By Cynthia Hickman, Registered Psychologist
When I was twelve years old I looked out at the world and was appalled at what I saw … the inequality and the suffering. By the time I was sixteen I was devastated by the meaninglessness of it all. It seemed that life was about getting a job, buying a house and having babies who would then grow up to do the same thing. There seemed to be no higher purpose. And no one seemed bothered by this.
I felt like I was living in an insane asylum and in fact I came across the writing of psychologist R.D. Laing who indeed said that ‘normal’ was insane. By the time I was nineteen I was suicidally depressed by it all.
Obviously I survived, and my inquiry into life and being human led me to the study of psychology. But by the time I was twenty-eight I realised that I had overlooked the most important aspect of life – the inner being-ness; I called it the soul. I then knew that I had to be a psychologist who could help people find this inner being, so I called myself a soul-centred psychologist. Not a term to garner the respect of my peers!
The trouble however was that I had very little to guide me. They didn’t teach soul psychology at university! So I felt it was my business to explore any alternative teachings that might illuminate the way … I wanted to offer my clients the best I could find to help them manage the difficult business of being human. Many clients that came to me were hungry for information about their deeper spiritual nature and found no answers to this in mainstream culture. So for two decades I tried every workshop known to man! Among other things I have tested Tantra, shared Satsang, primal screamed, created shamanic ceremony, tried to be a Buddhist and re-birthed myself silly.
Along the way I learned a lot of useful things but I knew I hadn’t found the right teaching for me, something that would deliver consistent ongoing results for my self and others, something that explained how to bring the love of the soul into the body and into everyday life.
Then I attended a Universal Medicine retreat with Serge Benhayon and I sat there gob-smacked as he spoke about everything I knew deep inside but could never have articulated. This was the teaching I had been looking for.
Serge’s teaching was different to many others. He spoke about love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss. He spoke about stillness instead of ecstasy and he spoke about steady progress not the transient highs of emotional catharting. And he emphasised the importance of focusing on the body…bad news for a sugar addict but something I knew to be true if I really meant it about bringing the energy of the soul into the human body! Then he gave simple commonsense strategies for bringing health and joy into life.
My own inner progress now is incremental and consistent. It is not about enlightenment, which is what I had learnt from Eastern teachings. It is about embodying love in everyday life. So now, while I may get tired after work I don’t get exhausted like I did previously. And I feel more wellbeing than I ever have. And in my body – I never knew a body could feel so good! Many clients benefit from what I have learned from Universal Medicine and I can give them practical tools to develop self-love and deal with anxiety and depression.
Mainstream psychologists might question the teachings of Universal Medicine but to me, a psychology that does not have love and the human soul as its central theme is missing the whole point. I have always felt that it is the human heart that needs attention; that unless we heal the heart then the world’s ills will not heal, no matter how much charity, aid or political, technological or intellectual will we bring to the problem.
Change the inner being then the outer might begin to reflect this change. This is why I chose psychology as my modality. I wanted to work with the inner being. And I knew that love was the core ingredient needed for change – not romantic or emotional love but something much deeper within us. Not everyone wants to explore such things and that is fine. But for those that do, Universal Medicine’s teachings give a solid practical path from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity.
Words on Serge Benhayon 
Serge Benhayon leads by living example, he inspires change by how he lives and what he shares, ‘Serge’s teaching was different to many others. He spoke about love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss. He spoke about stillness instead of ecstasy and he spoke about steady progress not the transient highs of emotional catharting. And he emphasised the importance of focusing on the body’.
For me psychology makes more sense when you add in The Ageless Wisdom and the fact of spirit and soul. What then plays out in human life is more understandable.
We are definitely and with no doubt much more than our minds. Considering this fact as a psychologist should be a must (not just in the psychological field but in all areas indeed!). When we consider ourselves as a whole that, of course includes our soul, there is a greater understanding of what we are living and this is repairing in itself.
When I first met and heard Serge Benhayon, I felt well, this is too good to be true. Now years later I have come to feel and understand more of what Serge was actually expressing. To begin with it was so foreign to what I thought I knew, so it took a few years of unraveling to even understand what he was presenting was in fact the truth for me to ponder on and understand.
“Serge’s teaching was different to many others. He spoke about love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss. He spoke about stillness instead of ecstasy and he spoke about steady progress not the transient highs of emotional catharting. And he emphasised the importance of focusing on the body.” It’s truly amazing to experience Serge’s teachings, and to feel how they confirm a truth we all equally know even if we have disconnected to it. It’s practical and earthy, as well as honouring our divine origins, and in my experience it’s been the only thing that has worked.
“the difficult business of being human” Serge Benhayon makes sense of all the whys? I am learning to feel and understand the energy that is in everything.
Serge Benhayon is the only person I have come across in this life who truly makes sense, and offers us a way to live that is really common sense.
When you add the inner heart and soul factor to an already great medical system then you get a much deeper understanding of the world and it’s ills.
“Serge’s teaching was different to many others. He spoke about love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss. He spoke about stillness instead of ecstasy and he spoke about steady progress not the transient highs of emotional catharting. And he emphasised the importance of focusing on the body…bad news for a sugar addict but something I knew to be true if I really meant it about bringing the energy of the soul into the human body! Then he gave simple commonsense strategies for bringing health and joy into life.” A beautiful summary of the teaching of Serge Benhayon – straightforward, clear and commonsense.
Do we become sugar addicts as a means of comfort, to distract us from what we are truly feeling, to numb ourselves?
I studied Psychology for a few years and I was incredibly disappointed with how it seemed to miss all the really important parts of human life – trying to understand the human condition without considering first what makes our heart beat and what life is truly about does not make sense to me.
‘Universal Medicine’s teachings give a solid practical path from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity.’ What a beautiful way to describe what Universal Medicine offers. I couldn’t agree more.
