When we send our children away to boarding school believing they will get a better education, what are we setting them up for? Can an education away from the parental home be truly supportive in developing us as fully rounded human beings? School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.
So, how was life at boarding school? I can remember the good bits and tend to forget the bad bits, but I do recall that I was terrified of the nun who looked after us, and even more terrified of the Mother Superior. I survived by being a ‘good girl,’ always looking for acknowledgement from the teachers and nuns that I was ‘OK.’
I was born overseas in Baghdad, Iraq, and when I was 6 years old, a few months before my 7th birthday, my parents sent me to a Catholic boarding school run by nuns in the UK. There were three of us, so I was not completely alone as I had my two sisters there, but when my own daughter was seven and we were enjoying lots of hugs together, it made me wonder what had I missed by spending so many of my younger years away from my parents.
Baghdad is 3,000 miles from London and in the 1950s that meant three plane hops, so we only travelled back home for the summer holidays. I only saw my parents for 8 weeks in each year until I was 12, when they returned to England to live. After that I lived at home and attended the same school as a day student until I left at 18.
I don’t think we were ever a particularly close family but there was a great ex-pat social life in Baghdad and my parents would attend loads of parties. During the day we spent most of our time at a club that had lawns, an outdoor restaurant, a climbing frame and three swimming pools. We had some fun times, but my mother was always chatting to her friends and we played with ours. Dad was at work.
Once we were all together in our house in England, we were still distant.
As a family we would eat together but I don’t remember them as particularly momentous occasions — the radio was usually on, and then we kids would wash up together then go outside and play with our neighbourhood friends. There were times when my parents would argue and my mother was always convinced she was right. My father would give up and go outside to smoke his pipe. I used to argue with my middle sister with whom I shared a room, so our life together was not particularly harmonious.
Moreover, my parents were not really huggy people, whereas I love hugs. When I first went to the boarding school I do remember the Italian maids, who were always up for a hug and, as I was one of the youngest and probably cute at that age, I had loads of attention from them. Despite that, and because of the lack of physical affection in my own family, I grew up feeling like an alien, distant from all humanity. I felt unlovable and instead of being open and friendly with everyone, I created a hard shell of mistrust and a spikiness that stopped anyone from feeling my true vulnerability, including me.
The combination of the separation from my parents, boarding school and the Catholic upbringing, left me with a few emotional scars, such as feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right.
At school we were encouraged to compare and compete, with everyone being streamed into class groups according to academic ability. In the senior school, we were also split up into four houses that competed in sports and we’d get house-points for good behaviour, so comparison and competition was encouraged in all aspects of my schooling.
The attitude of competition stayed with me as an adult: in sport playing squash, and with friends, comparing what jobs we were doing and how much we were earning. At work I would measure myself against more experienced colleagues and put myself down for not performing as well as them. Both comparison and competition leave me feeling very tired, so it is something I have recently been learning to observe and let go of.
Thanks to the many presentations of Serge Benhayon and healing sessions with Esoteric Practitioners trained by Universal Medicine, I am also learning to let go of the hard shell of protection that I developed in my body and to let people in. I am getting lots of hugs from fellow students, which is lovely, but I still find myself being distant at times, and I find it hard to express my love in words. If someone expresses their love and appreciation of me, I often find it hard to accept, not really believing it to be true.
I now know that it is important to appreciate who I truly am, to feel how tender I can be, moving gently, being calmer inside, connecting deeply with people, making good eye contact and speaking from my heart instead of my head. These days I don’t need so many acknowledgements from anyone outside of myself. I don’t need to try to be good or right because I can enjoy simply being me.
When families do not freely express their love for one another, it does not provide a great foundation for us in the future. My experience was compounded by being separated from everything I knew and sent to a Catholic boarding school. It gave me a good education, but I have realised that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?
It is 60 years since that first day at boarding school and the scars are only now truly beginning to heal. It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.
What I bring is more than my brain’s intelligence and what I know; I bring a warmth, love, tenderness, and caring for all humanity that was never taught at school, or even in the Catholic Church.
Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’. Instead of that approach, I am now learning to appreciate the amazing woman I truly am and, as I let go of the hardness, I am appreciating the absolute fragility and delicateness that is my natural and true way of being.
It has been a long journey that has highlighted to me the importance of loving all our children in full right from the start, spending time with them, expressing our love and appreciation to them, and encouraging them to be loving and open without fear so that no matter where they are, they can enjoy being beautiful, tender, expressive beings.
If that loving service can be offered in every family, every school, every boarding school, and in every religion, then perhaps we as a humanity can be secure in the knowledge that our children will be fully ‘educated’.
Published with permission of my family.
By Carmel Reid, Ocean Shores, Australia
Further Reading:
The true foundations of education – our future
Education, Schools & Teaching Our Kids: ‘Quality of Presence’ in the Classroom
The True Purpose of Education – One Size Fits All or Evolution?
We are actively encouraged from very young to compete with others. As babies we’ve heard our mums compete with other mums about our height, our weight or our intelligence and competition is unfortunately modelled to us from every conceivable angle but none of these angles are true, they all reflect a false light that contributes to the bizarre life that we’ve orchestrated here on earth.
“It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education”. Time itself can’t heal us because time marks the same spot over and over again. As we stand on the same spot we can heal or we can not heal but it’s not the concept of time that does the healing for us. We can be all that we are as we stand on the same spot or we can be all that we’re not on exactly the same spot and who we are is dependant on our alignment.
‘What value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” Uhm how about nada, zilch, zero, nothing?
“The combination of the separation from my parents, boarding school and the Catholic upbringing, left me with a few emotional scars, such as feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right”, that’s one helluva load to bear BUT we all lug similar loads around with us constantly, we just have different flavours of loads. These flavours dictate our alignment to a particular form of energy, which in turn ensures that we stay ensnared to the same energetic source. Our loads lighten and then eventually disappear altogether once we switch our alignment and the way that we switch our alignment is by changing the way that we move, ‘move’ meaning the way that we ‘think/speak/move/feel’.
“Can an education away from the parental home be truly supportive in developing us as fully rounded human beings?” Carmel your question has raised another question in me and that is “if we stay at home are we able to be supported in developing as fully rounded human beings if in truth our parents are able and willing to send us away?
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” Formal teaching has lost the true meaning of ‘education’. Learning to understand the world from how it feels and to discern truth is rarely on the ‘education’ curriculum.
I find it fascinating that we all have different stories to tell of our childhood but there is a common thread that runs through them which unites us. And this is we were not met as children and our parents were not met and so it goes on this perpetual deep angst of not being seen for the delicate and sensitive beings we all are. And so we grow up hard as nails with abusive behaviours towards ourselves and others to sully another generation. Finally there is a different choice to be had one where we can reconnect back to our delicate sensitivity and find that it is actually so worth reconnecting back to as it is absolutely fascinating what can be felt so much so that you naturally want to explore more, what more can be sensed and felt which opens up a Pandora’s box of endless possibilities. Sensitivity is not being a sissy or weak it’s the complete opposite it’s to be strong and all-knowing to me it’s the new black.
“I have realised that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” I couldn’t agree more Carmel, you have made an incredible point here. Love should be the main subject in school, alongside self care, and promoting harmony and equality, not competition and comparison.
Acknowledging we are more than human is what appreciation is all about as you have shared Carmel, and adding to what you have shared with deep-humble-appreciative-ness that to appreciate ones essence with True authority with the ensuing conformation deepens our purpose in life.
Anyone would think our education system as it is is set up to keep people controlled, dulled and incapable of knowing who they truly are?
A boarding school has the potential to really nourish and support the children, if the children are brought up to know true community and to know all others as family there this can then be a good foundation from which they can grow.
It is lovely to now feel the warmth, love, and tenderness in you, and likewise in other people, ‘I now know that it is important to appreciate who I truly am, to feel how tender I can be, moving gently, being calmer inside, connecting deeply with people, making good eye contact and speaking from my heart instead of my head.’
Great that you clocked the negative impact of comparison and competition on your body, and so knew choosing comparison and competition was not a loving choice, ‘Both comparison and competition leave me feeling very tired, so it is something I have recently been learning to observe and let go of.’
Carmel, I can very much relate to this; ‘feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right’. This makes me realise that this is not only boarding school that can make us feel like this, but also education in general and life in general.
Roll on the day when we all realize that bringing up children includes teaching them how to love, take care of and value the preciousness they already are, and knowing how to express that with love and honouring of themselves and everyone else equally – and that this is how we relate to children and one another whether at school or at home.
Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’. And when we get older and start to work the same culture is found in the workplace we can always do better and so it goes on and on until we start to see and feel there is so much more than our achievements, that we are already everything and deserve love from each other without any conditions.
To be in the proximity of loved ones and feel their love in their movements seem to be two different things. Even when you were around your parents, they were not there so to speak. It makes me realize yet again how important loving presence is with and amongst each other. A look in the eye, a warm hug, all ways to acknowledge that we see, feel and love each other.
I start with the question of how can we get a better education by sending our children away… and there is the rub. Define education. Is it learning things out of textbooks, how to fit in, how to perform? That is the current model and with the increasing levels of dis-ease don’t think its working so well. Or is it about knowing ourselves inside and out, and having the confidence and presence to simply express that? Its certainly worth a try
There are aspects of education that are not taught in any school, such as our ancient origins, reincarnation, energy, only a false image of God which bears no resemblance to Truth, all those academic subjects that are tested to the limit and often bear little resemblance to what we need in the workplace. Some schools make an effort to teach team working and leadership but the emphasis is on doing well not the quality of our being.
We currently educate ourselves and our kids without understanding how life truly works and so how can we possibly have true education if we don’t understand the basics about life?
Education can bring a lot to a person, if we educate our children the way it was done by Pythagoras life would be very, very different right now. We would be much more aware, decent human beings. There is greed, there is selfishness, everybody looks out for themselves, not truly caring about another person. It is crucial that teachers live and are an example of what it is to live with integrity, respect, practice self-care and consideration for others for this is how children learn and bring those habits in their own lives.
Recently, and incredibly wise and intelligent woman posed the possibility to me, that true parenting is in offering a child an education in establishing standards. As it is these standards which could potentially stay with that child forever, and which could potentially support them throughout their life. Standards which are about love, respect, connection, intimacy and tender care. These are things which essentially cannot be taught anywhere else, and yet they are the fundamental building blocks for life, and ultimately society as it is what we live at home that we bring out to the world. So, what happens when a child does not have this kind of education and is sent to boarding school? And what kind of a society does this create?
There are no standards that are attainable in the current education system as they are always peaked at levels that don’t support the student to appreciate what they have to offer within. When we set standards that come from the outer we are far from heading in the direction of true education for all.
I watch my three year old niece and she is just a bundle of joy, she naturally knows God because like all young children she knows him in her heart.
Soon she will be going to school and whole new life awaits, I would love to see schools that did not foster comparison and competition for it does nothing to enhance the love that is already so naturally there.
So many people I have listened to, especially in my parent’s generation who have spoken about the way boarding school had left them feeling have spoken about some type of trauma experience. When we are love, and come from love and don’t have this reflected back to us, whether from a cold boarding school environment or from parents who don’t demonstrate their love openly can be very hurtful.
Wow, 60 years of wounds and I love that you share it has been deliberate healing that has helped you not time. We build coping mechanisms to deal with things that happen to us in our youth and the simple things like letting our children know how much we love and appreciate them can fall by the wayside.
Comparison and competition is such a drain on our body systems because we are striving to beat another rather than work to a common goal. I did not appreciate the value of that till I stopped being competitive myself and realised what amazing things we could achieve as a team.
Comparison is an insidious evil, I still catch myself comparing and it effectively squashes me as I think that what someone else presents is going to be far better than anything I can present and it stops me in my tracks. Almost a deliberate plot to prevent my full expression and I get sucked right in.
So sad that at such a young age we are encouraged to compare and compete, as a society we are a long way of grasping the fact of how deeply harming this is to oneself and to one’s community.
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” A school report that said’ he/she is open and loving with all’ should be the required qualification for the university of life.
When we send kids away to school are we saying that we want someone else to bring them up? That is the key question for me.. and whether that is because one thinks the school will do a better job, or life is too busy, or a myriad of other reasons… no matter which way you look at it its a lost opportunity on a grand scale.
The level of responsibility that goes with parenting is often sold as ‘too hard’ or ‘too challenging’. What is on offer is the growth of one another when we bring it back to basics.
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” children need the tender loving care of their parents, so that as part of their learning they can know what love is, and then bring loving care for themselves and others all as precious human beings.
I have spoken with so many who say they will raise their children this or that way cause their parents did not give them this or that and out of reaction they want to do it differently. In this frame of mind few realise that in this reaction we are offering our children naught in love and true care.
I was observing the news that said small refugee children in America were being separated from their parents and remembered that, when my daughter was small I learned how important the first five years of a child’s life are, and felt guilty that I had gone back to work when my children were so small (4-6 months old). Apart from families where there is abuse, we do not really understand the importance of the close family relationship and how much it supports children with confidence later in life.
I was teaching once in a school in England where incredibly wealthy people sent the kids… And they sent them away at the age of three!
Whilst I may have got a ‘good’ academic education at boarding school I certainly did not learn about expressing in a loving way and everyone being celebrated for the amazing people they were. Education has become very narrowly defined by what pupils achieve rather than how well rounded they are as people. I certainly feel that 7 years spent at boarding school took many years to recover from and let go of the many layers of protection that I had build up in my efforts to never reveal my vulnerability for fear that someone would take advantage of it.
‘Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’.’ We buy into this idea that there is something that we need to correct even, that ‘they’ know better’ and that the answers all lie outside ourselves when in truth we have all the answers we will ever need right inside our bodies. We can begin to lose trust in ourselves from a very early age and then we cannot trust anyone else either. It’s awesome though that it doesn’t have to always be this way and that at any age we can turn the tide and reconnect to ourselves and all the wisdom and loveliness that we are.
“Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder” This is super sad Carmel and unfortunately so true, when we are taught we are already everything and super amazing we are supporting young people to grow in knowing of who they are what else is there to achieve when you know without doubt that God lives within you.
Yes we can let go of all our striving to achieve x, y or z in order to be seen as being successful etc and in that there is space to evolve as we are not constrained by worrying about what others think of us etc which is so draining.
I remember that – always trying, trying, trying and its a pattern that has carried on into adult life. Better to learn that we are already enough… that would be a much more healthy education.
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” Education has failed if it stops us from being and sharing the love that we are.
It is beautiful you point out the importance of love in our upbringing and everywhere in life really. It prevents us from loathing ourselves and it supports us to know who we are and feel confident in that. It is also great to know this is never too late and any time in our lives we can start this by loving ourselves, through self-care and self-love.
We could learn a thing or two from children if we stopped and appreciated how they are naturally. Instead, we do not see the value of them and see them as having childish ways and at times an inconvenience.
The one thing I noticed was the lack of love when I grew up and doing that in a confined environment like a boarding school may be much worse.
When we are children we can feel intensely that something is not right but many of us think is it us who are wrong. There is of course nothing ‘wrong’ just parents who don’t know any better, who have perhaps not felt love themselves and so it goes on from generation to love-less generation. Thank God for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine who has shown so many of us that the love is still there inside all of us and all we have to do is reconnect and allow it to be felt.
“If someone expresses their love and appreciation of me, I often find it hard to accept, not really believing it to be true.” These situations have really had me rattled recently, not because of the appreciation but from the non accepting that I am worth appreciating. Yet my mind will claim that I am not lovely but that doesn’t make sense to the rest of me.
The boarding school experience might seem extreme but to me it’s just a clear and accurate picture of how our current education system works. We push away children from their natural warmth as if this is a necessary part of growing up – it is not. Thank you Carmel for this beautiful blog.
You make a great point Joseph, just as birds push their young out of the nest, some parents think that’s how we should be with our children to toughen them up for life. Yes they need support and encouragement to stand on their own two feet, but not before they are ready and always with love.
Yes, doing that at age 6, as some do, seems to be in most cases a bad mistake.
We certainly miss a huge gap in education when we make it all about the mental. Your experience highlights how we have a society where it has become about the best knowledge rather than supporting children to have a much more holistic form of education. It also shows up what we can support our kids with – where we can encourage them to share how they feel and not hold back and not hold on.
“Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’.” – It does not feel like a coincidence that both schools and religions have imposed a system on children based on them needing to constantly prove and ‘better’ themselves. Telling people they were born a sinner would certainly start this process off that is so similar to the modern schoil system that makes kids prove their ‘intelligence’ via constant testing without honouring what the child brings to the world naturally.
I like what you have written here, Michael, especially the words, ‘honouring what the child brings to the world naturally.’ yes we need to do that with all our children and for those of us adults who missed out, we need to do it for ourselves so that we can appreciate the natural quality of our being that underpins everything we do.
I agree Michael that it does not feel a coincidence that education and religion are bedfellows when it comes to schooling our children. If children didn’t feel good enough before school starts at the age of 4 they certainly will be at the end of it, as we are constantly telling children to do better and to keep going for more. Add the religious doctrine that you are a sinner and will always be a sinner due to the fact of being born, not much space is left to be the whole you, the full you with everything you innately are. We start school at least 20 steps back before we are off the starting line.
It’s amazing isn’t it that healing can occur on a deep level that dissolves the scars and protection of childhood hurts and leaves the beauty, wisdom and open heartedness of the person for all to see. This has certainly happened in your case, Carmel.
All children need to be treated with tenderness and there is no reason why this should stop – the more we treat ourselves and each other tenderly, the more loving the world will feel.
You certainly do bring warmth and tenderness, which is lovely to feel, and great that you are now claiming yourself more and more, ‘I am now learning to appreciate the amazing woman I truly am and, as I let go of the hardness, I am appreciating the absolute fragility and delicateness that is my natural and true way of being.’
It reminds you of the warmth, love and care that we all need to be treated with on a daily basis.
When our early experiences of our care becomes perfunctory, a paid job that someone has to do not because they love, cherish and adore you, it lays a foundation that takes time to undo.
The level of care at any age is important, I am currently volunteering in a residential aged care home and it is heart-warming to see the respect with which the staff treat each resident who all have different physical and mental capabilities. Any caring job cannot be done as ‘just a paid job’ because the level of care requires such deep interpersonal connection if it is going to be true care.
I remember first meeting you Carmel, about 15 years ago, and yes I understand why you said this in your blog, ‘I created a hard shell of mistrust and a spikiness that stopped anyone from feeling my true vulnerability, including me’, it is lovely to now know the vulnerable, warm hearted and loving person you truly are.
Hi Lorraine, I’m sure the same can be said for many of us, because we were brought up to believe that vulnerability was a huge weakness and we felt we simply wouldn’t survive by being vulnerable. I was teased in my early days at school but not long after I arrived it stopped so I must have developed that hard shell pretty quickly.
I can so relate to your experience of describing things are intense Otto and it is refreshing to hear another deeper perspective on this – that our relationship with life and its events and circumstances and how we are with everything that occurs is what makes a huge difference.
I grew up in a family that was not very affectionate with each other, there was no hugging or embracing of each other and I always felt jealous when I saw other families who had this closeness. Even today I still find it hard to fully open up and embrace people, I hold my body in a guardedness and protection that I am learning to let go of.
Yes I agree, Suze, it is hard to open up to love when we are not used to it in our base family
A warm welcome to true intelligence that never separates mankind. In true fact, when we have an “intelligence” that is better than another, we must urgently ask ourselves: how can we call something intelligence when it actually separates human beings from being love with each other and within themselves? As love is love no one will be less than that. So no body has more intelligence than other, and if said that there is: it can only be the bastardisation of what true intelligence is. True intelligence is love. And everyone knows love. Deeply so. Fact.
I think many of us grow up feeling like aliens regardless of how much we see our parents or what school we go to unless we are truly met for who we are. I certainly felt like I came from another planet both at home and at school!
Yes Nicola I felt the same, the way I saw life did not fit in, so I fitted into life.
The alien theme runs trues when we are met with so many ideals and beliefs of how to be in all aspects of our life. The Inquisitive, loving and open child is often left to create levels of protection just to survive.
Sending kids away to boarding school is a great example of people making decisions based on what they think is the best thing, not what is actually the best thing for the child. I know parents fall into many ideals and beliefs about what is best for their kids. Wanting to give their kids the best education and sometimes give them what they missed out on seems to be a strong one. But all the kids I have spoken to who went to boarding school found it traumatic and they lived for the holidays when they could come home again.
Some holidays I didn’t go home because it was too far a distance and our parents sent us to stay with cousins or on a farm in Hampshire. Half terms I stayed at school and that was fun because there were no lessons and not many boarders left either. Yes my parents definitely thought they were doing the best they could for us, in those days you showed love to your kids by providing them with an education. They never really knew what true love was.
In thinking about connection, you would think that a bunch of boarders living in close quarters with each other for most of the school year would develop bonds and intimate connections, but in my experience everyone was wrapped up in their own dramas or engaging on other people’s dramas and at a very shallow level in order to avoid feeling the deeper hurts.
“I now know that it is important to appreciate who I truly am, to feel how tender I can be, moving gently, being calmer inside, connecting deeply with people, making good eye contact and speaking from my heart instead of my head. ” Appreciation through our every fine movement made is not only a step in the right direction but offers us so much more in terms of learning who we are from our essence and seeing that we are always learning and exploring from our honesty to share our hearts with the world and how wonderful it is to connect in this way.
There are many patterns of behaviour we learn as children that follow us into adulthood, particularly our way of relating to others – how much trust we have, how much we are prepared to be open and intimate, and that is reflected in how much people trust us – we all put up barriers and these remain until we are willing to let them drop. That willingness is what helps us to evolve because all our relationships offer such beautiful reflections of our selves, exact mirrors that we can choose to look in or not.
A great point you have shared here Carmel Reid. Our children are a clear indicator of how trust is often associated with being accepted and shared with family members only. How constricting can this be with a child who is innately open and loving and has an enormous level of natural presence that we condition to control at such an early age.
‘I felt unlovable and instead of being open and friendly with everyone, I created a hard shell of mistrust and a spikiness that stopped anyone from feeling my true vulnerability, including me.’ I cannot but wonder how many of the adults in the today’s world have grown up just as you did Carmel lacking the love that provides the solidness to our foundations that we build our lives upon.
I agree Suse and what effect does that have on our ability to be intimate with another? Massive I would say. How can we be intimate with another – and I don’t only mean in a sexual way but really open to other people in conversation, in care, in kindness, when we have a hard shell of mistrust and spikiness?
Even though much of the spikiness has gone, there is a still a residual way of being that, rather than being vulnerable and honouring what I feel, I can still go into judgement of others, projecting out rather than going within. So my work now is to allow myself to feel and to express what I feel in the smallest detail, to override the hesitation and go for it. It makes a huge difference in my relationship, because when we express what we feel it helps others to understand us more clearly.
Clearly our current model of education is not working. As you have shared there is much more to education than what we are offering. Would it not be a truer form of education to learn and understand the value of our relationship with our selves, and how living in connection to our bodies and who we already amazingly are is where our real power lies?
Everything in life stems from our relationship with ourselves and yet we teach kids to first undo their relationship with themselves and then to corrupt it to such an extent that by the time they leave school they are no longer themselves in truth but a corrupted version that bears little or no resemblance to who they were born as.
When we connect with our hearts there are no emotional scars, no matter how deep that can not be healed.
It’s quite fascinating reading about another’s childhood. The boarding school system feels so limiting and retarding of children’s natural expression – mostly because there is no time away from the schedule. You are constantly living and breathing school, and for any child, that is simply exhausting! It’s so important for children to have a home or space that they can come to, relax in and be themselves so they are not owned by the schooling.
