I have been learning about true self-care over the last 10 years and from putting simple self-care techniques into practice I have enjoyed my life, myself and my body more and more over those years. However, I recently realized that I had been overlooking an area of my life where I have not been truly caring for myself.
In the last 2 years, myself, close friends and colleagues have all been targets of cyber-bullying that seems somehow to be an acceptable form of expression in our technologically advanced world, under the banner of ‘Freedom of Speech’. However, what disturbed me more than the actual cyber-bullying, was my lack of outrage and motivation to stop this intellectual and emotional abuse to which we were being subjected.
In asking myself why I didn’t react with outrage, I realised one of the reasons was that I had normalized this type of intellectual and emotional abuse from when I was young.
It is really disturbing to find how common bullying via the internet is affecting people both personally and professionally. Cyber-bullying is another obvious abuse and since I have been the target of this abuse I have done my own mini research into where abuse starts.
I cringe at the way my siblings and I used to talk to each other in fights over the most insignificant things. We would literally sneer at each other, sling nasty names at each other and try and verbally hurt each other from our own reactions and hurt. We all used to walk away from these interactions emotionally bruised and we just hardened in our bodies to cope.
We are all born naturally sensitive, gentle and tender and none of us start off name slinging and criticizing when we are toddlers. Many children lose touch with this natural gentle tenderness as they get older. It seems like adults and parents accept as normal the competition, fighting and name calling that often goes on between siblings as they grow up. Kids do this in reaction to hurts they are not aware they have and in their hurt they lash out at others. This really is a form of abuse and it often starts at home when we are really young.
Years later I learnt that burying these hurts caused more emotional harm than a physical punch to the body.
I remember the occasional times when my brother punched me there was the obvious bruise so I could not dismiss the hurt – it would heal and I would accept that – after my initial reaction – and let the incident go. In hindsight I would have far preferred my sibling punched me rather than the deeper emotional hurt that I would bury and hold onto for years.
In my 30 years of working as a health professional I have learnt from thousands of clients that it is precisely these emotional hurts that are far more damaging than the physical ones. When they tell me about childhood emotional traumas – it can be 30, 40 or 50 years ago –they still cry as they retell these moments from when they were little.
As they talk about these events I have observed how old tension patterns in the layers of their soft tissue let go and soften. The body areas affected by this old tension become more fluid and flexible.
When do we numb ourselves from this type of hurt and virtually say to ourselves and others that this form of intellectual and emotional abuse is OK? This got me thinking; do we consider that in a fit of frustration, rolling our eyes and criticising our friends, family or colleagues could be labelled as abuse too – and that we have accepted it as part of ‘normal’ living?
15 years ago I had a pivotal moment during a presentation from Serge Benhayon of Universal Medicine, on the profound simple truths that were shared on living a simple, more self-caring and gentle way of life.
Over the last 10 to 15 years I have changed the way I live: I am less driven and critical of myself, I appreciate and care for myself more and now I enjoy my life, myself and my body more and more. The simple truths that were shared all made sense to me. These truths were for example:
• that we are all sensitive and feel things all the time – such as the moods others are in or what is behind their reactions to us, and
• that we are all in essence love – equally so, however we often don’t live from that essence but from our protections and emotional patterns.
I have listened to my body over the years by feeling how it responds to how I live in it, which has helped me to reconnect to this more natural, gentle way of living. I have learned how and why I do things, from observing myself and others in a detached and curious way. This has helped me understand old patterns of abusive behavior I had towards myself, for example, pushing myself to finish 30 laps of swimming when my body was feeling content at 20 laps. I have learned to appreciate that my body always gives me true messages about how I treat it.
As I have returned to being more naturally gentle and self-caring, I have started to say No to any emotional abuse – in the way I am with others and the way they are with me.
I can feel how self-loving it is to say no to a sarcastic or critical comment, as when I do I feel my body relax and the pockets of tension in my soft tissue release and unwind.
This has supported me to enjoy and respect myself and others again and to be able to say No to intellectual and emotional abuse. It has been a gradual and ongoing process and I am learning as I go how truly caring and loving this is for myself and others too.
This blog and the positive changes in my life have been and are continually inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
By Anonymous
Further Reading:
Domestic Violence and dealing with hardness in our lives – Esoteric Connective Tissue Therapy
What To Wear … You’re Not Wearing That, Are You?
645 Comments
It is quite interesting to observe how going to school changes everything, When young children are put into a school environment it is very challenging for them as they are exposed to a massive amount of fluid energy, totally different from their home life environment. It is so easy to see how we loose touch with our gentleness and sensitivity as it is possible to watch how children harden themselves to the school environment. The education system seems deliberately set up to crush the gentle tenderness of a child. So as parents we need to truly support our children to voice their day at school and what it was like for them so that they have a way of expressing what was going on for them and what they could observe. This supports them to read energy first at an early age and will be of huge benefit as they go through life.
The more we allow abuse the more abuse there is and the more we say yes to love the more love is felt by all.
The energy behind words is clearly felt in the body, but it is the way we consistently live in, what allows that energetic quality to affect us or not.
I can see how we take on the hurts and rejections when we are young and colour how we interact and view life as we grow up. I can see by observing young children just how sensitive we all are and that how easily we can be hurt by parents and family members as they are our world when we are young. We feel the rejection of their response to us wanting to be seen and met for all the love we are if this doesn’t happen day after day it has a devastating affect on our bodies which if not addressed can effect us for the rest of our lives.
Our bodies are always sharing and when we start to listen, the amount of Self-loving it brings to the table can-not be denied, so it is time to listen to that voice of wisdom that comes from our Essence, Inner-most-heart / Soul.
It is inspiring that on being a target of cyber bullying you then went to look at all the areas of abuse in your life. Cyber bullying is rife at the moment even adults are doing this to young people so when we start to over turn the stones in our life and look at, take responsibility for times of enabling (standing by and not doing anything) times we have hurt another then this closes the gap saying actually we will no longer stand for this anymore.
Burying our hurts just means that we can be got at far more easily for the hurts are just there under the surface waiting to be cajoled, manipulated or basically played with.
It is not a good idea to bury our hurts, that buried feeling has an impact energetically on our bodies, and will re-surface again at some point in our lives if we don’t heal and release it.