I absolutely agree with you:
‘a psychology that does not have love and the human soul as its central theme is missing the whole point.’
These things were missing during the whole study and this didn’t make sense to me either.
I love your honesty and I would very much have liked to know you when I turned to psychology to try and understand my depression. Meeting Serge Benhayon was a God send as he and the modalities of Universal Medicine have been my practical tools to develop self-love and deal with my anxiety and depression. I would highly recommend Universal Medicine to anyone that is looking to truly understand the meaning of life and their part in it.
Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, when he went out into the world he saw the suffering in human life, yet he found people did not want to change, ‘When I was twelve years old I looked out at the world and was appalled at what I saw … the inequality and the suffering.’
Reading this is a real confirmation of what I’ve found to be true in my life when I too was so disillusioned by life prior to meeting someone called Serge Benhayon. I saw I wasn’t the only one who could see how devastating life was when lived from anything other than our essence.
Living in a way that allows us to have a belief around things being “mainstream” seems to be fighting against the tide of Love that is intrinsically tied to the Inner-heart and the flow of life that comes from Our Livingness.
The movements of our bodies are so power-full when we are connected to our Essences, Inner-Heart, Esoteric and or Soul and as these are all one in the same when we move in this re-connection it is simpler to stay in that connection.
Supporting the being inside the human to be ‘healthy’ or soul-full leads to a healthy human. The way Serge Benhayon presents on psychology is like nothing else I’ve experienced before and it makes so much sense.
Truth is simple when we allow our connection to deepen into a Soul-Full state. And thus what happens from there will be for the True Service for humanity how ever that might look like.
So true Leigh, Serge Behayon makes psychology so simple and easy to understand in every area of life.
I had noticed that you use the word ‘Soul’ when describing what you do, as a psychologist and find it rather lovely to find out that you always knew, that you never not knew that life, as we have fashioned it to be, is neither serving nor supporting us.
Yes, I noticed this too and it was so lovely Cynthia, that you never lost your knowing of truth. It makes me reflect and wonder that all the depression and despair is because people on some level always know the way we are living isn’t in tune with our inner most truth.
The feeling of knowing what Serge Benhayon presents is palpable. It is the only teaching that makes sense of the reality we currently (and for centuries past) have in humanity. I know that without knowing how and why we have the reality we do, then I for one would have completely checked out of life as the behaviors of humanity as a whole and the harm caused by such behaviors was something I was unable to understand, until I discovered Universal Medicine.
Serge Benhayon has brought understanding, love, and truth to a world that seemed crazy and a place that did not invite one to be a part of it.
I agree – what Serge Benhayon presents is very different from many other things and what I find really amazing about that is how it encompasses everything, and by design does not allow any little corners of exception/exclusion, and for me it has exposed how other beautiful sounding things that I had previously adhered to was really about self and self only at its core.
We set out to improve ourselves and our life, lose track of the bigger picture and end up more lost than when we started out on this so-called spiritual path of bliss, nirvana, ecstasy and the like.
We definitely need more people who understand that our truth lies in our essence, and when a practitioner treats someone knowing they are love first and is able to help that person connect to their own essence, many of the temporal problems begin to dissolve because they come from outside of ourselves and not truly from within.
Mainstream psychology at its best enables one to manage one’s condition and by doing so can actually be harmful as the real cause is not being addressed and instead further masked and entrenched by this management. This is because, as you so correctly share Cynthia, the inner-being is not being addressed.
Serge Benhayon, “spoke about everything I knew deep inside but could never have articulated. This was the teaching I had been looking for” was my experience, and for so many others, too. It feels like coming home which is such a joyous and healing experience.
Thank you Cynthia, for a beautiful blog, finding the truth you were searching for from Serge Benhayon and bringing the heart and soul back into psychology,
That journey of trying everything – in by experience it gives us a good idea what doesn’t work and each time we get damaged without really noticing.
The world needs some more “soul-centred psychologists”. Without our soul we are lost and no amount of psychology can help.
It never ceases to amaze me just how much we already knew about what is needed in our world, yet how we can find it difficult to bring into our lives and live. Without the teachings of Serge Benhayon and the absolute dedication to living his love in every breath, so many of us would still be struggling, where now many are living their love.
What you say here makes so much sense – so much in fact that it makes it hard to believe there are psychotherapists who would find what Universal Medicine offers is not complementary to what they profess in, if their purpose was genuinely about studying the inner-makings and the workings of human psyche.
I love the feeling of how we can know things we have always seen and felt confirmed. This is what I take from this article, that nothing is really ever new and all appears as though it’s just a different recycled version of the same thing. When you come across something like Universal Medicine the only question becomes how far you are willing to take it as what is presented back to you is that you already have it all. From what I am seeing this is true for all of us as at some point or at many points we have seen that all is not well on the outside but we are lost to how to deal with all we see. Universal Medicine supports you to bring clearer all you are seeing anyway and from there life changes.
If Psychology is about studying the mind and our subsequent behaviours how can we remove from the equation our heart considering so many of our behaviours are directly attributed to our hurts or from the our ‘broken heart’? I love that you acknowledge that there is more to a person than just their mind and head Cynthia – how can we ever think and accept that there is not I do not know.
We have to consider the person as a whole, that naturally means all of them, their Soul, their heart, ‘by the time I was twenty-eight I realised that I had overlooked the most important aspect of life – the inner being-ness; I called it the soul. I then knew that I had to be a psychologist who could help people find this inner being, so I called myself a soul-centred psychologist.’
” He spoke about love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss. He spoke about stillness instead of ecstasy and he spoke about steady progress not the transient highs of emotional catharting.”
Cynthia, I love how you captured the teachings of Universal Medicine in this sentence, which at the same time clarifies the difference between the spiritual New Age and the esoteric way of being.
What Serge shares makes so much sense, and at the same time is so simple, yet profound, ‘It is about embodying love in everyday life.’