One of the biggest lessons I learned at boarding school was to harden up and just get on with it and that has come up again recently with a move to a new country. I didn’t realise I was doing it until a friend observed how my body was feeling. It was a bit of a shock to feel how much I have shut people out for ‘protection’ and shut myself out in the process.
There are situations in life that make us feel specially vulnerable and when they happen, we come back to old patterns of searching protection, which harden our body and it’s easy to reproduce past experiences. Being aware of what is happening in our body is a great way to come back to the present and heal the hurt that we are escaping from.
Yes and it can be years or even lifetimes later
This is a very touching sharing Carmel! I have not attended a Boarding school nor any of my siblings or my children but I remember hearing a threat “you’ll be sent to boarding school ” if you don’t behave! . Sounded like a pretty scary place to a young person! In my opinion children need the family support and love ,( including hugs) in their own secure family environment
” It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.” To me this is an important revelation as it is so normal in our everyday conversation to say that time will heal all our wounds, but actually it does not. In truth, if not investigated, deeply felt and healed, our wounds get only buried deeper into our bodies so we can forget about these while they are still influencing our life from deep within.
This is a good point you make, Nico, that our wounds get buried deeper but still affect our behaviour – I only recently noticed how the ‘you’re on your own get on with attitude’ still exists deep within me.
As I read the comments, I have a rapid play back of the film of my school days, both before and at boarding school. So much emotional pain and hurts come to the surface for healing, yet I thought these were done and dusted! My children were sent to boarding school, against my wishes but at the time I had no choice!
It is great that we are opening the can of worms, letting go of all the hidden hurts, in order for changes to be made in education now, for all children everywhere.
Carmel, this is so true; ‘Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’, no wonder so many of us come out of school with low self esteem and not knowing who we truly are.
To me you hit the nail on its head Rebecca with your statement that schools and religions often tend to make us better humans while in truth we are reduced to a consciousness in which we believe that there is a way of being at fault and a way of being better while in fact both concepts are not true. There is no right or wrong as all life is a learning in our return back to Soul and the right and wrong is just a humanly created concept that does not exist in the consciousness we belong to.
I feel that as a society we have to get more honest about the emotional scarring that occurs from many of our childhood experiences such as family dynamics and school life.
“School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.” very true. Educational experiences don’t seem to appreciate who children naturally are. Its all about achievement. Some home environments may have a similar attitude – on account of the education the parents received too – and so the cycle continues…. until we start to value each individual for who they truly are.
It is so true that time does not heal, it only makes you to forget and bury the hurt deeper into the body. Only when you allow yourself to face the hurt for what it is and to go to the root of it brings the true healing in which you can let go and free the body of its imprisonment.
I agree Nico, time doesn’t heal, healing can only come from a willingness to address the hurt feelings, the emotional pain or whatever has occurred that has affected us. Time may make it seem less raw but the energy of an event remains in the body unless we proactively address and clear it.
This is an important point, Stephen, that the energy of the hurt remains in our body and burying it does not clear it, we just can’t feel it and then wonder why we are sick further down the track.
True healing comes from re-aligning to a consciousness that’s true. We can talk to therapists for thirty years and we can spend just as long having healing sessions but if those sessions are constructed out of the pranic consciousness then it’s just like throwing wood onto a fire, it simply fuels the original hurt and pain whilst all the while masquerading as something else.
Education needs serious reform and must start again from the principle that children already know Everything.
This is key, Michael, education starting from the principle that children already know everything, the education can then help the children be able to deal with their awareness, how to express and be able to deal with reactions, all about relationships, love and people.
This is a really beautiful blog Carmel. We are ‘educated’ in so many ways but there is not much of a focus on how to have truly connected, purposeful and meaningful relationships. Countless studies show that this is one of the most important things human beings can have. You have shown what is possible when one takes responsibility and educates themselves.
‘Purposeful and meaningful relationships’ hm, yes, I think many of us were brought up with shallow social chit chat but never really trusted anyone enough to be fully open with our feelings.
‘Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’.’ I was raised in a catholic family, and I vividly remember one Sunday in church watching and feeling my mother repeat the words ‘I am guilty, I am guilty, I am guilty’ whist she banged her fist on her chest, as all the adults were doing. In that moment I understood not only the deep, disturbing beliefs that were being embedded and reconfirmed every Sunday by this action alone, but the way in which it kept every adult in the congregation from ever feeling like they were enough. The impression I walked away with was that these words and actions were specifically put in place to prevent every person in the congregation from ever making a connection with who they truly are, from ever feeling the true, Soul-full beauty that is within.
Yes, the Mea Culpa became part of everyday English language as people would admit their guilt in wrong doings – now I am learning to feel less guilty over my mistakes and use them as opportunities to learn. But the not being enough – that’s a hard one to shift.
‘Not being enough’ – is an echo I’m constantly getting in my mind……. Set in from my boarding school days too. But becoming aware that those pesky thoughts of not being enough aren’t the true me (rather than accepting them as real) has been a good starting point.
‘Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’…’ I would agree with you here, Carmel. I am sure most of us leave school with that feeling of not being enough and certainly the organised religions I know of leave us with the same type of feeling. To be truly loved and confirmed is a great counter to the emptiness the above fosters.
Yes it is, Rachel, and we have to be willing to let in that love and confirmation otherwise we are indulging in the same hurts that created the emptiness in the first place.
We definitely need parents to understand that they are very much part of a child’s education and that creating a loving environment is crucial to that child’s wellbeing now and as a foundation for the future. Sometimes as parents we feel inadequate because we do not have the role models that could support us, but gradually that is changing and true role models are all around the world as we develop our awareness and are open to seeing them.
Indeed Carmel, you can say that we have missed the role models for supporting us to be a good parent, but it only take a few generations to change this pattern as what you say, these role models are there if we are willing and open to seeing them. It is just a matter of choice and each and everyone of us can make that choice at any time in our life.
If families choose to deal with what happens at home instead of avoiding the responsibility and giving it away to schools or boarding schools, there would be a difference in how our world will be. Imagine a child having a solid foundation of support and knowing what being loved feels like, this child is much more equipped to deal with life in a less harsh/hard way than they would attempt, if they thought they were alone and have to fend for themselves. I have had the thought of sending my child to boarding school but before this choice I wanted to experiment really connecting with him again, to not give up in any and every way without expectations but just honoring my changes in life, and opening up myself more. Now I do not have the thought of sending him to boarding school anymore, for what I did not want to face before, is really just a deeper responsibility I have to live.
Carmel, I can’t imagine what it was like to be sent to a boarding school at such a young age. What you’ve shared really highlights what a harsh environment boarding schools can be and it doesn’t feel like a very loving place for young children to learn and grow. If we ask children what they would prefer, staying at home with their parents and going to regular schools or going to boarding school, I can imagine a lot of young children would choose to stay at home.
I went to boarding school and was away from home for about eight weeks at a time and I found that hard enough. I quickly hardened up to it though and the way of life and it was all seen as character building, but wouldn’t it be great if the only thing we had to build was the love for each other.
Our greatest education is the world around us when we open ourselves up to being aware – we have this as children and it is our responsibility as adults to return to it – we can always feel what is going on and we can feel whether anything we do is true or not.
Absolutely Carmel, we have this knowing from birth and sometimes we override it because of many reasons, but at the same time it can feel devastating that our current world doesn’t support this form of intelligence and level of trust with what we can sense and feel.
Our Generational patterns past on have a lot to answer for in our lives which keep perpetuating when a real change is needed bringing truth from love and our true knowing from within .How beautiful it would be if we all were able to love appreciate and honour each other and ourselves as we innately know inside and the reflections this would allow in the world .
I am starting to understand that when we have not experienced hugs and love as children, we do not necessarily know what we are missing, we simply see it as normal. There is a protection of a fragile space inside that had to get used to not being met and loved in that way. It is for each and every one of us to reflect that level of love and care to each other so, even if it was not our normal, we can redress that balance and be that love and care for ourselves. It is NEVER too late.
The beautiful thing is, Lucy, that deep inside that love is never lost and it is always there just waiting to unfold so, as you say, it is never too late – there is nothing to learn how to do, except be.
I agree Lucy, it can’t ever be too late purely from the point of view that love is the fabric of the universe, it is quite literally who we are and so we can’t ever have missed the boat because technically we are the boat and always have been.
Redefining the word ‘education’ or bringing it back from its current brink. Thank you, Carmel. How gorgeous will it be when we educate our children beholding them in their qualities rather that trying to morph them to suit a flawed social framework?
Awesome blog Carmel, so many different elements that it touches on and how when we connect, heal and let go we are open to have the space to have true relationships.
I think that in boarding school I was very stuck on the image I projected – of being strong, not crying, being a ‘good’ girl. It was years before I could allow myself to be seen crying in public – I still find it hard. So many men and women are afraid to show their vulnerability and yet that is what is needed in all true relationships.
Yes, Monica, and we adults are all responsible as role models for all the children we know, to show how we can be open and build trust, let love in and see each other as equals, regardless of age.
Even the most educated people do not know how to not get emotional, be consistent and loving – they still experiance bullying and abuse and depression and anxiety, which to me shows we are so much more than simply brain intelligence – while it has its place, we are so much more than that and this is what we need to be taught, how to connect to and live from the bodies intelligence
I agree, Rebecca, we may be celebrated for our intelligence but completely be unable to express lovingly or let anyone in, so we hid in our intellectual fortress and convince ourselves we are OK.
People often say that time heals our wounds but I love how you share that it was not time but making self loving choices to deeply care for yourself and appreciating who you are that began your healing process. What a beautiful example of the power of self love.
I agree, nothing happens without our being involved in the process and developing Self Love is a good start to our feeling confident being out in the world.
This is a great insight into the lies we get indoctrinated with through the current education system and religion nowadays, we have become so desperate to find a way to manage life that we don’t stop and consider how disconnected we have become from one another, we live relationships lacking respect and intimacy that can only be found when we live from the heart.
The importance of intimacy cannot be emphasised enough – the separation caused by society in general leaves us with mistrust, miscommunication and missed opportunities for connection.
Love is the missing ingredient in most people’s lives I didn’t go to boarding school but love was not at the forefront of my life. Make life about love and we have a very different world, one that honours who we are and what we are feeling. There are so many young children coming through now that do know who they are and all we have to do is nurture what is naturally within them rather than ask them to toughen up and override what they know for them is the absolute truth.
I agree, Alison, we need to make life all about love for that is our true education
Thank you Carmel for showing us that education is in the everyday, and how important it is not to compartmentalise what we can know and learn – especially from each other.
When we DO come together as families or communities, isn’t it interesting how there is often some form of distraction churning away in the background e.g. the radio, television or nowadays phones at the dinner table. What is the quality of this time spent together?
Yes, Susie, it is as if we are afraid of being that intimate with each other so need some form of distraction to take us out.
I’m learning so much all the time about opening to intimacy. Allowing a tenderness with myself and with others is such a beautiful unfolding. The more I allow this in myself the more I am able to open to others. When I feel a closeness with others it is a beautiful confirmation of my relationship with myself. It is definitely a great education and one that I wish I had opened to earlier in life. This awareness is definitely needed in schools.
I agree, Rebecca, at school we learned to be tough, not to cry in public – I got very good at stifling tears and it’s only now, at age 67 that I am learning to truly let go, and funnily enough it is the younger people in my life who are encouraging me!
Love is the greatest education we can be offered, and yet it’s the one ingredient that is missing from our education system. If we were educated on love alone we would awaken and live from the grand intelligence we all hold within.
It has taken me one long term relationship and a divorce, five years on my own and now in a new relationship at age 67, just starting to really learn what true love is.
I find it interesting that the attitude that competition is healthy is imposed on children whilst they are still at school. When you watch children playing they do not naturally do this in a competitive way but in a way which is joyful and meaning that they enjoy themselves and each other – perhaps they should be teaching us.
Yes I agree, competition is something that has developed through the centuries and it is not natural, just someone’s imposed way of living that we have all adopted
Competition is only possible because we’ve all brought into the illusion of separation, (we think of ourselves as separate individuals). If we were able to remember and recognise once again that we are the collective fabric of the universe then the thought of competition would be absurd. Competition is like battling against yourself because the truth of the matter is the there is only ONE OF US. The almighty and glorious One Us.
“School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.” I have always seen school in this way – it is only a small part of life and the foundation laid at home and with those who care for and love us are what is going to truly support us through the education system as it is presently. As parents it is important we accept our responsibility in developing the whole of our children and perhaps if this were the case the teachers and the children would not feel so pressurised.
‘As parents it is important we accept our responsibility in developing the whole of our children’ This is true, Julie, and we are responsible for ALL children, not just our own, being role models for how they can be as adults. Children observe the adults around them and can use us as their markers for behaviour.
The natural way of love and openness to love is within each of us and yet so many are damaged in childhood by the choices at that time. It was very beautiful to read how you have experienced healing from these moments and its message to us all that have suffered similarly that healing is there – all we need to start to do is claim and live who we truly are.
Well said, Elizabeth and the joy of it is that our bodies are with us 24/7 and we don’t have to remember anything, just feel in each moment what needs to be done next.
‘I have realised that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?’ now that is a question that I would like to pose to so called ‘leading academics’ to answer.
I agree, Elizabeth, our education, whether it be from parents or teachers, should be encouraging us to feel deeper within and allow what is already there to emerge. We repeat the same mistakes over and over again from lifetime to lifetime and perhaps if our education system was truly geared up to allowing us to feel more, then we could feel the impact of all our choices and live a different way?
I relate to what you share about hugs Carmel, I love a hug, but I probably didn’t really acknowledge or realise that as a kid, as although there would be the odd hug, physical affection was not a huge part of my growing up. We adapt to whatever is our experiences, but it is interesting to note that we know what we love, even if we haven’t experienced it growing up. You must have had an intuitive love of hugging to do so with your daughter or it would not have been something you offered. But also a child has a beautiful way of drawing us to something that is so natural, hence why we often find hugging a child easier than doing so with another adult.
Yes, I love hugs but in our family in the 1950s hugs were a perfunctory greeting. Now I have lots of huggy friends and sometimes I hold back, but mostly we have warm, tender hugs that just melt my body…
The cycle of sending your child away to private schooling is one that can be hard for those bought up that way to see the inevitable damage caused, especially in those very young. But even for those older so much change happens very quickly I remember a friend not recognising her child after 6 weeks because they had grown so much in that time. What may be perceived as the gain doesn’t really add up in the lifetime of relationship difficulties resulting from cutting off from painful feelings that occur when separated from their parents.
I can’t imagine that – not recognising your child after six weeks, that must be pretty awful. I used to employ a nanny Monday to Friday when my children were young as I was in full time work – I went away for a course for a week and my son didn’t speak to me for 24 hours after I came back. When I was one I was in hospital for a week and my parents weren’t allowed to visit – these apparently small events can be traumatic in the life of a small child.
“as I let go of the hardness, I am appreciating the absolute fragility and delicateness that is my natural and true way of being” – Really gorgeous Carmel. It’s amazing how you have discovered so much more about yourself through letting go and looking within, as opposed to seeking the answers from more institutions, careers or roles.
Yes, Susie, we all need to be taught or reminded how to trust what we feel inside rather than depend on external stimulants.
Carmel, this is so true; ‘Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’. I can really see that this is what happens, children are not built up and appreciated and encouraged, they are often instead squashed and told they are naughty or pushed to try harder and do better, rather than told they are amazing as they are and from here are supported with subjects or areas of life that they may find challenging and simply need a little extra help with.
When I visited the school recently, there are no boarders there any more, but there was a definite atmosphere of support for the girls from the teachers and staff, but the Catholic Mass was still very much a part of life and the negative messages of unworthiness in the words of the mass was in stark contrast to the messages of support.
When we can look back at our lives with such honesty like you have done here Carmel it opens the issues and hurts we gather along the way wide open to be healed as you have also shown here. It would be amazing if schools and home life changed so radically away from how it was/is to helping us to remain open and loving so we don’t have to build a fortress which then takes years to break down.
My sisters were sent away to boarding school aged 5 and 9 because of WW2, but I, as the baby, (aged one), was kept at home in a large family house where business and relations all lived and happened, only seeing them in the holidays, and this continued for four years. There were two consequences to this; one was that my sisters became more of a unit, and there was always this great divide, not in love, but in the way we related in later life, and I was deprived of children’s company throughout those early years to the detriment of me learning how to be with others. This made for a separation in the family that need not have been there, and when we all came together again a feeling of not being a proper family. My mother was living with guilt, and we sisters were attempting to fill in the gaps and become a whole family again. Considering all this it was pretty amazing how well we got on and how much we loved each other, but the protection in us all made it hard to fully have that tenderness and delicate quality with each other.
Yes it is tricky when siblings go off to boarding school at different ages because, as you say, the separation builds barriers that are hard to break down.
We put too much stock in school and education, it can sound wishy washy to say we just need love, but there is definitely a lot of truth that we need love to be in everything we receive as a child (and an adult). And currently education and boarding schools as an example do not provide love as the foundation of the care in education that should be present.
I have been sent to boarding school as a child and I felt quite traumatised by the experience. But I am at the stage where I have also contemplated on sending my child to boarding school. So being on both sides of the equation, I understand the dilemmas of being a parent and the feelings of a child. There may not be any ideal solution but what feels important is to be able to really communicate and talk about the possibilities of such a decision and to understand the feelings of both sides. It is a fact that schools are not presently run in the level of love that we know we can meet each other by, and there is no need to change the system, neither is it necessary to avoid situations that are unloving. The way to any true change is to start living what we know would be true, at home and in other situations.
For a child to be involved in the decision making process is essential, for the home to be a loving and supportive environment can enable a child to go out into the world of ‘education’ knowing they are truly loved regardless of what other people do or say.
‘At school we were encouraged to compare and compete.’ This is to our detriment as it can make us feel that we are never enough and someone else is always better. If you are one of the ones at the top of the tree the intensity to keep up the momentum, to not drop, is also a massive pressure.
Recognising the harm done by comparison and competition is important because it does, as you say, Rachel, cement the thought that we are never enough. Accepting all of us as absolute equals and treating each other with appreciation and respect is vital to our wellbeing.
It has to, at some point it will become evident if not obvious that our current system is not working – education that ‘reveals wisdom’ sounds like a challenge but a far more effective way of bringing out the best in our children
Carmel, thank you for sharing your experience of boarding school, what you have written here exposes our education system and shows how focussing on the whole person is key rather than just focussing on the academic; ‘I have realised that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?’
‘If that loving service can be offered in every family, every school, every boarding school, and in every religion, then perhaps we as a humanity can be secure in the knowledge that our children will be fully ‘educated’.’ You are so soft on here Carmel. True education must be based on love and nothing less.
We need to raise children to love themselves so how wrong have we got it where we have an education system that tells kids how wrong they are. This is pure abuse.
We are so used to this system that puts us constantly in the wrong that many of us see it as ‘normal’ and don’t even consider it to be abuse. We have a lot to undo in terms of the harm we have done to so many children throughout the generations, that has been reflected in all our adult relationships.
Boarding school can be regarded as the best kind of education, seen as a good set up for adult life with solid connections with people and the confidence to succeed. But by reading Carmel’s experience it is clear to see that this education is not whole because there also is a part of being human that needs or even wants to learn about how to be in loving relationships and this is just as important as any other part of our growing up.
I’m not sure that any education system is set up to show us how to be in loving relationships, especially when the teachers who do care are not given enough time to show they care. Love can’t be put in a box, it has to be open and felt, it is not in our minds and school is all about educating the mind.
Having worked in a school for the last few years it was sad to see how after a short time most of the children became ‘dimmer’ and were not so full of wonder and bright light. The ones who stayed switched on and bright were quite often the children who were put into the ’cause for concern’ category. The truth of this though is it should be the other way round!
I was sent to boarding school…..these are the words I used to start this comment about my experiences. Then I stopped and just read those first six words. Not much more needs to be said really and it is very exposing of the way in which education was approached for me and, I suspect, many, many others. A private school education is something that the parents buy and send their children off to receive – thus totally disconnecting themselves from the process. What does that say to the children? And this is even before they have walked into the doors of these institutions.
You raise a good point here, Otto – we were ‘sent’ there was no discussion, no choice, children were assumed to be too young to know what they wanted. Their natural wisdom was not consulted because the parents’ needs came first.
“What I bring is more than my brain’s intelligence”. This should be the motto for schools. Yes, we can teach you lots of facts and skills that are super important in life…but, ultimately the true keys are held by you.
Education without love, be that from family or the school family, is not a full education. We are social, multifaceted beings who need to grow all aspects of ourselves, not just our knowledge and skills.
I think this line highlights so many of our problems “Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better.'” It’s spot on: our education system currently is all about improving and getting better, there’s no confirming the wisdom that we already know, or that we are already amazing BEFORE we can add 3 and 5 together, or spell or write. What if we don’t need improvement, we simply need to tap into potential?
I agree, Meg and there are studies coming out now that are suggesting that our experiences at school are actually dulling our natural wisdom that we all have as small children. We all know that as a fact, we can see it in the children we know.
So many people would relate to your story Carmel. As children we are super sensitive and the love of hugs and affection a very natural thing to desire. We know what love is and that is what we are propelled to express – and when we are not met back with this warmth, it jars us because the lack of love is not natural, it is not what we know deep within our hearts.
How we raise our children is how we raise our society as a whole. Love needs to be paramount, the absolute foundation of our interactions and of all our relationships.
It is beautiful to bring to light the true effects of boarding school on us all and the reality we undergo and what we feel and the false beliefs we are fed and take on as parents in doing the best thing for our children. True education lived and offered to us is real parenting and something that comes from within and from our bodies naturally and innate way of being .
Agreed, Gill, and in a way we are as a whole community all responsible for the ‘education’ of our children. We tend to leave it up to the teachers and the education authorities, giving our power away when, in truth, each one of us adults have a responsibility to lead by example, to meet the children in their fullness, and to provide a loving environment, wherever they are.
It is funny and exposing how we so often separate education from life….and so what we learn becomes habitually to link to what we know in our head. And so be it boarding school, state school, home or any other environment, when we make it about people and not what we do, our experience and everyone else’s experience changes. When we relate what we experience in all areas of life as something to learn, then we have a true education, and lived and supported from love, wow….then we are wise.
This is true, Samantha – we think ‘Education’ is what teachers give us but our whole life is an education in itself
Yes, Elizabeth, as you yourself are a living testimony to the fact that we can heal all our hurts at any age, it simply requires us to be open to how life truly is, our responsibilities, the impact of our choices and surrender to what is there to be healed.
In the last 7 years that I have been learning about the ageless wisdom I have learnt more than I did in 16 years of state education.
There is so much more to life than what we are taught, we do life a dis-service when we reduce natural magic to tick boxes.
‘we do life a dis-service when we reduce natural magic to tick boxes.’ When we meet people who have learned about life from nature and from observing people, we can realise that there is so much more to learn than a tight schedule in school can offer – there are books written that never make it into schools, we can learn from the Internet, but most of all we can learn from our own bodies what we feel inside. That is one of the worst aspects of our current education system, that we are encouraged to ignore what we feel deep inside, especially in a religion like Catholicism, which gives power to nuns and priests and other officials and makes us normal humans out to be totally unworthy of God’s love, which is a lie.
Agreed Jane, there is definitely not enough flexibility in the school system. If a child behaves as your own did, can we really say that they are wrong, or do we instead need to question the whole system, and why it sets up to fail those who won’t align to its narrow way of learning.
“Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’.” This is so true Carmel. I think every report I ever had said ‘Sandra must try harder’, and I remember dreading getting my reports as I always felt I wasnt good enough. The impact of these few words can be so enormous on a young child and frequently does influence how they will feel about themselves for the rest of thier lives. Thank goodness for Universal Medicine and the therapies that are offered which support us to change and truly heal these feelings of unworthiness once and for all.
