by Rachel Mascord, BDS, Sydney and Warrawong.
This has been an extraordinary week in my life…a point of endings and new beginnings that have left me raw and vulnerable in a way I’ve rarely allowed myself to experience before.
I submitted my resignation this week. This has been a momentous step because it is the first time I have left a job with no other job to go to. I had held this position for more than 16 years, and a very comfortable nest it became indeed. My comfort in this job lay in the “security” of its tenure, but an uncomfortable and damaging comfort it was. The price I was paying was high; its coinage the toleration of a constant level of low grade disrespect and the sort of subtle abuse that people learn to cope with, in some way or another. After all, it is quite the normal thing in this world…isn’t it? It is an abuse that does not mark the flesh, but rather more insidiously leaves its bruises deep and unseen upon the heart and the being.
Leaving it has felt like I imagine the baby bird must feel as it extends its wings for the first time, surrendering itself from the edge of the nest that has held it safe for so long…
Never have I allowed such a level of open vulnerability in my life. Never have I allowed such a level of surrender, never have I stated that I trust myself so deeply and all of the resource that comes, innate, rich and sourced from deep within me.
The extraordinariness of this time of my life cannot easily be laid out in word. My body, long tightened and tensed against the constant low bubble of tension and hurt has registered the release and celebrated with the release of its own in the form of a substantial health problem. “Here you go,” it has said to me, “take a look at how you have been negotiating your way through life. Do you see the way you have been gripping the reins for so long that your fingers no longer straighten and soften in tender supplication to the Divine Will? Do you feel the armour you have made of your chest to bear the hurts of disrespect others have sent your way – a disrespect you have not loved and respected yourself enough to ever address?
Do you feel the magnitude of the lack of trust you have had in yourself and consequently the lack of surrender to your Father’s Will? All of this I am revealing unto thee, the truth of your thus far Living Way…are you ready to release the fingers you have clenched hard, thus releasing us from the uncomfortable comfort you have made my home for so long? Are you at last, willing to let go that fearful control of circumstance that has felt like the only way to make your way through life? Are you willing to know that you are enough, more than enough? Are you yet willing to hand yourself unto God’s way, as he would live on Earth?”
How can I ignore such questions, asked of me, by my body, with such poignant and pointed clarity?
My response to it has been to harken myself, sharpen my ears and listen attentively. I have also been to see the most remarkable doctor of my life. No stone shall be left unturned medically, but I also know that even the greatest medicine can only treat that which I give it access to treat. The doctor can only play his part, the rest is up to me; is my part. It is the life I live and how I choose to live it.
So in consideration of this I ask myself: Shall I ever allow abuse again? What occurs to me in typing these words is that we humans have become so inured to abuse…the words “get over it”, “what’s wrong with you?”, “you’re too sensitive” fall from our lips so easily that they constitute our normal daily way of conversing with each other. Is this not how we have reached a point that it takes the most brutal of extremes of televised abuse to make us lift our heads from our evening meal and shake our heads before we take the next mouthful?
How many of us subsist in life, negotiating our way through the minefield of “hurt or be hurt,” that human life has become. Our fingers tighten on the reins of our lives, no longer able to straighten and soften in tender supplication to a Divine Will that we have long forgotten even existed.
It was Universal Medicine that reminded me, both of the Divine Will and inspired me to ignite again my willingness to live its Way…The Way of The Livingness. But to do so I have had to learn the greatest lesson of my life…that is to say no to abuse in its tiniest expression.
For even one drop of abuse is poison to the whole.
This bout of sickness, the grace of my very delicate body, has offered me the Truth of how I chose to exist for so very long. And now offers me a dare, if you will…if Love would ever offer such a thing…a dare to live with nothing but the greatest dedication to love, to my essence, my Soul. To live as God would live on Earth. Dare I ignore this firm directive to look within myself and see the glorious kernel of God’s Love that is my essence? How can I not, in the face of this truth, let go of the uncomfortable safety we call comfort and thus restore myself to the Living Son of God I am?
Read more:
- Why wait? Let’s discard out-of-date and abusive attitudes about gender now!
- Love – the missing link in gender equality.
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
I am also more and more feeling how deeply abuse runs in my life in the sense that sometimes simple ways of being with each other can feel abusive when we leave each other where we are and not pull each other up for instance. Being ill is a great way to surrender and listen more clearly to what our body is saying when our usual comforts of life can not be sustained for that moment.