Universal Medicine teaches esoteric psychology and looks at the whole body not the mind from the mind. This is a fundamental flaw in mainstream psychology that does not apply love in the mind therefore, the body needs to be built from this from within to without not from without to within burying and complexing what issue is there.
Yes Cynthia I completely agree. It seems that overlooking our connection to Soul is the disease of humanity, in that we focus only on being human rather than our being-ness, which is held within a human body. The presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine offer a very tangible and accessible way of living that is guided by our connection to our love within, through which we can bring to life the light of our Soul through our bodies, and into the everyday lives we live. Not only does this way of living make sense, is enriching in many ways but also feels natural in every way, in which our bodies hum with vitality
The teachings of Serge Benhayon bring an understanding of the who and why and a purpose to life.
So much of what Serge Benhayon shares is essential for life, ‘a purpose to life.’
I love that thanks to Universal Medicine you can now bring heart into psychology…. people so desperately need the love in service you provide, for it is the foundation of any true change.
Unless we heal the heart we will be forever at the mercy of that which is going on around us. I steer my ship learning to take responsibility for my life and when I do blame is impossible.
I cannot agree more with what you have expressed, Cynthia. Like you I tried many approaches in an attempt to make sense of the world and for a time felt I had found it in Tibetan Buddhism. However, the thought of excluding oneself from society to sit in isolated meditation for years at a time did seem to help anyone, except the participant to escape the responsibility of life. When you present that, “It is not about enlightenment, which is what I had learnt from Eastern teachings. It is about embodying love in everyday life”, then that truly made sense.
‘Mainstream psychologists might question the teachings of Universal Medicine but to me, a psychology that does not have love and the human soul as its central theme is missing the whole point.’ I totally agree Cynthia it makes perfect sense, because who is a psychologist treating if they are not treating the heart of the person.
Spot on Sally. It is the heart where we truly reside, not our mind.
I love what you have written so clearly Cynthia, “I have always felt that it is the human heart that needs attention; that unless we heal the heart then the world’s ills will not heal, no matter how much charity, aid or political, technological or intellectual will we bring to the problem.” So much time energy and money is spent doing what you above mentioned when it is simply an understanding of our divine essence and a connection to our inner heart of love where true change is found.
I have never been into anything spiritual or new age. When I first heard Serge Benhayon speak my life changed. What he was sharing was so profound yet just made so much sense. I was stopped as his words resonated deep within me and my whole body was nodding with everything he said, I was also struck how I knew this but had never thought it before and how what he shares just makes so much sense yet we don’t live like this in life or with an awareness of this in life.
Dealing with depression and anxiety with the body will change the way we view mental illness. It makes sense to go to the body, for how can you have an ‘unstable mind’ if the body is not first ill? The root cause has to be somewhere and the body holds the recorded imprints of how life has been lived.
A good example about how we lost our sense in life by reducing and separation. We did separate Medicine, Religion and Philosophy from each other, thereby they are one and make sense just connected. Yes, the soul-aspect (so to speak) should be involved when we try to heal ourselves. As well as the connection and benefit/service to and for all. Only then we get out of this self created asylum – where nothing makes true sense.
“Not everyone wants to explore such things and that is fine. But for those that do, Universal Medicine’s teachings give a solid practical path from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity.” And this is key here – Universal Medicine might not be for everyone “and that is fine”. For those of us who have chosen to explore is more for ourselves, every single person I know personally has found their lives enriched beyond measure by simply by learning to live from a reconnection to our innermost and making this the thing we focus on first and foremost.
Each time I read this I am reminded of the very real truth that nothing really changes, personally or on a world basis, until we allow the true essence we hold within to guide how we live.
I think you are very brave to put yourself out there in this way, in your profession I can imagine that it could be very critical on anyone that may want to think outside the box but to me, isn’t that what Psychology is all about? If we can’t find new ways to address people and their issues, then we are not really doing our jobs…?
‘He spoke about love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss.’ I love this line, so solid in what is being presented. This is what attracted me to Universal Medicine. The other stuff has always felt off to me…an escape from reality.
It makes perfect sense for a psychologist to be questioning the purpose of life, the connection to a universality, as this must be at the root of many of our issues. Also learning simple techniques to help people have an experience of this makes for a truly great practitioner… and not just what we say, but the example we live which is the greatest teacher of all.
I couldn’t agree more with your words and central premise here Cynthia: “…a psychology that does not have love and the human soul as its central theme is missing the whole point.”
I studied one year of psychology at university (and a ‘prestigious university’ at that…) – and was gobsmacked by how meaningless it was, and to be honest, how deeply disturbed those I met in the psychology department there seemed to be.
Missing was the sense of wholeness you describe, that comes from a way of understanding and healing ourselves that is heart-centred, or cardio-centric. I became quite disillusioned at university and looking outward at a world that seemed so meaningless…
The teachings and work of Serge Benhayon were absolute music to my ears – holding the true and complete understanding I also knew within to be true, but for all my searching, had not found any parallels to (inclusive of up to this day).
There is such a contrast in the words like ’embodiment not transcendence’ and ‘stillness not ecstasy’. Each of these words has a package with them, and the spiritual ones feel like the goal is to get ‘out of body’, where the soulful ones feel like grounding the love of the universe into the body we live and express in. We don’t need to go out into the Universe to feel and know it, it’s already within us, in the body and not in the seeking mind.
Yes, it is interesting that terms like ecstasy and bliss make us feel that there is something we haven’t got and need to have to feel great – that there is a state of being just outside our grasp that we could escape to if we knew how, or if we took the right substance. We all feel that life, at least at some point, on the planet right now, is far from satisfactory – nowhere near the truth, love, harmony, joy and inner stillness that we could have. Serge Benhayon shows us how to reconnect to these qualities that we know but do not necessarily have the confidence to live. When we bring our own essential quality, energetic quality, back into our living way on a daily basis we begin to live more fully, less dependent on the outside world and more sure of where we come from energetically and what we are here to contribute.
