by Julie Snelgrove, Merchandiser, Somerset, UK
Three weeks ago I hurt my big toe. The pain was intense at the time of injury. As I was crying in pain I could feel the pain was coming from a much deeper place than just my toe!
The wound was too painful for me to allow the paramedic to clean it up, so they took me to the local minor injuries unit where I could have Entonox (gas and air). I’ve had this before so thought: “Ah, that’ll be ok”.
I was sitting in a chair when they brought the gas in. At that moment my head was feeling vulnerable so I asked my daughter to get me a pillow. As she was getting it – I started breathing the Entonox. I took a couple of deep breaths and then the words the doctor said kept repeating as I lost consciousness and collapsed sideways in the chair. In that moment a part of me was pleased this had happened and for a split second I WANTED this depth of numbness. Then inside me something screamed “Get me out of this now!” I chose to come back and said No to the numbness. It felt like I was dragging myself out of mud and I never want to feel like that again.
As soon as I came round I said “That was awful – I feel like I just had a shot of heroin.” The nurse was light and humorous and said “You really shouldn’t take heroin through your toe!”
Eleven days later I was back at the hospital to have the stitches removed. This was painful, so I was offered Entonox again. Initially my reply was “No, I passed out with that last week”.
My choice was based on that previous experience. In that moment I blamed the Entonox for causing it.
As the pain intensified I asked the nurse to stop. She suggested again I have Entonox.
After a brief hesitation, I chose to use the Entonox as a support, to allow the procedure to be completed.
This time I was lying on a couch. I asked for a pillow to support my head before I started using the entonox. The canister was rolled in and I was given a full explanation of how to use it. I followed the instructions and breathed gently. It took a few breaths for the haze to kick in and as it did I heard the words ‘I am divine’. I was fully aware of what was being said and what the nurse was doing. It was just all ‘dulled’. If any words went to repeat this time ‘I am divine’ was there.
I heard the nurse say it was all done and I came around. There was a very big smile on my face as I knew I’d just been through a special healing moment in understanding and experiencing the power of our choices and how these play out.
I thanked the nurse for her amazing support and in this I learnt more as I shared with her how I’d sat in a chair on the previous occasion. She was shocked, because part of the setup is the patient should be on a couch. In that moment I then remembered how I had felt rushed and unsafe, but had let it carry on because of what I wanted – to be numbed.
So what was the difference?
In the first experience I wanted to be fixed. I was angry this injury had been ‘done’ to me and I certainly did not want to accept my part in why it had happened. I CHOSE IRRESPONSIBILITY and then accepted whatever happened after that because of what I needed.
In the second experience I was open to there being another way and how I could be supported and choose this. I made sure I felt supported properly to start with – I was on the couch, I had a pillow, the side was up, I was given a clear explanation. But this was natural because of my choice.
Two very different outcomes as a result of choices made.
The teachings and presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have supported and inspired me to make more loving choices. The support I have received from Universal Medicine practitioners over the years has been ongoing and amazing and equally so too has the care, attention and wise words I’ve experienced from all the doctors and nurses in the NHS. So long as All are kept in the picture as part of the healing process, knowing the necessary support is always there from whomever or where ever this may come at the time, Universal Medicine and Conventional Medicine are a marriage made in Heaven.
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
This blog was written over 6 years ago and is relevant today as it was then particularly in light of the state of humanity as most of the western world ‘battens down its hatches’ to the virus COVID 19. Is it possible that the likelihood of catching this and its degree of severity is also down to our choices? I know for myself I am following government guidelines as well as choosing to connect to myself and the bigger space around us All rather than get caught in the fear and anxiety as this feels equally, if not more, harmful.
