When I look back at the ideals and beliefs I have grown up with, I have to shake my head; it is just not true that males are strong, brave and seem to be a lot less tender-hearted than females. Some may not show it, but men are naturally and deeply tender, which is what I recently discovered during an esoteric bodywork session.
I falsely believed that to be successful means working really hard and doing whatever needs to be done, regardless of my physicality and how tired I, or anyone else, might be. I would always push through to get everything finished.
When I look back at how I have lived, I know I have been so very hard on myself and it is only now, as I begin to feel what tenderness truly is, that I can see how I really have not been tender with myself. I never considered that I deserved to care for myself with the same preciousness as a new-born baby, but this is exactly what I needed to allow for myself.
‘Time’ is something I have always fought all my life, since there never seemed enough of it to complete all the things I needed to do.
Over the last few years, I have realised the punishment my body has taken by the disregard and lack of love I have shown it. I never considered for one moment going to bed when I was tired – I would simply push on to get the job done. I would go to bed late, wake exhausted and start all over again, living on sugar and caffeine to get through the day.
What a completely crazy way to live when you stop and really look at it.
This has changed, slowly, oh so slowly, over the last few years with early nights to rest my body effectively.
The first step was to let go of the drive, which pushed me to finish every job within unrealistic time-frames. This didn’t mean working less, it simply meant that I no longer placed undue pressure on myself to complete a task in an unnecessary rush, or without being aware of how my body was feeling.
In addition, I began to develop an understanding of what actually supports me and my body and what allows me to be energised and have true well-being. Particularly, I have improved my nutrition to build my body from the inside out, reducing the need for caffeine until I now have no need for it at all.
However, this week came the earth-shattering experience that broke the mold on a few more beliefs I held firmly in my body. I had a session with Curtis Benhayon, a practitioner of Universal Medicine Modalities and, in particular, Esoteric Body Work.
In the session with Curtis I experienced:
- How a man can be deeply tender and, in this case, more tender than most of the women I know, and this includes myself!
- How deeply honouring and respectful a healing session can be
- A level of openness and connecting with a love and stillness so deep, my awareness of what love truly is has been changed forever
- Being offered the space to feel everything going on in my body, including the initial tension at being offered such deep tenderness
- Complete acceptance by another of all that I am
- A clarity of truth in response to my questions which I have rarely seen.
This session was a turning point in my life.
The change in my posture and how my body moved after the session was incredible to feel.
After the session I went for a walk and it was beautiful to feel how my spine seemed to have lengthened, my whole body had opened up and every part of me felt alive.
Once or twice during my walk I felt the old movement return and it seemed that walking in this old way brought a real tension to my muscles and a discomfort came with that tension. Choosing this new, more balanced walk felt so supportive of my physical frame. I now have this as a conscious choice to make with every step I take.
Within this new walking posture I have found a re-awakened understanding and I know the depth of tenderness, honouring, clarity, love and wisdom we all can live – it is simply an ongoing choice.
Deep appreciation to Curtis Benhayon and to Universal Medicine.
By Judy Young, Healthcare Clerical Assistant, Oxfordshire, UK
Further Reading:
Men – Are we set up to fail?
Mowing the Lawn – With Tenderness
Esoteric Healing: Coming back to Me
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
This is a belief that has been or can still be common in many of us, and really is very dishonouring of ourselves, ‘the belief that working hard and pushing my body was the only way to get things done.’
The honesty of our bodies is always there and it is up to each of us to learn how to not-deepen the way we numb our bodies and thus go into comparison and jealousy with others and what they are doing. Surrendering our bodies to True-healing allows us to appreciate every aspect of our essences and the ensuing connection we choose to stay in and can then also walk in, as you have shared Judy.
Our bodies are very wise, and honest; if we love and cherish ourselves it makes sense to surrender to the wisdom our bodies share.