Cynthia, you capture absolutely the difference between much of the new age and what is offered by Universal Medicine ‘He spoke about love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss. He spoke about stillness instead of ecstasy and he spoke about steady progress not the transient highs of emotional catharting’ – i can relate completely and found a similar experience on attending Universal Medicine, a feeling of coming home, with an understanding that from love life is very different and true love is something which brings care and responsibility in all we do, no running away from life, but in fact a deeper engagement and commitment to life, and that is what has happened in my life, I am now more involved, engaged and committed than before, and would not want it any other way.
Dear Cynthia,
This paragraph sums up how I too felt after my first ever experience of hearing Serge speak. “Then I attended a Universal Medicine retreat with Serge Benhayon and I sat there gob-smacked as he spoke about everything I knew deep inside but could never have articulated. This was the teaching I had been looking for.”
I realise now that what Serge presented would change my life completely and for many years tried to make what I inexorably felt fit into the life I had, but it couldn’t. I knew on this first meeting that I was being asked to live what I too knew to be true. So now this I do to the very best of my ability, and yes my life has changed – but never before have I felt the warmth and fullness that I now live with. My life is different, but now it is true to what I Feel deep within.
This is a beautifully written testimonial, not only to the amazing Serge Benhayon, but also to you Cynthia for making the choice to bring the soul and the innermost into your work as a psychologist in spite of the fact that “they didn’t teach soul psychology at university!” I can feel how your impulse to do so was so strong that you were not going to allow anything and anyone to deviate you from your chosen path, and I am sure that there will be many who will be delighted that you remained true to that impulse.
I love what Cynthia shared in her blog, so many great points, like, ‘a psychology that does not have love and the human soul as its central theme is missing the whole point.’
We all too easily get caught in the mentality that merely looks at life at face value without opening our heart to the fact there is far more to the healing process than just what we see, for unless we heal the root cause of anything it will always come back to haunt us.
I love that what Serge presents is not about enlightenment. Enlightenment to me feels like something outside of who I am, something to get, a place to reach…where as, absolutely everything I could ever need is right inside of me already there, just waiting patiently for me to accept it.
We can go searching outside of ourselves for answers, and wonder why nothing truly changes; coming back to our essence, our soul is rich beyond any riches.
Awesome Cynthia! I love that you finally came across Serge and his presentations. It’s amazing how simple it can be to heal our hurts when we look inside of ourselves and learn to love and appreciate just what we have to offer.
Love and appreciation of ourselves is an essential ingredient of our evolution.
So true Cynthia. What is any story of humans if it leaves out the heart and soul? Bringing ourselves back to self love and care and building our foundations from there is the healthiest and most joyful way I have found to live.
Cynthia I love what you said here ‘Universal Medicine’s teachings give a solid practical path from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity’ – now that is worth front page news, pity the journalists ignore this truth in favour of lies and twisted tales.
How very real Cynthia, real and relatable. Yes, life – and Love works inside out not outside in. We are to connect with it in our inner being and then be the livingness of it – and when we do so, life, at last, starts making sense.
It’s great that you’re bringing back the true meaning of what psychology is all about. The knowingness about our soul.
Cynthia, I really resonate with what you are saying here: “Then I attended a Universal Medicine retreat with Serge Benhayon and I sat there gob-smacked as he spoke about everything I knew deep inside but could never have articulated. This was the teaching I had been looking for.” I had spent many years thinking I had found what I’d been looking for in the world of Homeopathy, even though much of what I learnt and was being taught didn’t always ring true for me. I constantly had questions around the subject that nobody seemed able to answer. It wasn’t until I heard Serge talking at the first Universal Medicine event that I attended, that I realized that he was talking about the missing ingredients that I had never found – the plain and simple truth about life, the universe and all of us. It felt like a true home coming.
Our emotional and mental wellbeing is very important and given the rise of mental illness (including anxiety and depression) it is even more important than ever. However at what point do we ask ourselves is the current practices= really making a difference to people and truly helping people change their lives? The same could be said with medicine and the onset of all of the chronic diseases we now have and experience. How many counsellors and psychologists will we need and will there ever be enough. Something has to give…eventually. The Ageless Wisdom as presented by Serge Benhayon is the perfect partner not only to psychology but also medicine plus many other things as it offers a perspective that is very healing and respectful of everyone equally. Something very needed in today’s world of quick fixes.
So many modalities focus on enlightenment for the one, and then what? The teachings of Serge Benhayon inspires us to an equalness that wants to get out of bed in the morning to engage with the world. When we learn to deeply love ourselves we then love one another. It seems simple, and it is.
Cynthia this is a wonderful testament to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. I too spent a long time ‘looking’ for the answers, but nothing ever gave them to me in the way that Serge was able to. At the first presentation I went to I knew that I had found what I was looking for, as here was a man who was talking about everything that I already knew but also could not put into words. And we all have all of these answers within us, the thing that makes what Serge presents different is that he gives us the responsibility to access them for ourselves.
We can search the world looking, seeking for that certain something but when we find it we just know that the search out there is over. At the first words of Serge Benhayon I knew in my body that I had found what I wasn’t even really aware that I had been searching for. The answers are all inside me and true love within my inner-heart has been patiently waiting for me to answer the call and open the door.
Exactly Mary, as soon as we hear truth we remember what it was that we had been inadvertently looking for. ‘At the first words of Serge Benhayon I knew in my body that I had found what I wasn’t even really aware that I had been searching for.’
After growing up in a christian religion and seeing that for me it couldn’t answer my questions, I also looked into many different workshops seeking a deeper meaning to what life was really about. It wasn’t until I heard Serge Benhayon speak that I knew at last here was someone who really had the answers to the questions I had been searching for, it simply all made sense and as he spoke I knew it to be true because I realised I already knew what he was saying, I had just disconnected from that within myself. It was like coming home, but I mean really coming home back to me. I am forever grateful to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for the wonderful opportunity I have been given to connect back to the deeper wisdom and love I hold within myself and the responsibility I am willing to take for the way I choose to live my life now.
