From Abuse to Love Part 2: Clearing Eczema

My whole childhood and adult life, I suffered from a really bad skin condition known as eczema. My skin would get very dry and itchy; and very inflamed and sore. Sometimes it would bleed a lot and sometimes it would weep from the excessive scratching and become infected. The weeping liquid would also sting my skin.  There were times when I felt like a snake. I shed a lot of layers of skin. I peeled lots of skin off my body. This would also reduce my body’s temperature quite dramatically, so that the only comfort I got was to lie in the sun. The sun’s warmth definitely provided me with rest and moments of stillness. Dermatologists told me not to have long hot showers as this strips out the skin’s oils and can inflame the skin even more, but I loved my long hot showers and sometimes I would exfoliate my skin with a scrub, because I just hated how it felt and looked. I just wanted to get rid of the dry, scaly skin and getting rid of the layers of dead skin allowed the creams I applied later to soak in. It was a very debilitating condition and it affected my self-esteem and my self-worth immensely.

One treatment involved soaking a long sleeve cotton top and pants in warm water. Then I had to cover myself with a mixture of cortisone creams and ointments; then put the damp clothes on over the top, to help the ointments soak into the skin. I had to sit in this wet clothing for 10-15 minutes, which was very uncomfortable. I could do this treatment on smaller areas of my body and wrap my legs, hands or arms up with bandage cloths.  The cortisone cream would definitely reduce the inflammation and the itch but soon enough the symptoms would return.

I also tried phototherapy, which uses the best part of natural sunlight (UVB) light to help reduce the itch, calm inflammation, increase vitamin D production and ramp up bacteria-fighting systems in the skin. I saw few results from this and the treatment had the disadvantage of using up a lot of time during my working week.

I tried a series of acupuncture treatments, which included a technique called “bleeding” – wherein the practitioner pricks meridian points on the body with a needle and squeezes the blood out, to help remove excess heat from the body (or fire as it is known in the Chinese system). This was done along the length of my spine. It was a very uncomfortable and quite a painful process. I even tried courses of Chinese herbs.

I tried radical anti-allergic diets, which consisted of brown rice, broccoli or spinach and boiled fish or chicken but all that happened was that I lost a great deal of weight, felt extremely frail and my skin didn’t get any better.

I saw a kinesiologist once about the severe dryness of my skin. This modality is based on ‘muscle testing’. “Its basic notion is that every organ dysfunction is accompanied by a specific muscle weakness, which enables diseases to be diagnosed through muscle-testing procedures.” (Stephen Barrett, M.D)

The practitioner would ask me to hold one arm out straight and she would press on it, as she asked my body a series of questions. If my arm held firmly, then the answer was “yes”, but if my arm dropped as a result of her touch, as she asked the question, then the answer was “no”. She asked my body how many fish oil capsules it needed daily to help the dryness in my skin. My arm held strong over and over again until the count ended up being about 25 capsules a day. Then my arm weakened, which meant that 25 was the correct number needed. Although I felt this was excessive, I followed her recommendation, along with other supplements, but didn’t find any improvement in my condition at all.

I went to an allergist clinic and got tested for various food chemicals, animal fur, dust and different pollens and moulds. I was reactive to a lot of these and then went on a long course of weekly dust mite and animal fur injections to help build my immunity to these allergens. Again, no change.

I even met a mad crystal healer who promised to put together a series of crystals that I could place under my bed and each night they would be healing me as I lay on top of them. I spent hundreds of dollars purchasing these big round crystal balls, but nothing changed for me.

Once I found Universal Medicine, my whole understanding of healing and the process by which the body heals, became a lot clearer. It became easier for me to accept my condition. Instead of seeing my skin as my enemy, I came to understand it was my body’s way of showing me what was true for me and what was not true.  It was also my body’s way of showing me that there was a dis-ease in my body. Something was not right.

It was not until I attended several presentations and various healing courses by Serge Benhayon, that the most profound changes to my condition occurred. During the healing courses especially, I was able to feel that all of the choices from my past and all my unresolved hurts were locked in my body, desperately wanting to be released and healed. I knew I had found a true place of healing with Universal Medicine and with Serge Benhayon. I re-connected to the fact that is everything is about the quality of the energy I choose to align to in any one moment.

