434 thoughts on “Pleasures of Life or Distractions”

1. We spend years keeping ourselves distracted from ourselves, with whatever format it might look like. When we let go of these devices and understandably they wouldn’t be easy either, we discover who we truly are. That relationship is exquisite. For many that unrest from being separated from who we truly are is taken to our grave, to redo it all again.

   Serge Benhayon and Universal medicine brings everything of who we are at the forefront. And thank God for him and what he has bought forward for me, I love him dearly, there are no other words to express my gratitude towards him.

2. I still have distractions in my life, but I cannot say they are pleasurable anymore. Not since I now know that with connection comes settlement.

   1. When we are truly connected, the pleasure are there more then we can fathom, and then we see that the distractions are just a game to keep us stray.

3. I hadn’t realised I was addicted to sugar and can honestly say to a degree I still am. When we start to become acquainted to our bodies, we realise the addictions and slowly slowly the body speaks to us even more, and the hidden addictions reveal themselves more and more.

   I love that the body can reach a point that it ‘feels lighter and clearer’ and it can ‘have much more energy, contentment and joy for life’. Sometimes for many it’s hard to fathom, yet absolutely doable, without trying, doing, attending any retreats, reading books, etc.

   When we want to reconnect to ourself’s our body will amaze us, what it actually can really do and be, if we allow and trust it completely. Life is simpler then.

4. Absolutely Jacqueline, re-connecting to our essences is a being thing and never in the doing and the quality we bring to the things we do are also in quality we bring or standard we have set from our being-ness.

   1. We are so far away from our inner qualities that naturally reside in us. And there are plenty of things out in the world that continually want to keep us separated, but it will still always be there and will never let us down. We just need to look within instead out there.

5. Letting go of the belief of going to bed’ early’ but going to bed when my body lets me know it is time to rest and be restored.

   1. I have most of my life gone to bed fairly early, now if my body is feeling really tired I will go to bed super early, and my body so appreciates this support.

      1. There are many benefits of going to bed early, ‘Going to bed early had other positive impacts; I saw I was less emotional and this also reduced the need for the stimulants and distractions I was using to get me through my day.’

6. All our choices have an effect on us in some way be this supportive or unsupportive. It is a process to allow oneself to feel these choices incrementally and then have the willingness to understand where they have come from so that we can then choose differently.

7. Jacqueline – this is GOLD: “Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life.”

8. Such simple truths that bring us back home. And then for us to live them.

9. “‘My pleasures in life’ kept me distracted from my true self” – this is an amazing realization, one that takes much honesty and brings humility. True change is not about going from one flavor of ice cream to the next, but understanding that ice creams don’t always look or taste like ice cream, and that actually it is not about ice cream at all.

10. “I came to realise they were all distractions as they all kept me in the ‘doing’ and kept me from the knowing inside that I was enough. With this new awareness, my ‘pleasures in life’ started to fall away one by one..” This highlights the power reconnecting to our essence, and of honesty which we can feel from the body, and as we commit to self love no willpower is needed, things that are harmful do just fall away.

    1. The power and joy of connecting to our essence, ‘Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life.’

11. All the sweets or savory or melted cheese, TV, fantasy worlds, video games, and much more. None of it compares to connecting to what is within me. And none of it is worth trading my connection to experience, even if I do sometimes it always flops.

12. TV, coffee, chocolate etc are all only pleasures when I am not feeling connected within myself. There is no ‘pleasure’ like the contentment of knowing you are enough and the ‘trying to be more’ is an illusionary mountain peak that can never be reached.

13. We can keep ourselves very small when we say our pleasures of life are our peak, our goal, all we are longing for because there is so much more true settlement and joy simply in our beingness, our essence, being ourselves and by having our ‘cake, movie day.., etc’ as the highest point we will never get to feel that.

    1. The standards we have set for ourselves in our current lives with aiming for the pleasures as mentioned in the blog above are certainly very revealing of how we cap ourselves.

    2. Jacqueline appreciates how lovely it is to connect with her essence, ‘This joy in my body helps me feel how sweet and gorgeous I truly am because I have reconnected to my inner beauty and stillness, which was always there, but before I was not able to connect to as ‘my pleasures in life’ kept me distracted from my true self.’

14. What is it about humanity that can accept that there have been great teachers in the past that have lived amongst us Jesus being I guess one of the most well-known messengers from God and yet we cannot seem to fathom that we have yet another World teacher living with us all again in this life time.

15. How much longer are we going to resist the truth of what has been presented to humanity for eons by the different teachers?
    How many people will it take to say these words before we understand what is before us all again?
    “It was at this time that I had the good fortune to meet Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. For the first time ever, I felt the truth in my body of what he was presenting; that is, I felt that everything presented I already knew on some level but had not as yet integrated into my life.”

