by Carmin Hall, Brisbane
I have been hesitant to share on this blog site after reading so many amazing testimonies from people from all walks of life who have been introduced to Universal Medicine (UniMed) and Serge Benhayon and are feeling healthier and more vitalised as a result. I started seeing a UniMed practitioner and was introduced to UniMed 3 years ago. I have never felt worse when I stopped ignoring what I was actually feeling in my body.
I kept telling myself that as soon as I felt better and more energised, I would share too. I now feel ready to share that it has been an amazing journey connecting back to me, whether I get to the point of ‘healthier and more vitalised than ever’ or not.
Up until 3 years ago when I was forced to stop by severe shoulder pain and immobility (Calcific Tendonitis), I had never allowed myself to even pause for long enough to feel how exhausted I was, what was going on in my body, or how the way I lived my life was causing the exhaustion. At that point, I saw ‘feeling tired’ as a weakness and inconvenience that needed to be overridden so that I could complete all the tasks I set for myself.
If I got up in the morning and kept as busy as possible – I could push through each day. I prided myself on being efficient and doing so much. If I had quiet moments (i.e. while driving or sitting at the computer), I would top up with some form of sugar to keep me going. What I have come to learn through support from my Universal Medicine Practitioner, is that the busier I kept myself, the more numb I became to how I was truly feeling and I could also ‘nip in the bud’ any true feelings that came up by eating sugar.
Over the past 3 years I have slowly learned to make more loving choices (still a work in progress) about what I eat and how I live each day. The more I have stopped pushing myself and being busy (often for busy’s sake) the more I have felt the results of the loveless choices I have made in the past. The underlying theme of my life until that point was: everything that ‘needed’ to be done was more important than me and caring for me.
I was proud of the fact that I could get in and out of a shower and wash myself in a few minutes. Only when I was pregnant did I, for the first time since being a child, just enjoy the feeling of the water falling on me, warming me and taking time for me. But as soon as my baby was born, there was more to do than ever!
Part of my self disregard was that I had avoided medical doctors for years. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine always encourage seeing a doctor and getting a medical diagnosis and necessary treatment for your conditions. I finally took the responsibility to find out the reasons for the long existing conditions I had been experiencing and as a result have been, in the last 3 years, diagnosed with:
- Severe shoulder pain and immobility (Calcific Tendonitis),
- Thinning of the bones (Osteopenia -which is the stage before osteoporosis),
- Severe Anaemia,
- Exhaustion,
- A form of sugar malabsorption (Sorbitol Malabsorption),
- A benign tumour of one of the salivary glands (Submandibular Gland Pleomorphic Adenoma) – that was actually there for 6 years, but I pretended it wasn’t, and
- Other nutrient deficiencies.
All these medical conditions have brought me back to wanting to connect with me, giving myself space to make more loving choices. Being honest about my past choices and to stop being so hard on myself. They have led me on my path back to God.
When faced with the question of ‘GENERAL HEALTH’ on a questionnaire, I have always automatically written ‘excellent’ and skipped to the next question, reasoning that of course I am healthy compared to others who have cancer, diabetes, heart disease etc., and no one would be interested in hearing about all my ‘silly’ complaints. Early this year I was faced with the ‘GENERAL HEALTH’ question and was about do the same, when I paused long enough to feel that for me, I was not healthy and that I should be honest about it. There was such a healing for me in this honesty and admittance of where I was.
In my work I have regularly given nutrition advice and had read extensively about it, but never lived it – I took my vitamins of course, to counteract the way I lived. I knew that being free of disease was not the same as being healthy, and neither was being in a state of exhaustion. I simply reasoned that I must need more vitamins.
I didn’t want to give myself a break, it made me feel lazy – I judged myself on what I did and how much I accomplished. A UniMed Practitioner put it to me something like this: If you had an exhausted little 3 year old girl, how would you treat her? Would you make her get up in the morning and go, go, go all day, override all feelings of tiredness and berate her for not completing tasks? Or, would you nurture her, get her to take rests, get the family to help her more and only let her do what she could cope with?
I came to feel that I was still worth loving and nurturing at age 39 and that true self-worth came from how I lived my day, how kind, tender and gentle I was with me, and not how much I did.
I am still overweight (although I lost about 8kgs last year), I am still tired at times (although not absolutely exhausted), I still have shoulder pain (but can now lift my arm above my head). In other words, by making more loving choices, my body is slowly healing, but I am far from being healthier and more vitalised than ever in my life. I simply appreciate the painful shoulder that made me stop long enough to feel the accumulation of my disregard of me and my body and allowed me to start to address this.
My shoulder is now for me a marker or a gentle reminder of how I am. Whenever I am pushing myself or being unloving (especially when I shout at my children), it aches. I can then take the opportunity to stop, reassess and choose to go forward more lovingly – what a True blessing.
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
It is amazing how the body gives us so many different messages to get us to pay attention to the way we are living, and to take a deeper look at our choices – the wisest thing to do would be to listen to these messages, instead of ignoring and making life a struggle.
To see our ailments as a pointer for our lived choices, an opportunity to be reminded of them and make new choices, is a sea change on how we view our dilemmas in the body and generally in life. Often we feel we are victims when sickness strikes or are challenged by life’s events, yet in the knowing we set it up through how we have lived is very liberating.
How much could we all aid in our health if we were prepared to honestly evaluate what was going on in our bodies? In my experience, much can and does change both physically and energetically in our bodies when we begin to accept we have a part to play in their condition, and a part to play in supporting them to heal.
Thank you Carmin. As someone with shoulder pain myself at present, I really appreciate what you share here. Our bodies communicate with us constantly and when we start to truly listen it is a blessing. There is harmony innate within us and we are being guided to reconnect with it – it is very much needed.
Really great blog Carmin. I especially love the example you shared about the way we would treat a 3 year old with exhaustion. The pictures we have about where or how we should be are so damaging and they often lead us to abuse our bodies. You remind me to accept myself exactly as I am as I develop a more loving relationship with myself.
What a great sharing Camel on how to observe what has come up in the body and taking energetic responsibility for what was the reason for it being there. It is in understanding why something has shown up in the body that it ensures we can actually heal.
