped me in my tracks to really sense just how long I have been saying NO to myself.
“Abusing my body, in any shape or form, is saying NO to myself, and why would I do that?”
When we are able to observe what is going on around us with no judgment then we are free from the energetic web the incident is weaving. What I am noticing is that even with the slightest of reactions I am caught in the web and part of a tapestry I do not belong to.
The thinking we are in our own safe bubble is such an illusion and the reality is we all feel the energy around us all of the time but we have become masters of ignoring it and pretending we didn’t feel it so that we don’t actually have to do anything about it.
I wrote a blog on the ways we abuse ourselves too Peggy and it is amazing all the subtle forms we have in our own tool box that we carry with us and use to put ourselves down all of the time. Its good to get really aware of it all.
This blog really does call us to look afresh at what we have considered self-abusive and self-care. I for one realise that we are living a version of self-care that is allowing so much harm to go un-noticed that we have skyrocketing rates for domestic abuse, corruption, sexual abuse in ‘good’ institutions and communities. SO thank you, I will forever more consider there may be more for me to see and a deeper relationship I can have with my body to unpack what I have taken as normal and yet may well be harming me and others.
“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.”
Since choosing to live more and more connected to my body, I hear much more of the messages and sometimes I think, how did I not hear this before as somedays they are so loud. I realised that I too was living with so much hardness and protection that the messages were there, but I could not hear them through the layers I had placed over them. Like a big old out of date blanket lying on top, dulling them down. I am appreciating that I am choosing to take off this blanket, and live more of the preciousness of me.
Oh how I loved reading this today. Peggy your story feels like my story without the the skin condition but my own versions. Thank you.
A super gorgeous blog to read today. I love the detail and the honest that rests within this blog. It takes the reader on a loved journey that is very inspiring.
I wonder how self-abusive it is to buy a large bag of chips/crisps in the supermarket, knowing that, because of the recipe used which makes them very addictive, you will be unable to stop at eating just half, it will be the whole bag?
Many things in life are set up and we set our selves up to be addicted to the abuse. There are so many levels of how we keep ourselves from our grandness. Abuse is so extreme in the world it may be difficult for many to fathom how a bag of chips could be abuse. Yes they are addictive and are a set up for wanting more – therefore abuse. Yet if we are craving them and deny that then that could also be abuse too. There are many people in the world who are all on their own journey of letting go of foods and adjusting lifestyle to support themselves – so this is why it is so important for us to truly feel what our body is communicating and listening to that communication or at least be honest to why we are choosing to not listening at that moment.
This is a great example of how we set ourselves up to get caught in a cycle of abuse that, if we are absolutely honest with ourselves, we do not always want to get out of because it is offering us a certain vibration – one of comfort and security that helps us (so we think) to deal with what we perceive to be the ‘onslaught of the world’.
We use self-abuse to deal with the fact that we are abusing ourselves. And so it goes.
The knowing and not honoring on the knowing is abuse, but the after effects of guilt and judgement from not acting upon the knowing is also abuse.
In many cases several bags and a beer to wash it down. That is the thing with abuse it attracts more abuse and is never satisfied – a hungry monster.
Absolutely Nicola as we feel the effect of the first abuse we have to put another one on top of that to not feel how we were left feeling, it is a negative spiral that we then usually hope to shed when falling asleep hoping it will be gone in the morning, but of course it never is and we start from the beginning.
or by the relief of stuffing ourselves into numbness…
… and another bag.
yes bags of bags…
As we become more self-loving all the ways we self-abuse stand out and they can be very subtle and not so obvious.
Its the self-love that really assists in this process and is what supports us to make deeper self-loving choices and say no to abuse. We live in a world where abuse is endemic, so much that we do not see it.
The more we choose self-love, the more we say yes to being our true selves.
Yes with the self love comes the letting go of all that is not supportive and which doesn’t belong but without the self love first it just becomes a battle with self which usually ends with self judgement and bashing for not sticking to what we want to stick to – and that energy/quality is far more abusive than eating the cake for example. Whereas with self love the body becomes yummy and then can feel the cake doesn’t belong and it is not even craved. And self love being of course honouring and treating oneself with care, not going to the beauty parlour or having a bath just for that activity to tick the self love box.
That’s true Jennifer, the more we live self love the more this exposes what and where abuse is.
This really makes sense Peggy, I had a skin condition before and I came to a similar conclusion as it felt like I was literally absorbing all of life in my skin and did not say no to that.
I have experienced this too Lieke. Our bodies are amazing, it is always working continuously to clear and heal itself from the abuse we constantly load onto it. It never stops working to regenerate, heal and rebuild our body back to its original state but sometimes it is so overloaded, we don’t get to feel the magic from our body and how amazing it is.
It is abusive to ourselves to harden up and not see all that is there to be seen. It is true that when we say ‘no’ to our bodies, are actually being unloving, and therefore abusive. And so we in effect feed a bigger pattern and cycle of abuse.
Yes, and the remorse is part of the cycle as we now feel even worse.
Very true. In our world where gardening up is very common and even championed,it is so important that we have beautiful reflections such as Peggy who let their tenderness and sensitivity shine.
‘If I can nominate what’s there and express it, then thoughts don’t come in and play their own game.’ Recently I held back on expressing the love that I held for someone and later I felt sad and could feel that I was reacting to the unspoken words..to the fact that I had eluded to and skirted round it but not opened a conversation that could possibly have been healing for us both. This kind of avoidance creates a smoke screen and is dishonouring of us both. Now there is a feeling of incompleteness. There is no need to protect me or anyone else when the truth is spoken in love.
Thank you Peggy, you bring the meaning of the word ‘abuse’ to a different level by pointing out it is anything that is not (self) loving. So without touching, shouting or talking behind someone’s back we can still abuse if we don’t bring all our love in every movement we make.
This is so true for many of us, ‘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.’ I used to numb myself with food and distract myself with any amount of activity. Allowing myself to soften and to feel my body was an important first step.
“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.” Wow this is such a powerful example in a world that mistakenly believes it works to put on the armour and think that this will protect us.
This line is the simple answer to all the worlds ills because when we let ourselves and support others to be our true selves… vulnerable, beautiful, sensitive, etc …. there is no way we can hurt others or ourselves. Abuse ends.
This describes what every single one of us deep down actually wants. In fact all ills and harmful choices and behaviours are the result of us reacting to the lack of this exquisiteness which is our natural essence. A vicious downward cycle. All it takes is for one of us to choose to live this without waiting for the world to give it to us first, and with our consistency start a domino effect. Serge Benhayon and his family are a fabulous example of that.
So true Rosanna. We think wearing a ‘thick skin’ protects us, but it just ends up imprisoning us and makes us less sensitive to what’s going on around us.
Putting on a suit of armour to protect ourselves is about the most harmful think we can ever do.
It sure is and it is something I have tried very hard to do but all it did was shut me off from other people and from myself. Plus it was exhausting trying to keep it up!
Opening up to begin to feel and connect with myself and other people, to actually know, see and experience by example, that we can show ourselves and let others in, that there is no need to protect and close the gates, has been fundamental in shaking off that feeling of cold, protective isolation that I once thought had been working.