I agree, Sandra, the ‘Could try Harder’ is almost a reflection of the despair our teachers were in because they simply had no clue as to how they could inspire us to ‘do better’ and yet, some simple appreciation of our qualities was all it would have taken; we remember the teachers who did exactly that.
We seem to continue that attitude of comparison and competition in our adult working life, rather than learning to work in harmony and collaboratively in our workplaces. As a result there is considerable exhaustion, depression and anxiety as we fail to keep up with unrealistic expectations we have of ourselves.
I agree whole heartedly Richard – although there was time when I was younger that I would resist sitting at the table for a meal with my family I can fully appreciate now how amazing it was to have that as a foundation in my family. It’s a beautiful time to come together a value the relationships offer in family.
This is so true, Richard, when the TV is on or the smart phones are out, direct interaction with all members of a family becomes impossible, perhaps deliberately chosen to avoid the intimacy we truly need with each other.
The freedom that is on offer from Universal Medicine Therapies from our childhood issues that have plagued us is turning the world of healing upside down in a miraculous way. The truth of how we heal through connecting to a true understanding of our issues should be hailed from the rooftops.
Most if not all of us have missed not being educated with love, because if we were or had been then our entire world would not be the giant war field it is today with civil and country wars, racism, genocide, separatism, fundamentalism, nationalism, hatred, crime, refugee crises…and so on. The world we have today is down to the fact of love’s absence. Such is the power of love.
It is through the appreciation of our beingness that we get to feel we are so much more than our physicality and our connection with the universe is to be reignited so that we live our lives not carrying hurts from the past but instead living our future in service for the all.
Doug, I find it so hard to understand how it must have been for all those tender, sensitive boys to be packed off to boarding school to toughen up, especially when we hear about the awful bullying that goes on, and it makes me realise that, if most of our UK politicians were educated at schools where toughness and competition was celebrated, it is no wonder that so much of our politics seems to be love-less.
Yes, there is a basic foundation of love that is, I’m sure in all teachers, or at least as an intention when they start, but they seem to get so entrenched in the systems and statistics that there is not enough time left for what should in fact be given the first priority, i.e. developing a loving relationship that gives children the foundation of confidence to know that they are ok, regardless of the results they obtain.
Wow, that must have been devastating, from what I have heard the real love and care in such institutions is very minimal and a lot of children feel oppressed. I wonder what your relationship with your sister was like during those times, were you able to support each other?
As we grow up we learn so much from the outside world, we can either absorb it and use blame or we can observe it and deepen our understanding of life and what is really going on.
And may I add Samantha, that it makes such a difference to be able to observe and then respond to what ever life’s lessons are instead of the blame game.
“Both comparison and competition leave me feeling very tired, so it is something I have recently been learning to observe and let go of.” Comparison and competition are so normalised and accepted as part of life that we don’t see how they truly affect us.
I watched a tv programme a few years ago that followed the mum’s and children as the children started boarding school. What was most noteable was how quickly the relationships became functional and pleasant rather than the fluidity and ups and downs that had been present before the children moved to boarding school. A distance was created by the lack of everyday living together.
Yes, somehow we have to break this cycle of having to perform that loses us our innate ability to connect
But of course – any relationship needs time, commitment and a presence to be constantly developing it. When i was at boarding school, I saw my parents twice each term, got perhaps three or four letters from them and maybe spoke to them twice on the telephone. This is NOT enough to maintain a relationship. Not even close!!
We get so used to shutting ourselves off because it hurts when the love isn’t there, that when it does come along, we shut that out too, to avoid feeling the hurt.
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?”
What a great question, I’d love to see our leaders in education be open to exploring this topic and look at ways that can bring that into the system in a true and meaningful way.
‘Both comparison and competition leave me feeling very tired’ – This is really important, because both of these things are promoted as ‘positive’ and good to have a balance of in life, because they keep you on your feet and ‘ensure you’re always striving to be the very best’, but what a set up is it to always feel inadequate because there’s someone who has a better record, clothes, look, financial situation etc. than you, and this feeling of inadequacy often starts in school as you’ve shared.
Thank you Carmel for this great reminder of the importance of appreciation. it is such a great antidote for any of those stubborn self worth issues we hold onto that really don’t belong.
Boarding school is a very strange concept and one in the future will be banned because of its cruelty to children!
‘school is not the only part of our education’ in fact at this point in time it is non education if you look at the true meaning of education is to allow one to develop the qualities and expression they natural hold within.
In many ways we would all be a lot smarter if none of us went to school and were simply taught the science of life at home.
Thank you Carmel for such an open sharing of your history. An important reminder of how damaging distance can be, not the physical kind only but the feeling, connection kind as well. When we hold back from being us, it robs other people of this too and destroys trust that Love is real. Yes schools and traditional religions can operate oblivious to this, but really it’s down to us – do we accept a life like this or stand and stay open for something more intimate, caring and real?
I was sent to boarding school more for the religious aspect than education but whatever the reason it had the desired effect of toughening me up and shutting me down and taking me further away from tenderness. It cost my parents a fortune to send seven kids through boarding schools and they totally believed they were doing the best possible thing for us.
It always baffled me that a parent could send their child away and only see them for a few weeks of the year… like why have the child in the first place?
That’s a bit like why have a dog and then be out all day? In the 1950s having children was something people did after they got married – I don’t know how much thought goes into being a parent – certainly for some, schools are booked as soon as the child is born because education, wherever decided upon, is also considered a normal part of parenting – there are still very few children who are schooled at home in the ‘Western’ world.
Three of my siblings went to boarding school, and us younger 2 didn’t… the divide in our family was quite extraordinary… I had no idea where they all went to … they just disappeared from our lives, and then in the breaks , came back almost like aliens.
I can understand the alien feeling, Chris, I often wonder how it was for my older sister – she was sent off to boarding school less than a year after I was born and, like us, when we went six years later, only came home in the Summer holidays. We were all three farmed out to relatives, a farm, and other convent places with the same order of nuns. At half term we stayed on at school and that was fun because there weren’t so many of us and we took lots of liberties with the out of bounds rules. It was so weird going back as a speaker at their prize giving and walking in areas that were previously taboo, since the nuns are no longer there. It is still a Catholic school, but no nuns, just lay teachers.
Absolutely Carmel it has to be an ‘advantage’ to have a family environment that is constantly supportive. loving and encouraging, but the interesting question comes when we ask ourselves why we might not have, and what it is we are offered by way of reflection, life lessons to examine, and in what we have the potential to evolve as a result of what we do experience through our families. It is a rich playground that can stand us very firmly in life with a foundation for creating something deeply loving and meaningful in all our relationships.
It’s amazing how much competition and comparison riddles our lives and how some of this is compounded in the school yard. I remember always having a gauge of how well I was doing against my friends particularly in regards to my marks in my subjects. I also remember how I was constantly anxious, always had shaky hands and felt tired, showing just how far students can push themselves to get the best result and completely negating their health and wellbeing. But what is the cost of these results?
It is when we see the results and all grades and compare or judge ourselves that we then separate from how we are feeling from the body. It is then in that movement we disconnect from the one true constant in our lives and that is the love and wisdom held within. Offering children the space to simply be and connect to how they feel allows them to deepen their awareness of themselves and life too, which gives them a great gauge for life after school and it is a great living class that will continue for their whole lives.
I used to write down everybody’s marks – the other day I found a list of my sixth form classmates and their A Level results – at school I was in the top stream but about half way – never the top, never the bottom, and I was good at Physics and Maths, which didn’t have many girls studying, so we felt a bit elite. And then, when I went to University where I was the only girl in the Electronic Engineering yes, I feel great. I was totally identified with being ‘special’ which I now know to be meaningless as we are all equal. When I met my classmates at our 60th we were definitely all equal – we all had grey hair!
Your definition of being ‘fully’ educated is beautiful Carmel. Reading your blog highlights the amount of damage that is done from so early in childhood and how it happens without question. There have been cycle after cycle of harm lived by so many in the world and so to share about the growing awareness you have shows that it is never too late to return to that innate, loving and delicate being we all begin as. Thank you so much for sharing.
Our younger years set the scene for the rest of our lives. For many parents who grew up around the war years love was not the first and foremost thought in their parents lives it was about survival and getting food on the table. So for them when they grew up and became parents it was about the best way to make sure food was on the table and the best way to do this was by having a good education so that you were guaranteed a job money and security. Love was not part of the equation. I don’t think most parents would send their children away if they had been brought up with love being more important than education, especially one that takes us away from our family.
What a lot of people do not yet realise is that we can reimprint our entire childhood, we are not stuck with it, we can let go of the hurts in a way that they will never affect us again.
Yes, our education shows us how to live and it will be great when it comes from our essence and not from any mental system
‘So, how was life at boarding school? I can remember the good bits and tend to forget the bad bits, but I do recall that I was terrified of the nun who looked after us, and even more terrified of the Mother Superior. I survived by being a ‘good girl,’ always looking for acknowledgement from the teachers and nuns that I was “OK”‘. What you have described here Carmel goes for practically any school on earth. We all seem to have to learn to survive in school – some using the coping mechanism /reaction of rebellion and others choose the coping mechanism/reaction of ‘good’ – which is the one most teachers encourage as it makes their life easier – and having said that it is true that teaching is possibly one of the most difficult jobs that there is. It is up to each one of us to choose to be ourselves. How simple and how beautiful that we are open to choosing this once more.
I was drawn to read this article as recently I have had a few ‘random’ conversations with people about their experiences with boarding school. Even though the logical mind can understand that parents think they are doing the best for their child’s future by sending them to boarding school, the feeling child just wants to be held and know that it is deeply loved. Kids, who are sent off to boarding school miss out on this and I am wondering if the feelings of rejection or not being loveable can set up a life of underlying anxiety.
It’s so right that the foundation of our future is there is the love and intimacy we share with family. Of course we have the choice at any time to choose a loving way of being, but the support of a physically loving home cannot be bettered for setting us up to enjoy and thrive in life.
I was also sent to boarding school at a very young age, Carmel and can relate to much of what you have shared here. It was not a great experience for me either but I have been able to come to an understanding of why my parents sent me there. The education I received there was rigid and loveless and as a consequence I had little love for myself either. It has been so healing for me to be part of Universal Medicine and to have the opportunity to heal many of my hurts from the past and I am also learning to love and give amazing hugs.
I think that’s the point, Anne, because everyone was ‘rigid and loveless’ we had no reflections to learn from. In fact the nun who looked after us boarders probably was a lovely person but she would have been full of anxiousness about the responsibility of looking after us, afraid to show affection to any one more than another and all that would have laced her communications with us, so we too were anxious and held back.
There is very little that compares to an amazing hug, the depth of a loving hug can be felt deep within the depths of the universe.
True education should be far more focused on raising kids with love and a quality rather than our grades.
I agree Rebecca, but where’s the money in love and quality? Love and quality are a feeling, they can’t be measured and those who wish to control like to measure everything, so it will be many more years yet before they become the focus of our education system, but we are starting now…
How different, and loving, would our world be if our education system was encouraging children…”to be loving and open without fear so that no matter where they are, they can enjoy being beautiful, tender, expressive beings.”
As well as love being a focus of our education system, how would it be to encourage children to follow the impulses of their bodies, and to always have their body as their marker of what feels true for them.
And that could come from teachers who are also feeling in their bodies and allowing their innate body wisdom to guide what they choose to pass on, rather than working to a syllabus
It is remarkable that there is so much in society including schools and religion that set off with the notion that we need improving and bettering. So much push and drive towards this elusive carrot of becoming something that matches a picture, which we never ever reach.
Yet what I so love about what I have been learning with Universal Medicine is that we are absolutely glorious, divine and a ball of love already, yet there are a myriad of things (including the ideals and beliefs picked up from schools and religions!) that get in the way of us expressing that amazingness. The level of honouring, support and empowerment is stunningly different.
Here we all are, everything already, the absolute whole and complete Magnificence of God convincing ourselves every minute of every day that we are teeny tiny specs of humans who need to enrol in and investing in this, that and the other in order to become some diluted image of the human being we think we should be. It’s crazy. What a set up!
No amount of intellectual words can offer the love we seek… it is the quality of love that we feel and that deeply touches each and every one of us – it comes through when we touch another, look each other in the eye, hug… it is there as a presence long before any words are spoken.
This quality is very subtle and the more I allow myself to feel it, the more beautiful it gets. It is a feeling from deep within and is, as you say, a presence felt long before any words are spoken.
I too was sent to boarding school and we were also separated into houses that competed against each other, it’s strange how competition is seen as a healthy thing when it is just not and just cements separation.
Yes, everyone in any position of authority puts competition as healthy – in business, in nature, and in schools. Somehow we’ve got it all wrong – true equality is not fostered.
‘the missing ingredient is love and to meet the child for who they are. Until we start to recognise this neither our parenting nor our education system is ever going to hit the real mark.’ and you can add to our work based systems, our system of politics, our religions, in fact, everywhere, the missing ingredient is LOVE.
If we look at life from the perspective that we know everything as children, and that what we need is nurturing and caring then from that basis I see no room for an education system based on status and results, for it seems such a system as it currently exists diminishes that knowing and leaves many feeling unloved and unable to express the qualities that are naturally there, replacing it instead with modified behaviour chosen to fit in and cope.
The system does indeed diminish the child’s natural knowing and your words, ‘modified behaviour chosen to fit in and cope’ sum it all up really. Nothing about school education is natural. Even when you get a teacher who really cares, she or he still has to fit into the system and cope as best they can.
To learn how to open up my heart and let people in is the greatest education I could ever receive. From there, the natural intelligence of the Universe pours through.
Beautiful words, Vicky, thank you
I too have felt the tension in my body of knowing what it is to be intimate with others but denying that because I am protected. It’s awful. And I too am still breaking down these walls. Even though I love when someone comes up and gives me a hug and it feels so normal – but I still know how to play the game and hold back. And all because of a block or a hurt that I don’t want to deal with.
A great sharing Carmel on true education and what it can be showing ” the importance of loving all our children in full right from the start, spending time with them, expressing our love and appreciation to them, and encouraging them to be loving and open without fear so that no matter where they are, they can enjoy being beautiful, tender, expressive beings.” The world would be a very different place if we were all valued for who we are and the love shared would make all the difference.
Deconstructing our current relationship with education and then giving us a foundation to build a whole new framework, with our children and the wellbeing of humanity at its heart. Thank you, Carmel.
The word ‘education’ is loaded with assumptions of academia and study. But education has a much wider meaning to include all aspects of life. We can be educated every day in something if we are open to it. Learning how to live life in a way that is loving is an education as this is not something we see all around us. Universal Medicine offers such an education, and they also suggest that our biggest form of education is that which is to be had through our body. Our body is our teacher, and we can learn much by listening. This throws open the meaning of education from a cold narrow understanding to a holistic and spherical understanding that can change the way we see education forever.
‘Our body is our teacher, and we can learn much by listening.’ I agree, Rebecca, this needs to be a basic tenet of the way we bring up and ‘educate’ our children, so our bodies are our first port of call for any information.
There’s a strong ideal that the education we receive at school is greater than the education we receive at home and the education we receive in life. Separating education in this way, leaves us fragmented and not prepared within ourselves or in life.
It is 60 years since that first day at boarding school and the scars are only now truly beginning to heal…. Firstly, Carmel it’s amazing for you that your scars are beginning to heal, but secondly to consider that it has taken you 60 years to get to this point is quite startling….and then to consider that for the vast majority these scars never get healed. Your sharing shows just how damaging education can be whether we go to boarding school, or day school when we are not met and honoured for who we are we become very unstuck.
‘to consider that for the vast majority these scars never get healed’ That is a sobering thought, Rachel, how many older people with dementia are that way because of their education? How many people take the scars into their next life? The damage done by our education system, boarding schools, and family life can be far more serious and long-lasting than many of us realise. It is wonderful for schools to have teachers like you who do their best to meet and honour every child every day, and wonderful for the children to know that it is possible.
It really quite extraordinary that although practically all of us have experienced the horrors of the unloving education yet we have persisted in repeating it. Thankfully The Way of The Livingness is showing another way and because it is successfully loving and supports the individual to be in the world it will in time be the norm.
Yes, Jonathan, I have seen the confidence that youngsters have when their parents are students of Universal Medicine, they are brought up with a level of love and understanding that encourages them to express themselves in full.
In true education there is no comparison or competition, only an understanding and confirmation that we are already everything before we learn to read or write or learn a trade.
And then the learning to read, write and become skilled in a trade make so much more sense… a way to express the everything we already are and to simply live our potential.
It is a very interesting question about who we let ‘bring up’ our children. Do we step up to the plate and teach them all we know (through how we move, and how we love them), do we ask a school / institution to do it, or perhaps there are other ways – like allowing the TV to show them how it is done, or leaving it up to their peers with no other firm guidance. It’s a question that needs to be answered carefully, and it’s not even a question of the amount of time. Its all about the quality that we settle for.
I find it astonishing that people can let TV educate their children, but then we have the BBC books and ‘educational’ programmes. You cannot replace real people and human interaction because social skills are an important part of our education, whatever system we have set by our governments.
Indeed Richard, and we see in our societies that the price we have to pay for this irresponsible way of living is high, as for instance the medical health industry is heading towards bankruptcy and from their understanding there is no way to stop this. We need to accept that the current way we are living and have organised our societies have to change radically and one of the pillars to start with would indeed be our education system where children will learn to take care for themselves first by teaching them from the Ancient wisdom we come from.
We used to say that time will heal all of our wounds but is that true as what Carmel is sharing here in this blog indicates something completely different. Just leave our hurts and think them to be healed by time proved to be not the way to go, as in this case even 60 years later these wounds can still be found in the body and in our thoughts, restricting us in living our lives in the fullness we are and instead we accept living a life that is only a reduced version and limited in its expression.
Most of us do not realise we are living less that who we truly are – it is so easy to grow up with a feeling of not being good enough and education could go a long way to changing that attitude.
‘The way we measure and champion intelligence of the mind and education in our present system is not delivering whole body intelligence and is causing many of the problems we have in today’s world.’ Agreed, it is as if we are all having to ‘uneducate’ ourselves in order to discover our true intelligence!
No matter the family, school or community we are brought up in, the important thing is the ability to express the love that we are and the ability to connect with each other.
Yes, Jenny, I agree, connecting with each other is important. The British have a reputation for being stand-off-ish and it has taken me years to let people in – I still struggle with being fully open at times.
Carmel, alone the thought of a 6 or 7 year old not getting hugs seems like child abuse to me. How can we ever think boarding schools are a good idea, isn’t it placing education ahead of love?
I guess that when you have parents who can’t feel love, then providing a good level of education is a way of showing love for your children.
And I love my developing understanding of this. That learning is a forever ongoing activity in which, the more I surrender, the more I learn… what is not to love?
I love this exploration of education and its purpose. As a teacher I feel we are currently way off track but am also frequently inspired by the life changing impact of the most fleeting moments of connection, when a child knows through and through that someone has met, honoured and really understood them.
Yes, I agree, Matilda, it is beautiful to feel at any age, when we are truly met and understood.
I love this Matilda, as what you are saying is that even though we cannot change the educational system at once, those who are part of it can change their focus and make connection the most important part of their job.
It is only through being connected to our body that we can offer another true connection and that connection is in turn registered by their whole body.
‘Mental’ intelligence can bring an arrogance of belittling another which I always used to play victim to thinking others were more intelligent than I was but this was simply a game I played to be small. There will always be those that regard themselves as more intelligent than I and there will always be those that regard themselves as less intelligent than I but whatever situation I find myself in it is not about comparison but about being and expressing the love I am.
So many of us measure how open we are in families, if they support what I think, if they do this, if they don’t do that, then….I will be okay and say I love them or that they are good enough, it is much more political within families than many of us would like to admit. How often have we felt excepted for exactly who we are without any ‘yeah buts’. There are no judgements here, we all do what we can, and most of us parents continue with the habits that our parents installed in us….however we can break the patterns when we choose to. New foundations of love and acceptance can be established and then the family, the children will flourish.
This is beautiful, Samantha, that children will flourish with new foundations of love and acceptance. Children are so wise, many parents would do well to listen.
Because life is a one living school, with each day repeating itself so that we may learn more and more, there is always the opportunity to give to ourselves what has perhaps been missed – therefore you can catch up on all your missed hugs now as it is never too late to let people in and to have dearly loving relationships.
Agreed, Shami, it is never too late to let go of the hurts and to open ourselves up to loving relationships with everyone.
This is a great point Carmel: ‘It is 60 years since that first day at boarding school and the scars are only now truly beginning to heal. It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education’. Time does not heal – sometimes things fade over time and just get buried, but the hurt and the scar is still there from the ‘past’. Time is simply a measurement of us going around the sun. As you indicate, healing is a movement towards feeling again the hurt of what happened, understanding the situation without reactiveness, and then coming back to oneself.
Hi Lyndy, it is interesting to realise that in some cases the healing is instant the second we are able to let go of our old hurts. Hanging on to them in a reactive, emotional way is simply being indulgent. Our salvation lies with us, living as a victim is not conducive to a healthy lifestyle.
You mentioned that in school you were encouraged to compare and compete. I’ve never realised that that’s exactly what does go on. It’s the same in our adult life also. Forever striving to be better than the person next to you and it’s so welcomed and encouraged and even fact expected. Being the best at everything is always the end goal….but what does it actually leave us with?
Elodie, it leaves us with the feeling that we are not enough
I never went to boarding school, but did go to a private school for a couple of years, where I learnt how to harden myself to other boys, where communication was by way of fist and ridicule. It could be said that this hardened us to cope with life. I agree, it did harden us, but whether it prepared us for life would definitely be questionable. For if hardness was key to getting through life, then why do young and middle aged men have the highest rates of suicide in society?
Hi Adam, I have never heard of the ‘fist and ridicule’ description before but it explains a lot, that physical survival depends on your ability to be hard, and it begs the question about how our mental health can be after that kind of bullying, hence the high suicide rate amongst young and middle age men, who are in truth tender beings living against their natural qualities.
As a child we used to give our parents a hug and a kiss good night, and then it was reduced to a kiss and eventually an awkward quick peck on the cheek, and then it was as if we were too old for any of that and the ritual stopped – accepted on both sides as the normal thing to do. Then as my parents got older I used to make a point in giving them a big hug and a kiss like I used to – it felt like we had gone full circle.
Full circle with a wilderness in the middle. Madness really that we withdraw from an intimacy that is totally natural to us.
We all know that love is something we need, the variety that is unconditional, unwavering and constant in its delivery. Without it we are like plants starved of regular water and we wither and don’t bloom fully. To consider that we can grow in an education system and thrive without love then we are missing a huge trick in the book. Even through, we all crave it, we underestimate love as a tool to support learning. Without it do we really stop and consider the harm we are doing?
One of my regrets was that at age 16 I applied for an international boarding school but I didn’t get selected. My life would probably have taken quite a different turn. However, going through the selection procedure and learning how I responded was very valuable later on.
Considering that so many of our current leaders in the UK at least are schooled through private education and often boarding school, it is little wonder that we have a political and banking system that is utterly heartless. The two are most definitely a reflection of one another. I can only imagine the level of toughness that needs to be developed, and the coping mechanisms put in place to deal with boarding school where there is no relief from the tension of a school day among classmates. Does the bullying seen in such schools mirror the bullying we see in corporate life and more and more towards the consumer?
Interesting thought, Stephen, that like begets like, so our lawmakers are perpetuating the system they themselves experienced
Beautiful Carmel what a great reflection of what true education Is and ” the importance of loving all our children in full right from the start, spending time with them, expressing our love and appreciation to them, and encouraging them to be loving and open without fear so that no matter where they are, they can enjoy being beautiful, tender, expressive beings.” This would revolutionise the world and insure we are all met for who we truly are in the future. Amazing !