Thank you Rachel re-reading this is a great wake-up call. I love my job but the physical office environment is not supportive and I have been trying to get managers to address the situation but feel to explore what comfort I am in that I do not want to move (away from my team) and what else I can do to support myself.
I agree Doug and I have also been masterful at abusing myself in many different forms and I go from one to the next to the next. The antidote to this is when we say no to abuse and start to truly appreciate what we bring.
‘For even one drop of abuse is poison to the whole.’ This sentence made me sit up and feel where I still allow abuse in my life, abuse of myself and there are still many which I am choosing and saying yes to. The good bit is that I see them and that’s an excellent place to start as I let go of more and more of the abuse knowing that it is not just about me it’s all part of the whole.
Staying in a job because of the comfort and the apparent stability it offers, even when there is a constant chipping away of and abuse at your sense of being. I can imagine that there is a very high percentage of people who chose the same, day in and day out. And this is understandable when, in a culture of job losses and high bills to match lifestyles and the needs of family, there is a lot of pressure placed on us to stay where we can guarantee the next paycheque – no matter the cost this takes from our bodies and our personal relationships. This is why the inner-heart is so beautiful, because with connection to this we are able to express what we really love and from there new possibilities are discovered – one being that life can be full and vibrant without having to tolerate abuse.
This is pure heaven on a page Rachel, your way with expression is deeply beautiful. And yes a drop of ink into water affects the whole as does a drop of abuse is felt by the whole.
It is so true that when we dismiss and override our own sensitivities, the body can only be left to harden and accumulate the consequences of our ill choices.
I can say that I do know of instances where I still allow abuse in my life. But rather than be honest about this I’ve ignored it. Shunning myself and the understanding as to the why is this so? The gorgeous thing about the body is that it doesn’t punish, only presents.
I like your approach of no stone shall be left unturned, both medically and in understanding what is really going on. The moments when we are ill are great for a whole life-assessment and for questioning what may or may not be working, I find they can be amazing pivotal points that can change the course or the direction of our lives.
‘take a look at how you have been negotiating your way through life’ Negotiating is a well chosen word here as we do negotiate on a daily bases the price we are willing to pay for the security, protection and sense of belonging we think we need.
I have just realised a comfort I’ve been in in a relationship, all wrapped up in beliefs of how it should be that I placed on myself, yet I now feel just how uncomfortable it is and how it does not belong to me and also how it will be affecting the other person.
Living in comfort to not be the real us is pretty uncomfortable.
This is such a powerful piece of expression it is worthy of a play, a sonnet of humbleness and responsibility. No doubt it is music to your bodies ears as you listen so intently and willingly surrrnder to thy fathers will.
Rachel I can so relate to your situation and the job change – there is a part of me that seeks to manage and control things all of the time, and I am a Master of this Control and Management! But this leaves little space for Trusting in how things need to unfold, and allowing for a more natural expression (rather than a controlled one)…There is much to learn in the word Trust, and it is not about the classic approach that disempowers us all when we say ‘Ah but the Universe will provide!’…it is not about the Universe providing anything, it is about us stepping into our own power and then through the way we are in our responses and quality that we choose day to day that the way is paved, hence no disempowerment here at all. I still struggle to fully surrender to this process but know it feels amazing when it constellates.
Brilliant blog Rachel – and when we allow or tolerate a constant level of low grade disrespect and the sort of subtle abuse that people learn to cope with, our thresholds gradually erode or begin to change. It is like a sliding scale – the moment we allow one small disrespectful or abusive incident to pass without responding to it, then this begins our gradual erosion and downfall from what we know to be a true way of relating to each other.
Comfort is abuse. Now that’s a page turner!
Well said Joshua – it is hard to realise that being in comfort can be very damaging to us! But of course this is not to be confused with the comfort of sitting in a comfortable chair or wearing comfortable shoes! The comfort that can be damaging to us is the kind where, for example, we feel uncomfortable about confrontation with another when something has not been done with respect for all, for example, when this is exactly what is needed – (but we feel more comfortable to be silent and allow the abuse or disrespect). This kind of comfort is a killer!
‘“Here you go,” it has said to me, “take a look at how you have been negotiating your way through life.’ This made me stop, for a while now I am becoming aware that even the slightest compromise I choose has its effect on my body. And the tightness in my fingers and hands is just one clear message that says I can let go of anger and frustration and choose love for myself instead.
