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 
An exquisite piece of writing that moved me to tears today, thank you dear Rachel.
Forward stepping in life is an beautiful surrender that has not one ounce of control.
Humanity has armoured itself, as you say, from losing the trust of that connection with ourselves and the divine… In gentleness and simplicity we can now return, let go of that which has protected us not, but simply cut us off from who we truly are.
‘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?”’
What really supports me is to stay connected to my body and express from there, for then I can feel that I am never alone and that God is always walking beside me, reflected to me through another and that I am held in so much love just like the stars in the universe.
I experienced many situations by now, where things easily and heavenly constellate and after that my mind kicks in and thinks suddenly “I have to do it”- that I own it, or I want to keep it, don´t want to lose it. To trust and allow heaven working through you and not wanting to interfere with it to get something out of it for your-self is tricky, but my way of saying yes to evolution.
Thank you Stefanie for your words, I can very much relate, beautiful wisdom shared here from your life experience.
I have the experience of staying in a job too long as well and the price I paid was a big financial loss. If I had left the company when my whole body communicated ‘go’, I wouldn’t have had any loss. But it felt comfortable staying and getting assignments from them. Comfort is never true and never worth its price.
I could feel I held my breath when I read your questions:
‘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?’ This feels like a very timely question in my search for a new job. The realization that there is so much more than I can see that influences where I will work and that I don’t have to do it by myself but that God is there with me.
It is interesting how being sensitive can be regarded as being obstinate, when an abuse is being exposed.
Are we here in this world to be comfortable?
I live in the USA, where many people are working hard so they can go on vacations, buy a nice house, retire early, and live the good life.
Sounds nice but statistics are showing that this kind of lifestyle is not very healthy. And the actual quality of that kind of life is not what we thought.
I feel that being comfortable is boring.
Watch a young child growing up, they are ready for anything. Ready to learn to walk, and then they are ready to fly!
We have a natural desire to try new things, learn new skills. When we honor this part of us, it makes for a amazing life.
There is so much in this world to experience, so let’s get off the couch and get on with it!
Ken we have bought into a picture for how our whole life should be, work hard, retire, and then live the good life, as you say, but none of that is necessarily what we truly feel to do, or will support us to grow ourselves and our communities, or live with joy, purpose and love. As humans we give our power away to some mighty big pictures then move to their beat our whole lives.
Saying no to abuse, no matter how ‘small’ it may appear, is saying yes to love and allowing more of that which expands us, to fill us up and move us forth. The alternative is a life lived in seeming ‘comfort’ and stifling contraction.
The ‘are you willings’ are quite in my face so to speak. It asks me to become very humble and go to a level of honesty I have not yet made my daily choice so, am I willing to hand myself unto God’s way, as he would live on Earth?
“For even one drop of abuse is poison to the whole.” Yes, very true. And it is often in the things we find so very normal as abuse is become so normalised.
A brilliant and very exposing sharing Rachel, of how we can sell ourselves short in life, accepting our lot as we have raised to believe is the thing to do. And how our body suffers. I worked under similar conditions for some years, left and then went back for more, such was my lack of love for myself! So, I can relate to these words: “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.”. It has taken a while for those inner bruises to heal but by deepening the love I have for myself, and accepting the ever available support all around me, that is indeed happening.
It’s so true, we do go from one abusive situation to another, and even tell ourselves that what just happened wasn’t abuse when our bodies so clearly registered it as being so.
Julie – so true. I can so relate to this. Those times where I have told myself what just happened was ok have been so many but I have done this because there was no other yardstick around me supporting me to express what deep down I knew to be true. As a child, I’d experience abuse but because it was so normalised the expectation was that you just suck it up, toughen up and get on with life. Over time we can get so numb to it that we simply don’t register it on the same level we did when we were children.
I agree with you Michelle but as you know when we do ‘suck it up’ we then put a halt to our expression and then our ability to call out that which hurts us gets buried and internalised. Is it any wonder then that we become bitter, angry and resentful of the world around us. There needs to be a healthier way for us to deal with situations and things that hurt us and actually voicing them is a great start, even if to ourselves.
Absolutely. That is why it is so important for those of us who have clocked this to start living much more honestly – to express what we know offering our children that different way so that they don’t have to internalise their hurts like we did but to claim with authority their natural wisdom and worth.
So true, I got so used to being told ‘it’s only a joke’ – when I called out abuse, ( it wasn’t!) or that I was too sensitive. Nowadays I’m really appreciating my sensitivity. If we don’t stand up to even subtle levels of abuse it can escalate.
At school the teenagers I teach dress up abuse daily as ‘we are only playing’, or ‘it was only a joke’ in total denial of the fact that they are hurting and in turn hurting others.