I agree, Tricia, the world will indeed be a different place when we all meet each other in our essence as the beautiful, tender beings we all are
I went to boarding school from the age of seven. The biggest effect it had on me was that I became an expert at coping, at managing, at putting on a mask, at going solo, at being OK. In fact I became so expert at this that I didn’t even realise that I was doing it. That was until I came across Universal Medicine and slowly began to peel back the layers to reveal the exquisite tenderness and fragility that I, as all men do, have in absolute abundance and it is this that makes me the amazing that I am. I bear no grudges against these schools or my parents for sending me there – they knew no different, I am simply deeply appreciative of what has been re-awakened in me.
That is beautiful, Otto, and the point you make about bearing no grudge is important too, everybody was doing their best to care for us
One thing I can say about being sent to boarding school is that although it made me tough, I did make some amazing friendships that stood the test of time, when I went back to NZ recently I caught up with quite a few at one place, no one had really changed in over thirty years and my true friends have no problem with me not drinking alcohol and still accept me for who I am.
I didn’t go to boarding school but I can say the same about my friends from that time even though I left more than 30 years ago.
Education does indeed need an overhaul if we are to bring up our children to be self supporting in the world, offering an expression of love to all equally. The education doesn’t just happen in schools, though – we are all responsible for the children in our lives whether they are in our family or just live nearby – we are their role models and can inspire them by how we live.
Thank you Carmel for a great sharing, one I can relate to in some ways; though I did live at home I never felt loved by my parents who were not big on hugs and this I greatly missed. Your following words I can relate to feeling the same “the Catholic upbringing, left me with a few emotional scars, such as feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right.” The good and the right ruled my life until I had come to the understanding that I am “okay” by just being me, this was huge in accepting myself with love for the tender beautiful woman I am coming to know and feel.
Great sharing Carmel, as always, I love your writing. Indeed education has lost it’s way, despite the many well meaning teachers working very hard. And of course, it’s not just about teachers and schools, it’s also about what we live in our homes, like you describe, even when the family was back together, there was a lack of connection there, evident. This lack of connection is what the younger generation is rebelling against, and in their reaction they turn to drugs and alcohol, promiscuous behaviours, or many many different forms of self-abuse. We are not more because of our degrees; they are needed in the temporal sense to qualify for a chosen career, but without the real person, there can still be a huge emptiness. Education has forgotten that the most important ingredient is the quality we choose to live, day by day, from our heart, and the love we allow to flow out from our hearts to each other; that is what we all desire and are made of.
I also like very much what you say here Carmel: ‘It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.’ Healing takes effort and a choice to let go, and to take responsibility for our part in whatever happens and has happened. You have come a long way Carmel! I always love seeing you pop up, anywhere; the love and openness I feel from you is so beautiful.
Carmel I agree that its time to re-define what education is all about, how we are educated and what the purpose is. If we support each other to be and life in the fullness of connection to our essence, that quality that we feel inside, then we will naturally learn what is needed to support us to express that essence in our profession, work and family life.
You make a valid point, Ingrid – we may blame our parents for the things they did to us or for us as children, but the understanding that they were only doing their best, what they thought was good for us, helps us to be less angry with them. Like when I met the nun who had looked after us, she was just a frail old lady who was still looking after children, this time in the outside world, in the local community. She was in her 90s when I last saw her, and it made me wonder why I was so afraid of her when I was younger.
It is understandable Carmel that growing up in the environment you did, with long periods of separation from your parents, that it had such a huge impact on your life. I know that your parents would have considered that they were doing the best for you and your siblings, and many other parents at that time would have considered it as being the normal thing to do. How wonderful that you didn’t rely on time to heal the ‘scars’ from this time of your life, but that you have taken the responsibility for the healing of all these experiences into your own loving hands.
I love the understanding and no blame here. This approach leaves us free to gather up our hurts and take all the steps required to heal them.
Many of us developed a hard shell to keep out what we felt was loveless although we may not have been aware of doing so. It then takes a conscious effort or at least a dedication to strip away those layers of protection and allow the love to shine again and be felt in our bodies. I can’t help but feel appreciation for those Italian maids who were there giving you hugs as a little girl. Physical warmth and tenderness are hugely important for all of us.
This goes to show how important adults are in our lives, even the cleaners can play a role in child care –
Exactly Carmel. The education we receive comes from every angle. Every person, should they choose to live truly lovingly, is educating with their every move.
How the elderly currently live out their lives depends a lot on how they lived their earlier years – I know some who are totally engaged with their community and/or their grandchildren and live pretty sprightly to the end, and yet others disappear into a morose way of living that is bent, hopeless and not even with memories to sustain them in cases of dementia. ‘Care’ home may look after their physical needs, but if the staff are tired and overworked as well, where is the true care? We have a lot to change ahead of us in terms of how we look after our elderly and in how we ourselves move into our elder years with awareness of what is possible.
I think some of Darwin’s theories can be blamed for that – survival of the fittest and all that, but competition does not foster Brotherhood, which can be far more nurturing and better for our growth and our health.
I think we need both connection and education at home and at school in the sense that it really takes a whole community to raise children.
I love the saying that it takes a whole community to raise a child – we are all responsible for all the children in our lives because we provide the role models for them in all walks of life
You make a good point about the separative values taught at boarding school. Many schools do have international pupils but only from families with money – we do not learn to accept people who live on the street as fellow human beings. We were taught about the poor in India and would engage in projects to support them, but that aspect of ‘do gooding’ was perhaps not truly about understanding their culture but bringing them into ours.
I imagine it must be challenging for the people in charge of boarders to maintain a loving approach when they are responsible for other people’s children. The care tends to be formalised whereas in large families, the older siblings naturally look after the younger ones.
When we can express the love that is within us, then it is easier to recognise it within others whether or not it is expressed
I did not go to Boarding School myself, but both my sisters did when they were 5 and 8 years old, during WW2. I recognise the way it influenced their choices and behaviour, and therefore how it resulted in ill health and eventually for the younger one, an uncomfortable and painful dying. The issues were never really dealt with, and therefore both carried a lot of hurt throughout their lives.
“I felt unlovable and instead of being open and friendly with everyone, I created a hard shell of mistrust and a spikiness that stopped anyone from feeling my true vulnerability, including me.”
Gosh how i can relate to these words Carmel, boarding school taught me how to cope, how to internalise my feelings and suppress my natural expression, to get by i moulded myself into the class jocker, this bought me friends and presented a perfect decoy to the deep sadness i felt inside.
I recognise becoming the class joker – in that way we are in control of the laughter – and the pretence that all is well.
Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’.’ – Great Carmel – this rings true. Being better is a trick of competition and comparison. Where is the truth in that. What you share here is a tender, loving and open woman who sees that the worth she holds is so much more than her knowledge.
‘Being better is a trick of competition and comparison’ and these two words encompass much of how our society runs, constantly comparing ourselves and what we have with others so that we want more, without valuing what we already have inside.
“What I bring is more than my brain’s intelligence and what I know; I bring a warmth, love, tenderness, and caring for all humanity that was never taught at school, or even in the Catholic Church.” How important this statement is. The warmth, love, tenderness and caring for humanity is so much more important than any knowledge that we can bring. Everything else can be learnt, but these qualities are within us and need to be honoured and shared as a basis for anything else.
This is HUGE ‘It is 60 years since that first day at boarding school and the scars are only now truly beginning to heal. It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education’ How many people in the world in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s carry scars to do with their childhood. Their whole life is affected and hurts from many years ago are still being carried and running lives. It is absolute craziness but if we do not truly know how to heal this then it cannot be done. I have been on many many different courses and it is only the the teachings and modalities brought and held by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that have helped me to truly understood and heal many issues I had not been able to previous heal in my life.
When you talk about people in their 20s, 30s and 40s dealing with hurts from boarding school, or school generally, it begs the question about why people get divorced, is it because having school-age children brings up stuff from their own childhoods and without any understanding of what is going on, mums and dads are at loggerheads with each other?
Physical Education (PE) would have a whole new meaning if it took into account teaching stillness and feeling our body instead of learning about competitive sport.
There is a big mistake the current education system is making, its approach is to deliver education in a way that is asking children and teenagers to take on something to make them better… but according to what? To what is already established in the world? Which yes our systems need in order to be maintained – but from the system that is also promoting nationalism? Is exploding with illness and disease and now Mental illness is massive. A simple observation of a child will show how they bring magic to whatever they do and learn at an exponential rate, and this should be applied to education – to remain confirming of that so the next generation doesn’t end up winding up like the last and making the same mistakes.
Hi Harrison, I wonder if there has been any research to link early schooling and family life with mental illness. We may assume it is something we are born with, but is it possible that much of the mental illness people are suffering from is to do, not just with parenting but also with early years schooling?
‘When families do not freely express their love for one another, it does not provide a great foundation for us in the future.’ For how many families is this a true statement, Carmel? A little bit scary to feel the extent and the number this applies to! When we look at how we function in society…just getting by and getting through life…its easy to see we haven’t walked on solid foundations.
‘just getting by and getting through life’ and we think that this is OK. It is very sad that we do not see immense joy and great vitality as normal.
“These days I don’t need so many acknowledgements from anyone outside of myself… because I can enjoy simply being me.” Love the feeling of simplicity in this Carmel… when we are constantly looking outside ourselves, seeking recognition and confirmation of who we think we should be, life becomes very complicated and exhausting. To live by simply being ourselves, from our innate inner wisdom and truth, offers a simple and yet very loving way of being in the world that needs nothing from another.
We complicate our lives when we design our own behaviour around what we think other people will like, and, as you say, Paula, it is very exhausting. It is so much simpler to give ourselves permission to be all that we are in every way possible.
How inspiring Carmel to come full circle… from the gorgeousness, delight and joy we are all born with, to the guarded and protected prickle, and back to the gorgeousness of you again – and to be totally ok and accepting of this whole journey that still continues to this day.
I absolutely agree Paula. Carmel’s story is deeply inspiring and shows us that no matter what trauma or hurts we carry through our lives, it is never too late to address and heal them, leaving us free and unburdened to live the rest of our lives open and willing to look at whatever arises, in the knowing that we are and always will in truth be magnificent and gorgeous.
This is true, Sandra, it is never too late – I have met ladies in their 70s and 80s who are just beginning their journeys of healing, and they are inspiring to spend time with.
Loving our children for who they are, offers them the opportunity to welcome more responsibility when they are asked to bring more. When we build relationships based on a loving and playful way there is so much more understanding that can be then shown when they are moments of resistance or challenges along the way.
I agree, perhaps we underestimate the support a loving start can provide in developing self-supporting strength for the future.
I find myself really sitting with this bit Carmel “It is 60 years since that first day at boarding school and the scars are only now truly beginning to heal. It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.” It takes time and space for us to become aware of the scars that influenced us throughout our lives. If our normal was to champion the head and intelligence and not place any importance on love and the wisdom of the body then that is how it is till we have a reflection of how delicious and healing love is.
So many parents of the children in the centre where I work say, they are not like this at home, we can’t get them to do that at home when I tell them how their day was. So why the contradiction to how they are at the centre as opposed to how they are at home? Enter, emotional love and ideals and beliefs around what your parenting should be. If we had a one true model based on each one of us being enough without any doing and being met as equals, we would not buy into bringing up children from our needs and insecurities, then children would know and trust in themselves much more and would probably even take control of their learning and development feeling into what they truly need from their own inner wisdom and guidance.
This is a good point you make, Julie, that the impact on children of our own insecurities and needs is often not taken into account. In my experience children are innately incredibly wise and we adults could learn a lot from observing them – their clarity of expression, their willingness to learn and their open hearts that offer so much love.
What is the point of a developed mind when we don’t know how to look after ourselves? We need to totally review how we educate our young and become spherical in how we approach the needs.
I agree, Vanessa, when you see the amount of self harm that school children and college students are indulging in, it begs the question, what are we actually teaching our children when we focus on academic achievements and ignore the fact that they are human beings who need to live in love and harmony with themselves and each other?
When our thoughts are the bi-product of the energy that we have aligned to then what really is a ‘developed mind’. A ‘developed mind’ is in itself the result of the energy that’s impulsing it and so the only relevant question is ‘which form of energy has developed the mind?’. Having a developed mind that has been sculpted by the Astral consciousness won’t benefit anyone or anything, much better in fact to have a mind that hasn’t been developed but is impulsed by the divine consciousness.
“School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.” what may become clear is that as we put emphasis on quality of life, on commitment to life and on supporting children to remain with their inner connection the need and the use of boarding schools as we know it today will cease. I certainly feel the importance of this having been completely confused by going to boarding school and having to heal the hurts over many years.
This is true, DN, if going to Boarding School means we have to spend the rest of our lives unpicking the damage done to us and our ability to live in harmony with ourselves and everybody else, then it is a complete waste of time. Our education system generally seems to have the focus on achieving results, not on supporting children to be social, all-round healthy members of our society. It is especially damaging when those who cannot conform to the system get castigated and punished mostly for simply being themselves.
I remember having friends come over in our teens for a sleep over, and I got to see how little love and affection they where shown at home, something i took for granted as a normal part of family life, having hugs and displays of love and appreciation were a rare thing and i couldn’t help wondering if this was a fact when they then started getting into messy situations with boys later on, craving that attention.
Yes, Rebecca, I think you are right, I know that my craving for my father’s attention led me into relationships that were unhealthy because I was craving attention from men. It was only after 6 years of Inner Child counselling that I realised this and cleaned up my act, so to speak. Now, with the support of Universal Medicine practitioners I have been able to look back without shame and begin to feel the love that is truly in me so that I can appreciate it in everyone I meet.
Busting the confines of our current education systems and beliefs around what education is… this is super important, Carmel, thank you.
‘Can an education away from the parental home be truly supportive in developing us as fully rounded human beings? School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.’ …. I believe one day there won’t be as much separation as there is today between school, home, work, friends …. there will be a consistency in the way we are with each other, irrespective of whether we are at home, school, work – we won’t be any less or more in any one place or with a certain group of people, we will be living in the fullness of who we truly are. This way of living is our natural way and will be so again, however, right now there is a disparity in the way we are ‘treated’ and accepted at home as opposed to at school, and the nurturing element that we feel at home, that may not exist in the same way at school, is very important to support us in being comfortable being who we are, as opposed to us feeling we need to be a certain way, or meet certain expectations or grades to feel we are ‘equal’.
The name Education system implies that we are teaching our children things that they don’t already know. Yet, in truth, school doesn’t need to be about knowledge as we all have access to the same wisdom, through our connection to our soul and the Universe. Because our Education system is currently in denial of this truth, the very system that is supposed to be ‘teaching’ our children is often actually reducing them to be so much less than they innately are by teaching them to think in a linear way, when everything in life is spherical – just as our earth circles the sun each day. I feel one day school will be all about nurturing our children to live the fullness of who they are by learning more about the Universal support that is all around us, such as the constellations of the stars and the many ‘masters’ who have lived on this planet before us.
For me, school was a place of rules, expectations, discipline and consequences …. I loved being at school with my friends, but always felt rather militant towards the ‘system’ and authority. Maybe this was in reaction to the love-less-ness and for only being seen for what I could or couldn’t do, as opposed to who I truly was/am. In the same way that children generally rise to any responsibility they are given, if they are met and seen for the potential of who they truly are and what they have to offer, they will feel a pull to be this. We have the potential to have an education system which is about nurturing our children to be their true selves as opposed to reducing themselves to regurgitating what is required of them to get a tick in the box. When we bring our education system in line with the Divine Universal flow, we will indeed all understand and appreciate what true wisdom is.
From what I’v seen of the current education system, it seems to be more about the system and less about love, even though teachers know and feel that love and nurturing are essential for a child’s growth, there is a pressure to conform and perform that is, in truth, totally unnatural, and creates unnecessary stress and then the children won’t truly learn anything because everyone is so stressed by the system. It doesn’t make sense.
Thank you, Michelle, and I love what you write, that: ‘To me it is a fundamental human right that children are cherished no matter where they live, or with who and to be recognised for the gorgeousness that they are.’ to know that you, as a teacher carry that with you into the classroom and live that with your pupils as well as with your own family children, is in itself inspiring.
Being educated to truly love and let love in is the greatest education we can receive.
I agree, Richard, sensitive AND wise is a good way for us to accept our children
One of my siblings went to boarding school when we lived in Germany. It always felt very strange to go and visit for the day and then leave her behind, and even though she put a brave face on it, it was clear to see that she was unhappy.
Yes, it is tricky when some siblings are at boarding school and the others not – it breaks up the family in an unnatural way
So true Carmel… these decisions do break families up in an unnatrual way. My mother’s older two sisters and younger sister went to boarding school but my mother didnt – and she never knew why. It upset everyone on all sides – my mother felt there was something wrong with her/not good enough etc, and her sisters were resentful they had to go and jealous of her for being allowed to stay home. Fortunately there was a strong bond between them all throughout their younger years which brought them back together as adults.
Traditional education forces children into the energetic equivalent of cattle stalls. It rail roads precious individual sons on God and batters them into submission. So ferociously does our education system do this that our children lose their connection to God to such an extent that it is erased from their conscious memory.
Yes, despite Catholics being all about God, our school was more about academic achievement, and the true aspects of God and us being Sons of God expanding the Universe never really came into it.
The education I did not get from boarding school was to be confident in being open-hearted and to express myself with love and tenderness. It is many, many years after school through the loving support I receive from the ‘school’ of Universal Medicine and The Way of The Livingness that am I now re-learning to do so. Re-learning because I did that naturally before I went to school.
‘to be confident in being open-hearted and to express myself with love and tenderness’ this is such an important part of our communication with our fellow human beings, it is sad that we are not encouraged in this at any school, boarding or not.
Hi Jane, I’m sure things have improved with less secrecy, and perhaps boarding schools are more open nowadays, but it also highlights the lack of love in families that is behind closed doors.
Why was it that over the holidays I completely forgot everything I learned in class the term before but felt so much more alive, expanded and joy-full.. because when we connect to the universe we don’t retain knowledge, we only use knowledge to serve when it is needed. And In thinking of this I remember how I was a master of play.
And schools are sometimes behind the times in terms of what industry needs in its new recruits – I remember learning Latin at school and wondering why but in those days if you wanted to do a medical degree you needed to have learned Latin. I didn’t need Latin for Engineering, but in our Physics A Level lessons we never got around to some of the syllabus that could have been useful and important preparation for the electronics degree that I undertook. Even at University we covered a lot of theoretical stuff – the practical stuff was only gained with work experience.
What is expected of schools and teachers is increasing more and more and why is this? Is this because there is a real lack of responsibility when it comes to parenting?
It would be great if schools could replicate the warmth, holding and connection that they should receive at home. Sadly at times education has become more about preparing children to pass assessments and homes in some cases equally empty of that warmth and cherishing.
And teachers to want to make time for that warmth and caring are not recognised for what they contribute to a child’s confidence levels and ability to work
Thank you for sharing Carmel how you experienced boarding school. I know for some other people that there was such a distance and lack of being met at home that going to boarding school was a relief and that they were at times more supported at school from friends and teachers. It just highlights how we all need connection and to be met, equally at home, school and in life.
Yes, I have met a few people who actually wanted to attend boarding school and I will admit there is a camaraderie you experience there that perhaps is not so available at home.
Education is so much more than just our schooling. We’re constantly learning as we go through life, and if we think that our learning stops when we leave school, we’re reducing ourselves and our potential. It never stops, and with that, there are endless possibilities for our evolution and expansion.
That’s true, Bryony, I love meeting people who have the attitude of ‘Well you can always learn something’. When life is providing us with rich reflections in every moment, we are being irresponsible when we ignore their meaning.
It is great to know and acknowledge just how much our childhood experiences can influence our daily lives as adults.
All of life should be seen as an educational experience. Perhaps then we would be less likely to fall for the illusion that life can be bettered merely via the application of good education.
I agree, Adam, we are constantly surrounded by reflections: from Nature and from the people around us, and even within our own bodies. I don’t remember at school ever being invited to spend a few minutes tuning into my body each morning, or being invited to ‘breathe gently’. Such simple gestures can help us to feel the world around us.
And then we would be constantly open to whatever is being offered. We seem to have some kind notion that by a certain age we should be the fully-formed-finished-article, which closes us off to the constant pull of evolution, which is in essence is simply re-learning what we already knew.
What is sadly missing in our society is true education, we have settled for a lesser form and a very mental approach to eduction that reduces and negates the innate wisdom and divinity we are all from.
I have heard of many who have gone to boarding school and while their experience has never been one they enjoyed and may say that boarding school is not a nice experience, it is important to still understand that many have had to send children to boarding school simply because of the situation they were in etc. these institutions will change in the future but it starts with each one of us building the foundations of love within our family once again.
I didn’t attend boarding school and grew up at home, nevertheless my parents were not able to express love and I missed out on all the warm hugs too. However, my parents were Irish catholic and just has you have highlighted Carmel, the catholic church makes us out to be sinners and not good enough. For years I believed this and was always searching for ways to ‘improve’ my life and myself. Only when I met Serge Benhayon and the Ageless Wisdom have I been able to clear and truly heal my past which I have been busy with over a number of years.
Just lately I’ve been realising that I’ve boarded up my inner child. When I think back to that 4,5,6 year old me who naturally felt so much in a truly sensitive way, who smiled, laughed and cried without thinking what others would think, I can’t help but feel it’s a crime that I cut myself off from being this way. We say we grow up but you could more accurately put it that we deform and mutate when we try to conform. What a healing it is when finally let ourselves expresss, freely like a kid. Thank you Carmel for inspiring me and showing that this return can be done.
I agree, Joseph, it is great when we can shake off the shackles and allow ourselves to be playful, not to worry what others might think, not to feel we have to confess our sins, because we are not committing any, but to simply be, feel freely and express what we feel with joy and with a clarity and honesty that comes from deep within
In education, whilst we make the sole priority about academic achievement we will produce adults that lack self -esteem, have low self-worth and withdraw from life. The knock-on effect of this is huge with a feeling of giving up and without a full commitment to life we produce a workforce that cannot wait to get to the weekend. In a recent study, last year, 45 million working days LOST due to stress, anxiety and depression…. that’s not even physical illness! Surely the root of this problem lies within our education system? For if we nurtured, cared for and honoured each individual for who they are alongside learning…would this not change the cycle for how we as adults feel about ourselves, how we respond to life and how we respond to work?
It is easy to see how being sent away at such a young age would leave a lasting impression, and affect a person’s life in ways that would not necessarily be evident, unless true healing is sought, such as is given by Esoteric Practitioners.
Over the years I have come across many people with horrific stories from their childhood who have healed themselves with the assistance of attending Universal Medicine courses and seeing an Esoteric Practitioner, and then setting the course of their lives on a different path – just as you have done Carmel.
When we are not supported and held in truly loving relationships whilst we are young we then started looking out for the love we miss from disconnecting to ourselves as a result. Holding our children in love and appreciation supports them to choose not to disconnect from the knowing that they are this for themselves.
The beauty of education that truly makes us’ fit for life’ is constantly presented in an amazing package by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Yes, Serge Benhayon presents a full package of ‘How to’ based on our own inner access to the Ageless Wisdom and it covers all aspects of our lives.
Hugging each other, caring for each other, being open with each other. What an education that is! It is something we don’t usually get taught, especially in an educational establishment. But these are the basic things of life. It makes no sense to not give them any importance.
Hugs in any establishment are not allowed these days with the fear of paedophilia being so rife, which is sad, so much can be supported with a big hug
Ridiculous really when you consider the fact that the majority of child abuse happens within families where hugging happens as a matter of course. I’m not saying that we should veto hugging in families, what I’m saying is that preventing people from hugging each other outside of families won’t stop child abuse. Teaching children to be honest and to read energy and to speak up will however go a long way to supporting them to be able to protect themselves.
