I have worked as a physiotherapist for 20 years and have been to many conferences and health and well-being workshops; so I was familiar with this kind of event. The usual format would be that the presenter would be introduced with much fanfare and talking up of their credentials and would be generally held as an expert in their field and someone we should all look up to for the answers.
 
The presenters at these events would usually act and behave as the ‘expert’, presenting themselves as superior or more knowledgeable than their audience. I had observed that often these experts would be super knowledgable in their fields of expertise in health care but would not look or act very healthy themselves. 

In the world today, there are a seeming endless stream of people who are ready to get up and say they have the answer to all of life's ills and mysteries. Some will tell you the 'secrets' they say only they know that have brought them supposed untold wealth and power. Some will say that you will have to get down on your knees to come to meet them. Others tell you to go on pilgrimages that abuse the body 'to get clear' and still more will give a whole show with supported 'rah rah' to 'lift you up' but after leaving the workshop or presentation you hit the floor within a few hours or days. 

Do we ever take a glimpse of how these people live, or take the time to study these self-professed 'self help guru's' for the integrity and commitment they live by? And are their lives totally open and transparent for all to see how they live, or are there all the secrets and hidden pockets of behaviour that are protected from view? Are they living in the world, seeing the reality of life, living with a family and dealing with real family issues? 

I know that I have been to many of these presentations, read many books all promising the earth and leaving you with nothing. Each time I thought I’d found someone who was talking truth, I’d study how they live and found they were not living what they presented, far from it. This was the case for many years until I met Serge Benhayon. 

​Byron Bay and the local area are filled with any possible healing modality you can think of. The local newspaper and notice boards are jam-packed with advertisements from practitioners; there are a number of healing therapy directories available online and in print media to choose from, but Serge has never advertised his services. This in and of itself should stop anyone and everyone in their tracks. How do you become global without self-promotion?  

To provide some context to what follows, so impressed was I by Jenny right from the start of our first meeting, and similarly by a number of her close friends who were also students (as they refer to themselves) of Universal Medicine, that I took up my own study of this subject with great interest. There was something different about these people. I could see and feel it.

And so it was with quite some intrigue and anticipation, when the opportunity arose to attend Livingness 1, that I did attend that event and meet Serge Benhayon that first time. My email to Serge the following day, as shown below, captures the significance to me of that first encounter, how I was impressed by him and my feelings about what he presented.

​Over the years I have had the opportunity to listen to many of Serge Benhayon’s presentations consistently emphasising the power of movement. I recall his first demonstration of this was in a guided Gentle Breath Meditation years ago when he suggested we think a negative thought or an emotional situation with the negative series of thought that goes with that and then he had us adjust our posture in a gentle way, demonstrating that when we moved in that way we could not sustain the negative thinking.

​I skill-fully kept people at arm’s length, mastering social niceties and politeness to ensure I was not challenged. I am in no doubt that this would have perpetuated unchecked had I not met Serge, and I would be struggling now with a level of mental ill health that would be impacting my physical well-being and the health of all my relationships.

During these years of indoctrination into the education system in its’ current form – we develop our ability to write in a way that ‘fits in’ with the way the world recognises ‘competent, scholarly or professional’ writing. As adult learners – we are taught how to reference the written work of other authors, and that an essay or thesis cannot be written credibly without the backing of reference material. Given the way the world is – we can say that all this has its place for now and indeed serves a purpose, in the way we live and move in all facets of the temporal world.

Connection meaning – true connection with the soul that allows one to communicate and express freely and truly from that essence. ​