Reading this blog really brought to the fore the idea of the sliding scale of health which we are all on, how far down the line are we concerning disease and illness, our choices culminate in and out play, do we get diabetes, heart issues cancer…so much of this is avoidable by making self-loving choices. Where are we all on that scale, when it comes to our health we all have a sense of our trajectory if we are honest. And what is awesome is it can change…
Awesome Carmin, choosing to be more gentle, loving and nurturing is very inspiring. What your body is showing you, accepting this as a blessing and appreciating it the way you have is very supportive.
The body is such an amazing thing. It never stops telling us exactly what is going on, and never stops communicating exactly what it needs. We can stop listening to it, and even do our best to ignore it, but it still continues to speak to us. Not many friends would do the same!
This is a beautifully honest sharing Carmin and shows the reality of true self-care. We are so focussed on getting better and functioning that we override and ignore everything that does not fit this picture. True self-care starts with honesty and the willingness to take the superficial bandits off and face what is really going on, only from that place can we start to truly heal.
Early this year I was faced with the ‘GENERAL HEALTH’ question and was about do the same, when I paused long enough to feel that for me, I was not healthy and that I should be honest about it. There was such a healing for me in this honesty and admittance of where I was. This is cool Carmin, there are few that are honest enough to stop and feel where we are at but when we do then the true healing can be allowed to begin.
Thank you Carmin it is super inspiring to feel the commitment you have to your own healing, your honesty is a blessing to anyone who reads this blog.
Thank you for sharing Carmin, I am one of those who can come across in some of my sharings as being a super woman and so vital and amazing. All that is true AND I also regularly go through my stuff as I think many people who share here do. A part of the process of becoming more vital and healthy for many is exactly as you have described. Quite often whilst in the process of letting go of another false way or a no longer needed way of doing or over doing things, or moving or thought patterns or certain food substance etc there can be period of body releases or exhaustion that are not so pretty – but these are all healings and releases as we return to our truer and truly more vital selves.
Thank you Carmin, our bodies allow us to feel the consequences of the choices we make at any given time, the more we let go of the pictures and expectations we can place on ourselves about our own healing the more we can surrender to what is there for us in place to evolve.
Thank-you for writing this blog Carmin. Who would have thought that severe shoulder pain could be considered a true blessing but indeed it has been as it has brought you back to nurturing and lovingly taking responsibility for your self. Our bodies are remarkable barometers always there giving us messages, but we need to be willing to not only stop and listen but to honestly reflect on our past choices and choose to change those behaviours that don’t lovingly support us.
Thank you for your honestly written blog.
Highlights how we should never wait to be perfect to enact what we know should be in our everyday.
Love your courage and honesty Carmin – I find honesty is much easier said than done, especially with oneself. Thank you for your very powerful blog.
Thank you Carmin for such a real and honest sharing I can so relate to the everything needed to be done was more important then caring for me, I lived most of my life that way. But as you say “what a true blessing” the more loving and tender we are with our bodies the more healing that can take place.
Walking our talk is far more powerful when it is truly lived as it is not something that comes from knowledge but from our lived experience of who we are, capable of inspiring others to live in a way that is more honouring and loving for themselves.
Carmin thank you so much for your honest sharing and I can relate to it in so many ways. I like your decision you have made: “My shoulder is now for me a marker or a gentle reminder of how I am.” The body now is for me the best friend and I love it to be more connected with, as what my body has to share is for me the best medicine ever.
Thank you for this true blessing, its only when we can arrive at this level of honesty true healing can begin. There are lots of ways that many of us use to numb what we feel and what you’ve shared here is that you are taking the steps in responsibility to arrest this. By choosing to listen to our bodies it gives it them space to heal.
This type of honesty is what will save us all, we are all so use to lying to each other that we begin to lie to ourselves and in this the true healing and message that the body is giving, is lost. This is a healing for all that read it, thank you, I am feeling very inspired to love myself more, as this honesty actually is love, as it says, no matter where you are at, I love you, it says, you are complete and perfect in all your imperfections.
Fantastic blog Carmen, I’m so glad you shared, your honesty is truly refreshing and healing for many. You expose the lie many of us hold around needing our health to be perfect when in fact illness and disease are needed for us to learn what it is we are doing daily that is not loving.
It is interesting how we continue to push ourselves when the body gives us clear markers that it’s time to stop. I love the example that was shared in this blog of the 3 year old girl. We would have no hesitation to give her time to rest yet the same rules don’t apply to us. Could it be possible that by not giving ourselves permission to do the same we are not living in responsibility? We ask our bodies to support us in a million and one ways throughout the day yet the levels of support back are often overridden by our expectations. Is that being fair?
The opportunity pain and illness gives us to stop and change the way were living is completely a blessing – i agree 🙂
“I came to feel that I was still worth loving and nurturing at age 39 and that true self-worth came from how I lived my day, how kind, tender and gentle I was with me, and not how much I did”.
Such a critical lesson you have highlighted here Carmin, thank you. I love the way you took responsibility to nurture, care for and listen to your inner wisdom and your body.
Our bodies are truly remarkable at communicating with us constantly. When we stop and appreciate their conversations we can begin to see how much we can learn from them always. Thank you for sharing Carmin.
Thank you Carmin, your story shows how little changes in our daily rhythm can bring enormous change to our whole life.
I love the example of the exhausted three year old girl. Examples like this make it more clear and help us understand how we in fact treat ourselves, and how very harsh and unloving that often is.
“I took my vitamins of course, to counteract the way I lived.” I love this as it says so much about the way we live and have learned to live. We manage life and live in a way where we do what we like, when it comes to food, sleep, rhythm etc., and learn to then medicate accordingly so we can keep up with the lifestyle we want.
I love your honesty here Carmin. So refreshing.
“I took my vitamins of course, to counteract the way I lived. I knew that being free of disease was not the same as being healthy, and neither was being in a state of exhaustion. I simply reasoned that I must need more vitamins.” Oh yes, I’ve been here. I can still fall into this one too, especially when what is being truly called for is a change in my behaviour – in my choices. It is easier to bury our heads in the sand a go for the ‘magic bullet’ and expect this to fix us, than accepting the simple truth that we need to make those changes.