A healing session can really bring a change in our movements & what we register in our session. I remember feeling so open and free in my walk after a healing session with an esoteric practitioner a couple of years ago that I never wanted to go back to my previous walk because it felt so restrictive & closed down. These are sensations we can register in our bodies which are not learned through a book or listening to a presentation, sometimes it may be difficult to describe them with words, but the knowing in the body is certainly there & nothing can shake it.
Yes it re-defines success. Do I want to be hard and push through my body saying rest, sleep, eat, go to the loo in the name of advancing in life?! It doesn’t sound like much of an advance but that has been my experience of the drive that is called for to stand out and advance in business.
When we feel tenderness from another it sparks the memory of that tenderness in ourselves, it is truly magical and yet could be our every-day normal if we embrace a body orientated way to live.
Yes, and it is pretty amazing to be able to surrender in a session with somebody who just allows the space for that to happen. To see the tenderness & feel it – very reassuring.
Body orientated ways of living, is definitely a game changer, as we feel so much from our whole body, and appreciation of how we can return to the tenderness, can be assured, by walking and feeling how tender our bodies are.
Today I finished a three part awareness of our wings class with Jane Torvaney. I had not appreciated the finesse of my scapula and how, by becoming so surrendered in my body, I could feel my arms and shoulders, in particular, lighter than I have ever felt. Practitioners like Curtis Benhayon and Jane Torvaney allow us a new way to be that supports the most delicate of movements and lets us feel how precious we truly are. This preciousness is not of the cotton wool variety but a tangible quality that can inform our movements and have us be reborn into something very real and joyful.
The quality of tenderness, delicateness and sacredness Curtis Benhayon brings to every bodywork session inspires me to live that same quality for myself.
Yes, Curtis Benhayon is the most amazing practitioner, he inspires and supports you to return to your soul.
Curtis Benhayon very lovingly accepts people unconditionally, just entering the clinic room and feeling held this way, and met for who I am, is a huge healing before the bodywork even starts.
Coming back and connecting with that tenderness rather than going with the drive can be so supportive.
When we are in the drive, the tenderness is out the window; being in drive feels horrible in our bodies, and for those around us.
I can totally relate to the list you give here Judy of your experieince during a healing session with Curtis Benhayon. He is an exemplary example of a man in his true tenderness. Never, have I experienced being treated with such tenderness from a man who asked nothing of me but simply asked to be and allowed me to be all that I am with the deepest integrity, respect and honouring as part of a healing session and consequently offered me the opportunity to feel that same level of tenderness within myself – something I did not not know even existed within me.
Could it be that in essence we – men and women – already are equal? what if the fight for equality is no longer needed if we all would connect with this inner space of infinite love?
Any fight takes us out of our essence and our natural equality.
Melinda I have come to an understanding that you cannot fight the astral plane, that is exactly what they want humanity to do, and they goad us to be in a constant fight with ourselves and others. This is how they feed off our energy. If we surrender back into our bodies we cut off their life force as they do not have their own life force, but sustain themselves via our emotional behaviours.
I’m noticing how naturally caring men are. Sometimes I ask my brother for support and observe the level of care and detail which he uses to approach a task. This is something that I’ve never noticed before, but appreciating it brings me to let go all the pictures that I projected onto men in the past and connect deeper with myself, and to realize that the same tenderness, care and deliciousness is in me as well.
Judy, it feels very beautiful to read what you experienced in that session with Curtis Benhayon. Your words are so alive that I can feel the same quality of tenderness inside me, thank you
If we all connected to our innate tenderness and treated each other tenderly much of the hurt and carnage that we see in the world around us today would be able to heal instead of being exacerbated.
Tenderness was a word that never entered my vocabulary until I started listening to presentations by Universal Medicine and in sessions with Curtis Benhayon I felt the true meaning of the word.
Tenderness, and even delicateness is a whole new way of moving and being in this life.
Every session I have with Curtis is a turning point of my life and as a result my life and body have totally transformed in the most spectacularly gorgeous way!
