Since I was 17 years old, I couldn’t get out of bed without a coffee in my hand and I completely identified with drinking coffee all day every day. I loved it and I couldn’t imagine living without it! I had the belief that I could never give it up or I would get withdrawal symptoms (which I wasn’t at that time prepared to feel). I went straight from the coffee shop to a session with Serge Benhayon when I was 30 years old. We got talking about coffee and he asked me how I have it – milk or sugar? I told him black and strong and that I have always loved the smell and the taste of coffee. Serge then asked me why I needed the coffee? I didn’t respond but this question stayed with me for a long time. I knew when I was asked that I was run down and exhausted – it didn’t take a genius to work that out – but nobody had ever asked me to be honest before about why I was needing the coffee. They were far more likely to ask me if I wanted to go and have another coffee – or let’s meet at the coffee shop. Never “Why are you having the coffee?” or “Why do you need it?”, “Could it be helping you to get through the day?”, “Are you tired?”,  “Are you using it to stay awake?”.

I began to slowly address the way I was living that resulted in me feeling so tired and needing the coffee to keep functioning. As I looked at things such as my diet, how hard I worked, how late I was staying up, the dramas I was involved in with friends, how drained I felt from my responsibilities as a parent, how far I was pushing my body during exercise and all the late night drinking to take the edge off my day, I began to understand my reliance on the coffee and how I was using it to prop me up and keep going. When I was honest, my body wasn’t feeling so great after I drank it and I would feel racy. I wondered what would happen if I stopped drinking it? Would I fall into an exhausted pile?

I gradually began adjusting the way that I lived and discovered that I didn’t need to have the coffee anymore – it was my own natural process.

I still enjoy the smell of fresh coffee being made but I no longer need it to get through the day. 

by Deborah