by Fiona Shuttleworth, UK
I thought my life was OK. I seemed to tick most boxes and felt happy enough compared to others I knew who were a lot more miserable than me. But I always felt like there was something missing in my life, and I knew deep down that I was holding myself back in some way. The problem was I was so unconfident within myself that I never trusted my own feelings, and always defaulted to others’ opinions, feelings and ideas, even when I didn’t really want to. My life was fuelled with alcohol, drugs of every kind, and cigarettes. The funny thing was I always knew I didn’t want to be that person, but I just never seemed to be able to break the pattern, and I had tried numerous things.Then one morning for no apparent reason I woke up and knew I would never smoke again. I made that choice on my own and knew it was right. I adjusted my lifestyle and drug choice, as in I carried on with cocaine and ecstasy but quit weed. And I still drank, every night. But even this simple choice of stopping smoking made such an impact on my social life, it was more difficult to be involved with everyone when all my other friends were on weed, and I started to want different things from life.
Then I stumbled upon a man called Chris James. His music touched me and made me feel different, particularly his new album at that time, ‘Silk’. I felt alive and joyful. I had always loved singing and music but always felt awkward about my voice and being heard. What struck me most from my experience with Chris was that I didn’t seem to be worried about any of that, and for the first time I felt like I truly sang for me – just because I couldn’t hold it in any longer. At this stage the drugs went out of my life – I didn’t really need them any more. But alcohol was still there big time.
Not long after that Chris introduced me to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. I remember going along to the first presentation. There was something about Serge that just felt right. I didn’t feel disturbed or put upon in any way – what he was saying made sense to me although I had never really heard any thing like it before. I watched the people around me, there was such love and integrity, respect for each other, and I felt like I was home.
Shortly after this presentation I made the choice, again on my own, to stop drinking. It was the hardest thing I had ever done to that point in my life. I had no idea until I stopped the hold alcohol had over me. And my biggest surprise was other people’s reaction to it. They didn’t like it at all, and for the first few months I really had to battle my way through countless people trying to convince me to just have one drink. Some people even bought me a drink when I had specifically said ‘I’ll have an orange juice please’ – I couldn’t believe it. It was harder for me to quit alcohol than smoking, cocaine or any other drug I had consumed.
I went to more Universal Medicine presentations. And I made more choices that seemed to happen naturally. I started to actually care about myself in a way that I had always wanted someone else to care about me. My food choices changed and then something really beautiful happened – I started to trust my own feelings and love myself. I found that as I took more care of myself I enjoyed life more and more. The amount of great days I was having started to increase. I still had bad days – I still do but they don’t seem to affect me in the same way. I never spiral down with them and they happened less and less. I started to get more confident within myself, and then I started to see all the ways that I held myself back, and the little games or situations that used to come into play to feed certain ideas I had about myself to keep me from believing in me.
Now I live a full and joyful life. I love work. I’m closer to my family and friends than I have ever been. And I don’t even think about wanting a drink or a drug to get me though the day. Instead my day is enough for me and I absolutely love it. I feel open to life and embrace it. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have never told me what to do or judged me in any way. Instead Serge and his teachings have supported me to come to myself in my own way and at my own time. I have never felt anything other than true love, support and understanding from Serge Benhayon and never, not once, has he ever made me feel like I was less or not good enough in any way, shape or form. He is a constant inspiration to me of how each individual truly is inside.
I will never walk away from that love and understanding that I have come to know for myself through Serge Benhayon’s teachings. Why would I, when for the first time in my life I can say that I am truly living? My commitment to myself will never cease.
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Fiona I totally understand that when we make the choice to let go of something that no longer serves our body, I observe others struggle with us. I have been labelled as not being fun anymore since I stopped drinking coffee. I have no idea why stopping something has anything to do with fun.
I realise that it brings up for them the choices that they are continuing with. When they truly know that it isn’t serving their body’s.
In the meantime, we continue with our lifestyle that serves us. We can only offer that reflection to another and the rest is up to them. No judgment, no expectation…
One step towards love by us, and 3 steps by love towards us. A win win situation.
I too have been to Chris James’ workshops and it is amazing how freeing it is to sing even when we have never dared sing before. There is a way he has to work with people which is a gift to us all.
Chris James has this amazing affect on us. His voice heals me much more than the actual singing. A powerful man, and I absolutely adore him.
Fiona, awesome sharing in this blog about you natural progression to be more loving with yourself and how in the process the not so loving things began to fall away. This is the true way to deal with addictions and bad habits – the real ingredient for this is love.
Addictions do not stop when we stop the substance, they stop when we no longer feel like having the substance and there is a real shift in energy around it.
What you have written Fiona is a testament to yourself and how you started making loving choices I especially understood what you wrote here
“I started to actually care about myself in a way that I had always wanted someone else to care about me.”
Because we all seem to do this as though we have been programed to look outside of ourselves for love but actually we have an abundance of it which is completely untapped within us. So why is it we want and feel it is more important for someone else to care of us rather than actually taking care of ourselves?
Thank you Fiona, it’s very beautiful what you have discovered through self care. I don’t think we realise how much our daily choices impact on how we feel, and for some caught up in cycles of drug or alcohol use they would probably just keep feeling worse, and then feel they need to keep using or increase their use of drugs and alcohol as a solution, even though it’s causing the problems. You’ve outlined so clearly how much life can change when we commit to caring for and loving ourselves.
What a gorgeous turn around of your life and how you feel Fiona, ‘Now I live a full and joyful life. I love work. I’m closer to my family and friends than I have ever been.’
That ‘happy enough’ is such a trick. We take a sideway glance, and feel assured in finding that the others are doing the same/similar even though what we are doing might be quite harmful, and we never find true settlement or fulfillment in that way of gauging our life in relation to where others are at.
It’s really interesting as many of us know that we have patterns of behaviour we would rather not have and we find it extremely difficult to change these behaviours. We have great intentions but these intentions slip away and we are left in the patterns of life going round in ever deepening circles. To truly make changes to our patterns of behaviour we need support and for many they found this support in Serge Benhayon and the Universal Medicine techniques. There is such a body of people who have made spectacular changes to their lives that really it cannot be dismissed as a fluke or a one off. These people should be interviewed and studied to discover how it is they are bucking the trend by living full and joyful lives after all isn’t this what deep down inside us we all want too.
There’s so many things in our lives that until we let them go we do not know the hold they have over us, and then we see it, so I completely get what you say when you gave up alcohol and realised that it had such a hold. It’s great to come to these decisions from ourselves and to deeply trust ourselves and our own feelings, we really grow into ourselves when we do this, and it allows us to live ourselves more fully. Very inspiring to read your journey Fiona.
When we come to the end of our tether with what is not loving (and this refines over time) being presented with love helps us make that step to dropping that which doesn’t support us.
Some people felt that was something missing because they could feel the emptiness they sit on. Other people, more given up, also felt the emptiness and the disgust but felt more inclined to accept that this is it. How both moved was perhaps different. One was perhaps more honest than the other but that is not the point. The point is that both had to realise that they had to work hard to resurrect themselves out of where they had buried themselves so deeply.