I am so inspired by this blog as it has allowed me to build a trust that I never thought possible but have now felt is possible by choosing to surrender and allow what will come next.
We can indeed live in comfort to avoid the responsibility of living who we truly are to the fullest of our being.
Exposing comfort is not always very comfortable. It is not necessarily the cozy sofa we may use to take a nap. We may find comforting something that is awkward and not good for us at all. Comfort is only to be identified with a pattern of behavior that creates a structure we can hold on to avoid feeling our responsibility to be more and to reflect more.
“For even one drop of abuse is poison to the whole.” Wow – this sentence stopped me today. How often do we just put up with a small amount of abuse from others – and as for the abuse we do to ourselves..(without calling it abuse) …..
Totally we accept and give abuse so much in every day life in the simplest of activities. It’s just so normal it isn’t seen as abuse. When we take it to the energetic level I would say that for most humans they live in constant abuse just with their thoughts and that is what they walk and therefore lay the ground for another to feel and be influenced by. Gets pretty insidious pretty quickly.
Beautiful blog, thank you Rachel. I became aware of tension in my body that I had not realised was there as I allowed your words to sink in. Letting the tension go and allowing for expansion, even on this level, supports that reconnection to our body and our essence and a truer way of being.
Comfort is a ‘purpose delaying machine’ that makes no sense when we really want to live and serve from who we are.
Breaking our attachment to comfort is absolutely vital for our growth and development – otherwise we are at risk of just marking time and stagnating in that comfort.
“To live as God would live on Earth.’ I love this sentence and it got me pondering on how would God live on earth, which would be to live just like us when we are living from our essence.
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Letting go of the uncomfortable safety we call comfort is indeed a revealing and profound statement that would cause countless people to squirm if they really understood what is being exposed here
Comfortable moulds always cause more harm than good, yet the majority of us fall for them. Love Love Love that you have broken out of yours, when we see those free of that mould we get to feel for ourselves what true freedom tastes like, hence inspiration and reflections from people like you Rachel are so important so we can see there is a way to change.
In reading this you can feel the freedom and grace you have come to with learning to let go of the security and to go to truth – it’s very inspiring.
Yes I agree MW. ‘To let go of the security and go to truth’ now that is an absolute life changer.
Basing life on security and not evolution will not grow us, but neither will it challenge us and that is the trade-off. For if we allow abuse in any degree, be it big or small, we become so wiped out with having to deal with its poison in our body that we seek comfort, or as you have so wisely put it Rachel, ‘the uncomfortable comfort’, to alleviate the tension we have created by not living true to the love that we are. What you share is both remarkable and inspiring as it shows us how we can resurrect ourselves out of the mess we have created by simply realigning our will to a far greater purpose than just living a seemingly comfortable life. I look forward to the update.
When we are comfortable we can almost desensitise from the world – we can shut out what we know to be true and start to ignore signs that perhaps we are constantly being asked to evolve or move forward. What an amazing marker for you to appreciate.
Very true. Perhaps what we have done here is confuse numbness with comfort because in-truth we should register how uncomfortable our ‘comfort’ is and know that true comfort comes from greater settlement in our body and being and not from living in oblivion to the tension caused by not having this.
It’s crazy how long we can stay somewhere or with someone due to the comfortable nest we have created for ourselves whilst all the time growing more and more stagnant, awesome you noticed this and took action.
Deeply appreciating what you offer us here Rachel, a stand against abuse of any kind, even in the smallest extent. These words are so beautiful and touched me ‘Never have I allowed such a level of surrender, never have I stated that I trust myself so deeply and all of the resource that comes, innate, rich and sourced from deep within me.’ …. the ultimate let go to the divinity within, in the knowing that we are enough and that we are part of a grand plan, if we are willing to surrender to it.
Security is locking myself in a cycle of repetition that doesn’t change. And often my body will tell me it’s going nowhere. Letting go of security feels liberating and expansive, I love that feeling in my chest as it opens and the strength in my spine. And recently the feeling of the lymphatics in my body opening up. It feels amazing compared to staying comfortable and secure in my thoughts that quickly sour and poison my body and life.
Reading this again just confirmed for me how long I have lived away from the divine will of God and how far away I still am from living it. So there it has been nominated so it’s only up from here.