I remember as a child looking up to the stars in hope of answers… being bothered by the meaninglessness of it all… a seeming life without purpose. I used to hide out in the library at lunch to read psychology magazines in the hope of it bringing me some kind of understanding. However the understanding of life and of people I was searching for didn’t come until I met Serge Benhayon who finally made it all make sense and answered all my questions… for which I am eternally grateful.
Cynthia this is a brilliant expression of truth and Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. It is the knowing of coming home, home to who we really are and everything evolves from here with a beautiful way of livingness and joy, harmony, responsibility and purpose.
Loved to read Your blog again.
Dear Cynthia love how clearly you expressed this and it gets clearer to me as I read this. And yes the whole point is missed if we skip the essential part…our essence…our soul. I am also on my way back to the essential and more acceptance of the what is and chose more and more lovingly for me and the world and being on service.
“… psychology that does not have love and the human soul as its central theme is missing the whole point. I have always felt that it is the human heart that needs attention; that unless we heal the heart then the world’s ills will not heal, no matter how much charity, aid or political, technological or intellectual will we bring to the problem.” I agree Cynthia. Great minds over centuries have not been able to address society’s current problems – increased rates of both physical and mental illness, despite the fact we are living longer – but with what quality? Serge Benhayon has brought love and the soul back into the equation. Those of us who are inspired by his presentations and making different life style choices are defying society’s trends.
I love this quote “Serge’s teaching was different to many others. He spoke about love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss. He spoke about stillness instead of ecstasy and he spoke about steady progress not the transient highs of emotional catharting.” This was so fabulous to read and highlighted all that was wrong for me in spirituality, the New Age and personal development courses. “Embodiment not transcendence” strikes the strongest cord because I really felt it was about getting away from myself to become some great spiritual being, such was my disdain for and lack of value in myself. Coming to Serge Benhayon’s work was the complete opposite with the focus on loving acceptance and appreciation of the self, and in feeling one’s own amazing qualities.
Thank you Cynthia for this fabulous blog. I feel what you have shared about spirituality, life in general and your search for the truth would make a tremendous book. So many people have this experience – the emptiness with life, the spiritual searching and the emptiness at the end of that search. I feel you have very truthfully come to the answer you sought, as many of us have, which was inside ourselves via the teaching of Serge Benhayon. What a great story to share.
Thank you Cynthia for such a revealing blog on Serge Benhayon and his inspirations ” It is about embodying love in everyday life.”Connecting to our soul is the greatest gift we can give ourselves ever and is what we is looking for .
This is an inspiring blog with so much wisdom and I love your sharing of ‘Universal Medicine’s teachings that give a solid practical path from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity.’ An amazing reflection of truth and the way of livingness for us all.
Thank you for this article Cynthia. Coming to the teachings of Universal Medicine was like finding a source of crystalline, pure, fresh water that quenched my thirst. I was not able to articulate what it was that I was looking for until then.
This is a great article Cynthia about your searching for a teaching that had it’s foundation based on real love and how you have found that in the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. Incorporating these teachings into your everyday livingness including your work life, brings heart and soul into your counselling sessions and your clients get to feel the truth that their body is holding for them, a true healing is offered.
We can try to think ourselves out of tough predicaments i.e. will power, however it comes down to the underlying ability to accept what has transpired and dig deep to the love that was always within. Approaching any psychological issue from we are everything we need to be before the condition is a front foot forward in the right direction.
It’s fantastic Cynthia that in your profession you can now bring ‘soul’ into your sessions. All to often we find psychologists are very intellectual text book wise but quite often they don’t know how to connect to the body. How wonderful you can show your colleges a new, truer way to connect to your clients.
I agree absolutely with your fantastic blog Cynthia. Many of us will find this timely, and once again it comes back to ourselves and love and self nurturing first before we can take that into the world in our professions and life generally. Serge Benhayon is the most amazing human being I have ever met, we are so fortunate we have access to the Ancient Wisdom presented by him and the meaning of life on Earth.
The ways you have delineated the difference between the teachings of Universal Medicine and the spiritual paths out there is very clear and true, Cynthia. Embodiment not transcendence was a very powerful one for me, because it was through my body I connected to the Ancient Wisdom. Some other spiritual teachings can say very similar things but in my experience it is only through the presentations of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, that I have come to discover these truths in my body. It was never like that before, I could never embody what sounded like truth at the time and it became conceptual instead of a living way.
Cynthia great to read your story, and there are some parallels with mine. Although I was tempted to study psychology when I looked into it I was very disappointed to discover it seemed to entail a lot of experiments and statistics and not the deep understanding of the human being that I was looking for. After years of spirituality in one form or another I found Universal Medicine and was met by a Love that I had never experienced anywhere else, and it felt different to anything else too. So much so that it took a while to actually feel it although I could recognise it. And of course in this Love all that I had been looking for came together.
Similar to me Josephine, I actually did study one semester of psychology and changed to social education as it felt so empty and disconnected from human beings that I did not feel to study it. Social education did not bring more to it neither, but that’s another story… and in the end it did not matter what I studied as everything that matters fell into place when I came to Universal Medicine. Any profession we are working in has the missing link and that is love and through re-connecting to it we bring it into any profession. It is so beautiful being in the world and knowing that I just have to be myself and that this is enough!!
Awesome sharing Cynthia and it’s true “There seemed to be no higher purpose. And no one seemed bothered by this.” Anyone who recognises and knows Truth will find that the presentations of Serge Benhayon resonate deeply.
