This morning I realised the impact that certain common sayings have had in affecting my choices throughout my life. We tend to think that a saying or proverb is used by a loved one with fondness, as an ‘endearing’ turn of phrase, but are they really supporting us?
As a young girl, one saying I can remember clearly being told to me regularly by my Gran was, “Cold hands, warm heart.” I remember her having very cold hands so it was reassuring to me that she had a warm heart.
The more disturbing fact was that I grew up having warm hands myself all the time, and lived with a little niggle at the back of my mind for many years that my heart would never be as warm as my Grandma’s.
I have to say my hands are not always so warm now, but whatever their temperature I never worry about the warmth in my heart.
I was planning to go for a walk this morning as we had the first sunny day in ages. One of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “Out you go and don’t waste your day,” which she used as she hustled us outdoors as soon as the rain stopped, and this came to mind as I looked at the sun this morning.
I could not decide where to go and was just putting on my shoes when I realised my body was needing to be still, not to walk, and despite the unusually warm morning and the lovely sun, I did not want to go outside. This morning I had gone into “Out you go, don’t waste your day” mode, (a common trap) rather than listening to my body and what it needed. So instead of walking, I chose to lie down for a gorgeous esoteric yoga session and connect to the stillness within. It would be this stillness that I would take with me later if I chose to walk.
There are so many proverbs and sayings used in our everyday language and we maybe each have our own familiar ones we grew up with or identify with, and which perhaps still return to now and again, influencing our choices if we don’t catch them.
Here are a few of the many that I have come across at times:
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Definition – Push harder when something is not working.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Definition – if something is working, regardless of its quality, there is no reason to change it.
“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Definition – if your way of doing something is not working, do it as others do, even if you don’t agree with their way.
“Familiarity breeds contempt.”
Definition – If you get too close to someone, you will lose respect for them.
Reading the above sayings now I can see that they:
- Deliver no truth
- Feel empty
- Encourage comparison
- Discourage unity
- Ask us not to trust our inner feelings
Could it be that most sayings actually can stunt our communication and are used when we are unwilling to go deeper with our expression?
And could sayings be having a negative impact on our lives and the choices we are making? Could they actually provide us with an excuse to remain comfortable with the status quo, fit in with others, avoid intimacy and thus give us an excuse not to shine? As we can see from the examples above, what seems at first like an innocent comment does not hold truth yet can be taken on as true.
As a student of Universal Medicine I have many times opened my Esoteric and Exoteric Philosophy ‘The Sayings’ book by Serge Benhayon. The sayings in this book don’t just speak to my mind as rules to obey or regurgitate: as I read, I can feel the words in my whole body – they vibrate throughout my cells.
Sometimes this leaves me feeling expanded and light and other times I feel a tension in my body. This tension is a gift for it is telling me I am more than I am choosing to live and is pulling me up to my next level of evolution.
Each word carries equal importance and reading these sayings I am left to simply feel me – all of me. No ideals or beliefs asking me to hold back, fit in, push harder, stop shining, but words which expose evil and inspire me to be more responsible in life. There is a depth and wealth of knowledge within these words that no other book of sayings can even touch on.
This is a book of sayings that delivers Truth. It asks us to consider that we are so much more than human beings using function as the way to get through life, and that we are living a long way from our true, natural way of being.
Through these heaven-sent words we are reminded that in our essence we are all love and we can all return home to love if we choose it. It reminds us that we are held in the magnificence of God’s love always.
‘Taking energetic responsibility for all that one does and all that one says and thinks is truth in power, for one will see exactly how we can harm or heal in all that we do, say and think. That’s true power!’ (Esoteric and Exoteric Philosophy “The Sayings” by Serge Benhayon, p 181)
My appreciation and love for Serge Benhayon is forever deepening. Expression is everything and the truth and love expressed through all of Serge Benhayon’s books is absolute.
By Jane Torvaney, Physiotherapist, Scotland
Further Reading:
Serge Benhayon – the Author
Books by Serge Benhayon
Rebuilding my Hard Body with Care
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
It is important to feel if there is truth in what is expressed with the sayings.
Expression is everything – a few words which mean more and more every time I connect. Sometimes I question whether I want to say something, write something or tell another how and what I feel. We worry whether what we say is correct, if it has value and so on, but all of that builds up inside of us and causes turmoil. When you say something, even if it is wrong, it can be corrected. If however you keep it to yourself and let it develop in your head, it will only be as true as you make it out – based on what you believe is true, and not what may actually be the truth.
The words we use have a massive impact and it is time we stepped up to take responsibility for them. Striving for perfection is a construct that will always leave us feeling less, but being more aware and having an intention to be more aware, responsible and accountable is a great first step.
The quality of and the intention behind some of our sayings considered normal in everyday life and our everyday language could really do with a quality lift.
There is a lack of responsibility with expression in some of the sayings.
Sayings often reflect the reality of life but not the truth.
Many sayings are just cystalised ideals and beliefs that do not allow us to be responsive to take responsibility in the moment that is being called for, and that is pretty much how we us them for – to be the judge, instead of choosing to connect to the truth.