I recently realised how after a very expansive moment I can choose an immediate opposite encounter to that moment with an abusive thought or called in anxiousness to avoid the grandness that was there. How much do we consciously choose abuse to not step into the responsibility that awaits us?! it is a game we play.
Do we listen to the sound of life or the sound of God. Do we make it about being human or being held in energy and love all the time, without doubt?
It sounds so clear and simple if you ask the question here and everything inside me knows what to choose, yet sometimes I find myself focussing on the human part and forgetting about the sound of God. There is an addiction inside that wants to stay in control.
I know that addiction – it is the addiction to make it about ME and to individualise. But hey, it is an ongoing development to let go more and more of this part. It gave us seemingly protection and security in life and this need will fade away slowly the more we trust in our greatest power again: the connection to heaven.
I don’t like feeling uncomfortable so I have often avoided it by substituting it with seemingly less extreme versions, never allowing truth to come to the foreground, as long as there’s a ‘hope’, a ‘better’ – and I am feeling how dishonouring that is, how abusive that is to this vehicle of expression made of divine particles, as well as what is here to be expressed through it.
“a disrespect you have not loved and respected yourself enough to ever address?” This is so true, the things that we choose to allow. Claiming our responsibility to be respected by others and ourselves with equal love is to know our true worth and divinity.
Quite often we can bemoan the fact that others don’t seem to respect us but if we are not prepared to do this for ourselves then there is a clear reflection here showing us what the work is that needs to be done with ourselves. What you are sharing here is a respect that is founded on self-love and self-worth, a foundation that comes from ourselves first; it is not something that the outside can bring us, only something that can be built when we truly start to appreciate our worth in terms of who we are and what we bring.
‘For even one drop of abuse is poison to the whole.’ When we are committed to not allowing one drop of abuse we can say we are truly committed to living with true purpose rather than in comfort.
God only knows love, which contains not an ounce of abuse in it – the moment we abuse ourselves or others in the smallest way, we are saying No to God, which is in effect a No to us. We get held as equal by God, but do we hold ourselves equal to him?!
What a power-full, inviting, exposing question you ask here, Stefanie, ‘We get held as equal by God, but do we hold ourselves equal to him?’ The lies, bullying and distortion of truth that have been a ‘religious’ onslaught lifetime after lifetime to take us so far away from daring to consider the possibility your question poses, let alone ask the question itself, have worked a charm. But the charm is only a charm for as long as we allow it to charm us….the time has come to rip the façade away once and for all and say Yes to God and Yes to ourselves.
Saying no to the abuse we recognise as abuse means that, as we deepen the relationship with ourselves, our understanding of abuse also deepens and we are less willing to put up with anything that does not support a truthful and loving way, that does not support humanity as a whole.
It’s beautiful what you shared about sensitivity and vulnerability bringing a sense of strength as opposed to weakness to you and your life.
Rachel, how powerful this blog is – every word is resonating deeply within my body, exposing deeper facets of disrespect, disregard, love-less-ness, protection and hardness still held within my body. A deeper level of deconstruction is ignited and underway.
“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?”
A deeply inspiring blog Rachel, exposing how abuse is pure poison to the body. I am discovering so many ways in which abuse is present in everyday life, that I would never have even recognised as abuse prior to attending Universal Medicine presentations. To let go of the accepted safety and comfort is key in our
re-connection to God and all that we are in truth..
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?
“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”. This is a great description of the low-grade abuse that occurs in many workplaces. It gradually erodes staff confidence, morale and teamwork.
There are so many subtle levels of abuse we allow, I can speak for myself and say that it is insidious we hold back from saying that the tone of the person doing our nails is actually quite harsh, that our colleague may demand way too much of us, simply because we’re the “new starter”. All of this is abuse, but there is more, deeper levels which we allow way before these scenarios occur. Still finding these out for myself, but I get surprised in my willingness to allow abuse all of the time, things which once I never thought were abusive, today I feel the pain on my heart when they occur. For so long we have lived in a world where abuse is normal, but it is us who have to put a stop to it.
Rachel your words ‘……. a constant level of low grade disrespect and the sort of subtle abuse that people learn to cope with, in some way or another.’ Made me realise how many small undermining things happen at work and all of them are a form of abuse, and yet we measure it against what we get in return, the safe job, the regular income, and it made me realise that work should be an equally loving place, where there is no excuse for abuse.
‘The uncomfortable safety we call comfort’.. so true.. we hold onto our comfortable lives so tightly, rarely trusting or surrendering to the fact that we are part of and held in something so much greater than ourselves. But when we do allow that trust, allow ourselves to let go and feel what is beyond our small, safe but stifling world, it is much greater, much grander and more expansive, than we could have imagined. I feel that most of us live in the tension of knowing there is something much greater that we’re all a part of, that we could be living, but yet not quite having the courage or conviction to let go of all our comforts and trust this knowing, to live it in full, all of the time…and that is a beautiful work in progress, to allow ourselves to build this trust, and give full permission to the knowing, and live by that.