Letting go of the drive.. we usually champion being driven as if it’s an important – essential, even- quality to get us through life. The subtle undertone is that if you’re not driven then you won’t be successful, and that being driven is a quality to aspire to. But what if this drive only serves to drive a wedge between who we truly are and an image of what we’re trying to live up to? A wedge between us all as we compete with one another? When we live in a way that we’re connected to what we can feel and don’t override that or dismiss it, there’s no need for pushing and driving. We are capable of doing loads of work in a sustainable way, but only when we’re prepared to take care of our bodies first, and when we let go of the enormous expectations, pictures and pressure that we put on ourselves. No drive, no push. Just flow.
Bryony I can relate to what you are sharing as part of the company’s ethos is to be driven, only by driving yourself will you be successful. I have watched how this brings stress and competition to the sales ‘team ‘ which is not a team at all as we try to outdo each other which is a hateful way to be with each other as it feels so destructive in the body. Which shows me that money itself isn’t evil but the people who hanker after it and will climb over each other and crush others to get it have evil passing through them.
Our body has a natural rhythm that if we adhere to allows the day to flow and we can move almost seamlessly from one thing to the next. If we go into drive we lose that rhythm and the body has to harden to cope with the stress we are now putting on it.
Curtis Benhayon has also shown me what tenderness is possible in the treatment room. Getting off the table from one of his sessions has allowed me to feel such exquisite delicateness in and throughout my body and then expressing in my movements. This has inspired me hugely and I deeply appreciate it.
There are the ideals and beliefs we are consciously aware of and can say that we know about, maybe consider, or are convinced to be true, but then there are the many very subtle unconscious ones we only get to be aware of through experiences where something doesn´t add up the way we unconsciously or consciously expected it to be. In such moments instead of trying to make something work, it is very liberating to dig deep and explore one´s inner world of concepts and pictures that can rise to the surface and surprise us.
I call that pattern matching – an objective observation that something here is not adding up and then the adventure of looking openly and honestly until we find out what is truly going on.
Nicola I love what you are saying here, because we do not give ourselves the opportunity to try something different we are so ingrained in our patterns of behaviours. We are like Hamsters on a wheel. So to look at life differently stepping back so we can see that there is a whole different way of living and to look at this way of life as an adventure to have fun with a new way of being, brings so much joy to the day it’s a completely different way to live.
I had the opportunity recently of observing myself on camera, it was great to see and feel the way I moved. As I looked at my posture, I could feel how my neck was stuck out, it showed to me in a way that I had always been looking out of myself to people, also the out there searching was a way of life. I have noticed recently my body wanting to gently pull my head in, which goes along with more of a sense of me, a coming back and a claiming more of who I am. It feels so beautiful and loving after a lifetime of deserting me.
Our body reflects our choices and because we see it every day we often don’t choose to see what is there to be seen.
Lucy is it that we choose not to see or that we are completely numb to a situation until someone comes along and brings to our attention that maybe what we thought was true was actually a false way of being. I had this experience recently where it was suggested that we lie, that we are brought up to lie to ourselves and each other, that we have built a reality on lies. This suggestion was unpicked further so that it was plain to understand that we do indeed lie constantly, we have to if we want to keep our false reality a reality.
We don’t choose to see the truth, we allow ourselves to be hoodwinked.
I agree – being tender in our movement is a moment to moment choice.
Curtis Benhayon is a phenomenal practitioner. There have been times when his simple and direct language has absolutely stunned me, because he would be so deeply un-judgemental and completely understanding. Unlike any other practitioner I knew, Curtis would simply present me back to myself so I could see the truth of how I had been living – and with this, make what changes I could see needed to happen. My life has completely changed because of these incredible moments with Curtis.
I deeply cherished my sessions with Curtis Benhayon, a very lovingly tender and wise practitioner.
Pushing through to get everything finished we wreck the fine systems of our bodies and end up exhausting ourselves. Why not honour the body when it says rest and accept if not even appreciate our limitations.
Most of us if not all have experienced growing up in the absence of being encouraged to appreciate our preciousness, who we are in essence or being fostered to know that our innate beingness is divine. We are taught how to override our body and our connection to our Soul, to push through life to succeed and survive, and so to abuse ourselves becomes quite normal. Not who we are but falsely accepted as such. However, who we are remains untouched and true in its purity, always waiting for us to reconnect to the precious, tender and sacred qualities of who we naturally are and have always been.