The moment i also met Serge Benhayon I too was amazed as it was the first time i had ever heard anyone say everything that i knew inside . This was so amazing and in stark contrast to a life where everything i had been told i had to believe with no knowing. Life before Serge Benhayon was a puzzle and confliction with my inner self and life after knowing Serge Benhayon is simply what i know and beautiful, if not confronting to let go of all the ideals, beliefs, hurts and patterns i had taken on and lived. Life simply makes sense now in every way and beautifully loving and real and truly evolving.
Such a great sharing about the missing link in the psychological profession and with this not only in this profession, but in any. A great confirmation of that we have all the wisdom of the Universe to access and you felt already the call long before you could join the dots with the support of Universal Medicine. Universal Medicine is an outstanding business that offers everybody “a solid practical path from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity.”
Great point Rachel, that the wisdom is there already inside us, the call is also there but with Universal Medicine it brings it all together and makes sense for us, empowering us to embody what we already know and are deep down.
I also studied psychology and yet I am learning true psychology through the teachings from Serge Benhayon. The whole work field is empty and nothing without the connection to our innermost and our souls. I am a forever student of life and the ancient teachings offered by Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.
When you meet Serge Benhayon you know you have met Truth Love and everything you are inside deeply. He is a reflection to humanity and is deeply inspiring with a humility and wisdom beyond all else in the world. His inspiration brings you home to you, to who you really are and this is the greatest gift we can be given. Serge`Benhayon shows us life embodying love in our everyday and it is our choice whether we choose to live this or not. Thank you Cynthia for sharing your beautiful reflections.
I absolutely enjoyed reading your blog, so complete, truthful and appreciative. Something that particularly stood out for me personally was as you mentioned “Service not bliss” this resonated with me deeply, I have in the past had sensations that have felt ‘bliss’ like and have become aware that this feels like checking out rather staying present. I love the description of ‘Service not bliss’, to be in service for humanity, to be present and have purpose does feel amazing. I have been made ‘service’ part of my life and I can feel a true connection with my inner heart, my soul when I choose this.
It is interesting how some people (I am one of those too) who choose professional careers based on what exists, does not make sense to us -it is depressing- and because we have a clear intuition that it contains an important part of the answer of what is missing (in my case I have studied sociology, because society did not make any sense to me and of course because there was a clear intuition that a different way of relationship between people held the answer to walk forward -brotherhood-). In my case, at some point I got lost into what sociology offered me, but the initial impulse was pretty clear. When I have finished my BA and was looking into doctoral education, my impulse was to keep studying sociology, but the tremendous degree of specialisation of that discipline in the US discouraged me. For me too, it was always about big answers.
This is so true and real Cynthia and I love how you say It is about embodying love in everyday life. This is an amazing realisation to come to and really live as reflected to us all by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Embodying love is so simple and very different to…..following a guru, living in a cave, meditating for hours on end, healing with crystals or power animals, or even attending church services. Spirituality and religion send us many messages, offering us different ways of seeing the world and God, practising different rituals and ceremonies, and to seek the truth. The only person I have ever met who made everything about love, and talked about how to live this love in the world in very practical and personal ways is Serge Benhayon. I’ve done everything else (almost!) but this is what works for me.
This is a great testimony of how Universal Medicine offers the missing ingredient that most people feel in life – true purpose. In true purpose there is no separation, inequality, right or wrong there is only love and a knowing of our divine origins.
What you say makes such perfect sense Cynthia. I saw a counsellor for a few years. I found that doing so supported me, and helped me to cope with life, but it didn’t really change anything. I now see that it couldn’t have brought about the deeper changes that I was seeking, because any change does not include love, and encompass the inner being is not true change, it is by its nature superficial.
” … And no one seemed bothered by this.”
What a wonderful blog, thank you Cynthia, I’m so glad I’ve read this … yes I found it unbelievable that no-one seemed to be concerned about the emptiness of life – or could even feel it. It seems that you’re a pioneer in the psychology world, ahead of your time – soul-centred psychology – what a thing! Bring it on, bring it on.
That is it !
That is what Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine offer to everyone. I walked the same path, made similar experiences and finally recognised in Universal Medicine that what I always have known to be true but didn´t know to express. It is love that makes life what it is all about, non-emotional absolute divine love and Serge´s presentations simply confirm and reignite my inner knowing and show a practical everyday way of living that love in an ordinary natural and most fulfilling way.
Thanks Cynthia for sharing your experience. The focus on the ‘negative’ or of seeing ourselves as less keeps us locked into a ‘Lose/Lose’ situation. It is knowing that we are already ‘Love’ that is the deal breaker. So for me the comment – ‘Change the inner being then the outer might begin to reflect this change’ is more about ‘Accepting’ the fact that it is ‘Love’ that we already are and live that truth. All else will follow. In Appreciation.
Great to read Cynthia, a psychologist who can incorporate the soul into their work.
Cynthia I agree with everything you say and feel about Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. From the first moment of meeting Serge Benhayon he has brought truth to my life in every way and to the whole world inspiring true Health ,vitality, responsibility ,Integrity and love. The connection and stillness of our essence and who we really are lived is an amazing gift to be treasured by us all. Thank you Cynthia for you beautiful sharing.
Cynthia, what a blessing for anyone who books a session with you now, to get the whole, soul-filled version!
Cynthia I can feel the joy in what you write about your first encounter with Serge Benhayon and that in fact, you were: ”gob-smacked as he spoke about everything I knew deep inside but could never have articulated. This was the teaching I had been looking for”. I too can relate to being “gob-smacked” at my first workshop with Serge, by the realization that I had finally found the answers I had been searching high and low for, for so many years; it was as if I finally had the freedom to be able to take one long and very gentle breath in, and in doing so re-connect to me, and as I breathed out I knew that I had found my way back home.
I love what you have shared Cynthia, and I too can relate to learning that it is about embodying that we really open up to our true heritage (the soul). There is a saying that I often ponder on: Before enlightenment chop wood and carry water, After enlightenment chop wood and carry water. The only difference between the before and after really is the embodiment of who we are…in full.
