by SC, London, UK

When I was 27 years old, I had just left my marriage of ten months and felt depressed and lost. A friend suggested I come to an open night for a new counselling and psychotherapy organisation in Crows Nest, Sydney. Unknown to me at the time, it was based on the AA (alcoholic anonymous) principles. I subsequently joined a weekly therapy group to address my depression and anxiety.

One night a week I would show up and talk about my problems in the group… and it was always focused on what we had ‘done wrong’ that week. There was a loose structure to dig deeper, but the basis was always how ‘bad’ we were/are – always looking first at the broken part of us, the victim. Within two weeks of group work and working through the childhood years, the childhood sexual abuse from my stepfather came flooding back. The abuse happened every Friday night from age six to eleven. It ended when my mother left him after seeing us together. I had told her many times what was going on, but she refused to acknowledge what was happening. I had buried it so deeply that I had literally forgotten – but once the floodgates opened, all the memories returned. That’s when I started the one-to-one sessions, as I needed support and it was there and available.

After 18 months I stopped group work, but continued my weekly one-to-one sessions for the next eight years with the same counsellor. During that time I cognitively ‘addressed’ my abuse, but the patterns of behaviour continued and the sense of anxiety was always present. I felt that mentally I had dealt with the abuse, but I still felt trapped in old patterns that I had no control over. I felt like I couldn’t live life without my sessions with my counsellor!

Nothing really changed – I was still drinking heavily, doing recreational drugs and, with a poor diet, my body was a mess. I had needy relationships with men that didn’t last longer than a year.

The day I met Serge Benhayon for a session, I was 33 years old. He asked me why I had come to see him… I replied that a friend had been the day before and she looked amazing and I knew I wanted some of that. He closed his eyes and said that the true reason I was there was that the scars of the sexual abuse were still locked in my body, and I felt trapped by the old patterns that were driving me. I started to cry, and felt so much acceptance and love from him that even today tears well up when I remember that moment.

What was revealed to me in that hour was the power of true love. Serge talked through the whole session and explained everything as the healing unfolded. I felt everything in my body. It was like my body lit up and I could feel myself again. And so began the true healing I was longing for.

In my experience, this true healing process is the polar opposite of psychotherapy, which focuses on going over and over the pattern of the impact of the abuse, and band-aid solutions that never truly address the deeper pattern. And the AA model that “I am an alcoholic” is simply not true. I know there are different counselling techniques that have been introduced over the last ten years that profess to look at the body too, but their driving force is that “you are broken and need fixing”.

Esoteric Healing always sees me from the essence of love that I am – and the things that I do, or that have happened to me, are not who I truly am. A very different approach. Esoteric Healing offered me the opportunity to be truthful as to the impact of patterns of behaviour and to see them, not as who I am, but as the things I do to NOT be all that I am, naturally. Therein lies the choice – to be a victim of my childhood, or to take responsibility and heal that inner child from a place of love.

The past abuse had placed strain on my relationship with my Mum over the years, the pain of the silence of not speaking out for me of the abuse at the time, though, through my own unfolding with esoteric healing, I have been able to let hurt and judgment go, which has consequently changed and deepened the relationship we now have together.

The Universal Medicine courses provide a place of learning. He/they have given me the opportunity to deepen my awareness to myself and reveal the patterns of behaviour that affect me in daily life, to deepen my tenderness with myself in every expression.

Reflecting on the eight years of psychotherapy, I know in truth that nothing really changed – compounded by a lack of growth in my bank account! But I would not know that truth if it weren’t for my commitment to healing myself and the guidance and reflection of love that I continue to feel from Serge Benhayon, his development of the Universal Medicine Courses I attend, and the Esoteric Practitioners I see for support when I need it.

No longer is there a reliance on seeing a practitioner to fix me – my healing is mine, and I have been empowered by the many techniques offered by Universal Medicine to build my self-love.