BEFORE MY SELF LOVE PROGRAM… THE QUIET, ‘NICE GIRL’, ME
Not that long ago I didn’t know what self-love meant or how to love myself. I was a girl with low self-esteem and little confidence around others. I was shy and I reserved my feelings for a limited crowd of family and close friends, but even then I was closed off from allowing anyone to see and fully discover the ‘real me’.
In keeping myself closed to others I thought I was protecting myself from getting hurt or rejected, but in actual fact I was hurting and rejecting myself most deeply. I had created a picture of what and who I should be and fooled even myself with the quiet, ‘nice girl’ persona.
I prided myself on my ability to listen intently, be responsible, provide care for my family and patients at work, but inside I was feeling more drained and distant from other people. I wasn’t really looking after myself in a way that supported my everyday life and I certainly didn’t think I was worth making time for, or deserving of, loving care for myself or my own body.
This played out by my indulging in food and using things like TV as a distraction in mostly every spare minute I ever had.
I felt withdrawn, anxious and tense within my own body. As I grew older my shoulders hunched as I worked on perfecting my outward smile in an attempt to cover the sadness I felt from not living the love and joy that I knew I could be. I was numbing myself with food and at times alcohol and I was suffering from anxiety; the food and alcohol became my coping tools when I just wanted to fit in with others, or simply didn’t want the real me to be seen or noticed.
I had a picture of what would bring happiness and love to my life, a list of things from the outside, the home, the husband and children. But as I ticked these things off my list I was realising this wasn’t it. I was missing out on a deeper love, a love that could never be given to me by someone else, it could only come from my own heart by choosing true love for myself; by learning how to love myself and choosing to live the real me.
AFTER MY SELF LOVE PROGRAM… ACCEPTING MYSELF – THE NATURAL AND JOYFUL ME
In November 2010, I began a program with a Universal Medicine practitioner. We called this a program of ‘Self-Love’ and from my first esoteric healing session I knew that there was more to life than the picture I had limited myself by. I began to learn to love myself and to feel and trust my body for the first time since I was a small child.
In the past three years I have shed accumulated layers of hurt and sadness and narrow ways of thinking of how I thought I should be. Although I have dropped around 30kg it has not been about losing physical weight for me – the weight literally came off as I began to accept myself and as I began to learn to love myself and treat my body with the love it always deserved. It has been about discovering who I am once again – discovering the real me – and sharing this unreservedly with others.
I am forever grateful for the inspiration that the practitioners of Universal Medicine have gifted me. I have made countless new and loving choices to support me to live what feels natural; not to better myself, but from the knowing that I am already so amazing, so beautiful. My diet and exercise routines are always changing to be more supportive and I make choices by listening to my body, going to bed early when I am tired, eating to nourish my body, not holding back from sharing what I feel with others – and I absolutely love going to work and being with other people.
As I have been learning how to love myself more and more deeply, I am now accepting myself and of who I am, and this feels like just the beginning. I have a willingness to grow, to understand and discover more about life and I have made a commitment to living in full, the real ME.
It’s a miracle to me that I have let go of such a shield of protection and hardness and given myself the permission to expand and unfold the natural and joyful Cherise… the natural and joyful me!
By Cherise Holt, 30, Nurse, Australia
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The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Cherise I can see how significant this program of ‘Self-Love’ was for you. The vitality and beauty you emanate today reminds me that there is no doubt about how gorgeous and unique we really are and it’s worth loving ourselves consistently with no conditions.
In this world it seems we need to prove our worth with external features, like job position, money, social status…and so on. When we rely on all of this to feel complete the seeking never ends, there is always something that tells us that we are never going to be enough. However when we come back to ourselves and feel the beauty within, the simplicity of just be and the joy of alow it…the seeking ends and we may feel complete again.
There was a reason for me to be presented with this blog again, during a time when there’s pressure upon me and my self loving has probably been thrown out the window, so to speak. Even during these times I realise that if anything my self love needs to go up and I need be more nurturing and tender towards myself, especially when there is an expectation coming at me.
I had a few tears as I wrote this comment and that it is okay to do so, something just needed to leave my body. It was a reminder that I had been hard on myself.
So thank you Cherise, self loving is forever unfolding, there is no stop moment for its quota. I now need to let myself off the hardness I have bought in and bring back more of the simplicity of loving myself again.
I loved reading that learning to love yourself and treating the body with love it deserves, it reveals itself more. And in that we accept more of ourselves. Why do we do the opposite then? And we spend years straying and yet craving to come home?
We cannot do this alone, we need the support from others who can truly support us without ra ra-ing us.
Underneath all of us is our true self’s, dying to reveal itself, it is only a matter of time when it will and then the world will be a different place.
We can think if everything is great on the outside, as Cherise describes, then we will feel loved, but what if love for ourselves is, ‘I was missing out on a deeper love, a love that could never be given to me by someone else, it could only come from my own heart by choosing true love for myself; by learning how to love myself and choosing to live the real me.’
This is the unrest within all of us, searching elsewhere and outside ourselves, when it has always been there within. It starts with one step at a time, first making the choice that this, what is in front of us, isn’t it. The love is always there, we just need to tap into it, and the hunger to reveal it is insatiable.
Loving yourself isn’t arduous, start somewhere, somehow and the rest will be undone to and for us.
Another clanger of a statement Lorraine. We are not going to receive anything from the outside that is missing in the inside, when it is already there waiting to be tapped on the shoulder. It’s a matter of accepting this and life will be viewed from a different spectacle.
Universal Medicine is a business that is dedicated to supporting people with re-connecting to their natural health, well-being and vitality in a way that no other business that I have come across does. Cherise, your appreciation of what you have re-found is heart-felt and I too can share in that joy for you and also for myself and countless other people whose lives have changed thanks to the inspiration offered by Universal Medicine.
When I walk along the streets anywhere in the world, I see more people haunched over and wanting to hide than people who walk tall and open and ready to shine. Claiming our natural spark and vitality is not always easy in a world where this is not taught to us at school nor encouraged by our common surroundings. However, the simplicity of this is still there available to us all – and it really does begin with the simple choice to take baby steps to love oneself.
Cherise, thank you so much for your sharing. This is like a before and after, and with the photos that you have shared here it is clear to see how much you have grown and allowed yourself to be seen and also the value that you have for yourself can now be felt so beauty-fully – a true inspiration to anyone who is seeking to love themselves more.
A program of self-love reconnects us to the simple joy of being who we are.
A great program to choose for ourselves, ‘As I have been learning how to love myself more and more deeply, I am now accepting myself and of who I am, and this feels like just the beginning. I have a willingness to grow, to understand and discover more about life and I have made a commitment to living in full, the real ME.’
Great sharing Cherise, so much of what you have delivered fits my life and like you thanks to the healing modalities from Universal Medicine I am also a walking miracle because of the Loving changes that I have made in my life ,and living in away to appreciate who I am on the inside or essence.
Thinking that we have to hide, protect and somehow be in a certain way simply to be in the world is a dis-ease many of us suffer.
Spot on Fumiyo! It certainly is a dis-ease and I love how you have hyphenated the word ‘dis-ease’ as it describes it perfectly!