This is a stunner Cynthia! I too looked at many eastern teachings online, because I knew that life was about something more, but never found clarity with that ‘something more’. Once I started attending Universal medicine presentations and started addressing practical things like how I felt in my body, the way I cared for myself etc, then I found that ‘something more’.. a connection to my Soul was there all along.
Thank you Cynthia Hickman for your story and I can relate to the fact that in my teens I also saw the purposelessness of what life showed me to be and deep within I could feel that there was more to life but was not able to connect with it until I met Serge Benhayon. The fact that I could not connect to what I felt deep within and could not find any reflection of around me made me to go into a giving up state of life, unwillingly accepting the life that was shown to me by society. I too tried all kinds of modalities in looking for a solution to the devastation I felt in me. Thanks God I found Serge who showed me the way of living I knew deep inside and made so much sense to me.
Cynthia I love how you express what Serge Benhayon so lovingly presents to the world –
“He spoke about love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss. He spoke about stillness instead of ecstasy and he spoke about steady progress not the transient highs of emotional catharting. And he emphasised the importance of focusing on the body…”
His teachings bring us back to ourselves not ‘out there’ in some heightened and disconnected space, as our power will always be with ourselves.
A powerful article Cynthia that had me saying ‘yes’ all the way through. Serge Benhayon makes so much sense when he says that whatever you choose to do in life “It is about embodying love in everyday life.”
Cynthia, it is refreshing to read what you have written and are incorporating into your life and work practices. We all have the inner knowing about what is okay or not okay and it is such a joy for us to find a path in life that feels true. Many of us have searched for a long time and so to have found the work of Serge Benhayon (not by accident) is such a gift for us all.
Thank you Cynthia. Since knowing Serge Benhayon I too have learnt my inner journey of embodying love in my everyday livingness and what this truly means. Connection to my soul by listening to my body and all it is showing me with my rhythms of living everyday consistently. Beautiful
Thank you Cynthia, it’s very interesting to read your insights and experience as a psychologist of the presentations of Serge Benhayon and the all important factor of the heart and soul, healing from the inside out.
Thank you Cynthia, it is so simple yet it is the last thing I chose to accept as true. I am Love and all I need to be and bring to all I do is the love that I am. No Competing, no proving, no bells and whistles, no seeking – just reconnect and be the love that I am in the life I live and bring it in my connection with others. This is truly being ‘Soul’ centred
Dear Cynthia, how wonderful that there are psychologists in the world that are soul focused. This part stood out for me today “It is not about enlightenment….It is about embodying love in everyday life.” Thank you for sharing your unfoldment 🙂
How inspiring that there is a psychologist that is truly focused on the soul connection and that we need to build love in our bodies, not try and “fix” ourselves. You are at the forefront of medicine working along side the esoteric, giving your patients an amazing opportunity to truly heal by understanding themselves first and foremost.
“It is about embodying love in everyday life”, now this is a key ingredient for life. What Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine shares is the simple and practical tools to do this. All the courses and workshops I had previously attended before Universal Medicine would talk about this but it was always something that seemed unattainable as there wasn’t a felt sense of it being truly lived. It has been life changing to truly commit to life rather than run away from it and to express love in my everyday way of living.
Thank you, Cynthia. I had rather unpleasant experience with a psychotherapist and I used to think it was my fault that it ended up pear-shaped – until I met Serge Benhayon and Sara Williams amongst other Universal Medicine practitioners and understood that if the practitioner doesn’t live love, there’s no love in whatever they claim to be helping another with.
Thank you Cynthia for your powerful sharing of the lived way and our inner knowing re ignighted by Serge Benhayon . His Integrity, Consistency and his love of Humanity shines out to everyone . True communication is from our soul.
Dear Cynthia – your blog is amazing!!!! I love every word you wrote and I agree to every word your wrote “a psychology that does not have love and the human soul as its central theme is missing the whole point.” So there is lots to do – lets show the world this missing point.
This is very powerful Cynthia. Your search for “the truth” is something many of us, the students, share until we have found Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. I find it incredible that we have all found Serge and UM, but at the same time, it is the deep knowing that is within in us all that there is more to life than the socially accepted “norm” and the stronger you feel this (or hear this inner voice), the more you search (or seek) and you will find it.
Thank you Cynthia ,the appreciation that comes to us from embodying love in our everyday life with simplicity and joy is beautiful and inspiring and really does change our life, health and well being.
Thankyou Cynthia. I love how you share that ‘a psychology that does not have love and the human soul as its central theme is missing the whole point. I have always felt that it is the human heart that needs attention; that unless we heal the heart then the world’s ills will not heal, no matter how much charity, aid or political, technological or intellectual will we bring to the problem’. Very true and very very inspiring.
Cynthia, you ennunciate so clearly what love lived is, steady consistency, bringing love to the body, not escape, bliss or highs which never last. It’s the thing I love most about what I’ve learned from Universal Medicine, that it’s about living love in life, and yes it’s simple but often the most challenging thing of all, and I continue as I know deep within this is how I want to be in life.
Hi Cynthia. Your inner knowing as a child and teen was your inspiration to study Psychology from the perspective of the Soul and heart and I’m sure that many clients of yours are very grateful that you did. Coming across Serge Benhayons teachings of The Ancient Wisdom and Universal Medicines take on ” embodying Love in everyday life” and being in the livingness of that is something that all Psychologists could be taught ! Thank you Cynthia a great blog.
What I love about Universal Medicine is that it is so very practical and earthy, steadily supporting bringing more love into our bodies and everyday lives, something that is sorely needed.
Cynthia – I can feel the blessing you are offering to all your clients with your message of self love as the starting point for healing. It would be wonderful if Universities taught this as a prerequisite in their courses. Image the huge difference this would bring to society! Thank you!