No matter how good my diet was, there was more to look at than just the physical symptoms of why my eczema was still so bad. Every night I experienced a very uncomfortable feeling in my body that I would try to scratch out in my sleep. The restlessness, the constant movement, scratching and unsettlement in my body was heightened at night time, especially when I wanted to go to sleep but couldn’t. The one time and place where I needed to rest deeply and my body did the complete opposite! Sometimes I would sit up in my bed, just squeezing my hands tightly and rock my body backwards and forwards to try and relieve this restless feeling. Some nights I would just toss and turn and scratch so much that I had blood on the bedsheets and so much dead skin in my bed, that it felt like the bed was full of coconut flakes or heaps of sand. In the morning, I would brush it all on to the floor and this became a constant habit: brushing the bed to see how much I had shed at night. Fortunately, as the years passed this became less and less.

It was in a Sacred Esoteric Healing Level 2 course that I connected to the poison that was in my body from my childhood abuse. This healing course is directly focused on childhood imprints left in our bodies. When the practitioner was working on the area of the body related to ages 5 to 13, I could feel the poison coursing through my body like acid. Interestingly, these were the very same years that I suffered from sexual abuse. A certain part of my body was so tight, that the release of the poison felt sickening, like “something boiling out,” from my body.

Serge came over to me and put his hands on my shoulders. He spoke with authority and understanding. He told me to feel the poison and to let it go, but to know that this was not who I am. His warm hands felt so supportive on my shoulders. I felt so held in the space with love. I felt safe for the very first time in my life: safe to let myself be truly seen, to be truly vulnerable and raw. I felt so supported and not judged by Serge and my practitioner that it was possible for me to let the poison go.

As expressed in my previous blog From Abuse to Love , the realisation I had is that as a child I craved attention from my parents and because this attention was not forthcoming, I sought it elsewhere. My next-door neighbour was the easiest place to find this form of attention.  At the expense of my body I allowed the sexual abuse to continue for many years.

I could feel that I had allowed this poison into my body and knew that I would never inflict this onto another. I could feel how poisonous it was not to speak up and how, as a child, I had held back the truth. I could feel how absolutely beautiful I am under all this hurt and pain. My essence was still there and how much I had missed this feeling!

I had been holding onto this poison for 24 years and finally as an adult, I had found a healing modality in Universal Medicine that was assisting me to heal this scar. This childhood experience didn’t mean I was a terrible person.  It didn’t mean I was unworthy or dirty. This healing session was showing me how these negative imprints and holding onto what is not true or loving in my body is just pure poison. The feeling of coursing acid subsided and I was graced with humility, as I came back to my beautiful self, feeling lighter, clearer and a lot more settled within myself.

Could this experience that was locked in my body all this time, taint how I related to the world? How I was with other people and relationships? How I was with myself and how I felt about myself? And how this would affect my behaviours in my adult life?

My skin isn’t perfect today, but it definitely is nowhere near as badly inflamed as it used to be and there is no doubt that since that healing session and others, my skin has recovered remarkably. I used to look like a burns victim and my body still bears the scars and pigmentation from the years of scratching. The calluses left on my hands, arms and legs are now reminders of how much more tender and delicate I can be with my body.

The restlessness from my unresolved past, that once was so overwhelming in my body, has completely gone. In a healing session, Natalie Benhayon used sacred esoteric healing to clear the stagnant energy sitting around my hip bones.  Natalie confirmed that the guilt that I had around this experience was gone. I no longer carried this in my body.

I have always been very highly strung and anxious. Today, no one would notice that about me. The need to scratch my skin to relieve the tension I feel in my body has lessened dramatically. Today I know, that if I scratch in my sleep, it is a reflection of how I have lived during the day and that I need to identify the cause:

• Is there something in my day that I have left unresolved?
• Did I eat appropriately before bedtime?
• Have I absorbed something that I need to nominate and deal with?
• Did I observe my winding down routine to complete my day?
• Or is poison still releasing from my body?

Taking the steps to being responsible for my choices, for my reactions and my behaviours have all been part of my healing from abuse. Choosing to live with this awareness brings so much honesty to my body and I appreciate my body’s simple wisdom every day. I’m finding now that certain choices can be like choosing abuse, like eating something I already know does not agree with my body, but doing it anyway, is an example of my choosing abuse, which is the same as an unloving choice.

My beauty is deep within me; it is not only in my outside appearance, but from the connection I hold within my body. My skin is a beautiful reflection to me of when I am stressed and not dealing with things or when I am more content within myself and responding to life with less emotion and reaction.  Connecting to my Stillness with the help of Esoteric Yoga, I have been able to feel my inner beauty and appreciate this. It is a practice I am always learning to deepen and hold throughout my daily routine in everything I do and in every movement I make. I have noticed that with more stillness in my body, I am less reactive; my body is less reactive to certain allergens, and foods.