Dear Carmin, I can relate as I often read a blog of hear a comment that people can get out of bed feeling really refreshed without the need to set an alarm and I am like, woah, OK, that’s not my reality. But reading your blog today it reminds me that we need to share all of our realities and where we are at with listening to our bodies and get real about what’s going on (or not) and how we can continually move towards making more loving choices. Slowly but surely and it is great to hear from everyone as to whatever stage they are at. Thanks for sharing….
Great question about asking yourself if you would treat a 3 year old in the same way as you treat yourself. It makes no logical sense that we would push push push and override after experiencing such innocent playful joy of just being ourselves as a kid. If we asked a child if they would like to grow up to be living this way there is no way they would say yes, yet this is exactly what happens!
This morning I woke early and lay in bed. I found myself running through different thoughts and what I could and should do in the day. I stopped myself and focussed on what was actually going in my body. What was beautiful was that I made that connection to feel what was going on for me instead of running at full speed whilst lying still! It has taken a lot of honesty and a huge change of what was quite a forceful momentum for me to step out of the constant drive, come into my body and be willing to feel the exhaustion.
This is beautiful Carmin. I can relate to much of what you share – not connecting to what is really going on in the body, thinking exhaustion is a weakness, not being aware that I am actually exhausted…we are really hard on ourselves. I love the analogy about what you would do if a 3 year old girl was feeling exhausted. It really puts it into perspective.
Great point Carmin that our seeking perfection holds us back from sharing our imperfections until such time that we have ‘it all sorted’ and can tell the ‘happy ever after’ story. All our aches and pains are messages from our body that we are a tender being that deserves to be treated with love.
Such an honest sharing , Carmin and one I can relate to. The override we go into just to get things done is seen as normal and we are often praised for being so capable so this encourages us to continue just for the recognition. We do not even hear our bodies when in this state of override. I feel blessed that like you I had to stop and really feel what was going on. Although not perfect in all of this, I now feel my body is my best friend and will tell me what is truly going on.
It is amazing how much we can manipulate ourselves into thinking that we can carry on, driving when exhausted, working when burnt out. To the point that we are sick, shouting at our children, seeing no end in sight and still just eating sugary foods so that we can carry on. What kind of a state of living is that? I have lived like this for many many years, and although my choice of numbing foods has changed, and my general vitality is better, there is still this underlying notion that I can push and drive myself in to the ground and it will be ok – but is it ever ok or do we just delay the consequences?
“true self-worth came from how I lived my day, how kind, tender and gentle I was with me, and not how much I did.” Still learning to let go of my doing – but I’m getting there!
“If I got up in the morning and kept as busy as possible – I could push through each day. I prided myself on being efficient and doing so much.” The world seems to run like this nowadays. There is pride in being so busy – yet we do not stop to listen to our body, which can tell us so much if we stop. listen and respond. Exhaustion is the number one plague in society, hence the abundance of coffee shops – in an effort to ‘keep going’.
I love this Carmin, so true …”that true self-worth came from how I lived my day, how kind, tender and gentle I was with me, and not how much I did.” We can so easily lose ourselves when we become identified by what we do before who we are.
The true healing that can occur when we are experiencing any dis-ease or illness is our loving acceptance of ourselves and willingness to address the underlying causes, the part we play. It can be a very humbling time. Thank you Carmin.
Thank you Carmin, our bodies are very wise teachers communicating non stop 24/7.
Even if it doesn’t match our picture of being ‘disease or illness free’ listening to our bodies makes far more sense than ignoring it because in that space of paying attention we get a chance to better understand whats going on even if it doesn’t go away instantly. Whereas if we ignore it because it hasn’t gone away instantly we cut off our ability to understand the deeper goings on and lessons about our choices that are there for us to read and learn from.
Being busy and pride in efficiency is something I recognise in myself also. Learning to listen to my body has been a revelation. So many of us are taught to ‘push through’, ‘feel the burn’ and similar. How crazy is this when our body is a constant throughout this lifetime? We always have a choice – to listen to our body and respond appropriately – or to ignore its messages. Then we often have a rude awakening in the form of illness and disease – and we wonder why!
I have noticed that clients often dismiss ailments they may have when filling in the consultation form and leave that part blank, but when inquiry is made as to why they are having a consultation they often have much to write there. Every little thing that presents in the body is telling us a story, it pays to listen to the seemingly ‘little’ things before they become big things. Not only listen but begin to understand the why of them as you have done here Carmin. Thanks for sharing.
I loved what you shared about the questionnaire, how on earth can we compare ourselves with another especially regarding health, as you say what is considered ‘healthy’ for one person when being completely honest ‘There was such a healing for me in this honesty and admittance of where I was’ was not ‘healthy’ for you. With regards to diet and the relationship with ourselves and body this is always continual work in progress; as Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine share it is never about perfection but there is always more to unfold for true evolution. I can really relate with what you share in not giving myself enough space to get ready and really enjoying this each and every day, there is always a bit of a rush … another thing that is work in progress for me 😀💕
You share so much about a way of living that many will totally be able to relate to Carmin, I know I can. And like you I also saw that “‘feeling tired’ as a weakness and inconvenience that needed to be overridden so that I could complete all the tasks I set for myself.”. I used to push myself so hard that I felt that I was literally held together by invisible “bandaids” so I could keep on going. But also like you my body decided to stop me, uncomfortably so, giving me the opportunity to take a long and honest look at the way I was living and I could no longer ignore that fact that something had to change, and it has. Now I listen to my body’s messages, and although sometimes I am a wee bit slow to act on them, I am gradually healing all the ills of the past and looking forward to a future with a body which is able to support me in every moment.
