by Penny Scheenhouwer
In my early 20’s, I made a decision to change my lifestyle. I stopped drinking alcohol and smoking, I cut gluten, dairy, sugar and caffeine from my diet. I also ended a relationship after realising that my partner and I were just going through the motions. He was not interested in what I thought or felt about things and most of the time we spent together revolved around going out and partying. One day, I just decided that I would rather be on my own forever than settle for being with someone who was not really interested in being with me.
Why did I make these choices? My life seemed great. I was earning a lot of money for someone my age, had loads of friends, played sport and had a great social life (which was always about drinking). I also used to have mood swings, cry a lot, get angry for no reason and hated myself. I couldn’t reconcile the fact that I seemed to have what was deemed a great life yet, I felt otherwise on the inside. I decided that things were not working and something had to change. I didn’t really ‘know’ what I was doing but just went with what I felt to do. I started to feel much better about myself, more settled within myself, I had loads more energy and of course my skin looked great and I lost weight. I also started to like myself (wouldn’t go as far as love yet!).
When I made these changes I got some support from family and friends but mostly people got upset with me and gave me a hard time. The biggest issue for most people was that I chose not to drink alcohol. I was constantly pressured to have ‘just one’. As for the food, most people found it weird and a hassle to have me over for meals. A lot of people stopped asking me out. It didn’t take me long to cave into the pressure and go back to living the way I was before, to feel accepted and ok with others again. I have to say it also didn’t take me long to stop noticing how horrible I felt in my body, or that I was moody again and began to put on weight.
I met Serge Benhayon over 10 years ago after a friend recommended having a session with him. At this point in my life I was drinking heavily, smoking cigarettes and taking recreational drugs regularly. I was also married to a wonderful man. We had what we thought was a great relationship, yet most of the time we were drinking and taking drugs.
I remember that first session so clearly. Serge spoke to me about how much love I was amongst other things. That seemed foreign to me at the time but I couldn’t deny how I felt after the session with him. My husband also came that day and loved how he felt. We continued to see Serge for sessions regularly as we knew that the way we felt after a session was something that we didn’t feel normally in our life but wished we could.
Our life was hectic, stressful, we had money issues and of course we used alcohol and drugs to relieve the stress. All the time that we saw Serge, he knew that we drank, took drugs, etc and never once did he tell us to stop or tell us what food we should be eating. He continued to treat us with respect and love and supported us in our way to connect back to Love. It took us a few years, but we eventually made the decision ourselves to change these things. While we started to feel great in our bodies and life, others around us reacted. Having experienced this before, I knew that this was just a part of the process and continued doing what I felt was good for me. That was eight years ago now.
My husband and I are still together (more so, as our connection to ourselves and each other is based on love first) and we have an amazing life (though not perfect!). All those that reacted initially to our changes, now comment on how well we look, how healthy we are and how wonderful our relationship is. They notice that we don’t have a life filled with drama and that we are not exhausted. They ask us for support with their lives, never do we tell them what they should be doing. In fact, we hardly ever speak to them about how we live. We have many friends who are not esoteric students and have great relationships with all of our family members. They are all used to our way of living and respect it, and our choice to not drink alcohol or eat gluten and dairy is not an issue to them now.
Serge Benhayon, his family and Universal Medicine have inspired and encouraged myself and my husband to re-connect back to ourselves, to trust ourselves and trust that we already know what our bodies need and that we are already love. And we in turn, are now inspiring others by our daily living, showing them that they too can make choices for themselves, if and when they are ready.