Competition is insidious and I’m pretty sure it isn’t just a general opinion but true that anyone who has been exposed to competition as part of the requirements of ‘education’ is also living protecting themselves from criticism and judgment. When babies are born and their newness and potential are joyfully emanating from their very being – could we imagine saying to them ” in a few years you will be off to school and being measured and pitted against everyone else to see who is the best or worst at something”!
Having spent time at boarding school since I was young also run by nuns and priests and feeling the coldness and separation so deeply and also from family in different ways finding Serge Benhayon and the way of the livingness from the first moment it was so beautiful to be presented with pure love and all this comes with and this resonated within my whole body and allows my own growth and expansion with this as a way of living also. True education comes from within us in connection with the all.
‘True education comes from within us in connection with the all.’ Beautiful words, Tricia, and so true, there is a beauty within us that the imposition of current teaching methods does not give space for us to discover for ourselves.
And it is these children that grow up and become the adults who struggle to communicate love in relationships, who have children and perpetuate the cycle, often defaulting to showing love through providing for their children, rather than expressing the love we all want from day 1.
…And some of them spurn the whole idea of parenthood or, as you say, simply make sure their children are provided for, but the true love and attention is not there.
“What I bring is more than my brain’s intelligence and what I know; I bring a warmth, love, tenderness, and caring for all humanity that was never taught at school, or even in the Catholic Church” – what a statement of truth Carmel, appreciating the qualities we bring, over what we know via intellect, that alone has got us nowhere close to the beauty and intelligence of the heart and body.
‘the beauty and intelligence of the heart and body.’ Beautiful words, Zofia
Through your sharing Carmel it shows me the importance of being totally there with kids. Your experiences happened at a time where technology had not taken over our lives, now even today we might not be sending kids off to boarding school but we are sending them to their rooms with ipads and letting them get on with it. But I can see the harm in this and the lack of true connection we present our children with when we put technology before them. I have a baby and I can see how she clocks when we are on the computers and not with her. So we have such an important role as parents to be with your kids in full so they don’t have to feel like the are not met or enough.
Even dogs are aware when we are paying them attention or when we are distracted with our own thoughts. As for children, we didn’t have the technology, but we had a video recorder and I recorded hours of cartoons that kept the kids quiet when they were up too early in the mornings. It is a game of balance – I went back to work when my children were just 6 and 4 months old respectively and we had a live in nanny Monday – Friday while I was at work. I’m not sure what effect that has had on them now they are adults in their own right.
Carmel for me going to boarding school was a major shock and caused me to feel deeply traumatised; with the support of Universal Medicine I’ve certainly healed so much of this hurt if not all of it. What I am then left with is how little boarding school or school for that matter missed out teaching us the real keys to life, the nurturing and fostering of that innate feeling; and knowing inside is vacant from current education is the answer to the worlds problems.
When I think of what I did learn – it was a Catholic school, so I used to go to early morning mass, I enjoyed singing in the choir, I enjoyed art and the nun who taught that was a lovely person. I enjoyed the science, I learned to write Italic handwriting very nicely, I learned the intricacies of English Grammar, I learned that when you bother to apologise, you get let off detention, I learned that if you muck about playfully you get into trouble. We had to eat everything on our plates and since leaving school I’ve enjoyed leaving grotty bits on the side. The grounds were superb, I loved sitting on the grassy bank amongst the daffodils in the Spring, or playing house amongst the lime tree roots. I enjoyed roller skating, but often fell and bruised my knees, which was great because then I had an excuse to not kneel in church. There are lots of memories, but it is significant that the warmth of the people caring for us was limited to just a few, not all.
“I loved sitting on the grassy bank amongst the daffodils in the Spring, or playing house amongst the lime tree roots.”, Carmel you have stirred such beautiful memories in me. Such simplicity, such beauty, so much of God in the glory of the moment.
Boarding schools are an interesting quirk of society, born out of a perceived need but used too often as a way to remove children from the parent’s lives.
That is an interesting comment, Joel, rather like people who buy a dog and then leave it on its own all day so that they can play with it when they get home.
The strongest education that boarding school teaches is to numb your emotions.
Yes, Jonathan, that is very true, and I can still, 60 years later call on that expertise to numb what I feel, although in a new relationship I am learning to be more honest and open and not bury anything.
What a blessing to us all that you didn’t rely on time to be the great healer it isn’t! The wisdom of how to be with our children isn’t brought through by burying our hurts. As a child I could see time hadn’t healed the childhood hurts of the adults around me.I sensed then that people say ‘time heals’ because they don’t know how to deal with what is there and it’s the most comforting phrase on offer. I too am so appreciative of Universal Medicine for offering the support in my path back to being unprotected and openly expressive of the love I am.
I often wonder why people bother having children if they send them away to be raised somewhere else and take no part in the raising of them to be adults – but I also understand that in society as it currently stands, we pressure people into feeling like children is something they need to have and have made becoming an adult seem like something we all should do or need to do, rather than seeing it as the biggest undertaking of responsibility because the way you raise your child is the adult you will deliver into the world.
Definitely it was the ‘norm’ – you got married, you had children, and these days there is less pressure on young women who have more choice. But whatever the reason for people having children, they are still responsible for encouraging those children to achieve their true potential. The ‘norm’ is intellectual, but what society truly needs is a generation of children who feel confident to be themselves, who truly care about humanity and who feel confident to express what they feel. I’m not sure our current education system does that.
Yes, Elizabeth, I know many such stories of adults still suffering the hurts of boarding school. It is an awful system of education that is stuck in the dark ages of child rearing.
Education needs to be rewritten from the ground up by people who live what they speak.
Wow Carmel, I always find it incredible to hear someone’s story, there’s so much to understand about what makes us the way we are. There is no question for me that our greatest points of inspiration and reflection in our early formative years are usually our parents… I cannot even imagine what it’s like to manage to hold onto the lovely gentle beings we start out as when the environment around us is not supportive of that the majority of the time.
What must the effect of being ‘terrified’ of someone have on our ability to learn? When we are terrified of another then our body basically goes into a series of automatic reactions, erratic breath, inability to concentrate, a jangley nervous system, feelings of panic, desire to flee, sweating etc. Hardly conducive to learning! Using fear to get kids to learn is an outdated strategy that has to go.
Fear is definitely not conducive to learning, and that applies to learning in many different aspects of our lives – I have witnessed teaching swimming through play and having fun and the confidence that children develop is truly amazing. Confirmation provides great motivation.
Our current education system smothers intelligence in a similar way to how a fire blanket smothers fire.
We have a very skewed idea about what education is and to send children away in order to ‘get an education’ actually seems quite odd. We live in bodies that are made from a living intelligence, bodies that know everything already, therefore all we need to do is to cherish our children so that they are free to be all that they already are.
I find it amazing how much more effective I am when I move gently and appreciate myself – it sounds soft but is anything but.
I love the ending where Carmel writes words of appreciation for herself, as it is easy to see how the walls of protection built up in the first place, and having that start in life would normally be it for the rest of someone’s life – so great to read that there are ways to break down the protection.
I went to a catholic college which was run by the nuns, it was very scary as a young innocent girl, as there were all these mean people dressed in black robes who were so covered up they all looked the same and none of them spoke to you in a caring manner.It was totally functional and if you got your work done then that was all that mattered and if you did not, then you were punished with either a strap or detention. Not what I would call a loving way to develop young children into their teenage years, no wonder many of the kids were rebellious and most of the rest just towed the line from fear.
There are some horror stories around regarding physical punishment at boarding schools. I remember hearing one story where the children had to sleep with their arms folded across their chests and were severely punished any time they moved or changed position. Fortunately we experienced no physical harm, but we were nevertheless fearful of disapproval from the nun who looked after the boarders. I met her years later and she was very sweet, but I think the responsibility of looking after 100 girls in loco parentis must have put a huge strain on her. Plus whatever we were processing emotionally that must have been hard on her…
“What I bring is more than my brain’s intelligence and what I know; I bring a warmth, love, tenderness, and caring for all humanity that was never taught at school,” It seems that the education system prioritises academic achievement over and above what you describe Carmel. Without warmth, love and care for all, whilst we might produce a skilled workforce we produce a workforce that is demoralised, demotivated, sick (costing billions of lost revenue per year), a society that needs alcohol to function, obesity at its highest levels….so really the question to ask… is our workforce really that skilled after all? if warmth, love and care was the foundation before academic advancement would we not produce an entirely different education outcome?
Carmel it’s very interesting what you share here, as I grew up in a culture where girls were never sent to boarding schools but boys where. When I use to ask my parents why this is the case, I would often get told, that boys are hard to manage and they get so naughty, so they get sent to boarding school to learn discipline. All my male cousins where sent to boarding school and at that age I felt it was so unfair, they did not have a choice. I would long for the days they would come. They would be gone for 3-4 years before they ever came home. It was heart breaking for me, and when I saw them after many years, I could see there was a part of them that they shut down and that was their expression.
This is the most beautiful article I have read about boarding school, exposing the damage they do without an ounce of blame or resentment, thank you, Carmel, it is a testament to the work you have done to heal.
Matilda I think one of the worst things was growing up hating my mother and being convinced I hated her almost to the day she died at 94. Actually I had a lot of respect for her but I can’t say I ever felt love for her, which is rather sad, to be hated in that way by your own children.
I can relate as a parent making decisions for our children based on what we think is good for them but how often do we stop to connect and ask our children how they really feel about our choices and decisions. If we treat our children as equals, I think boarding school will not exist because if we truly connect and listen to our children, how many would agree to going to boarding school for example? I can imagine not many.
With so much importance on having a good education, the most important aspects of life can be overlooked, such as the love, care and affection from our parents or guardians when we are children. Without love as a foundation, we go into the mental drive to do well at school and work so as to not feel the hurts.
Yes, it has become a truism in education that early childhood health and nutrition matters – love and care might be just as important, if not more so.
This notion of children getting a ‘better education’ if they are sent away to boarding school has been an ideal held by many for decades. Maybe, when living overseas where the education system isn’t as progressive, or it’s in another language, it may be the preferred option, however, when I was growing up in England in the 60’s a huge number of children were still being sent away to boarding schools, within England, my brother included. My parents assumed, rightly or wrongly, that my brother would be the ‘major bread winner’ in his own family one day, so they wanted to give him the ‘best’ education they could, but at what cost? I know my parents felt they were doing what was ‘best’, however, even as a child I remember feeling how much he was missing out on; the Sunday walks we did together as a family, the meals we sat and ate together, the food we prepared together. Sure, it wasn’t always roses and sunshine, but I felt loved and I really missed my big brother, and I know he missed us too.
‘School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.’ – I couldn’t agree more, Carmel. It’s interesting how much emphasis we put on Education as a society, we can place an enormous pressure on our children to do well in a system which fails so many in it’s structure and demands. I wonder if this, in part, comes from a felt stress/tension that there is much that isn’t going well for us in our world right now, so wanting to give our children the ‘best’ start we can in life, we look to the Education System to provide a good foundation for them. Whilst a good education may open doors to certain career paths, in terms of living a full and joyful life, that can be achieved at any age from a choice to connect to with and live from our inner heart.
Perhaps a ‘Good Education’ is an illusion and an absolute lie because the systems we have in place at the moment do not provide a truly loving and nurturing environment, only a place of ‘correction’ which makes us all feel bad.
There is such a drive and commitment to install competitive values in us at school and yet when I reflect on my youth I see how unnatural this was for me, in spite of eventually committing to sport, and you could say “succeeding” by our societies measure, there was not really any success. I view the success now being in the resoluteness I had in not being competitive up until about the age of 14. Of course that is relative but I knew then what really matters and you can see in young children that they almost always do too when we let them just be.
It would mean considerable reforms to remove all competition from schools – as I understand it even the exam results are based on percentages passing rather than actual achievements. And there would be no ‘Sports Day’ in fact, no Sport at all. And there is a lot of money invested in Sporting events with sponsorship by large companies, so reform on sport in general is probably centuries away…
So much seems to get in the way of us all being true family, education, work, religion and true family is what should come first above all else. Being sent away at 7 years old just seems cruel it was bad enough for me and I was 12 or13 and school was only 100 miles away.
I agree Kevin, there are a lot of things that get in the way of building loving relationships and boarding school is one of the best designed.
If we were to really ask children and adults alike, who have been through the boarding school system and how they were affected by it surely our approach would be a completely different one.
“When families do not freely express their love for one another, it does not provide a great foundation for us in the future. ” when we take this statement to the whole of humanity it is easy to see that this foundation of love is not being set for very many people at all. Our homes are often places of abuse, not always overt abuse like violence or cruelty but the abuse of not being loved in a way that allows true expression and evolution. So much really does start in the home environment.
When i look at the words religion and school these words create an environment where the words in and off themselves defend the status with, which they have as a base but is that base true? When words have been reinterpreted they take away our power to connect and ‘appreciate’ being the Son of God!
Warmth, love, tenderness and caring, what beautiful qualities to nurture in teachers and students. I also attended a catholic boarding school Carmel, as my parents lived on a farm with no public transport to regional rural schools, and I often felt desolate and lonely. It is so worth addressing this lack of true care in education wherever it exists, and addressing it within ourselves as you are doing. It is never too late to make loving choices, we create the change.
Carmel, I love the title of your blog – it gets to show that though we might get a good academic education at boarding school, there is another part of our learning in life that we miss out on hugely, and this learning cannot be underestimated in its importance and its effects on us in our lives.
Carmel it is truly awesome that you are doing the healing work to free yourself from the shackles of the hurts from your childhood…living proof that it is possible at any age.
In an ideal world, every child would experience a loving and supportive environment in which to grow up. One in which they would be left to be themselves in their tender and sweet essence as they learn about life.
I agree with all this, Sandra, except playfully the ‘ideal world’ bit – it is our totally natural and normal to nurture, love and care for one another – our every day available today
Our education system is seriously lacking in education in its fullest sense and children can feel it from the first day they walk into school. I remember my son rebelling at his first school, choosing to hide his school books up his jumper and refusing to work as he did not want to play ball with the system. It was only when he moved to another school where he felt met and accepted first for who he was that he was willing to integrate school lessons into his life.
You don’t have to have been to boarding school to have had a childhood without hugs. Mine was void of them too. In fact they were quite alien to me until I went to college and all the students were hugging each other on a regular basis. It took me a while but I adopted the habit and took it back home to my family. What a true education!
Education – to support children/people to embrace in full their true beingness and expression in the world.
There is much we can all learn from our families and not least that in truth we are all one family.
‘It has been a long journey that has highlighted to me the importance of loving all our children in full right from the start, spending time with them, expressing our love and appreciation to them, and encouraging them to be loving and open without fear so that no matter where they are, they can enjoy being beautiful, tender, expressive beings.’
I couldn’t agree more, Carmel. Last night, I gave a speech at my son’s 21st birthday, sharing my appreciation and my love for him. Afterwards so many people came up to me, young and old, saying how touched they had been by what I had said and the fact that I had chosen to speak at all. I was just openly and honestly sharing how I felt, it was important to me to be able to do so, none the less, the fact that others had felt the love, grace and beauty when we allow ourselves to do this, absolutely confirms all that you have shared.
It offers a reflection that lives on well beyond that day as well as those who heard it will be impulsed to look at their relationships and build that love. Your son would have equally been able to share with others the love he has come to view as normal and why he is the gorgeous man he is!
‘If someone expresses their love and appreciation of me, I often find it hard to accept, not really believing it to be true.’ – I can totally relate to this, Carmel. With a commitment to deepening my relationship with myself and being more open with others, I am now finding it much easier to accept more love and, am equally able to offer more love.
Children miss out on being told that they are already everything and don’t need to do anything to be good. We are not energetically held for the preciousness we are, and this is not the fault of our parents, or their parents before them, but a reflection of how far humanity has stepped away from energetic truth and submerged itself in temporal effort, recognition and identification.
I do often wonder if the point of having children for some people is the need to make something out of them. I often feel just how many parents are creating trophies out of their offspring to satisfy something missing within themselves. Like it’s a project they want to get the most recognition for. It’s interesting because it really highlights just how lacking in connection to our own families and those around us we have been.
“The combination of the separation from my parents, boarding school and the Catholic upbringing, left me with a few emotional scars, such as feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right.” – to be sent away from home at such a tender loving age would have made it all the more challenging to hold onto that gorgeous tenderness without covering up with tension, anxiety and hardness. But at the same time, we must also realise that no matter what happens around us as children, we have as adults, the ability to then give us what we really need – and this is beautiful to feel and see with you Carmel that now as an adult you are aware of your needs and able to really honour them and care for yourself in a way that you would so have deserved as a child then – and this is not a criticism on your parents, for now doubt they did the best they could in the circumstances and also had genuinely your and your siblings best intentions at heart in offering you a ‘good’ education. As adults we can sometimes get stuck still waiting for someone to give us what we did not get as a child – but as adults, it is for us to bring what we may feel we have missed out on, first to ourselves and then we can find the world opens up to us bit by bit just as you have shared Carmel. Thank you!
Carmel, this is an absolutely beautiful sharing of your growing up and I love your candid expression here of how life in a boarding school was a part of shaping how you are today, though you know too that deep inside nothing has changed as you still are the same tender loving and hug-loving women – it is only the protective shells that we all need to be discarding. I love what you have said here too: “but I have realised that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” – true success is about the loving quality of relationship we have with ourselves and others, and not about the material possessions and intelligence that we have gathered over the years.
It is mad how much value we place on mental intelligence that inevitably leaves us bereft of the ability to truly connect with others and build loving relationships that are reflected in how we treat each other as one race.
Such a lovely claiming, Carmel – “I bring a warmth, love, tenderness, and caring for all humanity”. This is true for all of us if we stay open to letting people in.
This is quite the way to grow up. I never experienced boarding school but I had friends go away to it but they were still close to home and so there was still a bit more contact. I can’t imagine being sent away or sending my children away because I see school as an education for many things, mainly the social education. That is what I support most in, the social interactions with teachers and students seems to be the hottest topic at the table about school. The official education part seems to run a distant second to this and so sending children away from a solid and consistent support for this seems not a great way from what I see. This article highlights the ‘needs’ of children and what they require to grow up and if this isn’t there how much it impacts well into their lives. As the article state s where education stands, never in front of the person, “It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.”
Your experience Carmel is possibly similar to many – I know it has strong familiarities with my up bringing. Boarding school was used as the threat if for any reason I stepped out of line to being the ‘good girl’. I love reading ‘loving service will offer us all the education we need’ as this is so true. Learning is so powerful and purposeful when it is offered with love and honouring in equality between people no matter the age or relationship. Children might be young but they aren’t stupid unless imposed and intimidated to think this.
Hear hear Carmel! ‘If that loving service can be offered in every family, every school, every boarding school, and in every religion, then perhaps we as a humanity can be secure in the knowledge that our children will be fully ‘educated’.’
Love is indeed the missing ingredient in our present education. Without it we have one great big mess as is obvious all around us. The news on TV or in newspaper is only a the version that becomes known to the world – the same patterns are happening privately everywhere.
Thank you Carmel. Being sent away at such a young age, abroad, to a place where you were afraid of those who were looking after you seems such a huge thing to deal with… It is an inspirational read that it was not time that healed you but deliberate healing through your self care, so your early life experiences do not have to stay with you and affect you for the rest of your life.
What still affects me now, Ruth, is my need to please people and to ‘get it right’ – the anxiety levels go through the roof whenever someone criticises anything I’ve done.
Carmel a really beautiful article that confirms to me my experience of boarding school and what really matters, to me education now has to start and end with love, responsibility and purpose. Without these things we are almost surely lost as individuals and a society.
I love that – ‘Education has to start and end with love’ I look forward to the day when we can say, ‘Education IS love’ because Love is certainly our true education
Our education systems are void of love because it is people who lack the experience of love that create and accept it as it is, such we educate a reduced version of who we are focussed on the intellect, the accumulation of knowledge, functioning and being successful in the world – basically security and survival. Bringing back love to people, ourselves included, is the beginning of changing education to be what it is supposed to be in truth – fostering everyone to be in full bloom of the love and glory they are.
So true, Alex. Only those who have the highest loving regard for humanity should be responsible for our education systems.
With mental ill health going through the roof, especially in the younger population, we cannot continue to push mental intelligence over the human connections and love
And the boarding school myth continues… In our family my brother and I, the younger siblings, were quite lucky, as the older siblings all went to boarding school with the consequent dysfunction, and then the money ran out, and my brother and I went to the local schools. Boarding schools are perfect institutions to continue the totally dysfunctional society that we have ended up in, totally locked into feeding the economic and social system as it is.
Wow – amazing to hear Chris – there is something about boarding schools that does feel so much as a ‘write off’ of children. This is not meant as a criticism of well meaning parents who send their young to boarding school with the best of intentions, however, the distance and essentially the ‘dysfunction’ that results, shows how this system is not one set up to truly support the tender development of children and young adults. Great to hear that you missed out on that aspect of schooling!
It is very telling of our ease with criticism when we can recognise without doubt, that schools often pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, rather than showing us that we are already enough and that there is nothing more to be other than our true selves.
A good education is often heralded as one that pushes children to reach their potential. So what is potential anyway? Is it being able to remember lots of things or run the fastest? Or get a so called well paid, well respected job? Or could potential be much more than this and something to do with how much we know and live the real us in our lives? When we live who we truly are we bring so much more to the world than simply skills or intellect or creations.
I never reached my full potential – I gave up on being an engineer very early on, did various jobs, had children, did some more work then started my own business, which was fun but never financially effective. After my divorce I moved to another part of the country and got a job as a cleaner – my mother was horrified! She would still tell her friends that I was an engineer, and that I had a house with a swimming pool (Which I did when I was married), whereas in truth I was living in a tiny end-of-terrace house that I was proud to call my own, and I was in a job where I was learning to connect with my body as well as connect with colleagues. I can still feel a sadness that my mother did not seem to understand how this has helped me to start the process of connecting with my true self again.
I agree Carmel from what I experienced in my own schooling, everything was based on competition and comparison, the idea being that through these ‘motivations’ children would be pushed to excel and to ‘reach their potential’. I remember feeling a lot of constant anxiety and pressure during school because of this and as a group of children we were constantly at each other and having a go at each other when we could have had a much more united and harmonious school life together. The competition and comparison carrot just does not produce well rounded human beings.
I went to a talk about social media the other night, and I realised that part of why my daughter gets caught up on the screen is because she is looking for something more, seeking an intimacy that I often don’t bring to her because of my busy lifestyle… and I wonder does she turn to the screen so she doesn’t feel or get rejected by me. Its an interesting thing to ponder. So when reading your blog, I realised that growing up in boarding school, there is so little intimacy and that can have a major effect on people later in life, not wanting to connect, just in case they get rejected again.
I feel that we are a lot more sensitive than we give ourselves credit for – we hide under a hard exterior, pretending all is well and all our relationships become extremely fragile and volatile as we play this game of hide and seek. When we can be truly honest and express what is actually going on, and when we can listen to others doing the same without reacting, then there is a more solid foundation for confident expression.
Whether we live side-by-side or worlds apart, it is the quality of our connection with each other that brings us together and a lack of that keeps us apart. Thus, it is not physical distance that determines our closeness but the openness of our hearts.
It’s just so amazing to read about your childhood Carmel, and your wonderful honesty. I really appreciate your sharing. It’s very inspiring.
Life itself is the ultimate education system. Everything that considers itself to be part of the business of education would need to have its roots and purpose in and for life otherwise it fails.
