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 
Carmin it was timely to read this blog when I’ve just had a stop moment with my back. And in those moments of recovery you bring up a past behaviour or the same regurgitated talk, that sore spot in your body communicates soon enough. It’s kind of that beacon that reminds you that that repeated behaviour is not accepted anymore. And even in the pain I found appreciation, appreciation of being supported, from all angles and when it was time to stop and when it was time to rest.
Learning to be super gentle and nurturing is not that hard, it is us that make it complicated.
So much insight Carmen, and in understanding how our bodies are telling us what is going on, this makes it simpler for the prognoses and for the physician to do their part and the healing to start once we also understand the energetic behaviors that have caused the underlying conditions.
Greg, when I recently attended Emergency Department, I really appreciated the strong analgesias and relaxants given to me. It gave my body the additional support it needed to just let go and surrender to what my body needed to do and go through.
Now years ago I wouldn’t have been accepting of this and placed demands on people. Since meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, my perspective is so much different. Health care is so distant apart from this knowing. It’s about fixing, when the responsibility lies within the patient and provider to support the healing.
Carmin it was good to read this blog again, another reminder to go gently with myself. Any aches or pains that emerge from our body are a reminder that we have gone in to drive and pushed our bodies to that limit that says, please stop.
As women we don’t continue that tenderness we have grown up around when we were little, we take on something that doesn’t belong to us, and we spend the rest of our lives wondering why we have the conditions that we do.
Our stop moments are our barometer to stay its time to stop, look, listen and feel. What you do with the answer is then your choice. Listen to the body or continue to ignore it…
That hamster wheel of ‘gotta do this, gotta do that, so much to do!’ never truly lets up. Even when ‘relaxing’ or making the body not move the mind can be going 100mph on that little wheel. What Universal Medicine shares are ways of getting off the wheel completely. Yes, there is a feeling dizzy and sick when getting off but eventually that dissipates and we can truly settle.
I agree Leigh, if we don’t get off the wheel, the wheel is going to come off somewhere in our lives. So why not now?
Carmin what a great reminder to read this and how the body needs slow healing. It doesn’t suddenly become ill overnight, it is something that has been building over the years of not listening to the body. It speaks from an early age. What I loved is that it is all reversible to a point in that you and the body needs to re-meet, reform and re-heal to redevelop that relationship, and of course with the support of practitioners and medicine.
I feel what is to appreciate is the fact that you made a decision to make changes, and again with no expectations that it will heal over night. Appreciate that you took the initial steps and the rest will unfold.
We are not taught that there is a way to live that is so enriching that our bodies actual crave the deep quality of this richness as it washes through us. Once we reconnect back to the pulse of life and allow it to flow through unhindered nothing will ever be the same again.
Absoulutely Mary, the system is set up to not Truly enrich our lives and when we reconnect to the understanding of our True vulnerability and tenderness life becomes a pursuit of enrichment❤️.
It seems that we get so used to using our bodies to do whatever without asking it if it is up to it, and if it is how does it want to move.
Thank you Carmin, your honesty is very valuable here, as it reveals that despite the moment we are living in our healing process, since we initiate it, there is so much that we can learn, grow and appreciate during all the process.
I’ve known Universal Medicine for about 8 years or so now. Yes, my health has improved massively but recently it’s also taken a dip. What Serge Benhayon presents is not a way to be forever free of illness or disease but an understanding of why it occurs. This for me takes out the heaviness of the victimhood and drama and brings in a responsible way to be light with illness and disease.
Leigh a great reminder that health can dip and that it is still considered a healing. Unfortunately the rest of the world does not view this, and become the victims or expect others to fix their dis-regards and ill choices they have made and lived. Ultimately healing comes by first making the choice towards it and the rest will follow.
Carmin – I can really appreciate your heartfelt and honest sharing in this blog about your experiences and what called you to listen to your body. This is a very real sharing that is inspirational in ripple effects, for we have all come from or still are in a place where we can inflict abuse (awares or unawares) on ourselves – and realizing the power of the stop to listen is invaluable.
Words of Gold: “Being free of disease is not the same as being healthy.”
Stopping is a means to simply feel. That is perhaps why we can be so good at avoiding a stop, until such time that it is inevitable.
“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.” Wow, this would really change the world, we have such little value in ourselves and who we are on the inside, it’s all about what we achieved in the outer world. A beautiful gem of wisdom about self worth, thank you Carmin.
Unfortunately we frequently make life about function, and disregard ourselves in the process, to start making our lives about being kind, caring, gentle, tender, and honouring of ourselves would be a game changer in many ways, one of them being our health and well-being.
And it could then flow on to be a game changer for communities because our relationship with ourselves is the foundation for how we are with others.
Yes lovingly listening and honouring the body’s wisdom would benefit all of us.
Lovely to read how you are now choosing to give yourself space to make more loving choices, and saying goodbye to this old false belief, ‘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.’
What a great start to my day, thank you Carmin, and from now on taking a shower will never be the same, as I will at-least allow the space to feel the water lovingly cascading over my body as I do my sacred movement.
From burying and overriding to acknowledging, wanting to feel and learn from what is felt – that is a huge leap. It’s a complete change of posture in how we are in life that many are stubbornly refusing to make.
Your comment about taking supplements made me sit up and consider how often we carry on our self-abusive ways thinking we are balancing them with Yoga, supplements, meditation etc. How many things would we have in the category before abuse – would coffee and sugar be in there because we need it so much so deny the fact that it alters our physiology and puts pressure on our organs to process it? We are masters of finding ways to keep doing exactly what we want regardless of the impact on our bodies.