I was pondering on the saying “boys will be boys” yesterday and could feel how destructive it is. It is as if by saying this we are accepting behaviour, that in truth we know is unacceptable, because that is what everyone believes. But by believing the sayings you shared and the myriad of others we use in daily life, we are simply holding ourselves back from really feeling the truth of a situation instead of acknowledging it and saying no more.
When we regurgitate sayings we miss the opportunity to express from our own truth in the moment.
There are sayings … and sayings. Some of them justify plain unlove as the way it is. Other ones are pearls of wisdom. The problem is when we take them as a lot and do not discern which ones are which ones and we do not bother to look at how are we using them and what for.
Yes, we have taken some of the sayings as threats and truths when in fact they just keep us trapped in not ‘stepping out of line’, which can be poison to the body.
I wholeheartedly agree with you Jane. Also that since meeting and being so deeply inspired by Serge Benhayon and his powerful ‘Purple Books’, my appreciation and love for myself has also changed beyond recognition and it is a joy to meet myself in this way.
“My appreciation and love for Serge Benhayon is forever deepening. Expression is everything and the truth and love expressed through all of Serge Benhayon’s books is absolute”.
The words we speak are a reflection of how we move.
True, what vibration are we moving and expressing.
The words we use in our everyday life are so important with everyone we speak to or even think of. It has more of an impact than we realise.
Absolutely, we are energetic beings and have an impact on all around us in many different ways.
This is a powerful blog and words can play a huge role in our communication and how and the tone we say thing in can either have a restricting or evolutionary effect.
Without perfection I’m becoming more and more astute to this.
A saying can be so damaging especially when it echoes in our heads. I can recall when I was an avid fan of going to the gym continually hearing “no pain, no gain” so I trained my body with this echoing in my head and paid the consequences afterwards.
I’m re-learning to exercise in the gym, taking things gentle and stopping a movement if my body doesn’t feel like doing. Or even stopping half way and I’ve only done half the reps if the body says its had enough. There are no set rules when I am at the gym any more and I love going there and it is so supportive after having a 10 year break.
I have come to understand, that as everything is energy, words are little packets of energy too, and put together in one of these sayings they become very powerful constellations that can hook us into believing that what they say is true. One I particularly feel this hooking in, is the saying ‘everything in moderation’, a well-used to excuse to eat or drink something that the speaker knows is possibly harming for them, or for us the person they are saying it to. Perhaps if we stopped to discern how these sayings really feel in our body when we speak them we may get to feel that there is not one ounce of truth being offered to us.
“It reminds us that we are held in the magnificence of God’s love always.” The sayings of Serge Benhayon hold truth in every word.
When I get one of these sayings you mentioned first as a reply I often feel powerless as they seem to cut you down and make you look silly for what you were feeling. Yet all in all the feeling is true and those sayings are just there to control and protect the hurt people are feeling of not listening to their own feelings. When you are solid in yourself they are easily exposed.
Wow how retarding are these sayings – it really demonstrates how powerful words are – they can either elevate us or reduce us to be so much smaller than we’re designed to be. And …. just common sense – surely warm hands would mean a warm heart.
It is so important to feel and discern the energy of the words and sayings that that pop out of our mouth, almost by rote. We are confirming everything we say in our body.
When we call them ‘sayings’ they sound so innocuous when in truth they are curses that can cap our evolution for lifetimes.
Yes, when you hear them know you can see they can be curses. Being discerning and not just blindly accepting sayings needs no university education, just holding on to the natural inquisitiveness and connection to love we had as a child.
Great nominations Jane and exposure of how much we can be reduced by careless words. We all have responsibility for how we choose to express and I find that I am feeling much less pressure to fill space with meaningless or harmful words but can slip back into it if I am not careful as it has been such an engrained habit.
A lot of the sayings that circulate in our society, as you have shared, do not represent the truth of who we are or call us to embrace more of who we are, and in fact work to keep us in comfort and capped from exploring our true potential. They are much like a curse that we keep alive amongst us, which we substitute for expressing the truth we feel, which essentially keeps us from evolving. It is our responsibility to discern what quality it is that is being shared through the words or sayings we allow in our society – do they empower or seek to dis-empower?
Yes Brendan, I also used that saying a lot whilst I exercised or contorted my body into an unnatural yoga posture, that saying made me push myself more and not listen to my body, no wonder I used to get sick quite often.
Spot on Jane, these sayings can be considered quite normal and innocent in society, but I find some can be quite harming and actually block me from truly expressing or connecting with another.
Oh My Gosh … what a plethora of sayings there are in our culture to reinforce dysfunctional behaviour… definitely time for some new bumper stickers…suggestions?? ☺
Cold hands can never be a sign for a warm heart. What this reveals is (a) how much we accept as part of what it is the part that is not it and (b) the extent to which we are ‘helped’ to naturalize that by our language.