This is a great blog – and it confirms what I have been picking up the past few days – that when we start to listen to our bodies, sometimes there is a lot to clear and come up – our body finally says ‘great you are listening, I can release what i’ve been holding onto’ – and it isn’t the pretty picture we think it should be – we don’t get ‘healthy’ and ‘vital straight away because there is a lot of clearing to do. But in the clearing is our bodies continuing to ask as to listen and to respond via our movements. What a great gift for your shoulder to keep reminding you of when you are pushing yourself, rather than you being numb to this 🙂
Dear Carmin,
What a refreshingly honest sharing. I love how your body responded to your choice to be more loving tender and gentle with you. I can see in the years to come posters up on hospital billboards that bring people to the true health and wellbeing benefits of treating our bodies with tenderness.
“I knew that being free of disease was not the same as being healthy, and neither was being in a state of exhaustion” – Great distinction Carmin. The difference between these is HUGE. It is the choice between function and being truly well. The difference between just getting through, or living life in full. Have we as a race just accepted function as a form of living and not true well being?
Thank you, Carmin, for your very honest sharing. I was also having this image of perfection as to when I would be ready to share about myself while I would be writing ‘excellent’ when asked about general health even though I don’t get up with full of vitality every morning, and I often have some pain somewhere in my body etc. accepting that as my normal. It really does pay to take a real stop moment to take a stock take of what is going on with our body. I have been having a severe shoulder pain that occurs intermittently. This feels very old, and I can feel this is very much related to the hardness that I go into, that almost automatically gets activated when I want to do a ‘good’ job, and for me also this is very much a marker of where I am at.
That form-filling ‘General Health’ question highlights just how skewed our general view on normative health has become, where ‘in good health’ now means you’re not a statistic of our all too common, indeed epidemic-level illnesses and diseases. The phrase no longer connotes vitality, energy and top levels of va-va-voom, but merely suggests a state of not being hit by an affliction that stops you in your tracks, seemingly allowing us to continue on the path of incremental exhaustion.
Excellent point Cathy! We now often consider ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ health as the absence of (diagnosed) disease when in fact it is far from the optimal, vital health that our bodies are naturally designed to be.
Sharing this stage of your life has just been as enlightening as if you were at your self-confessed best. Thank you for sharing.
This is great Carmin because it reflects how lasting change is often a gradual process and I have learnt over the years through my connection to Universal Medicine that things will unravel in their own time, regardless of the outcomes I have in my mind. In fact my expectations are the thing that usually get in the way! Like you, I can relate to being ‘busy’ and overriding my body but am getting much better at paying attention and making more supportive, loving choices and the hardness is becoming much smaller. I have plenty of aches and pains that soon pop up if I get ahead of myself. Your blog reminds me to keep working on moving and living in a way that works with the body, not against it – thank you.
‘true self-worth came from how I lived my day, how kind, tender and gentle I was with me, and not how much I did.’ Love it. It’s not in the doing but in the being. Also great how you have your own in-built marker of overdoing it – an old war wound that gives you a gentle nudge to remind you of what’s important in those instances when you’ve forgotten.
Thank you Carmin! We don’t need to be healthier than ever for giving a testimonial for the healing power of the Universal Medicine modalities. Thanks for letting your voice be heard.
Too true Felix! The process of returning to our natural innate essence and to building a foundation of love to support this, is an ever evolving process and not something that is linear that has an end point, and this path is something that has its own timing for each of us, and the fact that we are making choices to support us in the return to love is something for us all to deeply appreciate.
So true Felix, we could wait forever to reach perfection and never get there, appreciating differences in our health without comparison to anyone else is the most important thing we can do. It says we love ourselves which is a most underrated thing to do.
What I love about this blog Carmin is the deep honesty and the level of responsibility in seeing your shoulder pain not only as a true blessing but also an opportunity to stop and make different choices that would truly support you. Thank you, your blog is a beautiful reminder of the true healing that can occur when we listen to the messages our body is communicating with us at all times.
This is a beautiful and honest sharing Carmin. As a work in progress myself it’s lovely to feel you not shying away from sharing until you felt ‘totally healed’ but recognise and appreciate the loving changes you have made and how they have eased the body so far. It’s great to have a marker in our body to affirm to us where we may have over-done it so that we can gently change that momentum.
Thank you for writing this honest blog, it shows how our bodies react to the way we treat them, with love and care we can be truly healthy while when choose to override all signs and just do, it shows.
Carmin what I like most about your blog is that you did not wait to be in perfect health to write it. This need to have it well packaged before putting it out to the world is a belief that is slowly melting away for me. We are all a work in progress and it is this process that I found profoundly healing.
That’s it Carolien. Your last line completely sums it up. It is so easy to measure ourselves by our physical health, however our physical health can never ever lessen who we are. Yes, it will be something we are experiencing and there will be something for us to learn but it never takes anything away from who we are to begin with.
Thank you Carmin for a truly inspiring sharing one that reminds me of how far I too have come in the past few year after a troublesome start with anxiety, fatigue and depression. If we learn to appreciate just how far we’ve come and not beat up on ourselves our bodies respond to our gentleness.
Once we start to honour our feelings and what our body is asking from us our life changes forever and we make the change from existing to truly living. I love your example of the three year old child, how you would treat her when being exhausted. This is great reminder that we are tender, lovely and gentle and that it is our responsibility to treat ourselves with absolute care and we know how to do this, we only have to make the choice. Thank you Carmin, for making this choice not only to live in such a way but also for sharing it with us via a blog.
OH PC
Carmin thank you for the reminder. So true, the body communicates all the time. It is a true marker of where we are at and what we are doing to ourselves, I still stumble but a great reminder to be more tender and gentle.
Gorgeous reminder to treat our bodies with the tenderness, delicateness, sensitivity and understanding we preserve for young children. Our bodies have become bigger, but aforementioned are still the qualities we crave and are natural to us.
So true your comment, Carolien. In connecting back to ourselves there is no goal other than allowing ourselves to feel who we actually are in all our divinity. This is still the case if our body is sour or ill. I love how you measure your amazingness by how much love you live and share. Pretty amazing woman, you are.
Thank you Monika and I love how you have brought in the word goal. How often do we set a goal to get to, a measure we need to live up to etc. In reconnecting to ourselves there is no end, no point to reach as the love that we are is so immeasurably grand that can be forever deepening if we so choose.