Well said Lucy – it’s like putting some padding and a bandage on your head but still continuing to hit your head against the wall – We can often do things without really thinking about the logic behind it and not letting ourselves feel what it does to the body, short or long term.
I LOVE that our body can offer us these opportunities, and I love that you have shared so we can all be inspired to deepen that relationship with ourselves. Thank you.
It takes time to undo our unloving ways. The important thing is that the first steps are taken. When we take the busy out of our life, the more we observe what our body is communicating.
‘I took my vitamins of course, to counteract the way I lived’ when stated this way we can see we can use anything, even the so called healthy choices to not be honest or feel where we are really at with ourselves. Love this blog Carmen for it’s straight forward appraisal of that whole scenario.
What a great analogy – if a 3 year old had your condition how would you treat them?
I think the consciousness of doing, doing, doing is a big one to clear but with gentle steps it is possible to change the way in which we live to loving and supportive movements that will support us not just in the moment but for the future of our health and well being.
‘not just in the moment but for the future of our health and well being’, this is something we are inclined to ‘forget’ though every choice make now is building the life we will experience. ‘Gentle steps and loving and supportive movements’ is a balm soaked up by the exhausted, mis-treated body.
I am too very aware if my shoulders start to freeze. IT is a sign that I harden my body because I find a difficult to deal with something. But this not supporting me. The opposite is the way, to open our heart even more.
Wait, stop and listen – constant bodily messages reminding us that we know how to be loving and caring towards ourselves and one other very well.
Living a present of ill-being in the name of a future of well-being is just an illusion since we walk to the future in the energy of the present. That is why we have to be absolutely honest regarding the present.
So much is available through Universal Medicine and the therapies that are on offer and in conjunction with conventional medicine we can get to understand our bodies and the energetic relationship we have with our health.
The judgements and expectations we have on ourselves, it is ridiculous, like ‘lazy’ when we would take a break. When are we ever enough? it is no wonder our bodies let us know how we are living (or is it surviving) is not okay.
It’s interesting that when we take the sugar and salt out of our diet and eat lighter, we are able to receive the messages the body is constantly communicating to us. We soon realise that we do not need to look outside of ourselves for the answers but do need assistance now and again to clear the mess we have accumulated as a result of our ability to override the messages.
“There was such a healing for me in this honesty and admittance of where I was.” This is not to be underestimated, the healing power and miracles that can occur when we actually go there – to absolute honesty and admit, with as a much love and non judgement as we can, where we truly are. And if you’ve not done that it in a while, then it often takes getting sick to humble us and bring us to our proverbial knees to get that honest.
Very inspiring to read how a single body part like your shoulder can support us very firmly to get back on track and honestly face the true state of our health, leave alone the true level of our vitality and zest for life. Our body is thus always our best friend, no matter how we treat it.
We all, all of us, have markers within… some subtle, some severe that let us know where we are energetically.
If we want to stop the body from communicating with us then Sugar and Salt are a great way to disorientate our bodies. I have discovered for myself our bodies are very clear and constantly communicate to us if we don’t pollute them.
A testimony in how ‘pushing through’ never works.
‘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. ….. 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. .’
This is awesome Carmin – on the way to bringing true health standards back.
I find it amazing how humbling the body can be, with just a few symptoms overridden perhaps for many years, a huge stop moment suddenly comes with the blessing of a medical diagnosis.
Any symptom that occurs in our body is always an opportunity to look more deeply at how we have been living. When there is a willingness to do this, then the possibilites of change for us on so many levels is enormous.
When I appreciate the connection between a marker (like a flag) that comes up in my body and how it relates to the way I’ve been living it is truly empowering, helping me to understand myself and life more.
There are different ways of true blessings. To give the body what is crying out for is a blessing. To have an ‘early’ reminder that this is not the way is a blessing. To treat the body in honor of us and what we represent is a blessing. We get to choose which one we want to blessed by.
Carmin your amazing and honest blog is a wonderful reflection for me as I have a frozen shoulder and also severe shoulder pain and immobility. For me it is like you have so beautiful described: “. . . everything that ‘needed’ to be done was more important than me and caring for me.” The thing is I have the the same worth as all the people around me and all the tasks I have to do. If I do not chose to live my self worth in full my body or better my shoulder will let me feel this . . . how absolute wonderful is that!
Yes it is great! Pain-full and getting our attention when all the other warning signs failed. Putting everyone else before ourselves may look good but it is a major point of failure on many levels.
Every woman should read this blog. It has all the common beliefs that cause us to run ourselves ragged. Our focus on completing tasks has become literally pathological and the way we drive ourselves, so we don’t have to feel anything, including how exhausted we are, has to end in a crash at some point. Treating yourself like a very precious 3 year old is a great way to start turning these behaviours around.
When life needs to be lived and we have long term chronic conditions, it can be easy to override the body to just get things done. Yet, rarely do we ask what choices did I make to make myself sick in the first place, or what do I need to do to really nurture and take care of myself?
Being busy for busy’s sake is such an exhausting way to live.
Yes, it keeps us running around in circles with flailing arms like a windmill or helicopter, forever driving us into more excesses of so-called endurance and overriding the clear signals the body is sending us.
I can very much recognise busy-ness used as a distraction/numbing. It almost feels as though we are afraid of being still and coming face to face with what truly is going on.