Julie it does feel to me that the media and the government are creating a fear about this particular virus. I work in an industry that is worldwide and speak to many people from all walks of life all around the world and most of the people I speak to are fearful for themselves and their family. Is it possible that when we live in fear we are more easily controlled by the politicians who say they are acting in the best interests of society but what if their policies and actions are actually harming instead? Are we all blindly walking into a dictatorship where what freedom we did have is being eroded? Where police patrol the shopping centres and if you are not wearing a mask you can be fined on the spot in some places. True story.
This is a great blog about choices and how we make them usually because we want a certain outcome and so brush over the possible consequences until it catches up with us.
‘I CHOSE IRRESPONSIBILITY and then accepted whatever happened after that because of what I needed.’ Thank you so much for illustrating what the consequences of those choices can be and that when we deny the responsibility of those choices we are left feeling disempowered and like victims of circumstance when life really doesn’t have to play out this way.
Thank you Julie, for the sharing of the two experiences. This just goes to show how we perceive an illness, injury or whatever the body is throwing out of it, can also be a healing or harming.
When we’re more open and receptive, the experience just flows and the others around us reciprocate it too. When we are closed, blaming or wanting to be fixed, then the experience leaves us with a bad taste and we blame it on a particular thing that follows us or holds us prisoners, for the rest of our lives.
In everything, we have the opportunity to make choices that are lovingly supportive to us and our body’s or not, it is that simple.
‘Two very different outcomes as a result of choices made.’ I love the examples you are sharing here Julie as they highlight beautifully the outplay of the choices we make, either to be with ourselves and feel everything there is to feel in the moment and for what is needed, or, to check out, not be present, not to feel and not to take any responsibility for the way things are panning out, leaving ourselves out of the equation and blaming everything and everyone around us for the events that unfold. Gold.
Agree Rachel, it is ‘Gold’. It boils down to the choice of responsibility of being there or not. When we are with ourselves, then we accept the part we have placed. When we are not with ourselves, then we hand and blame others for our ill choices. Can we live with this knowing?
Every moment there is an offering to choose love regardless our previous choices hence we are given countless opportunities to choose love in our lives.
Thank you Julie, today reading this I feel I understand more easily and am allowing a deeper level of honesty, a greater awareness, of the way that I behave and the consequences that arise from those behaviours. Whatever and however I express has an influence on those around me – there is a huge responsibility in this but it need not be daunting when we are truly connected and allow for constant inspiration.
Elain what you are sharing is huge:
“Whatever and however I express has an influence on those around me – there is a huge responsibility in this but it need not be daunting when we are truly connected and allow for constant inspiration.”
You are saying that however we move, what we write, or speak has an effect on ourselves and all others around us. How many of us have stopped to consider this, that we actually make a difference by our movements to the world we live in. This does away with that saying of: what can I do? I don’t make a difference to the world, when actually we can all make a difference just by being aware of our movements. Your comment has provided a stop moment to consider just how powerful we all are, that just by moving in a different way we can affect the world.
Years ago on a cold dark night in December on a twisty road, I had fallen into the trap of familiarity with the road and excess speed on my large motorcycle. On the way to the A&E in the ambulance, I got my first ever opportunity to experience Entonox. I was told how to use it and asked if I could overdose on it and was told not to worry about it. When the pain from the two broken ankles arose and other lesser injuries, I tried the gas and sure enough when I had enough gas, the hand holding the mask flopped and the mask fell off my face. I became self-medicating for what was needed by the body.
There are so many examples of how the body simply knows. Learning to listen to it and trust it more and more is a process that continues to unfold.
A beautiful reflection on the responsibility of every choice we make.
This is very powerful. How often do I give up and give in because the circumstances don’t seem to meet my expectation? It really is me avoiding my responsibility. We always have a choice, and we have a choice to command that choice.
Fumiyo your comment caught my attention
“How often do I give up and give in because the circumstances don’t seem to meet my expectation?”
Where are these expectations coming from? I know I’m still getting caught up in the thoughts that I have that I think are my thoughts, which keeps me in the individuality of life, rather than understanding fully that my thoughts are fed to me from a pool of energy that encourages individuality because being an individual keeps us all in the separation to our soul.