Exactly, Carolien, I agree there is no end in this process of re-connecting. And now we are back to choices. And how every choice we make has a consequence to support in re-connecting to our divinity or not.
Hooray for you Carmin! It is so great that you are honestly sharing your journey. The fact that you are now writing with so much insight about how you have lived, is a wonderful turn around. You are well on your way to healing the thinking behind the parts of your self and being that have allowed you to ignore and suffer so much. I have experienced something similar. In my case, being very ‘mental’, rationalising, and driving myself hard, not stopping to rest etc., all prevented me from the self- reflection and recognition I needed to see how I was behaving towards myself . This avoidance allowed me to completely and consistently override my body. Coming to the practical teachings of Universal Medicine about living lovingly in our bodies, helped me come to my own ‘stop’ and be willing to feel what was happening in my body and notice my ‘self -talk’. Your willingness to take notice and make loving changes for yourself signifies a huge change! I feel being able to feel how one’s body is doing, even if it isn’t so great , is at least better to me then being numb for so long. But this willingness takes courage and responsibility to develop steadiness of self care and self love. I feel your story is inspiring and a blessing for us all!
a great reminder Andrew Mooney “placing care for ourselves and others above the ‘need to dos’ list is love in daily practice” How often do we think caring for ourselves is for ‘after’..after I finish this, do that, take care of….
In fact if we choose to be love first and foremost our body will have to start clearing out the energy we have let in those times that we were less than love and this can cause all kinds of ailments and even disease.
so true Aimee and your comment reminded me that being fit and healthy by the standards of todays society says absolutely nothing about how much we can connect to ourselves and our body, how much we can love and be loved, our willingness to be open and fragile or how much our divinity is expressed. Like you I choose the latter over the first if I have to.
I have always reacted to someone calling themselves lazy and often challenged others to be more self loving but I have still been burdened by constant judgements that I am not achieving enough and yes I have frequent shoulder pain to act as a reminder! Thank you Dianne for exposing this for me and giving me the choice to let go of this deeply damaging belief.
Thank you for your honesty Carmin and I can really relate to what you have shared. As I sit here typing I am feeling deeply tired and realise that I have not heeded the subtle messages my body has been giving me over the past few days because I have a lot going on currently so this is a great stop moment for me before my shoulder starts hurting (it is a great marker of truth in my body having been damaged in not one but two car accidents).
Beautiful sharing Carmin. It is crazy how we sell ourselves short. How we choose a marker that is far less than vital as a normal way to compare ourselves so we can say ‘well at least I am not that unwell so I must be doing OK, no need to change…’ I know as I too have also indulged in this comfort of convenience, I had settled for just OK. But though the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I realised that living with true vitality is possible and was (and still am) inspired to live this vitality for myself as I now know am so worth it. Through connecting to and lovingly caring for my body I have learned how when I listen and honor my body it guides me, with what is needed to live this vitality every day.
‘I knew that being free of disease was not the same as being healthy, and neither was being in a state of exhaustion’. Carmen you and I are not the only ones who have taken medicine and vitamins to anticipate and to counteract the way we have been living or trying to compensate for how our choices of not to care for ourselves in the first place. True health and wellbeing is nourished and nurtured in all that we do everyday and as you share is definitely supported by both Conventional Medicine and the Universal Medicine modalities.
Whats more, ‘I didn’t want to give myself a break, it made me feel lazy – I judged myself on what I did and how much I accomplished’. Ouch. Still clearly working on this one!
I love your honesty Carmin and that you’re allowing the healing to take place in its’ own time supported by the way you are now living.
Carmin,
Thank you for sharing this blog with us; I can feel how you were perhaps waiting to be ‘fixed’ to share this, however as you have shared here – perfection isn’t the answer, love is.
The way you are with your body now, the gentleness and care you have allowed, is healing in every moment. It is not about getting to a point where we are perfect, but rather allowing changes in our lives and surrendering. I love your analogy of the 3yr old girl, and we should at times allow this level of vulnerability when it is truly needed.
It is amazing the amount of love and support we receive if we let our guard down, are honest about where we are at, and allow true support.
Your humbleness can be felt in your writing Carmen and what a gift your body has given you. We can become so driven by our minds that our body is completely left out of the equation – until it forces us to stop. Our bodies are a true blessing indeed…they show us how we have been living very clearly – if we are willing to stop, be still and listen.
The ‘general health’ question, great to look at that and appreciate your honesty when you choose to write how you really felt, I feel it expresses your appreciation and care for yourself to truly assess where you are at with your health, which a great marker to have. It is something that many of us do, compare ourselves and say well I don’t have heart disease or cancer, but as you say “I knew that being free of disease was not the same as being healthy, and neither was being in a a state exhaustion.” I knew this for myself also, lived with fatigue, stress, I was bloated, had digestive issues, couldn’t sleep, had big high and lows from sugar intake and generally felt worn out and worn down by life. These are health concerns, and they affected my quality of life and they where impacted by the choices I made to improve my health and well being. These where not done through diet books, or some one telling me what to do. It has been a simple, yet deeply nurturing experience, I began to learn to share love and care with myself, as you say ‘how would you treat a child’. I began to offer myself the nurturing that had not always been present in my life, no one else can do this for you and it is amazingly empowering to make this choice.
Carmin I have been through some of the worst health crisis in my life over the past 8 years that I have been involved with Universal Medicine. I too gave myself a hard time and thought I had let myself and Universal Medicine down because I wasn’t a “picture of Health” either. It is a journey and great learning can be had from all our illness and experiences, good and bad. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, Carmin. Just perfect read at this moment as I am learning to build a good working relationship with parts of my body that feel anything less than well – I have become so used to seeing a little niggle and pains here and there as my ‘normal’ and not pay attention or give it due care, and unintentionally downgrading my ‘normal’. I am realising how retarding and unloving that is.
I love this conceptual game of imagining how we would treat ourselves if we were 3 years old again… the tenderness, the forgiveness to make mistakes but get up and try again, the innocence, and the glory and excitement of everything we are and can be. Its so easy to forget this, and the world seems to be designed to accept the humdrum constant low level abuse that we allow. It is no wonder that this has allowed you start changing how you treat yourself.