It is interesting, we all know how hard it is when we were little to be away from our family and yet we do it with our own children. But then how many of us live today within the family is very isolating too and can be a very lonely experience, as we have forgotten how to be with ourselves and each other, falling more and more for the distractions there are.
Human beings, beyond everything else, are made for connection – we are designed to be together to co develop relationships and express love and affection – everyone knows the feeling of wanting to be loved, of being alone etc. And yet we have modelled so much of life not on supporting these connections and this love to be a reality but instead to foster the more cold and disconnected mental intelligence.
Letting go of comparison and competition allows us to not only begin an intimate relationship with ourselves but it also allows us to let go of the protection we put around ourselves to block out others. It is a slow and awesome process as each step reveals to us a greater depth of who we truly are.
What a beautiful sharing of the truth you have come to and live now Carmel which shines from you gloriously and can be felt everywhere `the knowing that you “bring a warmth, love, tenderness, and caring for all humanity that was never taught at school, or even in the Catholic Church.” is an amazing quality of appreciation of who we all are if we allow it and Universal Medicine shows us the living way.
It is interesting how much we can control others and ourselves by engaging or offering competitions. Our field of awareness narrows and our efforts can be highly directed in a certain direction. Once I became aware of the many downsides of being unaware and not responding to what exactly was happening at that moment, the interest in competing simply dropped away.
In reading this article I can see how important it is to value and to hold sacred the relationships we have with eachother, that having an intimate relationship with your parent or child is not something to be taken for granted, and that one must never impose a need for intimacy on to family members, and that each person must be free to express how they feel.
As people together, whether that be in the traditional family sense, or a relationship with an intimate partner, there is an opportunity for openness, kindness, decency and love, but that opportunity is actually there between everyone, and the structure of a family isn’t a necessity for love to be present.
Carmel I have loved learning more about you and your life experience, it is beautiful that you have shared it with us.
I can feel from your blog how harming it is to grow up with out true love and care, we may get a great education but what is that education at the expense of? Nothing is ever worth pursuing if it is not truly about love.
If the only thing that any of us learnt was how to truly be love (as in to allow love through our bodies constantly) then there would be nothing else that any of us would need to know.
There is a great deal of truth in what you share, Shirley-Ann, our education system only fosters self worth based on achievement, and fitting in with society, hence no-one likes to speak out against some of the awful things that are happening in the world. Politicians who do, get mysteriously murdered…
Boarding school should not be an option — if you choose to have a child then you have chosen to raise him/her, not abandon them.
When you shared that at home even when the family was together, that things were still distant, it reminded me of holidays and how we can’t expect going away for a ‘family trip’ to be of a different quality than how we live together at home or in a relationship… The environment we’re in or ‘aim’ of a trip e.g. to bond, spend time together etc. doesn’t change our lives and relationships that stay constant.
Exactly Susie, relationships don’t deepen because we have more time together, I am well aware that when a family aren’t close then when they go away on holiday then all that happens is that we take our ‘not close’ relationships to another place. What I can also testify to is that spending lots of time together isn’t what’s needed to deepen a relationship but improving the quality of the relationship in whatever time period we have is. I have been actively working on deepening the quality of the time that I do spend with family (even if it’s just minutes) and it is astounding the difference that it’s made and indeed continues to make.
Our current education systems focus completely on limited mental/academic knowledge… whereas the wisdom, truth and intelligence of the body is limitless, universal and forever deepening.
A genuine warm and loving hug is nourishing for our being… it says so much more than any words could ever express.
True education starts with ourselves… only when we truly love and appreciate ourselves can we be open in this way with others.
Expressing as you have Carmel is so important for what you have shared is simple and would revolutionise schooling if the common sense examples you have presented were put into practice.
I am always fascinated reading about boarding school, as it is not something I could do to my kids or would have wanted as a child. I have heard varying stories about people’s experiences. Some were actually seen as an improvement on a loveless family home. Others experienced bullying, fear, abuse, abandonment or imposition from religion. Although as adults we justify that kids need a good education to make it in life, I can’t imagine anything ever being more important to a child and the adult they grow into than feeling loved and safe.
For me you have said everything in this paragraph
“When we send our children away to boarding school believing they will get a better education, what are we setting them up for? Can an education away from the parental home be truly supportive in developing us as fully rounded human beings? School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.”
I could not imagine sending my children away to boarding school, to me it negates why we had the child in the first place. I have always sensed that boarding schools are loveless places and to send such sensitive, sweet children to them to me feels like a punishment.
Not always is it like this, as I found out from a few dear friends that fully enjoyed their boarding school years, as life in the family was anything but loving and harmonious….
This is so awesome to read here Carmel – “t has been a long journey that has highlighted to me the importance of loving all our children in full right from the start, spending time with them, expressing our love and appreciation to them, and encouraging them to be loving and open without fear so that no matter where they are, they can enjoy being beautiful, tender, expressive beings” – As only recently there was a beautiful opportunity for me to be just like that in a situation where one of my children got caught up in some trouble, yet this child was open to share as it needed to come out and I saw the trust built more and more as the child realised I am there without judgment or admonishments, seeing and holding them in the love that child is, and with that dealing with all the consequences that did come, together. It was an awesome reflective time for us and a heartfelt bond renewed and strengthened.
Karina I had a similar experience with my parents when I was younger. I was involved in quite a lot of trouble and my parents could have so easily judged me and told me off but they didn’t, they supported me and continued to love me and that experience has stayed with me very strongly throughout my whole adult life.
Beautiful and so true – ” It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.” It is not time, but the conscious work on first understanding that things can be different and then walking on that road to self-love and self-appreciation, returning to who we truly are, anything but that shell many people often hide behind.
I used to struggle with this too Carmel – ” If someone expresses their love and appreciation of me, I often find it hard to accept, not really believing it to be true.” And nowadays I am much better at that as well, and I observe that it seems to be a common thing for many people to just put something down as nothing when they are shown appreciation and love, often not knowing who to respond.
It is enormous how our upbringing just runs over into our adult life too, often to how we might bring up our kids as well if we have not stopped and reflected how things really were and are and where we are coming from. Passing on comparison and competition is something like standard in all that we are presented with, and so it serves us all to work on truly being aware and observe where in life we are running on that road…
Thank you for sharing Carmel, and although I did not go to boarding school, it was not much different for me and so I relate first of all to ” I felt unlovable and instead of being open and friendly with everyone, I created a hard shell of mistrust and a spikiness that stopped anyone from feeling my true vulnerability, including me.” Part of that was due to the fact that I spent a considerable time away from my mother too, long stretches of time, at a very young age, with next to no visits, between 3 and 8, and it left its mark too. Much healing has occured since then and I have a very different relationship with my children as a result of that inner work.
My life has changed enormously with dealing with childhood issues and what ‘happened’ to me… by understanding through the amazing support of Universal Medicine, that my childhood was a result of my choices and choices made before me that have been passed down through generations. I carried my hurts from childhood through and parented from there with my children as well, until I could see why and what I needed to heal and let go of.
Yes, we are so blessed with having the opportunity to work with Serge Benhayon – I have found the Universal Medicine courses where we work on letting go of our childhood hurts most beneficial. They are not set in stone, we can work through and let them go, and it doesn’t have to be cushion-beating, primal screaming, heavy breathing therapy, but simple gentle laying on of hands with a trusted therapist and a willingness in us to let go.
“what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” This is such a great question Carmel and one I would answer – whatever stops us from loving ourselves and others is not love.
Carmel, I love how you claim to be a huggy person, even though your upbringing did not encourage this. It goes to show that love cannot be extinguished, just covered over by ideals and beliefs which make us ignore our natural impulse to connect.
I love what you say about deliberate self-healing, I agree, time does not heal, time in a sense (if we do not deal with ourselves) creates a harder shell. Looking at what hurt us, triggers us and being honest about how that feels is the first and the most lovely enormous step to clearing what has resided in the body as an issue.
Education is simply love, being it, receiving it, emanating it, inspiring and sharing it. The absence of love is empty and disastrous as our current world portrays the truth and evidence of; its [love’s] presence full and voluminous.
Boarding School educates one how to be ‘something’ or ‘someone’ other than oneself.
Education isn’t just about brain intelligence As you clearly show Carmel, a loving environment and a big heart more than compensates for a lack of little grey cells. We need to be whole, rounded people – confident and understanding of others in our expression – not just a brain on legs.
Is it not telling that boarding schools, religious schools and any other not the standard schools that accept everyone, are about separation from the whole? And, what pound of flesh must we sacrifice for this alleged privilege?
There is a massive belief system that serves the decision of parents to send their kids to boarding school – which is that because it is so expensive it must be worth it. This infiltrates all of our lives – who doesn’t assume that the £300 dishwasher is going to be better than the £200 dishwasher – it is how we value so much in our lives. Thus easy to assume that paying £10,000 a year to educate your children is going to get them a ‘better’ education than the free state system. But by what parameters are we judging the education of our children?
This is true Otto, and then what if that expensive education doesn’t give the outcome the parents were expecting? And the imposition on the children to push themselves to achieve top results because all the money being spent on them for their education, and in many cases the parents going without or the household etc. just to have this education.
Many children are educated at state schools and go on to achieve honours degrees at university, so their education can be more down to supportive teachers, supportive parents, and their own hard work. It is the people around us who help us to learn about life, not any amount of book learning.
Such limited parameters Otto, imagine there was a £1m boarding school, would that be a guarantee of a successful schooling. Or is it simply that success is measured in all the wrong ways, and that success is actually how good we are in relationships, be that with self, or everyone and everything that makes up what we call life.
Parents who make time to listen to their children are worth their weight in gold – as you say, Gill, the children feel confident to express what they are feeling and it helps to clear up misunderstandings in relationships very early on.
With comparision and competition a part of schooling, which is very common if not considered normal it is no wonder that this continues into adult life at work, with friends, etc. But it is exhausting and doesn’t ever allow a person to stop and appreciate anything because they are always striving to be better or the best, or have given up because they know that they never will be. It is a setup that stops people from connecting and appreciating one another.
Yes, fostering giving up means we all end up mediocre when there is true power to be expressed in every single one of us.
I have attended many team building courses and exercises in the corporate world and, as you say, they are mainly based on competition. When I ran one myself, I didn’t make it competitive, but the teams still went into comparison with each other!
Carmel thank you so much for sharing your experience with being on a boarding school and I love your realization:”. . . but I have realized that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” Wow the answer to this question is really something what is missing in our day to day living. So my question is why?
Hugs can be non-physical too. We embrace another with love, the quality in which we carry ourselves, our walk, a smile, our eyes, the way we speak and express ourselves..
Parents have huge responsibility when choosing schools for their children. I read recently that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge haven chosen a prep school for their son George. It is co-educational, one which encourages sharing friends and discourages having ‘best’ friends and the most important school rule is ‘to be kind’ They chose a school that valued praise and offered happiness and enjoyment, It will be interesting to see, post prep school, what their next choice of school will be.
At that end of the day, no matter how good a boarding school is, the love of a parent and the intimacy of a home can’t be replaced by an institution.
Very beautiful to feel the delicateness with which you are healing yourself with, Carmel. Inspiring and bringing through what a true and full education actually is.
Over the last few weeks I have heard some really shocking stories from parents, young people and professionals in regards to how some teachers are with young people, what they say to them and how they do absolute nothing about bullying. Don’t get me wrong I think teaching is a hard job and there are many many teachers who are doing truly amazing work, hence the Teacher Are Gold project initiated by Michael Benhayon. However there are some that, well quite honestly shouldn’t be in the profession of teaching. But you are right, school is not the only part of our education as our living environment including our relationships play a HUGE part too. Basically it is up to all of us to parent children and young people and make sure they can be the best support, reflection of truth and love so they can be all that they are.
Knowledge is really empty without love as a foundation. Amongst highly educated professionals like veterinary doctors, dentists, medical doctors etc there are high rates of suicide. Our lives are simply unbearable without love and without the tools to manage how confronting life can be. Love is actually the essence of who we are, so if education takes us away from that we really need to question why education is the way it is
THere’s a lot in what you say here, Melinda, yes, love is the foundation of our existence, for it is who we are and we need to live it, express it and nurture it in our children.
With discipline and control being a focus not love.
‘It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.’ people often say time heals but really time passes and then we have buried the hurt or forgotten about it. Time doesn’t heal because the hurts or barriers are always played out in all other areas of our lives and relationships to some degree as your sharing clearly proves. Thank you Carmel.
Such a gorgeous blog Carmel. Thank you for sharing. To be ‘fully educated’ is something that although schools and parents think they are trying to do with the assortment of superficial programs and activities that are in place – it is something that is clearly not happening. To be ‘fully educated’ is for that love and warmth to be there, for one to be held in the truth and gorgeousness with open arms for who they truly are and for us to leave our homes or schools truly knowing our innate worth and not feeling in self doubt or unworthy. This blog should be read by everyone in schools.
“It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care…: – time is not a healer, it simply creates distance between an incident and the present moment. Healing takes place when we surrender to who we are and allow the hurts from the past to go.
Thanks for sharing Carmel. I love the line: “It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing …” We can take the reins so to speak when it comes to our lives and our healing. Yes we may have hurts, and for some very deep hurts, but everything is possible to heal. We have to want to let go of the hurts and no longer identify with them.
I went to boarding school as well, not from such a young age but during my teens years and I can relate to what you share of craving love, care and affection. Something that I didn’t receive much of growing up. I can also relate to then not having the foundation within yourself to really feel valued and loved by another- always second guessing it and needing people to prove their love. I appreciate what you share- that for a child to be raised with love, warmth and affection supports them to know themselves and their worth.
The recognition for most, in this statement, “feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right” simply shows that the education system, Catholic or not, boarding school or not, are all to some degree or other feeding these completely untrue evaluations of ourselves – There is far to go to bring love into education and indeed into family.
“It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.” This is so important what you express here as we are made believe that time heals, but to truly heal we need a loving relationship with ourselves.
It’s kind of amazing that anyone turns out an amazing, loving and normal human being after the school system, especially boarding schools. I agree that a radical change is needed in prioritising what really is important in raising children, it’s time we saw real success as a loving and true life, rather than a life full of awards and qualifications.
I knew a few people growing up that went to boarding school for a good part of their education and I remember feeling sorry for them, thinking how they must have missed their family, and couldn’t really work out why you would send your child away to a school far away. I did have a chance to ask one of them how they felt and they said, it was okay, and that they just looked forward to seeing their parents when they could because they were very busy with their careers.
I feel it would be hard to form any sort of understanding of what a true family is because of the big breaks in between being together, and this would also affect role modelling that you normally receive from adults or parents.
What education systems don’t tend to prepare us for is to live as PEOPLE and have the confidence and qualities to be self assured, respectful, caring and confident in who we are. It seems absurd that the entire focus is on competing to get the top grades, when any multi lingual genius who know the laws of physics, maths and chemistry may not have any experience or confidence expressing this in an understandable way to humanity!
You make a great point, Susie, that just because someone is ultra-qualified in physics, maths and chemistry, it does not mean they have the skills to communicate clearly with their fellow man. Expressing from the head feels very different from listening to someone expressing from their inner-heart
Carmel a wise man once told me that “Any form of education will be fundamentally flawed if true self care, true self nurturing and self love which are fundamental basic tenants needed for human life – are not the basis of its foundation”
I can relate to much of what you say, its ironic but when i reflect on it, boarding school was a super lonely place for me, because I mastered the art of shutting down and showing people my jocker face so that i looked like i was coping.
Yes, Lucinda, many of us develop a Joker face to convince ourselves and everyone else that we are fine thank you very much. I carried that mask into my adult life, always pretending everything was OK when clearly it wasn’t. Nowadays I find honesty much more effective in building true relationships, and if I feel sad or vulnerable, I am far more prepared to say so and that helps the people around me to understand what’s going on.
I love the picture accompanying this wonderful blog, as it feels like such a real hug being shared, and this is something one would generally not associate with boarding school that’s for sure! Thank you, Carmel, for reminding us that love is the key ingredient of life from the day we are born.
‘When we send our children away to boarding school believing they will get a better education, what are we setting them up for?’ Truly this is a great question for those I have spoken with about their boarding school experience have spoken about its detrimental effect. I have also witnessed anxiety and at times, trauma from young pupils aged 7 and 8 living at boarding school who miss the love and care their home and parents bring.
Me being sent to boarding school was probably more because it was Catholic than to get a good education but it was damaging none the less and took me further away from the real me than I was before. Any situation than makes us shut down and harden up should be seriously looked at so we stop making the same mistakes over and over.
Oh the power of a hug. I still remember soon after my mother and father divorced how I went to stay with my Mum and her new to-be-husband and I saw them hugging the whole time. It was so alien to me and so gorgeous to see. I’m now also a crazy fan of hugging.
I too went to a boarding school from the age of 7-18 and there is so much in here that I can relate to and so much more that I can add. But what I am initially struck by is the beautiful lack of judgement and indulgence in your writing and this shows me how much you have evolved yourself out of these hurts and imprints. That is something very special to observe and, as a fellow boardee (word?) who knows all about the impact that this kind of upbringing can have, I have gigantic respect for the moves you have made. A huge appreciation-filled and congratulatory hug from me.
It is indeed a great example of when we heal our hurts, we are no longer owned by them – there is no one to blame. We are not the victims of circumstance, we are the creators of it and thus we always have the power to rewrite the script.
Carmel, this is a great question, ‘It gave me a good education, but I have realised that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?’ There is such a focus in schools on academic learning and life skills such as looking after ourselves – with cooking and other such skills have over time dropped off the curriculum. There is so much that is missed out when the focus at school is so narrow and does not look at the whole person and how we are in relationships for example and how we take care of ourselves, and so children are leaving schools and colleges unprepared for life, rather than as healthy, joyful human beings that are committed to life.
I think there used to be a subject called ‘Life Skills’ but these days English and Maths are what it gets interpreted into.
It is common for households to have a radio or TV on in all of their living areas. This exposes the lack of relationship many have with them self and /or those they live with, as they prefer to drown out their space with outside distractions rather then connect.
There are many activities we can engage in that stop us making simple engaging eye contact with each other. Even the way so many of us eat, sitting at a breakfast bar side by side we can avoid eye contact – it is a great way to hide from each other.
Most parents think academic education is the most important but have we considered that an essential part of our children’s education actually starts at home? The first 5-7 years of our children’s life are hugely important and they are the foundational years for preparing them for starting school, for life and this continues right up to adulthood.
The importance of those early years cannot be ignored, I went back to work when my children were only a few months old and we had a live in nanny Monday to Friday. I was always there at night and at the weekends, but I often wondered if they would have been better off if I had stayed at home.
If as a child we aren’t met with the love that we crave, it stands to reason we will adopt behaviours that are self harming, whether extreme or more minor in consideration, as we look to fill the void left by the love we wished to feel. What perhaps needs to be better understood is what love looks like, how it is unconditional and not emotional. Only when that is accepted will we move forward as a human race and start to support one another better to live a life of quality, in love.
I did not have your experience Carmel, but I admire how you have come to heal yourself in this latter stage of your life. The fact that you have also been supported in your healing through Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. Thank you for sharing your very personal journey with us Carmel.
“It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.” Beautiful Carmel and such a far cry from the saying ‘Time is a great Healer…” When we really consider this phrase, time indeed doesn’t heal it simply distances us from our hurts which just get buried deeper and deeper into the body. What a contrast from what you are showing us from your own experience of true healing which is to deeply cherish and take care of yourself and to know that you are absolutely worth it.
A sentence that really stood out for me, is it is not time that has healed me.. I love this, as many think that things will just heal over time. Over time, we just forget or become numb or harden more. This is not healing, this is burying the issue. I have many old issues that I had forgotten about but really, they were still there, bothering me without me know what it was…. so I agree, time does not heal. Healing comes from a willingness to look at anything that may be stopping you from being all of you, from working on your self worth and taking care of you and being open to support from others also. We are not here to do it all on our own.
I learnt so much about you Carmel that I had no idea about. I love reading the blogs and getting to know each other. We can all learn so much about each other when we open up and share, and with this, we can have a lot more understanding.
The term ‘education’ seems to have been misconstrued so much so that we see that learning to retain knowledge, learning to compete and compare as education. However as we are witnessing time and time again this does not truly prepare children for life, confirm them so they understand who they are and are confident to be themselves through which there can never be any comparison. Living who we are in essence is the measure of true success and this is our true responsibility in life. It is through every relationship shared that a child can be confirmed and as such receive the real-life education that supports them know how to move through life with confidence, true intelligence and awareness that comes through our connection to our essence. As you have shared so wisely – ‘…what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?’
The whole elitism that is created and division that is created by boarding schools in society should be reason enough to stop them. I read the other day about Finland or Norway where they have no private schools, every state school is a good school and there is total mix of society. This then supports everyone to know each other and in turn the richer children who tend to end up in positions of power look after their workers etc as they actually know them. They aren’t just nameless, faceless workers they are friends that you want to treat well. I grew up like this where most of my friends were from very wealthy families and it was never a problem for us as children we were simply friends.
‘School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.’ Education in truth is a preparation for life, as a person and in entirety; and not a focus on a fragment that doesn’t consider the whole. If any school offered this level of education, it would be an entirely different story and not the one we currently have.
And our homes are our first place of education for life. But do we see it like this in society? I don’t feel so. We do not be with our children in a way that allows them the space to be and feel fully accepted and perfect as they are along with dealing with situations in a way knowing it is a training ground for life and for how they will be as an adult.
I love the warm embrace in the above photo. It is the opposite to everything that I have ever heard about boarding schools.
Yes me too. It’s so gorgeous.
Yes Carmel, this is hugely important. Children do very well when they are hugged and loved in person. I see so many adults and witness the emotional scars or distance that has come from not being at home during that time. A massive subject for discussion really.
As adults we carry the hurts that we’re fine to our tiny fragile bodies. It is great you have healed these actively Carmel. Every teacher and parent, well everyone really would do well to remember that everything has an impact. Something that may not seem anything to us may in fact be quite a disturbance to a child that they then carry into adulthood. This is why energetic awareness and energetic responsibility are key in life- for if these are held so are all others.
It is a huge subject and one that mostly will not talked about much. It appears that many people do not want to bring ‘all this up” as it is far in the past for some, yet as we see the past walks with us, no matter how far we bury it, until such time we stand our ground and deal with what has to be dealt with, in a loving and supportive manner.
Even though I did not go to boarding school, I can still relate to the disconnection within families and especially the lack of appreciation. I feel like I was trained to focus on everything that is wrong about me and the world and to endeavour to better myself and others, walking around with a very critical view and to this day appreciation is something I really need to practice.
The depth of care and love and openness you bring Carmel certainly can’t be taught at school. It is not mental -it is you through and through. As someone who has also achieved a high level of intelligence, it is great to hear you share how you know this is not ‘it’.
Love is what we really crave and divert to being smart, clever and driven when it is absent.
Even though i went to public school, and therefor kids went home everyday, I saw the same thing your sharing in that they did not go home to love or care, they did not experience the fundamental connection we as humans need way before we need our mental intelligence. I could see that my home life, going home to hugs and affection, care and a genuine interest in my day and my feelings and thoughts, was not at all what most kids felt. And i could see the detrimental affect, where the lack of love and care at home was impacting the way they made friends, their behaviour, their care for themselves. However in this no one is to blame – the teachers and parents were not brought up or taught how to love, and so they pass the same patterns to the kids.
Its a fascinating life Carmel, I really had to imagine you in the hard shell and I guess we see that with so many people, so many of us walk around in protection, not wanting to be hurt by the world, not be ridiculed or mistreated. And that vulnerability you described, it was there in the hard shell, just waiting to be unravelled, and that is the heart of everyone, even the toughest nut is just waiting to be cracked, for inside we all have a delightful centre.