I have found it interesting also to observe events in my life and to realise that they are definitely influenced by my own choices and movements beforehand.
Agreed. Even on the subtle level of choosing to place my focus on appreciation of the space I can feel in my body as opposed to letting the tense areas take over and become all consuming has a massive difference in how my movements are impulsed and how I enter into communication with another. Both these things influence greatly what is to unfold next.
michelle819 just recently I was able to feel how by holding tension in one part of my body how it had been affecting my left hip as I let go of the tension I felt the muscles in my left hip relax, it was amazing to feel. The tension was affecting all my movements, as you have observed our movements communicate more than words and influence greatly what is to unfold next.
It’s great that you noticed the difference – how often do we have a bad experience and blame that experience rather than our part in it? Or we don’t consider that the outcome could have been different if we’d approached it differently?
It makes such a difference the way we are – the state we are in and the quality we hold ourselves it. It makes me realise that a choice is never just a singular thing – it also factors in all the other choices we have made leading up to that.
I am also being made aware that every choice we make affects everyone; there is an enormous responsibility in every choice that we make.
I am back in the USA and have had nothing but positive experiences with people, including in NYC. When I was 21 I was not such a happy person and was struggling to make sense of life. In NYC then I encountered so much hostility and rudeness. At the time it never occurred to me that this was what I was attracting by my contraction to life.
michelle819 what you are saying is a great example of how we are living life. Many of us don’t want to take responsibility for our part in life and we blame life on other people or circumstances, rather than look at how we have made the choices that have consequences to them.
Thank you Julie a great sharing and one that we can all learn from, especially the importance of asking questions even when we are in pain, a simple prompt of asking how you needed to take the pain relief may have prompted a full explanation as we all have an equal responsibility in these things and when we blindly seek relief there are always consequences.
It is true that we are making choices all of the time and depending on how we make that choice will determine the outcome; either way negative or positive there is always something to learn.
It’s so supportive to realise we can empower ourselves with our choices, to trust our feelings and to even slow down something happening around us, such as in this medical situation, to ask more questions and express how we feel and what our needs are. I definitely feel more empowered now when I work with medical professionals, realising they too need my feedback, and that we can work together more harmoniously as a team with my input.
Our choices reflect the quality of energy we align to and in our willingness to embrace and surrender to truth and honor the love we are, our choices then follow to support this alignment and our opportunity to evolve.
The way we approach the healing process determines the way we experience it. Good to remind this, since it is a choice we ourselves make.
Thank you for sharing this great example of how when we choose irresponsibility we become a victim of how the situation then plays out but when we accept our part in whatever has unfolded we can then allow ourselves to be appropriately supported and thus transform the way we experience challenging circumstances and re-imprint them.
Great comment Helen by accepting our part in what ever has unfolded we can learn so much from it and as you say re-imprint so that we do not have to go through the same lesson again.
A great learning and reminder for us all that it is the choices we make that determine the outcome of every situation.
As I read this I couldn’t help but think how our lives would be so different from young if we were raised to know the power, the consequences and the responsibility we have for each and every choice we make. For a start the ‘blame game’ would no longer exist as we would naturally be taking responsibility for these choices. Now that is one game the world would be so much better off without.
Yes it really exposes the nature of blaming others by calling it the ‘blame game’ and is one that we would certainly benefit from not playing!
Making choices based on past experiences – it sounds like there’s no other way to make any sensible choice, but I can feel how I use it to ease off the level of awareness and responsibility that the moment calls for. This is huge. Thank you for sharing your insight, Julie.
I appreciate the honesty with yourself that you share here, recognising the impact of your part in the equation rather than just seeing it as random that there was a difference in how you reacted on different occasions or just blaming others for what happened.
How beautiful that you had the opportunity to re-imprint your experience and how much more loving and supportive it was for you the second time when you were honouring yourself.