Carmin, our body is so amazing, we put it through so much, expecting it to just carry on, and in most cases it finds a way to do that. How many times do we turn a deaf ear, until for some reason we hear the body loud and clear giving us a message, and then we make more loving changes, incredibly the body responds.
Thank you Carolien – a beautiful reminder!
Esther, I would love to share that I am now the picture of health and vitality, but that is not yet true. However, my shoulder no longer has to shout at me (is pain free) and because of my ever deepening commitment to myself and the way I live, I am no longer in exhaustion.
Such a good point, Elodie. We can’t expect to heal decades (and probably lifetimes) of disregard in a day.
I had never connected the shoulder pain and the burden of ideals and beliefs, but can feel it now. Thank you, Dianne.
It is very easy to dismiss the early warning signs that the body gives us, that eventually lead to a more obvious ‘stop’ from the body. All the little signals matter just as much as the big ones.
Wow, thank you I’m loving the honesty in your article. We are all on a journey, a journey of evolution (learning), of coming back to who we truly are, and parts of the journey can be very difficult and that’s nothing to be ashamed of or hold back from others, as we have all been there in one way or another. Yes, these difficult times are a blessing as they bring us back to humility which can be a truly beautiful place to be as the arrogance has no place here. We get to feel our vulnerability and tenderness -how lovely is that?
What a perfectly timed blog Carmin, pain is an incredible gift from the body. It sends it our way because we have not listened to all the other warning signs it tried first. Why is it that we are so good at looking at what would fix others and so bad at listening to our own bodies? I am forever realising that our bodies are THE most incredible pieces of design ever. So we have to then ask – what influences us to ignore its conversation? the only place that has encouraged that conversation for me is Universal Medicine and it has to include a conversation of what we cannot see but can clearly feel – energy. Building a way of living that supports us to have a conversation with our bodies about what everything feels like is a stepping stone to understand SO much more about why we don’t do what we know would support us in favour of driving our perfect design into ‘fault mode’.
It has been the support of Universal Medicine that has helped me to look at the way I’m living… I’ve managed to ignore years of back pain, or a lifetime of feeling ‘out of sorts’ but the courses, practitioners and lectures have all given me a clearer reflection of what is really going on, and encouraged me to look at it all honestly – to reevaluate what I am actually choosing.
Thank you Carmin. This post is so needed. It’s wonderful to hear people’s stories of how amazing their lives are now that they choose to be themselves from their natural essence, however, it is equally wonderful to read about how and why some of us are not feeling amazing. I am very inspired by all that you share here. I have felt exactly as you have, with many years of re-training myself to be more loving, and yet, still finding much dis-ease in my body through aches and pains that don’t seem to want to give up, if anything becoming more and more obvious to me. It can certainly be frustrating at times when I know I am looking after myself better than I have ever done before, but I also know, that I have not looked after myself for eons, and that reversing the damage so to speak is not as easy as creating it.
Everything happens in due course, and whilst physically I may not be feeling up to scratch, I can safely say that my mental and emotional well being are better than they have been in a very long time, and for that I am hugely grateful.
Carmin what a great blog , many people feel the same way as you have described but have pushed and self medicated themselves through it all in total disconnection. I often see people who don’t look well or full of vitality but when asked they say the opposite .Its crazy how hard it is to be honest as humans as we don’t want to loose face or be judged . It true expressions like this that gives humanity trust to express and hope that there is another way to be.
Thank you Carmin, it so lovely to read what you have shared, the sheer honesty and uncensored way you have described how it was for you is humbling. It is so true, how our body does let us know when things are not well, and as women, it is quite sad really that we have learnt to just carry on, to disregard ourselves. Yes, thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, who introduced what true self care is, definitely has changed the health and wellbeing of me too.
Beautiful Carmin. Thank you for sharing your inspiring story, I could relate to it all. I’m blown away by how the more I listen to my body the more it tells me. Pilots wouldn’t fly a plane without their control panel, its crazy knowing that for so long, and even still now, I could even consider moving without the soundboard of my body.
Carmin thank you for pointing out the general health question on your form. I would tick yes for the same reasons as you did but in reality I’m a very unfit skinny person. I have been living with the arrogance that I eat well – no dairy or gluten and very little to no sugar, I go to bed early and I’m skinny, so if I don’t exercise it’s no big deal, but it is because my body is lacking vitality and I can feel this.
For me it was the deep lack of self worth that created a life of struggle and complication and putting others needs before my own. Through loving self care I have made many different choices, and what was life changing is that I now listen to my body and know what best supports my body and when to stop. I also know I am worth it.
A beautiful and honest sharing Carmin, very inspiring the loving choices you made to honour yourself. I especially liked this line – ” true self-worth came from how I lived my day, how kind, tender and gentle I was with me, and not how much I did.”
What a blessing indeed Carmin
It is so lovely to read that you now appreciate and honour yourself
Thank you for your honesty and very wise words.
What you have shared is really lovely so I’m glad you didn’t hold back. I especially loved what the practitioner asked you, what a beautiful question to assist you to stop and recognise the importance of nurturing yourself and treating yourself with the love and care you would a small child… gorgeous.
It is amazing how an ill-ness can bring us humbleness and to be able to truly appreciate every step in the road. Thank you!
This is such a wonderful post Carmin, and you absolutely nail the essence of developing true worth by your words, and the second part in particular here: “I came to feel that I was still worth loving and nurturing at age 39 and that true self-worth came from how I lived my day, how kind, tender and gentle I was with me, and not how much I did”.
Yes, true worth IS from the way we live and treat ourselves, and not in what we do, how much we achieve, what we wear as a label, title, or job… or the amount of money we make, our background or upbringing. True worth is the level of love – lived.
This is great Carmin, and your honesty is very refreshing. I can relate to so much of what you say. For me it’s like I’m waiting to appreciate myself when I feel really amazing – but if I truly stop and take a look, I already have so much to appreciate in how far I’ve come and how much more love I have for myself than ever before. Thank you for this stop and for reminding me that I can appreciate now and not have to wait until I’m ‘perfect’!!