I agree with you Carola Woods, we are taught to push through life to succeed and to survive is the security we go for. Then we met Serge Benhayon or actually any one of the Benhayon family and we are met with a different reflection of life. As you correctly say we are showered with the truth of who we are, it can take some time to adjust to the fact that we are also precious, tender and have the same sacred qualities, but these qualities were crushed and resurrecting ourselves from the crushing can take some time but so worth the dedication to oneself to arise out of the mud of creation.
To connect with the level of tenderness that you share Judy is life changing. As a man discovering through my connection with Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon that tenderness is not a weakness and instead is actually a strength has, and is, truly liberating.
Allowing yourself to feel completely accepted by another for all that you are really got me to contemplate, how at ease am I with this for myself? Definitely not a 100%. Why not? Well, I’d say because I get to feel my essence and how away from it I live. But this is great! I know who I am and what isn’t in keeping, so can make loving changes, seeing where I may resist and look to explore this further.
How beautiful and true this is: Within this new walking posture I have found a re-awakened understanding and I know the depth of tenderness, honouring, clarity, love and wisdom we all can live – it is simply an ongoing choice.
‘The first step was to let go of the drive, which pushed me to finish every job within unrealistic time-frames.’ Spot on Judy, too many people think drive is a normal way to be, letting go of this we invite ourselves to experience a different way to move everyday with a connection to ourselves and our tenderness.
When we develop a new marker as how life can be, which in your case Judy was how we can walk differently after releasing tensions and issues from our body, anything that is not this new way is very quickly exposed. I have come to be amazed at the power of the old configurations in my body and the resistance there often is to a new way of moving, but once exposed the process of dismantling them and then choosing to move in a more loving way is so worth the choice and the commitment.
Yes very true Ingrid – interesting to observe that once we do reconnect to our true way of beingness, love, that the way of living that we had ‘thought’ was giving us freedom is exposed as a falsehood and rather as an incarceration and a diminishing and what moving with true freedom means; aka being moved by love.
I have discovered since committing to make the choice to move in the most loving way possible that any time I don’t the difference in how I feel is so huge that it usually stops me in my tracks quite quickly. This marked difference simply shows me how I spent so much of my life not “moving with true freedom” but in a way that has been so very harmful to my body as well as to all those around me.
It’s lovely isn’t it to return to the tenderness, to realise we can treat ourselves with the same preciousness as we would a baby. Through Esoteric Yoga sessions and also practicing Sacred Movement at home I continually return to the true essence of myself and feel that same tenderness. Breaking down the patterns and ways of being and moving that are contra to the tenderness can take time, but it’s so worth it to live from the essence of who we naturally are.
Returning to our true essence, being delicate with ourselves, knowing we are precious and deserve that level of love.
Consciously letting go of tension in the shoulders makes such a difference to our approach. It supports us to be more gentle or tender or even delicate with our movements.
Curtis Benhayon is a truly and deeply tender man and a master practitioner.
What we say yes to, turns into an energy that locks our movements in a particular way if we are not conscious about how we move and what we move when we move. It is only thanks to a particular way of moving that we can keep alive in us an idea acquired in the past.
When we let go and allow ourselves space to feel deeply within, we get to feel our true connection and from that connection we are able to feel the tenderness we are, in stillness and in movement.
The way we walk can bring tension into the body, effectively walking ourselves into stress and meltdowns. Imagine if “changing how you walked and how your body feels when you walk in certain ways” was taught more widely? So simple yet practical and effective.
Thank you Judy. I so appreciate when a man expresses his tenderness and allows it to be seen. I realise that I could voice my appreciation a lot more than I do, thank you for this inspiration.
I have observed since the development of my relationship with tenderness, I walk differently. And I observe this when I’m even at the gym, (where I developed my hardness further). I see how other women workout and it reminds me of how I used to train and hearing the heavy weights being bashed around or the heaviness when they are on the treadmill hurts my ears – I love observing people.