So true Carmel. A true education is one that allows for true human connection. How can we excel in life if we do not have a solid base of love from which to spring? It makes all the difference in all of our relationships, including the ones in the world of work. Education is cold without love.
This blog reminded me of my own mother who found it difficult at first to be hugged due to her childhood and then in her 70’s she started to initiate the hugs when she would leave my house – obviously she was enjoying them but it took a while for her to accept them.
The majority of those who attend Universal Medicine workshops shares a sense of “as if I came home”. Pretty much every person who keeps attending the workshops communicates that they have connected more deeply to their essence and so many of them have gorgeous stories of turning their lives round.
These facts are a great testimony for Universal Medicine, but it also spells out how our current idea of education is failing us. As rightly covered here, education is not just about learning facts and figures.
It seems that as parents we will do almost anything, including sending our children away, or paying extraordinary amounts of money to secure a ‘good education’ but is society really benefitting from this? Is this so called good education producing well rounded human beings that can truly contribute to society in all ways?
For the most part I was a day girl in a boarding school and remember talking to my friends about how desperately they missed home. One of my friends would vomit at the start of a new term when she got to school as she felt so anxious about being there and they all talked about Sunday night anxiety after a weekend away. It feels we have much to learn in the arena of schooling as hugs are becoming more taboo and competition, recognition and results are the focus.
I have a seven year old son and he loves hugs – I probably get at least one hug a day with him. I can’t imagine the impact it would have on him and myself if we were to send him away to a boarding school. Whether it is for intelligence, money or in my case my issue being work (which I’m working on) nothing can replace or is greater than knowing and living who we truly are.
We learn so much at home which is not taught at school, on a practical level simple skills like cooking which now a days is rare to find in schools is one thing but the sense of being supported, loved, deeply cared for and heard starts and comes from home. I absolutely love it when my daughter and I connect and find something funny, her laugh is contagious, it’s so healing as she brings out my playful side.
When we truly appreciate that healthy, respectful, tactile relationships form an essential part of every person’s upbringing, we will revise our whole system of schooling and indeed how we look after children in Children’s Homes. Providing strong living models of respectful and warm-hearted relationships underpins a successful society.
Absolutely Rowena, when we make relationships and expression the basis of our learning together both adult and young then not only will this support a wealth of inner confidence but also great respect and equality for one another.
Carmel, this is so true, ‘Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’, I have spent much of my life trying really hard at everything, thinking that I was not enough and had to work extra hard to keep up with everyone else, I can feel that I developed this way of being at school, trying to be ‘good’ and gain acceptance, it is only now in my 40’s that I am starting to realise that I am enough as I am and that I am not lesser and that I can work in a natural, steady way without all of the ‘trying hard’ and pushing myself.
Well it seems that life as we know it is set up for us to become hard, distant and protected and keep us away from the love that we naturally are unless we are able to see through all that has happened to us and start to undo the loveless choices we have made and have been made for us.
Parents send their children away to boarding school thinking it is the best thing for them because education is seen as the gateway to a successful life, yet as you show Carmel our young sensitive and delicate years set us up for the rest of our life and the experiences you had being sent away affected you for the rest of your life. Education has it’s place in life but not at the expense of the welfare of the child.
I was speaking with a friend the other day. Her company has taken on a new graduate with a top class degree from Oxford University, but he has great difficulty speaking with customers over the telephone. This is a simple example of exactly what you are talking about Carmel.
Life is about connection – be this in our families, at school or in the wider community.
“When families do not freely express their love for one another, it does not provide a great foundation for us in the future.” Carmel, this is so true, but on considering that our families and parents were also brought up in the same lack of expression its no wonder that this way of being is brought down to each generation. It seems that the only way to break this cycle is for each individual to claim the love within themselves, as you have done, with self care, nurturing and appreciation for the people that we are…
“I bring a warmth, love, tenderness, and caring for all humanity that was never taught at school, or even in the Catholic Church.” Isn’t warmth, love, tenderness and care what we all love? Why should we then not teach this at our schools, universities etc? It is pretty simple in theory but to have it as a reality we have to live this love, warmth and care first with ourselves before we can teach it to all others. So a whole world self-love program would be what is needed first!
It is common for some people, despite their own unhappy experience of boarding school, to continue to support an education system that can be abusive by sending their own children to school as boarders. The need to conform, family tradition and academic achievement takes precedence over love.
Often this gets explained with words such as ‘ it didn’t do me any harm so it’s quite alright’ – yet the deep hurt that is there for most, is so deeply buried that such an action can be repeated in the false belief that no harm was done.
It is important to consider that most of the people do have an issue of not being met when they where young and have missed the warm affection that is so needed in human upbringing. We can look around in our societies and observe what the result is of this way of raising our young and that it is maybe time to make changes and introduce love back into our societies as that is where we all come from, know so well and do need to prosper and evolve.
It is not time that heals childhood hurts, time just lets us bury those hurts more deeply within our bodies and that then creates the thick barrier we put up to not let people in. I love Carmel how you chose to delve into those childhood hurts, understand how they had affected your living and chose to deal with them and by doing so release the hold they had on you. Now we get to see and feel more and more of the truly wonderful Carmel. “It has been a long journey that has highlighted to me the importance of loving all our children in full right from the start, spending time with them, expressing our love and appreciation to them and encouraging them to be loving and open without fear.” And what better foundation can a child have that this.
I totally agree, Carmel, that education is not just schools it is everywhere. We learn by reflection. The society, the media, how the people around live and behave – they all contribute to educating (or conditioning) the way we are. The number of ‘well-educated’ people has been increasing but the quality of life we are living as an individual and as a society is not, if not the opposite is true. A lot of people are after money, recognition, fame etc., but some of us are beginning to realise that that was actually the booby prize. If we are able to be very very honest and feel what we really want most, maybe, what we want to give to our children might change.
I love that you have exposed that true healing comes not from time but from a dedication to self-care and learning to nourish and nurture yourself now… so that you no longer seek any acknowledgement from anyone outside of yourself for you deeply enjoy and appreciate all of who you are. This is gorgeous and deeply inspirational showing that any lack in our upbringing or in life can be filled by ourselves.
Thank you Carmen for sharing this blog, there is so much here to consider, so much. As I read your blog, i could only feel your warmth and beauty, your openness in sharing with such honesty. You really demonstrate the impact our environments can have on us, our family, our education system, where our natural qualities are suppressed, if we are not loved and nurtured. Where we become what is expected of us, or imposed on us by values and beliefs such as education is more important than the person, and it actually is destructive. So again, i loved feeling the woman you are, who has come back in full, by truly healing these hurts, so that you can share as you have and inspire us, showing us this way does not work. Thank you.
Mental intelligence and academic success is largely worthless if we do not know how to relate to one another. It’s a bit like those amazing roses you see on sale in the supermarket that don’t have any scent. After reading your article Carmel, it confirms just how important it is to raise our children in an environment that nurtures their inner qualities that can then be taken into all their relationships, interests and academic studies with the most amazing results.
We all know ‘success’ is not what we think it is. We know that we are not satisfied with the bigger house, boat, car, the more expensive the holiday etc., it is never enough as we continue to search for the next thing. Success is the quality of relationship we have with ourselves which determines the quality of relationships we have with everyone else, our parents, children, friends… it is this quality that determines our true success.
Gosh Carmel, “because of the lack of physical affection in my own family, I grew up feeling like an alien, distant from all humanity. I felt unlovable and instead of being open and friendly with everyone, I created a hard shell of mistrust and a spikiness that stopped anyone from feeling my true vulnerability, including me.
… feeling unworthy, constantly guilty that I might be doing something wrong, needing to be good and wanting to do everything right” – sounds just like my own story. I didn’t go to boarding school, but one way or another, society seems to set up the situation so we react pretty much the same. The ‘cure’ in my case has also been the joy-full, willing hug-buddies and the endlessly patient teaching of Serge Benhayon. And appreciating myself for having the commitment and dedication to heal and expand for the benefit of all.
I can’t imagine going to boarding school at such a young age. It is no surprise that it has been a source of pain for your life, amazing then that you are able to heal this and write without any harshness but simply outlining the facts. Love is what we all need to express.
‘what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other’ Well Carmel – No pluses at all!
I love the way you have said that time did not heal your wounds. That is a myth we have been fed, encouraging us to be passive and even careless in regard to our state of being. It encourages the belief that the passing of days will take away the hurts. Wait long enough and it will be gone!
But this is just not the case. All that time does it make the pain more comfortably familiar. We get used to its crushing weight, We get used to the tiny cage it consigns us to.
You have, through your choices Carmel, shown that true healing calls for an activity and a will towards expressing the beauty within us. Buried it may have been, under layers of rejection, neglect, lack of affection, competition…but it is there, forevermore. And we can rediscover its beauty and allow its light to light our way in life.
What this exposes for me is that family is not what we think it is. As I was reading about the Italian maids I could feel that you felt very at home with them and that felt like family, with no expectation and just loving you for who you are and visa versa. But because they are not blood related this is something that is very rarely considered. But with this attachment what has this done to our relationships and that of our society, where what we think family is is key. Especially given that our hurts in this life originate from that which we consider is family.
What I can feel from reading this is the separation and lack of connection humanity can choose when the intellect is leading the way. Love and connection are the highest form of education for a truly wealthy life.
Hear hear – lets all work towards that together with the awesome presentations and teaching of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
The school of hugs – learning to genuinely give and receive hugs has got to be one of the best educations there is.
Yes Carmel, it is amazing how the most powerful education comes, not through words, but through vibration – which can either emit a strong sense of well being, or of disconnection, or an atmosphere that can be threatening. This vibration provides the space, or not for love to be known, and hugs, if they are true are but an expression of this love: ‘When families do not freely express their love for one another, it does not provide a great foundation for us in the future.’
“It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.”
I have often pondered on this ‘time will heal’ and came to the conclusion that for me it is not true, partly because of what I see around me and partly from my own experience. Time is just time. It ticks and tocks. It is not a healer. Time can pass from an event and you may ‘forget that something happened’ or ‘bury it so it does not appear to effect you’, but it remains until you wish to heal it.
My understanding is that most of us bury our hurts and only when we react strongly to a ‘similar’ event do we realise that something has happened in our past that we don’t really want to know about. Some people never gain that understanding and go through their whole lives being angry. Fortunately for many of us we have access to the teachings of Serge Benhayon who is showing us all that there is another way.
Schools are a tough place to be in, and many of us like you Carmel have come out with unhealed hurts that still affect our choices and how we live. Wouldn’t it be great if self-love, relationships and working in harmony with each other were the foundations of the education system?
I could not imagine the pain of the rejection being sent away as a young child… seriously crushes my chest just thinking about it.
It is indeed a tough thing – yet we can also remember that we chose, albeit unconsciously in our living time… lessons to be learnt which we may come to understand later in life and deal with accordingly.
‘What value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?’ This is such a super question Carmel. We have painted ourselves out of the picture, putting more value on things such as material wealth and intelligence. What could be more important than how we value ourselves and the quality of our relationships?
Thank you Carmel for sharing what education really is about first and foremost and what really prepares us for the relationships we are to have in our lives. Being brought up to appreciate ourselves and each other for the amazing qualities we bring, now that counts for a lot. It is never too late though and doing this now for ourselves and others can change the way we feel and how we interact, bringing a sense of solidness and more love into our lives.
Very beautiful Carmel, that is so great to read your experience and now for me know how this was, how this was part of your life (past) and how this has now changed for you.. How you are all of which you mentioned above = increasing the connection from within and bringing it out: in your eye contact, care for people and much much more for sure. Thank you for making these steps.
Thank you for this deeply inspirational sharing Carmel. I have a little girl and as I watch her grow up, I am fortunate enough to be able to read experiences of people like you that allow me to deeply feel the support a parent can offer their child.
Yes Carmel, I also understand the importance of being open and loving to our youth, as they need the true reflection of love from every aspect of life, and it is great when it starts in our home life.
You offer a significant point right at the beginning of this article. We are severely limiting ourselves by limiting our idea of education to what we learn at school, and this is even more marked since school has become about memorising and regurgitating knowledge.
True education offers the foundations for constantly deepening our awareness, responsibility and commitment to living the love that is our essence. Yet after a life time of studying in various institutions and groups, Universal Medicine is the first time I have come across such a quality of education
The kind of childhood that we have really does set us up for the kind of adult life we will have. The more we accept this the more we will be forced to look at what we value in life, for example is it not better that a child learns to love and value themselves over how well they can tell us the times tables in maths? Of course a great education is important but not at the expense of our self-love and self worth.
Being taught about true love, tenderness, gentleness and harmony are the greatest things we can ever learn and are qualities that I have never heard of any boarding school or any other school for that matter teach. I also was sent to boarding school and it did a fine job of finishing off the hard shell I had started a few years previous when I was constantly told to grow up and get hard.
Indeed Kev, that is what we are told, especially as a boy, ‘to grow up and get hard’ as that is what a man should be. And that is exactly what we do as everything in life likes to be geared to that one goal to grow up and get hard instead of the teach and show a way of living that is more honouring to our being that is affectionate, tender and languishing for love for the whole of its life.
And you guys are showing us just how tender a man can be…
Although my childhood was very different from yours Carmel and boarding school only being threatened if I did not behave well enough – I can totally relate to feeling like an alien and in separation from humanity for the majority of my life. Meeting Serge Benhayon was the beginning of changing all this and feeling no longer in separation but the foundation for true brotherhood being re-kindled within.
I grew up feeling like an alien, distant from all humanity. I felt unlovable and instead of being open and friendly with everyone, I created a hard shell of mistrust and a spikiness that stopped anyone from feeling my true vulnerability, including me.
Stephanie you have reminded me of how I lived for most of my adult life , permanently ‘en guarde’. And also like you, thanks to my involvement with Universal Medicine and the teachings and therapies that Serge Benhayon has brought through I now live in a way where I am almost permanently disarmed and exposed and the sense of freedom and aliveness that I feel is nothing short of miraculous.
‘I survived by being a ‘good girl,’ always looking for acknowledgement from the teachers and nuns that I was ‘OK.’’ I can imagine you have to go in some sort of behaviour to survive at 7 years old with no parents around must be truly awful. My experience with nuns was at pre-school and it was a hard time, it felt cold and loveless and I was terrified of doing something wrong, being a ‘good girl’ was also my go to. What a grace to have met Serge Benhayon and the Universal Medicine healing modalities and feeling who we truly are.
“Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’. Instead of that approach, I am now learning to appreciate the amazing woman I truly am and, as I let go of the hardness, I am appreciating the absolute fragility and delicateness that is my natural and true way of being.”
I am so aware that schools and religions are notorious for doing exactly that. I am so aware now that I constantly looked for approval from my teachers, family, friends as i was convinced I was hopeless and definitely not enough as who I was. i was driven to prove i was worthy and spent decades hoping to be vindicated in this pursuit, but in fact it was an endless quest. It was not until I worked on my issues and realised I didnt need others to solve my problems for me or fill me up, and that I was my own answer, then life slowly started to change for the truly better.
Yes, Felicity, once we realise that we are responsible for everything that happens to us, it makes a difference to how we choose to approach life from then on, especially when we can recognise the amazing resources we all have within.
And this is key here Carmel, – the realisation and the embracing of the fact that we choose and are responsible for all that happens to us. It is so liberating when we can embrace this as the difference this makes in our lives as well as others is immens.
If we read life with our body instead of relying soley on our head, we can’t help but be informed and educated in the most beautiful way, by all that takes place. For no matter what it is, every event points back what we know is true, and that is Love. The schooling you received Carmel sounds like it has left you without any doubt as to the incredible natural wisdom we all can enjoy.
I agree, Carmel. The greatest education is to love and be loved, as relationships teach us everything we need to know about how to be fully ourselves in life and what is needed for us all to evolve.
This is true, Janet, we can learn a great deal from all our relationships – at home, at school, at work. Sadly for many of us what we learn is to close down to avoid reactions that hurt us. Once we can let go of being a victim of life and recognise that every situation is something we can learn from, then with understanding we can evolve back to the beautiful beings we originally were.
Coming to understand what ‘fully’ loving is and that it is about living this I am slowly opening and surrendering for the first time. No more living in protection which often starts in childhood and stays around for the majority of our lives. Everyday I deeply appreciate all that I am connecting to because of the work and livingness of Serge Benhayon and celebrate the reflection this will bring to others especially our precious and fragile little ones.
Having grown up in the ex-pat community myself and then chose to have the same lifestyle by marrying into the Airforce, I know all too well the pull and the attraction that way of life holds. It has it’s own consciousness of separatism, of being elite and there was always a transient feel to living this way – people would come and go, no true friendships as everything was always temporary. Personally I did not go to boarding school due to my age, but other members of my family did and it was not a great experience for them.
We know from birth that life is about love, loving ourselves and each other. How simple it would be if we all chose to raise children to honour what they already know and live rather than encourage them to give more power to the mind’s intelligence at a cost to the love that they innately are.
Wouldn’t it be great if we truly allowed our children to ‘educate’ the parents and teachers?
There is an irony here, because everything you have shared Carmel is true education. If we were raised with the holding and inspiration that we are so much more than ‘our brain’s intelligence’… well, how amazing our world would be as a whole. Education needs to nurture the whole of the person, not just parts that reduce the person to so much less than they are.
” Education needs to nurture the whole of the person, not just parts that reduce the person to so much less than they are.” – This is key as we all feel true nurturing and also when we are not met in our wholeness. Very obvious on most school systems when we look at the state our kids find themselves in as well as the teachers too.
It simply makes so much sense Carmel. All of the atrocities and hardships of this world that we simply do not like and react to would simply not be there at all if this world was made to be all about love instead of function and doing.
‘I still find myself being distant at times, and I find it hard to express my love in words. If someone expresses their love and appreciation of me, I often find it hard to accept, not really believing it to be true.’ Thank you Carmel I can really relate to this but had not realised how much this can still affect me – the more I love and appreciate myself the more I am able to accept it from others and express openly but having acceptance that there is always a deeper level to go to takes away the not being ‘good enough’ bat that I used to beat myself up with all the time.
While the details of my boarding school experience may differ, I wasn’t sent away until I was 11 and I went to a Quaker school that did not believe in individual competition in sport and discouraged comparison by, for example, not allowing us to have too many clothes from home so that it was less obvious who came from wealthier backgrounds; the environment still felt ‘unsafe’ and I coped by shutting down and not expressing my feelings – even to myself. For me too it has been a long journey to unravel the layers of protection that I had built up during those 7 years and to feel safe to express who I really am.
Education is about so much more than obtaining knowledge and it is vital that all our children are appreciated for the amazing people that they are and what they offer before they set foot in an educational establishment.
Carmel brilliant blog, I’m sure you could write another blog on the brittleness of the ex- pat social life and how false it all is. It has always been fascinating to me that we don’t like people from other countries building their own communities here in the UK, but isn’t that what we (English) have done for years when we went out to other countries we had our own communities separate from the locals where we could go and it would feel familiar a home from home. The Middle East is full of ex-pat gated communities there are very few people that live with the locals.
So true Mary! My parents were ex-pat in the Middle East and in fairness didn’t join in as much with all the rounds of dinner parties etc., but neither did they become part of the local community! When I ventured out to meet local friends, it seemed strange and a little worrying to them that I was getting involved with foreigners! Heaven forbid, I might end up marrying one…well those white robes were very attractive to a cooped up western girl!
My brother and I were sent to boarding schools and both found it very difficult being away from our parents, seeing them mainly in the summer holidays, being farmed out to various relatives for other school breaks!
Brilliant article Carmel – opening up a can of worms! Despite my loathing of the boarding school system, I ended up having to send my children down the same route as my husband was in the Forces. Despite objecting to this, the situation at the time left me with no other option!
I can still feel sadness as I write this but am clearing some of those pockets of resistence as I express some of my experiences. Thanks Carmel!
In our case, Mary, we were mixed in, especially as my Dad worked in an Iraqi company and had a team of Iraqis working with him. But yes, there was still a bit of the ‘British Set’. In my late 20s I had a year in Libya where there were many gated ex pat communities, especially the oil companies, but we were living in an Arab quarter and shopped in the local shops, so we did get to mix a little with the locals.
This was something I was discussing with someone the other day – that for some children, school becomes the only place to learn the skills of life because of a difficult or unsupportive home environment – and yet the education system is already under pressure, and its one track focus on grades means that children often leave education and enter the world of being adult with very little in terms of a well-rounded upbringing. As you raised, there is so much more to being human that the level of intelligence we can reach and our measures of success often leave us very empty and/or dissatisfied. Beyond even just the practical aspects of life such as money management, getting a mortgage or how to pay tax which is not covered generally in education, we are not taught how to express ourselves truly, how to live who we are and not the expectations of others, how to have deep, meaningful and loving relationships, friendships and work connections. Without any of this as a foundation we learn to cope and to survive, but at what cost, and what behaviours do we take on to enable us keep going?
Yes indeed, Rebecca. Especially as young people nowadays often have more of a relationship with their phone than with other human beings, it is definitely essential for us to address this problem and build loving and respectful relationships as a foundational preparation for life.
Not only this but there is a trend, in Japan for example, to marry a virtual girlfriend. The population then declines and there are fewer people to care for the actual people who are still alive.
A virtual girl-friend? One that does not exist? How does that work? It feels truly sad if society feels it has to offer such a thing …
The part about not needing so much acknowledgement from others stood out to me in that I know I still do this, but nowhere close to how much my life was dominated by pleasing others like it used to. Being our true loving selves is not the popular stance in the world today but it has true sucess within our lives and to those around us.
Carmel, this is so tenderly written and there’s so much here I can comment on. I’ll start with what you have shared about the ‘good’ education that is void of love and warmth – an education therefore that is reduced to something very functional at best. This is not true education for our purpose in life is not to become functional output robots that can perform duties and roles and regurgitate knowledge to impress and all of that. We are here to express and be what you share in this blog – to be open with each other, to express from our hearts which has far more knowing than our minds can ever attain, and to not hold back our love and affection towards people.
When we connect to our love and nurture and nourish our children from this love that we have, a love that has no limits or end, we activate the child’s inner knowing. So they go to school with this knowing intact and education is something they receive to support them in life, but not to define them or indeed corrupt them. Then, a child is able to receive a true education one that encompasses all of life and not just the knowledge that will get them so called ‘success’ later on in life.
Katerina, I have seen a few children who are being brought up by what I call ‘fully aware’ parents – these children make eye contact with the adults around them, they are open, confident, and still do well at school. Some struggle a bit in their relationships with less open children, but at least they have full support at home.
And reading further, I love your words: ‘When we connect to our love and nurture and nourish our children from this love that we have, a love that has no limits or end, we activate the child’s inner knowing.’ This is true for all our interactions with people of all ages.
Love recognises love. Love is very very familiar to us all.
“It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.” Learning to heal our hurts through loving ourselves, self care and appreciation enables us to nurture and nourish our bodies and deflect the continual mind-talk that tells us we are not enough.
Yes, Sue, that self talk of not being enough is insidious and a complete lie.
“School is not the only part of our education – our living environment makes a difference too.” Yes – and if that environment is cold – physically – and emotionally cold, what does that set up young people for?
“Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’” Good point Carmel. As an ex-boarding schooler myself I have spent most of my life ‘trying’ and not feeling good enough, Competition was constant and there was no going home at the end of the day to find some relief from the constant pressure of having to perform. Discovering I was – and am – enough – through Universal Medicine presentations was like a pot of gold for me.
Accepting that we are enough is a challenge for many of us, well into our sixties!
Love this Carmel – 🙂
I’m not sure that we can ever truly ‘accept that we are enough’, it has to be something that is fundamentally known to us through our bodies and then there is no question, it’s just a given.