A great reflection for me Carmin, as one of my ‘stops’ was also a severe shoulder injury. Unable to do even menial tasks for 6 weeks offered me the space to re-address how I was living. It has been a slow road back, but like you, my shoulder is always there to remind me when I am pushing myself and I immediately will look over how I have been living, and what needs to be addressed. I know I need to do this review every day anyway as part of my rhythm and not wait until my shoulder hurts!
This is such a gorgeous blog Carmin! I am so glad you chose to share with us and stop holding back the amazing story you have to share. Such a great reminder for me that we do not need to be perfect or reach some ‘goal’ to inspire others. your blog makes it clear that it is about how we do what we do not the end result. Beautiful.
Carmin I like how you use your painful shoulder as a marker of your caring for yourself. Our body shows us the way, always. Thank you.
For years I had viewed the body as an inconvenience when I got any aches and pains and I would quickly dismiss them and carry on regardless of what they were trying to show me. I never occurred to me that stopping and feeling why and how I arrived at this point would be of benefit to me and my body.
These days I see the value in giving my body the time to feel whats going on, as I have learnt that my body can communicate to me very clearly if I give it the opportunity.
I so appreciate the honesty of your expression Carmin, as it is the real story of you and where you are at. I feel it is when we begin to get honest with ourselves (taking responsibility for our choices) that we can begin to feel what is truly going on (no longer numbing ourselves), only then will the true healing begin as it comes from within us. What a beautiful and powerful sharing.
Carmin your story is so worthy of being told as are all our stories, for in reading them we can feel areas of dis-ease in our own lives and also areas of confirmation of our own inner gorgeousness. On reading your story I could immediately feel how difficult I found it to “stop” this week when I had a head cold! If I had truly stopped I would have felt what my body was telling me and also reflected to my work colleagues about true self care!
I love your honesty here Carmin, it’s great what your sharing. It seems that all of our injuries or aliments are something we can embrace and learn from, it seems you have learnt a lot through pondering on your life just because your shoulder forced you to, what if everyone did that!! Thanks for sharing
“The busier I kept myself, the more numb I became to how I was truly feeling” – I can relate to what you say here Carmin. I am starting to feel the numbness and pain in my body I have been avoiding feeling.
Healing truly begins with honesty about where you are at. It’s all about our choices, every single choice.
Thank you Carmin for being so open and honest. I can relate to disregard of the body as this is how I lived my life for many years. My body never got a look in as I was always being directed by my head. Once I connected with my body I was then able to make loving choices so as not to override what was being felt. This continues to be a work in progress.
I understood when you said ” Whenever I’m pushing myself or being unloving (especially when I shout at my children) it aches. I can then take the opportunity to stop and reassess and choose to go forward more lovingly”. Beautifully expressed Carmin. I have taken note of this for when I become frustrated/angry with anyone.
Thank you for sharing so many examples of what has shifted and how you are doing things differently now – I felt like I was listening to a student being real and honest – and this is graceful.
I can relate to this blog a lot in the sense that while I may not feel amazing all the time but since becoming involved with Universal Medicine I am feeling much much more than I used to. So much so that I have no idea where I would be today if I continued to live as I did in my teenage years of completely ignoring my body. Now I have many little (sometimes very loud) nudges from my body that tell me that the choices I am making will only make situations worse down the line. And by listening to those nudges more and more I am discovering that things that used to send me off into fits of reaction and drama don’t have as strong a grip over me over time, that response is simply not worth having that feeling in my body. A work in progress but well worth putting the effort into.
Carmin, it is so awesome that you share your story here. For true healing is in no way about reaching some ‘end point’ or ‘pot of gold’… it’s about the very process and relationship with yourself that you have clearly not only undertaken, but embraced in your way of daily living. That your ‘normal’ way is to be so aware of what’s going on in your body, and that despite physical conditions still remaining, you fully accept that the choices you are making are changing not only your body, but how you feel about yourself – that to me, is a miracle, and true healing, something we allow (or not) for ourselves.
I like this analogy here of treating ourselves the same way we would a small child. Why are we so hard on ourselves? At what point in life do we say that’s enough nurturing and care and now we are an adult and it is time to toughen up? What is going on with that?
The body will continue to remind us of the unloving choices we are making, and will continue to remind us until we listen and make appropriate changes. We must not hold back from loving and nurturing ourselves as we would a young child. Thanks Carmin for a great blog.
Great topics covered in this blog, honesty first, thank you for sharing, also appreciated how you discuss how open Universal Medicine is concerning conventional health providers. I really enjoyed this quote and it is a great reminder and support to be gentle with ourselves. “I came to feel that I was still worth loving and nurturing at age 39 and that true self-worth came from how I lived my day, how kind, tender and gentle I was with me, and not how much I did.”
Carmen, such a fantastic and pertinent blog. I love the honesty of what you’ve shared and how real you are with it. Right now I have a shoulder injury and it reminds me painfully when I push myself and it’s very deeply ingrained in me to get on with things, I feel I should do, and this injury is amazing as I have to stop and feel how I move. Reading your piece reminded me of how much I’ve bought into the idea that I should be superwoman, talking of that 3 year old child stopped me, and hearing what you say of sugar as a way to stop true feelings made me pause – there’s so much in what you share, thank you for writing this.
What I love is how these aches and pains we have been trying to get rid of for years actually end up being our best friends so to speak, markers in our bodies which tell us when we have gone wayward. Thank you Carmin, for sharing.
When I read this ….’I could also ‘nip in the bud’ any true feelings that came up by eating sugar’….it reminds me of how sugar is used as a panacea for all of life’s woes. A great article Carmin, thank you
This is a truly inspiring blog, Carmin. At age 39 you started your journey of self-care but whether you are 39 or 93, it’s never too late to start to love or nurture ourselves.
This is amazing Carmin, I enjoyed reading about your dedication to being honest with yourself about how your body feels, and allowing yourself the space to not be so hard but more tender with yourself.