Jane this is so important as how many of us are brought up with sayings that subconsciously or consciously are energetically debilitating in some way yet we accept them as normal or do not even question them. The definitions you have given of just a few sayings clearly exposes this as you are so on point with what you have shared. And I completely agree when you open and read any of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicines books, particularly the Esoteric and Exoteric and Philosophy ‘The Sayings’ book as well as the ‘Esoteric Teachings and Revelations’ the truth of what is expressed here is clearly felt in the body and yet in unimposing on the reader giving instead the opportunity to ponder on what has been presented and hence giving the opportunity to expand and truly evolve from within .. completely different to the sayings we are brought up with.
I can relate to so many of those sayings Jane. “Could it be that most sayings actually can stunt our communication and are used when we are unwilling to go deeper with our expression?” A great point – these sayings are used as token expressions. Keeping everything superficial is the name of the game here – which also keeps us in protection and separation away from other people.
Thank you Jane for sharing, it is true in my experience these saying are there to cap us to keep us with the status quo, to keep us small to fit in and not live the love we are. The total opposite to that are the saying by Serge, that call us to come up to who we truly are, step into our power and divine love as the true sons of God that we are all equally and shine this love out to others that they too may arise.
We are here to live this love, to be love, ‘ It reminds us that we are held in the magnificence of God’s love always.’
We have misused words so much, that it is more foreign for us to actually question what they mean, than it is to just say them because they are familiar. I love that you are questioning the status quo and bringing it to everyone’s attention how off some of the things we say actually are.
So true Sarah. It also feels like sayings are a lazy excuse to not express what we really feel, as they are already there in circulation, familiar as you say, and a safe way to say something that fits in.
“What’s in a Saying?” – very often the complete opposite of the truth.
It is important that we discern and feel if what is expressed is true.
It really shows the need to discern everything, sometimes I find that some of the old sayings do hold a seed of truth and other times they are the opposite of truth – what I find is important with whatever is communicated to us is that we feel whether it is a truth for us or not.
There is so much information in the way we use words. Not only the information that the words mean by themselves, but also the energetic imprint behind them. When we allow ourselves to feel the whole meaning of a sentence, as well as its intent, we can feel the imposition or the expansion that comes with it, and then we are free to let them in, affecting our lives or not.
Yes, we do feel if there is an expansion, or an imposition in what is being expressed.
What we say to ourselves can indeed feed the status quo of comfort or, inspire us to be and feel more.
Our language shapes us and the sayings we have been surrounded by from early childhood can certainly feel like prison walls, trying to get us to conform and not rock the boat. How about “the early bird catches the worm?” Are we being told here to go out, no matter how we are feeling; to not check in with the body in the pursuit of some gain?
Just how much are we conditioned to not hold our quality from within. Words, sayings, behaviors, ideals of how life is ‘supposed’ to be and beliefs. If we truly contemplate how much of our life this influences, and noisily wipes out our choice to choose our quality before we move, we would be astounded by the influence that they have over us.
Amazing how the ideals and beliefs so insidiously weave themselves into the way things are as society and as an individual through those sayings. When we start dissecting life, allowing the simplicity and the wisdom of our body to come to the foreground, it is not that hard to see how everything is energy. Even a simple word or a saying is imbued with an energy of a kind. And we can feel it as a curse or a blessing.
Words and sayings can be a curse, what is the intent, or the energy with what is being said.
I’d never really given much thought to the sayings that float around in our society. Similar to the ones listed within the article there are many more that pop in at different times and it’s almost like a way of explaining something that is going on but not explaining it to any depth. Perhaps that’s why we call them ‘throw away lines’ because they don’t allow you to see things at any real depth but more give a relief that they have a place, even though you may not understand them. I remember this feeling now, when I have used a saying to explain something and been left with a bemused look on my face but shrugged my shoulders and moved on. If something has come up in a way that needs us to look at it then to throw it away only confirms it’s return at some point. These saying seem like that detract from you feeling more into things and allowing more understanding to come to you and then allow the same thing almost to return to you again and again. I’ll be more aware of when one of these sayings just pops into my mind to dismiss something that is going on.
Thank you Jane for exposing the harm that comes from these sayings and many sayings that currently exist and have carried through in our society. It is so true that mostly they are capping and hobbling our true potential, sanctioning us to dismiss all that we are and are here to live. This certainly calls on embracing our responsibility, to be aware of and discern the quality of energy that is being delivered when sayings are used, do they call us to be all that we truly are or excuse us and justify why we are choosing to be less.
Living how we should instead of living from how we feel is indeed a common trap that I can fall into. We allow ourselves to be governed by ideals and beliefs. As I let go of these ideals and beliefs I get to feel more and therefore make choices that support my body. It is truly allowing myself to feel as to what is being said whether that is a saying, or not, to determine whether it is true or not.
Your appreciation for truth and the sayings brought through by Serge Benhayon is absolutely gorgeous Jane. True sayings are worth appreciating too because they support us to heal.
True sayings that come from truth support evolution and deepening; they can shake us up or confirm us, they always deliver.