It is amazing to hear how you are not trying to ‘fix’ your patients with only learned theories, but that they get to feel how you live. By connecting to your Soul & making loving changes in your life, you are able to reflect & share these with others. I love that you call yourself a soul-centred psychologist – no hiding there! What a true service to humanity.
I love this line “It is about embodying love in everyday life”. Love is the answer and often the missing link. And as you say Cynthia, not the emotional type or romantic, love meaning that we hold everyone as equals and that which we can find that is deep within us.
Reading this again is close to my heart as to the joy in finding Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon and the true making sense of life. It is simply amazing to have this in my life as a way of being I know .Thank you.
Beautiful Cynthia so true Universal Medicine presents all that we know and I was blown away too when first meeting Serge Benhayon and being presented for the first time in my life with the truth that I knew inside and it was amazing to be reconnected and reaffirmed with this.
Universal Medicine’s teachings give a solid practical path from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity. Thank you for sharing this.
‘from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity’…just gorgeous.
That’s beautiful Cynthia. For those of us who have been searching for truth, the search ends with what Serge Benhayon has to share and then an unfolding back to who we truly are begins. It is the same for all of us, only the time varies. Then, as was so beautifully written ‘…onwards into loving service to humanity.’
Great article Cynthia and a very clear description of what Serge says is different from everything else. “unless we heal the heart then the world’s ills will not heal, no matter how much charity, aid or political, technological or intellectual will we bring to the problem,” is so true.
Hi Cynthia I can relate to feeling depressed in my teens as my view of life then was to go to work, get married and have children. I always had a sense that there was more but didn’t know where to start looking.
Finding Universal Medicine for me was literally a god send – finally someone was making sense of all the nonsense in my life and those around me.
Cynthia, you capture it so beautifully, the differences between the loving, steady, simple commitment that is Universal Medicine and the bliss and highs offered by many other spiritual paths – these later are transient and always about chasing another high, almost like a drug addiction, whereas the love and soul centred path of Universal Medicine is the absolute antithesis of this. It’s all about being us, simply and consistently in life, no dramas, just love.
Universal Medicine is definitely about embodying love in everyday life and this is the most beautiful way of being I know. I have found also that Universal Medicine’s teachings give a solid practical path from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity. Thank you for sharing your experiences and revelations with such truth and knowing. Very Inspiring.
I love what you expressed: “so I called myself a soul-centred psychologist. Not a term to garner the respect of my peers!”. How is that for standing up and openly committing to helping people find their inner-being? Long before you met Serge Benhayon you knew inside that life was about so much more, he just confirmed all you felt and gave commonsense strategies to bring this to your life and others. Amazing!
I agree Cynthia that there has to be a duality when it comes to healing – soul and mind. It makes complete sense. How can we expect or rely on our minds to find the answers to our problems and emptiness when it is the mind that has caused the problems in the first place?!
Hi Cynthia, I find it inspiring to hear of a journey which led from that deep inner knowing that life wasn’t and isn’t the way it can be, to living that life and joyfully sharing the love we are with others. Bringing that joy through your work, which you clearly chose specifically to be able to do, is how it can be. Thank you for this inspiring blog.
I totally loved reading your article. As I start to look at career paths, and psychology in particular, I find your article particularly inspiring. Thank you for sharing your journey with find the truth of the soul, Universal medicine for many people is that truth. And it sounds beautiful how you are able to bring this to your work and help so many people.
Dear Cynthia, I love this. Your description of what Universal Medicine represents compared to other spiritual practises is pure gold…”love not emptiness. Engagement not retreat. Embodiment not transcendence. Service not bliss…” I trained in psychotherapy and tried many different approaches along the way and, like you, never found the truth that I was desperately seeking until I walked into the Universal Medicine clinic 12 years ago. And what I found that day was a way to re-connect to my soul – and that was that!
Beautiful:)
Great Cynthia, it is amazing to read from which point you had come from and right up to now – to soul. I really loved how you so simply have related to the core teachings of the ancient wisdom/UniMed/Serge. Thank you.
I love your article Cynthia. It reminds me of the courage we all have to be explorers of that “inner-beingness or soul”. These blogs are like our greatest stories being told – I can feel the challenges, the hurts, the breaking down of life’s illusion’s, the discovery of the precious soul and our inner heart, and then from that union the true love and joy which can be expressed for all. It was a pleasure to read how you adventured back to your soul, with love and guidance from Serge and Universal Medicine.
You wrote …… “It is about embodying love in everyday life”, Thank you Cynthia. Funny isn’t it that this four letter word is what is causing such a ‘re-action’…….LOVE? Just proves does it not how humanity has been so mis-lead by the true meaning of the word for so, so long. TRUE LOVE has been felt & expressed by so few throught the ages – up untill now that is. As we are now finding our voices and standing one by one with finding the strength & support in our love for ourselves to express the TRUTH. I have been so inspired by what everyone is sharing – thank you every-one.
I say! Cynthia Hickman – this is absolutely illuminating and soul enriching – THANK YOU.
Before Universal Medicine I too had been ‘rebirthing myself silly (that entire line made me laugh out loud) and tried just about every modality under the sun, whilst longing to find out – to borrow your words- “how to bring the love of the soul into the body and into everyday life.” And there they were, just how you’ve described them – Universal Medicine – an organisation with love at its core, that indeed “gives a solid, practical path from self-loathing to self love and onwards into loving service to humanity.”
I feel profound gratitude for your wonderful expression.
Thank you Cynthia for high lighting what Universal Medicine offers that other modalities don’t, in fact they offer the complete opposite. Love not emptiness, embodiment not transcendence, engagement, not retreat, service not bliss, stillness not ecstasy. I liked what you said about sitting there gob-smacked as Serge was expressing all that you knew inside, but had been unable to say. This I feel is the difference between Universal Medicine and other modalities, new age or otherwise, there is an inner knowing that what is being said is absolute, you no longer need to search for the truth.