This is a beautiful article Rachael – it reads like a poem, with love straight to the heart. So much to learn and to surrender to.
I am just understanding more and more the really subtle abuse we accept and of course the self abuse that we do not think is abuse! The overriding and not honouring or listening to ourselves and our body.
Me too, Vicky. Self abuse has become so much a part of us that it’s as unnoticeable as the beating of our heart. Not until we start to observe that the overriding and not honouring have become equally unnoticeable can we begin to identify what is truly going on and start noticing how unnoticed the very noticeable has become.
‘For even one drop of abuse is poison to the whole.’
For abuse is abuse and adds to the energy of creation, that separates us from our true divine origin.
It’s awesome how the body mirrors our choices. I have allowed myself to stay in a situation that is abusive and not been able to bring about significant change and as a result my body has become protective and closed down. My right hand has started to close so that when I walk the left hand hangs free but the right curls in. The physical is the slowest to change but I feel confident that as I nominate what has gotten in the way of my living fully and as I renounce these behaviours and ways of being that are obedient to ideals and beliefs, I will become less and less reactive and stand in my full authority and power, not just now and again but for the majority of time.
To surrender to the will of thy Father, to surrender to the grace we are from, to trust in us and to know that that trust we trust in God, in the greater plan of which we’re all a part. Thank you Rachel, for such a deeply beautiful expression of what it is to surrender.
Stepping out and away from the very comfortable known is such a brave thing to do and what’s more, which I love, is how this sends a message to everyone who knows you that they too do not have to settle for the kind of comfort that comes at such a huge cost when it includes accepting abuse.
This comfortable life we often hang on to for way too long has a way of weighing us down, keeping us from the natural joys of life. I spoke to someone today and was blown away as to how light and bright she sounded and felt. It turned out that the job that she had unhappily hung onto for all the wrong reasons had been terminated and family who moved in for a short while, that became a very long while, had moved on out and with these exits from her life the weight she had been dragging around in every part of her being had lifted. A great example that ‘breaking free of the uncomfortable comfort’ is incredibly liberating.
Sometimes what we have to let go of is so obvious, we just can’t see it.
Do we take the risk and let go of the control and protection that we’ve used for so long to get through life? What I have found is that this is not an overnight job or snap decision but a step by step process, taking incremental steps towards fully accepting myself, letting go of protection, allowing others in and truly committing to life, that starts by saying yes, and is only maintained by a constant choice to keep saying yes, staying open and accepting of whatever presents.
An extraordinary piece of writing, thank you Rachel. It’s very supportive advice to not accept even the tiniest speck of abuse, and it is as easy as speaking up and doing so in a loving way for all. Your blog is so deeply beautiful and warrants further study, but for now I take with me this “Are you yet willing to hand yourself unto God’s way, as he would live on Earth?” Thank you.
Rachel, I am touched to the core on reading this honest, amazing blog of vulnerability and return to true purpose, to surrender and live as God on this earth-plane.
“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.” Life has become a negotiation, in all its moments, a negotiation of how we can get through with as little bruises as possible but not realising that in the mean time our hearts are running on empty…
Maybe we have been negotiating our way through life but our bodies don’t play that game and give us the very clear messages we get to feel all of the time and it will knocking on our door until we listen and surrender to God’s will.
We have been negotiating indeed Annelies and we have been paying in the currency of health and wellbeing.
Comfort is everywhere, in the most unlikely places we can find something else with which to numb ourselves.
And comfort can also be something that doesn’t look or feel like comfort at first sight.
Rachel this blog is awesome to read – I can feel something deep inside my body is responding to the call and command to be obedient to that which is grand and true.
“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?”
It is very humbling to feel the truth in your words, Rachel. What I can feel is how we play ignorant, as if we do not know we are God too, therefore know His way in fact, and anything less is abuse.
A line that keeps coming to me after reading this is, ‘fall into the arms of God’.
Rachel Mascord, wow. What a joy to read your words, one can’t help but be pulled back to the light of God that we are from. Thank you.
In our comfort there is a tension that necessitates us to seek more comfort to ignore what is really going on.
Helping people to connect with themselves so much that they actually know that they have a choice is a great gift to be given… A true gift of freedom and reconnection with no strings attached.
In our comfort there is tension, our way of living dulls our awareness but it is still there, and our connection with the inner stillness that allows us to recognise the truth of who we truly are is only a breath away.
When we get comfortable with life and feel secure in what we do, we miss much of what is going on around us because we are blinkered in that comfort, to actually live from the connection of our body, allows us to be more in touch with ourselves, and with what we feel around us too, which often gives us a clear indication as to our next choice or movement.
The surrender here is absolutely divine. How many of us can let ourselves go there?