On second thoughts who is this ‘we’ that’s enough? When all we are is portals for energy then there is in truth no ‘we’ or ‘us’ to be enough. We’re either aligned to a consciousness that is everything or a consciousness that’s not and that’s basically it.
Beautiful Carmel, this is a piece of writing that will go down in history as one of the greats because it brings light to the fact that even the deepest hurts can be healed never to return or be repeated.
It is interesting, Shami to uncover deeper and deeper layers of reactions to current events that could well stem from the hurts of our past and good to know, as you say, they can be let go of and healed.
Yes I so agree 🙂 Awesome sharing and so heartfelt without blaming – love to read and most importantly the road to healing showing clearly that we can heal and that it is never too late.
Catholic boarding schools are a special type of Catholic schools. What I have noticed in my daily life that parents bringing the kids to Catholic schools have a particular way of moving. Seemingly, they totally entrust those in charge of the education of their kids. They are part of a bubble even outside the bubble. Their movement is ‘bubbly’. This way is fuelled by the total identification they have with the organization they totally trust in their lives. Such identification and such bubbly movement precludes them from being able to discern the energy of the schools they send their kids too and how much they have to bow to it every day. Fascinating to see the invisible game at play every single day.
It is a form of ‘brainwashing’ that the Catholic Church can have such a grip on people’s lives that they feel they can entrust their children to another’s care without discerning the energies at play.
Our whole education system is set up to pit us against one another and keep us separated. We’ve ended up with a society that prizes mental intelligence above all else – and in doing so, we’ve lost an enormous amount – not least, respect and decency towards one another.
Yes so it is Bryony – so we can be so grateful that we have the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to support us to connect within and return to who we truly are which will then reflect how we are with others.
Serge Benhayon introduces us to a whole new method of education – starting not with an ‘I know this and I’m going to teach you’ but with a ‘You already know this and this is how you can tune back into the wisdom you already hold inside each of you EQUALLY’. There is absolutely no cleverness, no one-upmanship, no exhibition of power and knowledge, just a simple sharing of techniques, a few presentations to inspire, and more than anything, absolute love and true support for each and every one of us equally.
I can fully relate to being brought up in a functional family that provided all the required items… but love and affection. Which left me unprepared for loving relationships that were a bit alien to me. I carried on my family model, I had been taught through my first three marriages, this alone speaks volumes! With age, wisdom should follow, if you are willing to choose to change! I have found it is never too late to embrace the amazingness that resides in us all and it starts with our children.
What you show Carmel from your experiences that mixing religion (especially the harshness of the Catholic Church) and the education system together, and being sent to live away from your home life at such a young age, creates an un-loving environment and is a breeding ground for insecurity, lack of self worth and the need to compete and compare with our piers and siblings..
Exactly, it can be a breeding ground for dysfunctional adults.
Exactly – as can be seen by some of our politicians in the UK – many of who went to public school.
This is so true. In my family my grandmother’s parents lived and worked on Java. And my grandmother (long passed on now), was sent away at the age of 3 to go to school/preschool etc to the mainland somewhere. Interestingly to observe, that my mother, who grew up during the 2nd WW, was also put on a train amidst the bombing of our home town, with a name label round the neck to be transported out of the city to somewhere in the country, while her mother (my grandmother) had to stay behind and help as she was a Red Cross Nurse too. I myself was also sent away at the young age of 3 or 4 for long periods of time, and so the dysfunction in building relationships based on love and trust was passed down the generations. I am not saying this with judgement, just to show how it all repeats. One consequence for me due to this was that when I had children, I was not even able to get a babysitter for them, for me I had to be there all of the time so they would not ever feel abandoned.
That toxic combination is an absolute avalanche of forces all wielded under the disguise of institutions that are designed to bring about positivity but in truth bring nothing but harm. Sure some people will argue this and pick out the so called ‘good bits’ but just to be clear the concept of ‘good and bad’ isn’t true, so that in itself is an indication that it comes from a consciousness that’s rotten.
Carmel, thank you for sharing this, ‘what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?’ I can feel how there could be so much more to education than is currently taught in schools, that what is being taught is only a part of what a true education could be, what is missing is life skills, self-care, love, how to relate and communicate with each other, knowing who we are and what we bring, education at the moment does not feel rounded and as a result we come out not knowing who we are and often lacking in true confidence.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like Carmel to be sent away at such a young age just when you are getting to know who you are and who you might be.
This quote came from another blog read this morning: “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all” Aristotle.
Love that quote – thank you Kehinde for sharing it here.
I watched a TV news interview with a man who publicly and for the first time revealed he was sexually abused as a child for years at an English boarding school by one teacher. Like you Carmel, separated (aged 9) from his parents and plucked from an environment he knew and loved (Kenya) he was sent thousands of miles away to an alien environment and completely alone. What stood out for me was the child’s inability to tell anyone what was happening to him. For sixty years he kept the abuse he suffered secret and only now found the courage to publicly disclose what happened The tendency, when parents select boarding schools, is to ask the wrong questions: exam results, sports, technology and extra-curricula activities. How many ask direct questions related to the emotional well-being of the child. How many ask, for example, will my child be loved, safe, supported, and nurtured. Or if even, can you guarantee our child will not be beaten, abused, isolated, bullied, made to feel small. To ask these questions would bring the import of what they’re doing closer to home. Parents too readily, leave their most precious beings to complete strangers and assume all will be well. Rarely do they ask questions related to how their child will be treated. We could ask ourselves, where are the parents, not just physically but within themselves that this is considered to be an acceptable way to treat children.
Of course, in Catholic circles it is assumed that the adults you are placing your child in the care of are responsible and totally trustworthy, It is only in our current time that the extent of the paedophilia within the Catholic Church itself is becoming known.
Kehinde, what a tragic case and I am sure far from isolated. I would question why anyone would send their child away to boarding school, it doesn’t feel right to abandon a child to an unfamiliar environment. Do any children do well from being away from their parents and in such a place. How rare i would expect it is that a child would receive warm loving care, particularly in an educational system that is all about being the best at recalling information and excelling at competition, and amongst other similarly lost and abandoned children cruelty can never be far away.
Great blog Carmel. It is really important to have love as our foundation of seeing life and even though we might not all get this in the family we grow up in, because they did not get it in the family they grew up in, it is never too late to start to make love our foundation ourselves so we can share this in the future with others too.
Carmel I didn’t go to boarding school but in many other respects, despite living at home and receiving (as far as I can recall) lots of hugs from my mum, there are many similarities in our upbringings, in terms of the general demographics of our social, school and home environments. Even without the boarding school element none of this is conducive to supporting children to be who they truly are – rather it all feels geared to creating ‘good’ or ‘righteous’ and ultimately ‘productive’ and compliant members of society. What happened to being honoured for who we are first and foremost? A truly well-rounded education that acknowledges our soulful and multi-dimensional natures from home onwards is what’s required.
‘A truly well-rounded education that acknowledges our soulful and multi-dimensional natures from home onwards is what’s required.’ I agree
Hear hear – that says it all, nothing to add.
I too went to a catholic school and due to not being seen for the loving, delicate young girl I was, I turned into the obnoxious brat that they were treating me as. I grew up believing I was a brat until I realized that I was actually the opposite, that I was loving, caring, delicate and extremely responsible. This change came about with the support of Serge Benhayon who met me for the qualities that I am innately and then, with this reflection I could claim back the real me.
And such a beautiful being the real you is, Mary-Louise – you are definitely one of my role models for tenderness and fragility and honesty without guilt.
It’s interesting how we come to believe as kids that we are what people treat us as. Such a great reminder that every single human being needs to be treated with respect, love and decency as a bottom line.
The beautiful you that you are today shows that change is always possible, It is hard to believe that you were the ‘brat’ you mention. Underneath that hard exterior was the warm loving caring woman I know you to be today. And a beautiful role model for everyone you meet.
Feels like living proof that anyone can change and that being presented with love has the capacity to change even the most extreme behaviour. No one is a lost cause and it makes me reflect how similar boarding school and the prison system are in creating a type of behaviour that does not represent the being. We all need love to blossom, it is near impossible without experiencing it.
Dear Carmel, so important to expose boarding school education for what it really is and describe the harm it inflicts on children. At last we’re beginning to understand that a ‘good education’ has nothing to do with brain intelligence but with the emotional well-being of the child: Do they know who they are, feel loved, worthy, secure with themselves and others. If not what is the point. It’s as if parents ignore the whole person and focus solely on end results. qualifications, career and earning potential.
Yes level of qualifications becomes the be-all and the qualities of the individual only matter if they are hard-working and intelligent. The warmth, caring, love-ability gets lost. A lot of schools now get funding based on results and the results are based on tests passed.
Hear Hear Kehinde -parents and significant others always being ‘result orientated’ does not make any child feel truly met for the amazing-ness that they are.
That is very true, and we may choose to remember that the same happened for generations now and this being passed down to the next generation therefore continuing this ill thought cycle. High time to make a difference, as we can see across the globe what is happening to the kids and society at large. Best to start in ones own house 😉
Thank Carmel for such an open and honest sharing. I, too, was at boarding school and reading this has brought up a huge mixture of feelings and emotions that I need space to unravel them.
I imagine it was far worse for boys who were not allowed to be a wuss and cry – I must admit I got very good at crying very quietly so no-one could hear me and as an adult I was very reluctant to let anyone see me cry, except perhaps in a therapy session, where it was actively encouraged.
There was a TV documentary called “The Making of Them” which followed young boys into their first term at boarding school. The toughening up process began very early. The ‘boys don’t cry’ lesson becomes ingrained as so many men believe it is a sign of weakness to weep. I too used to go off on my own to cry in the woods or in the cloaks cupboard when at boarding school and for years found it difficult to cry when people were around.
So true Carmel. true education is in learning to hug and to know who you are rather than stuffing your brain with facts and learning to be ‘good’ out of fear.
Learning to be good out of fear – yes at our school you were either good or you rebelled and were expelled…
Yep – fear-based learning brings nothing to humanity at all. It creates just more fear and perpetuates itself.
It seems Carmel, that you were 6, such a tender age to be off to Boarding School. You mention that within the school”…..you were either good or rebelled and were expelled…..”. Not much has changed it would seem, where it has reported in today’s Gold Coast Bulletin that more than 1,000 little prep. children of 4 and 5 years of age were suspended from schools in Queensland in 2016 for apparently being ‘ill-prepared for school’ – and behaving in a way that was not appropriate or acceptable. One has to wonder at the loving relationships within the families and the hugs that were either there or not so to have supposedly resulted in so many ‘rebellious’ tots. One can’t help but feel the hurt in these little children. Interesting they they used the term ‘socialised’ – or not so, as being the cause for such acting up behaviour. I recall many years ago our dog had to be ‘socialised’ before it was allowed to play with other puppies in the dog park – interesting analogy.
Love this Mary! Its so true. It does seem crazy that so amny people grow up being ‘very intelligent’ butdont actually know how to communicate with another when it comes to having a simple loving hug. Its what we all crave for and what has been so lacking in our society today.
Thank you Carmel Reid for writing such a real blog about real life. Having been raised as a Catholic and attending a Catholic school from the tender age of 5 through to adult life I was constantly fed the feeling of never being enough or that there always was a feeling of needing to be accepted which played havoc on my self worth. The teaching of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine blew the lid on this many years ago and I am now aware of the responsibility of discerning each moment and knowing that the past was a lesson and that the future is where there is more to learn.
And we can be living the future now as we show the world how we can overcome our hurts and love all the children in our care.
Love this Natallija – “… I am now aware of the responsibility of discerning each moment and knowing that the past was a lesson and that the future is where there is more to learn.” Once we get this life can and does change if we so choose to.
I feel it would have been quite tough at such a young age to be sent to boarding school; no wonder you toughened up. And how amazing that you now get the opportunity to heal those hurts and nurture your delicate- and tenderness.
I feel that too – very tough indeed. I my family, this was used as a threat to me if I didn’t conform etc. And as I had already been sent away to live with strangers for quite some time at a very early age, for extended long periods of time with next to no visits from my parents, the threat to be sent away to boarding school worked every time.
I agree Carmel the education that a child needs is more than what looks good on paper. Learning to be trusting, open and intimate with others cannot come from academia it comes from having role models around us reflecting this. It comes from warm and loving gestures such as the hug so that the tenderness and love that we need to show ourselves can be first seen and felt in another, no matter what their age, to remind us that this is our true nature. This shows us the great responsibility we have to love ourselves in a way that we can be a true role model to others.
Beautifully said, Kathleen, yes, we have role models and I am one of the fortunate ones, like you, to be living in a time and a place where such role models are available to us.
I also feel very blessed that this is the case and the more we can live what is being lived in expression for us to observe and behold, the more others can choose to have a look and maybe start on their journey too to self-love and therefor much easier loving others too.
‘It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.’
There’s something very important about this comment – well there’s a few things – but what I’m referring to is it’s debunking of the belief that ‘time heals all wounds’. What we really mean by this is that time creates the illusion of safety and distance from our hurts. The truth is they are still there, secretly influencing our behaviours. The recipe Carmel provides is the key to truly moving on.
I loved this first sentence as well Victoria Lister. The notion that time heals is playing into burying what has happened as it is not as raw and current in the frame of time- yet from my experiences and those of others the wounds and hurts can resurface within minutes when we choose not to self-care and heal from within.
I so agree with you both . The notion that ‘time heals’ – are mere words. The fact that deep hurts can be buried only to reemerge at a later date when it is safe to feel them, deal with them and heal them gives the lie to this statement.
Me too Natallija and Victoria, it is such a myth and needs to be busted – Mythbusters roll on 🙂
This is true responsibility. To heal our hurts and not be at the mercy of hoping time will make something feel better.
I so agree with the following – that what we really mean by the belief that ‘time heals all wounds’ is that time creates the illusion of safety and distance from our hurts. I also feel it shows that in that space and passage of time, most of us will do anything and everything to bury it deep into ourselves – so deeply that we are no longer conscious of it and it no longer ‘hurts’ because we have so numbed ourselves to any awareness of those feelings.
Along with many others, I will be ever-grateful that my ‘tuning into my self awareness’ has been supported by Serge Benhayon and other practitioners of Universal Medicine. I have become more aware of how I have allowed occurrences in the past to ‘mis-shape’ the person I became and have been gradually freeing myself from them and their constrictive influence on me.
We as adults are custodians of love and what is produced in this world. If we have more and more young ones doing drugs, having sex, numbing out with computer games, tattoos have increased, cyber bullying, checking out with entertainment through media especially the internet, and violence then what are we producing for future generations?
It is vitally important to reignite our awareness that we return back into the same cycle. None of us can escape that fact no matter how ignorant we choose to be. It is therefore vitally important to heal.
The modalities of Universal Medicine have supported me immensely to truly change miraculously age-old behaviours that I was stuck in.
We are required to shift the energy of the past to adopt the future of love in our generations. “It is not ‘time’ that has healed me, but deliberate healing through self-care, learning to nourish and nurture myself and to appreciate that I am so much more than my education.”
Carmel, thank you for the honesty in this blog. And to add that I deeply appreciate the woman you are – it has been (and it will continue to be so) an absolute joy to see the huge changes you have brought to your life over the past few years that I have known you, by making different choices to heal yourself. You are so different now – warm, open and gorgeous.
Thank you and yes, I have many friends who are making a similar journey within and the way their outer shines with that inner beauty is awesome.
Insightful documentation of the quality of schooling for you [and many, many others too] Carmel, and your line here – “but I have realised that what value is mental intelligence and achievement when it stops us from truly loving ourselves and our fellow human beings, and from living in harmony with each other?” – when schooling is focused on the former, we have disaster at work/in the workplace with disruption, unease, conflict, self-interest, cliques, competitiveness that destabilise trust and confidence. Not so educative, no matter the great school/institution’s name or reputation.
This is true, Zofia, the long term effects of our education system reverberate throughout industry and will continue to do so for years to come.
That is so true Carmel. The ripple effect of the education system and the effect it has on people and their ways of relating can continue for the rest of their lives unless true healing is sought.
Yes Vicky and Carmel. Our education basically has so much influence on us and ‘how we should be in the world’, it has probably more than we can fathom to account for in terms of how so many of us, if not all, have been moulded by it.
I know some people who have never been to school, were home schooled and who make great parents because they are close to their children.
Schools and religions often tend to pick up on our faults and try to make us ‘better’, so we grow up thinking we are not enough and ‘need to try harder’. Isn’t that the truth, and you share your story so very beautifully Carmel, giving us an insight of what it was like to live away from family at a most crucial time of your life when young and needing the support and love from family. So great that you have been able to move through that time of your life and come away with a true understanding of yourself and how you make a difference in the world.
Hugs are a simple gesture that can be so confirming of another human being, regardless of their age.
So true, I have never seen a hug depending on age – everyone benefits, young and old, male and female. Yet on a discussion with my parents and extended family, it came to light that they can not remember hugging after they finished being kids. And it is astounding that when I visit my aunt and uncle, to whom I feel quite close, they came with extended hands to greet me. I just laugh these days and move right in for the hug and their smiles show the joy then, as for them it does not feel natural to initiate an embrace…
It is interesting how some cultures are very open to hugging or kissing the cheeks yet others it’s quite distant, with the hand shake or the hug where you hardly touch.
I sometimes surprise a tradesman by giving him a hug – not often though. It’s a bit like signing letters – I love to use ‘with love’ but for business letters it’s ‘with warm regards’
Thank you for this great blog Carmel – a beautiful story of how you exited from a world of disconnection into the warm realm of love. What you describe is totally relevant to every adult and child, whether they went to boarding school or not. It is the love and connection in relationships that matters primarily before the accumulation of ‘knowledge’ – often very necessary knowledge to facilitate us with the practicality of living life on earth. The Education system as it stands is loveless even though there are many loving teachers out there working – and it is these teachers who bring the true gold.
Yes, indeed, having supported a friend in her primary school, I have witnessed the conflict between offering true love to the children in terms of support, confidence and nurturing against the need to ‘perform’ for statistics. And there’s the religious influence: At my old school, when I visited recently, the head teacher was doing her best to build the girls up, whilst the Priest at mass was invoking the words ‘Lord, i am not worthy’
And Carmels story and choice to exit a loveless world of disconnection to be with love just goes to show that age or experience does not need to hold us back from feeling the all we are and love we’re from.
Recently I’ve been getting how much we tend to ‘normalise’, to change our behaviour to fit in with those close to us. It’s heavy influence makes us crush the natural, beautiful way we actually want to express. Living our lives this way is literally like living ‘boarded up’ every day. We can be close to others physically, as you show Carmel, but even then still cut off in the most serious way. So here’s to everyone like you who is opening up and returning to that natural warmth we all have inside. A big hug to you from me 🙂
Thanks for the hug, Joseph, it is interesting that, as paedophilia is reported more and more in establishments so teachers, shop assistants and anyone working with or near children are not allowed to touch them in any way – so children are missing out on hugs from the adults around them – I find that very sad.
Carmel it’s clear that the abuse from a growing number of people affects everyone, not just those that are directly abused. The result is that we all miss the open and loving connections that could be there.
Beautiful expression Joseph and a big hug from me too dear Carmel…
Joseph, I never thought of the word ‘boarded up’ before and how it is similar to boarding school. Literally children are being sent to institution to be squashed in to a way of acting. It is of course all part of education but it feels like the sharpest end of a horrible stick. Of course we don’t need to be sent away to be squashed, it happens in education around the world, so as you say here’s to being open and expressing and sharing ourselves as we really were naturally meant to be.
‘squashed in to a way of acting’ and that what’s we do for the rest of our lives – we act as if everything is ok when it’s clearly not. Until we come across a true philosopher like Serge Benhayon who clearly exposes the illusion we have been living under, that all is truly not well, but that we can heal ourselves when we let go of the angst, the trauma, and all the issues that we have created in order to maintain the illusion that we set up in the first place.
To take the ‘boarded up’ analogy further, we also have Boards of Education as well . . .
The ingrained and falsely celebrated reality that competition is healthy has brought us as a humanity to the point where competition and separation are lived and believed to be normal and healthy. Is this really so when the only thing we all want inside is to be loved for the beautiful, tender, caring person that resides inside of us deeply under our own layers of hardness and protection that we have made real for ourselves to fit into the way the world is.
There are many lies that we are fed and most of them lead to ill-health in some form
Thank you Carmel for these deeply healing words that helps us to see we are not who we are shaped to be by the environment we are brought up in and that our real job in life is to peel back these layers so that our true self can reflect to others the truth of who we are. No matter how hard our shell, or spikey our spines, we are each a beauteous ball of loveliness and light on the inside, no different to the day we were born.
Yes, I agree, Liane, which means that no-one is marred for life by their early education – given an opportunity and the inspiration, we can all choose to rise above how we were brought up and open up ourselves and our families to true love.
This is very powerful to appreciate and very important to express. So many people have given up on changing their lives or healing their hurts because they think they are too old, or too set in their ways or, simply, because “that is how it has always been”. This blog is essential in that regard in that it shows us all, no matter what age we are or no matter how long ago something happened, we all still have the choice and ability to let anything go and free ourselves back to the divinity that we are and have always been.
I have discovered for myself that you are never too old to find love – the more I began to accept and appreciate me for being me, the more open I was to others and I have now entered into a brand new partnership that feels amazing, I feel like a teenager in love for the first time, and I’m 66!
Beautifully said Lianne. At the end of the day we are all divine on the inside and when we can accept this about ourselves we can begin to accept it about other people, no matter what our life circmstances have been or our relationships have been with others have been in the past.
Yes the ingredients that is shared here is the key to how we can heal our own hurts. Knowing that we are all equal and that within resides a knowing that we all come from the same source.
Could what Carmel has shared here be the beginnings of true education?
I have attended many courses that look at and bring healing to childhood issues. I have heard hundreds to stories from people of all walks of life, ages, nationalities etc and would consider most of them to be horror stories. Whether it be the most atrocious sexual abuse or simply being ignored it seems everyone carries the scars of not being met, loved and appreciated for who they truly are.
Of course this gets perpetuated from one generation to another. If we are not in connection to our essence and do not fully appreciate or love ourselves we do not have that to offer another and so it continues. Through the teachings and love of Serge Benhayon, I have broken that cycle within myself as have countless others. There is another way and we can make life about love if we so choose.
I agree, Nicola, making life about love is so much more important than any academic achievement – those qualifications are merely an access point for us to set up careers where we can bring that same love into everything we do.
All back to choice – and we can choose any second of the day, all of the time, anew.
It just goes to show how much a child who comes to life with a fresh innocent start each time round (each new life) can be hugely affected by what existed in those around them. And then they have the choice to be in the same way or choose differently. I distinctly remembering as a child as young as 8 the people who were here to teach me what not to do.
That is the joy of the work that is offered from the teachings and love of Serge Benhayon. An opportunity to let go of these hurts and carry no judgement or blame is an incredible leap in our current world and simply getting on with living what we all must offer.
I agree, Natallija, through Serge Benhayon we have been given such a beautiful opportunity to let go of our hurts so that we don’t have to live our lives as victims of circumstance but can take responsibility for everything that happens as a result of our own choices about how to live.
And not carry the blame and hurt that many ideals and beliefs systems use to trap us in this way of living.
I found that my relationship with my sibling was a surprising reflection of the relationship my parents had. When one parent moved out my relationship with my sibling was suddenly much better.
That’s interesting Christoph. It’s interesting how we can mimic the reflection we are given be it a poor one or a true one. Yet when that reflection is not there we are just left with what we choose. To be in certain patterns or to just be ourselves.
I found the opposite, Christoph, I was extremely close, and still am, to my only sibling, which was the opposite of the relationship modeled by our parents.
This shows me the impact of the hurts, jealousy and other emotions that can play out and repeat in a family unit or a group.