Hi Carmin, I can relate to most of what you are saying. I had a frozen shoulder for 24 months and it was one of the most painful conditions and I can now see that I was pushing, rushing around and being busy. Thank you for sharing.
When your body talks to you, we do tend not to listen, until it’s too late.
Listen to your body, it’s the only one you have. It’s like having a car, on occasions it need a good overhaul, once that’s done it will run smoothly again. Look after it and it will last for years.
‘There was such a healing for me in this honesty and admittance of where I was.’ This is a significant point Carmin, one that is often overlooked as we tend to “rah rah” function over true well being, thank you for sharing.
I too can relate to all you say, Carmin. Thank you for your courage in sharing. I had not appreciated before your article why I ate sweet food when I was sitting down reading. I ‘thought’ it was boredom. But now I see clearly what you so beautifully described: I ate so I could still somehow be ‘busy’ and therefore not feel guilty about sitting down ‘doing nothing’.
What a blessing your shoulder is indeed. I have a friend who had a frozen shoulder all last year. She was always busy busy busy, especially doing things for others. Late last year she was diagnosed with breast cancer – only then did she stop. How wonder-full that your body is telling you when something needs to change, simply by an ache in the shoulder.
So true, Anne. Our body starts with gentle ‘whispers’ and the more we ignore them, the louder it has to get. I appreciate the painful shoulder and that I finally chose to stop & listen!
Thank you Carmin – this open and honest description of your last 3 years really stopped me. It is so entrenched in me and many I’m sure to have that false sense of self- worth by what we get done in a day – I loved “that true self-worth came from how I lived my day, how kind, tender and gentle I was with me, and not how much I did”.
How trapped have we been by the dreaded ‘multi – tasking’. It is inspiring to feel how you have come to appreciate what your body tells you as feedback of how you are living in it rather than a problem to be fixed – “I can then take the opportunity to stop, reassess and choose to go forward more lovingly – what a True blessing”. It is such a blessing.
Great to catch this one – the busier I kept myself, the more numb I became to how I was truly feeling and I could also ‘nip in the bud’ any true feelings that came up by eating sugar. This is so true for many of us, and how awesome that we now have the opportunity to stop, reassess and choose to go forward more lovingly.
What a great and honest contribution, Carmin – I too had had a long-standing shoulder condition when I first saw Serge Benhayon about nine years ago. All the treatment I had had for the frozen shoulder up until then had still left me with a limited range of motion, and when I did my first Esoteric Healing workshop, I could hardly stretch out my right arm and put it on the person’s heart chakra while I was sitting at the head of the table. It just hurt too much! Over time I understood that it was all the burdens I had taken on, all the stuff I had loaded myself up with, literally carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. Only in English (as far as I know) is there quite literally such an obvious connection between the shoulders as a part of our body and all the ‘shoulds’ that I had so slavishly sold out to.
You’ve re-learned so much Carmin, keep going. 🙂 Keep treating yourself as you know you would a child, there really is no difference.
Thank you for this lovely and honest sharing. It is not about perfection, but about love and true expression. And we can’t expect our new-found love for ourselves and our new loving choices to wipe out the huge momentum of the unloving way we have lived in a moment! It is lovely to feel you coming back to yourself, and to feel your body healing. And yes, it is lovely to learn to love those markers in our body that remind us when we are not being love.
Oh, how glad I am that you dropped the hesitation Carmin and chose to share this super honest, open and down-to-earth piece of your life that many will be able to relate to and get inspired by.
Makes one wonder: What was the hesitation all about! 😉 Thank You.
I love this blog Carmin! I especially loved how you described the way to treat that 3 year old – a wonderful reminder of how hard we can all be on ourselves. I have seen first hand how you have returned to a woman with the openness, beauty, confidence and joy of a sweet child. Thank you for sharing this with all.
Amazing sharing to me. I can relate to the shoulder problems and tiredness! It’s amazing how may signals our body gives us when we do not live who we truly are.
I got exposed in ‘accepting myself where I was’. I can feel there’s still a part in me that doesn’t want to accept where I (!!!!) am really at. I can feel the proudness while writing it…
Thank you for the love and healing – you’re definitely ready. 😉
A very real and honest blog. Thank you so much for sharing Carmin.
Great expression on starting to listen to our bodies!
Carmin, thank you for your honesty, very inspiring!
Awesome blog Carmin. In sharing your story I have felt the importance of honesty in the acceptance of our health and bodies. I too have struggled with accepting where my body is at, so that I can then make self loving, caring and nurturing choices. This idea of being lazy or inefficient is so wrong and outdated, I say let’s give it the boot. Thanks Carmin for sharing – it has given me an opportunity to reflect and to take things deeper.
Carmin, apart from your story, your comments regarding how to treat an exhausted three year old girl provides real clarity to the understanding of self-love.
Thank you for the honesty of your writing, Carmin. There is a lot in your blog to inspire each and every one of us to take a closer look at how we are living our days as well.
Thank you for sharing this Carmin. This has raised an interesting point for me as I am not always feeling healthy and amazing, even though I am living what I know to be true for me. There are times and situations when the choices I make are not the best for me. These choices then affect how my body feels, and let me say that at times it can feel pretty ordinary. However as you have beautifully written – when my body is in pain or not feeling well – it is an opportunity to look at the choices I am making, get support from an esoteric practitioner, reassess and move forward more lovingly.
What a fantastic blog Carmin, I am glad you did not hesitate any longer. I can so strongly relate to what you have written, having been a very efficient person in the past who also did a lot, pushed myself by using anxiety and nervous energy and did not pay attention to my underlying exhaustion. I still have that momentum and do all of the above to some degree but HUGELY less than in the past, am a great deal more aware of the mechanism and am working with my body to stop behaving in this harmful way.
An example of working with my body is very much how you describe in your last paragraph. For example several years ago I had a very painful frozen shoulder. The frozen shoulder taught me about all the burdens and stuff that I take on that I don’t need to. In fact taking on other people’s problems is not only harmful to me but also imposing and harmful to them too. By “not taking something on” I am actually able to be a lot more clear and supportive. These days if I find myself slipping back into old ways around this issue my shoulder gives me a warning ache and I stop and listen.