I now have no set routine or time I need to spend at the gym, I do my workout and leave, no ideal and beliefs of how I need to train my body anymore. Love this new way of living.
Most of my life I have been hard on myself and appearing strong when I was crumbling inside. In the last 4 years I realised that this wasn’t working and since my experience with Universal Medicine, I have come to realise that there is another way and slowly introduced tenderness into my everyday living.
My partner reflects this tenderness daily, and once I was the opposite. I love the relationship I’m developing with tenderness, it is beautiful to feel and a lovely reflection to others.
Living with tenderness, or even delicateness is a reflection the world needs.
” I never considered that I deserved to care for myself with the same preciousness as a new-born baby, but this is exactly what I needed to allow for myself.”
We are all desiring of the quality of care a new born baby receives.
Yes walking in a posture that is true for our body can be energising and so much fun. I think we don’t fully realise how much the way we move affects the way we feel in ourselves.
This shows me the importance of how we can live in a way that inspires others to do the same. The way Curtis lives is inspiring many people to bring more tenderness and awareness into their own lives. It is not through what he says per se, but through the way he lives so it is tangibly felt by all. That is true inspiration and we can offer that to each other – pretty cool heh!
I thought it was very interesting how you said you felt a new way to walk and move that felt amazing but a couple of times the old way crept back in, it really shows that if we make a choice to live differently that’s brilliant but this choice has to keep being made until it becomes a natural part of our way of living.
“as I begin to feel what tenderness truly is” tenderness is an expression of love and is deeply felt during a session with Curtis Benhayon.
Recognising and letting go of the drive is absolutely essential for all of us, men and women. the thing is this drive, this push, is something that society nurtures now from such an early age… We certainly do need the amazing reflections that people like Curtis offer to us, and that which we can all embody.
From the start when you mentioned that you had an experience of tenderness like no other, I immediately thought of Curtis Benhayon. His exquisite level of tenderness that he expresses through his every movement really exposes the hardness and holding back in my body. If there is one man like this, then all man are naturally like this… this is something as women and society we need to really understand.
Thank you Judy, Curtis Benhayon is an incredible practitioner and person, he brings a level of tenderness, care, respect and support to his Esoteric Massage sessions that is setting a new benchmark. It’s extraordinary to experience what a true man feels like, that is, a man truly living from the essence of who he is, without any impositions from the outer world of how he is supposed to be. Curtis is an amazing reflection of how much we can all bring to others when we allow ourselves to simply be all of who we naturally are.
Absolutely Melinda, ‘Curtis Benhayon is an incredible practitioner and person, he brings a level of tenderness, care, respect and support to his Esoteric Massage sessions that is setting a new benchmark.’
A very relatable blog Judy – thank you for the clarity you bring to how ideals and beliefs bind us into a way of existence that does not permit us to know the truth of the tenderness and essence of who we truly are. I have also experienced Esoteric Body Work sessions and many ideals and beliefs have been exposed for the lie that they perpetuate.
“However, this week came the earth-shattering experience that broke the mold on a few more beliefs I held firmly in my body. I had a session with Curtis Benhayon, a practitioner of Universal Medicine Modalities and, in particular, Esoteric Body Work”
Experiencing the incredible level of deep care and tenderness during sessions with Curtis Benhayon, has really shown me where I could go in my own development of these traits, and the wisdom that he has shared with me goes way beyond his age, or even this lifetime. This is an inspiration to me, as it shows that we can all connect to that inner stillness (as Curtis displays on a consistent basis) that is ageless, and leads us to a deeper level of acceptance and awareness. My life has been changed forever by just one sentence that Curtis has provided in relation to an observation of something going on for me at the time. We can all do that for ourselves when we allow it in.
It’s staggering how many ideals and beliefs are pulling the strings in our everyday life, and for the majority of us, we are unaware of how influential they are or if we even need to question them.
Ideals and beliefs play out in our lives far more than most people realise.