What a beautiful approach to abuse and the willingness to see the impact it has on the body. It can be very common to go into blame and reaction when we realise we have been putting up with abuse but this does nothing to heal the unseen bruises. There is a level of responsibility that can be hard to take, and that is realising that we had a choice all along and that we allowed the abuse. We played the game too.
Divine poetry… in contemplation of your return to the beauty of your innate essence, but in doing so… a drop of pure inspiration for us all to do the same. Stunning.
‘Subsist’ is a great word for it, many of us are functioning but not flourishing; they are very different ways of living. I would suggest that to function is mere survival not actually living,, we can live so much more, feel more, connect me, it does not need to be shallow, we swim deep in what is available if we make ourselves available, and step by step take more responsibility for our own lives.
Very poetic in your writing style! Being at one job for 16 years shows an amazing amount of dedication but equally, leaving shows your bravery. To play devil’s advocate; when you are working for a “boss”, aren’t most jobs slightly abusive? Not to sound pessimistic but generally people are hard on their staff because they do not care or love themselves enough… which makes it difficult to then care for others/staff deeply enough. I have had a lot of bosses in my life and although I loved them all in their own way, they were all abusive on some level, besides when I worked for my father as a teenager. I am blessed to run my own business now and my staff always comment on how they have never been treated so well. I go out of my way to make sure that I take care of myself and then I am able to care for them equally. Even the teenagers that come at the end of the day to clean up describe their job as finding a family, a true family and we are a family, that’s what I wanted to create but sadly most people are not approaching their business in this way. Good on you for saying enough is enough, I hope that you don’t end up with another version of the same abuse.
What a truly humbling and inspiring read. This has led me to contemplate the levels of low grade abuse we are all exposed to and how harming this is when we don’t speak up and share what is no longer loving and serving of the all.
When I let go of a level of comfort their is often a tension arising of what I have been avoiding to feel and acknowledge.
When we let go of life’s comforts, we open doors we never knew were there, and it is a very freeing feeling because we are no longer living in the comfort of life, but opening the door to what is next.
“For even one drop of abuse is poison to the whole.” – a truth to be lived by.
When I first moved to London I did so as a choice to stop hiding away. As such my body replied in kind with a condition that required me to sit up and pay attention and to this day I continue to work on it. It’s amazing how our choices lead to our health and a great example of this is when these big changes occur.
The subtle levels of abuse we accept, it may be not violence or bruising, but the fact that we don’t act delicate in the workplace, or hold back, or feel on guard is a sign that the way we have accepted life to be doesn’t resemble the Love within.
mmmm this is definitely one to ponder on as I would say we don’t currently readily see how negotiating our way through life as medical problem, illness or dis-ease or ‘the toleration of a constant level of low grade disrespect and the sort of subtle abuse that people learn to cope with’ but you are so right all of these are because they then in turn affect our health, well-being and our body. So with this I would say … currently we definitely do not have truth health in the world!! And until we see just how all of this does affect our health and be willing to call it out and no longer tolerate it anymore as you have done, we will not have for some time.
We can, us human, become inured to almost anything… and we can also reclaim ourselves when we are seemingly so far away from our inner light.
beautifully said … as are we that far away from our inner light anyhow? It is but the everyday simple choices and movements we make to truly embrace, appreciate, turn to and live from our inner light this is something I am constantly learning. A great reminder thank you.
I’m blown away by the way you express. Whether we’ve been in job a 5 minutes or 50 years, we walk in and out of it carrying our patterns. The amount of abuse we accept is reflected in the actions of those around us.
It’s amazing how restrictive and very uncomfortable comfortable is, but when it is seen for what it is and let go off the feeling of freedom and expansion is huge. Just love coming back to re read this blog.
Absolutely stunning blog Rachel, exposing the perils of allowing abuse in our lives and how this contributes to abuse continuing to develop in our society. The greatest evil is, not that evil can ever be great, that we have forgotten the ever-presence of our Divine Will, the defining essence of who we are. For as you have beautifully shared when we surrender to being moved by our Divine Will, it is Love that moves us, and consequently the doors are sealed, as such abuse no longer has a place or a body in which to dwell.
It’s so easy to grab at opportunities just for the sake of security. What you have done is completely surrender to whatever is needed and whatever is next. Dropping the control is so important for us to allow life to unfold naturally without our interference.