    1. Yes, what a blessing for many of us to have met Serge Benhayon, a man who presents the truth and what if there is another way to live… ‘there was another way to live life and that I was enough exactly as I was, as everything I needed was inside me.’

16. It’s interesting how most of our “pleasures” in life actually make us feel bad or lead us astray. Ie the “pleasure” of chocolate, or watching a movie – or whatever we choose – it actually leads us away from who we are and our responsibility in life. Maybe our pleasures are ultimately not so pleasurable after all….

17. It all starts with making ‘I have to’ the fuel of our movements. That brings pollution into the body in every step and increases the tension we live in. This brings relief into the picture and nothing better than what we consider a pleasure. The forces grab us right from the beginning and teach us to walk with them grabbed by the hand.

    1. Wow Eduardo, your comment was very timely for me today since I had gotten into that very same ‘I have to’ mode regarding a number of things I wanted to accomplish after work today. I could feel the anxiety building in my body as the reality was that my body really did not want or need those things to be done, my body needed rest more than anything after a very physical work week, and my head was going against my body’s natural tendency. So your description of how it is pure pollution to bring into our body this ‘have to’ approach seems to have unravelled what was going on and is a great thing to remember during the day, always coming back to what the body truly wants in each moment, not what some ideal, belief, or outside force is telling us to do to prove ourselves in any way.

    2. Such a set up and great that you pointed this one out. We create the struggle and then we reward ourselves when we get out of it, yet we haven’t actually moved a step as we are back at the point before we created the struggle…

18. Life is so much so oriented to keep ourselves busy in the doing and to not be still with ourselves instead. The stillness that is within provides us with all that we need in life and can never be achieved in the distraction of this with being busy and in the doing.

    1. Spot on Nico – distractions abound to keep us away from the Soul and the true evolution and belonging on offer.

19. We are so much more addicted then we think we are. With addiction we start to think of the extremes, of being addicted to drugs, alcohol or smoking cigarettes, eating sugary food etc. But do I go to far when I consider wondering of in my mind with useless thoughts an addiction or keeping up the frustration or the conflict I have with some people or in some situations an addiction too?

20. This opens up something I’ve been considering lately how my consumption of media is distracting me from feeling and expressing what is there in me to express, how in fact it’s a great distraction … might be time to play and experiment with this some more … after all it is indeed inside us, but we need to leave the space for it to be expressed.

21. You really raise the question of desire – and what do we truly desire – a great life or an evolving life. I agree that many of the things we associate with being the pleasures of life – sweet treats, coffee, alcohol, holidays, “me time” are actually some of the most damaging behaviours we can indulge in, by which I mean they take us in the opposite direction to the direction we’re meant to be going in.

    1. There are many ways to distract ourselves from our path back to soul and when I look around I have to admit that we have become very creative in the creation of these.

22. Is it any wonder that we cannot feel the messages from our bodies when we are consuming copious amounts of sugar, even if we consider ourselves healthy.

23. The feeling of knowing who you are and what you’re here to do and where you’re going cannot be replaced by food, or any activity, or book or whatever – all these things can simply distract us – momentarily – from the grandness we naturally are.

24. I love how our perception and choices change depending on the value we align to.

25. I know for me I was addicted to life’s pleasures for many years, but it was a constant drive as one pleasure would only last a short time and then I would seek another to fill the emptiness again, and this was a constant cycle that never stopped. It was super exhausting and disheartening, it wasn’t until I began to become more honest about the way I was living and the many distractions I was using to fill my emptiness that life began to change for me, it has been a work in progress to appreciate and love myself for who I am without needing anything outside of myself – there is certainly much gold to discover within when we connect to ourselves.

26. When we start to look at what we distract ourselves with, it’s a pretty endless list. What I am finding is that things – activities, events, items on my to-do list, have their own space. When I stay steady and consistent, I feel what to do next and how to do it, and there’s enough time to do everything, even if it’s not in the way that I originally wanted to do it. We’re pretty good at using absolutely anything as a distraction that takes us away from what we’re actually feeling, but if we stay with our bodies, the things that we’re doing (if there’s the potential for steadiness and stillness already within the activity) can become tools that reconnect us, instead of distractions that take us further away.

27. Much of what we consider as pleasures in life can actually be a distraction that feeds that insatiable drive to look outside ourselves for the qualities that lie within.

28. No matter how hard or long the process of discarding takes we know it is worth it in the long run, what could be more beautiful than reconnecting to our inner beauty and stillness.

29. “I have reconnected to my inner beauty and stillness” There is no greater pleasure.

30. It is impossible that someone who takes something as a pleasure can really see it for what it is. But the moment when we connect deeply with ourselves we become aware of how harmful are those things we consider pleasures. They stop us from evolving.

    1. Yes I agree Eduardo, when we are in connection we can see the true harm of our actions and distractions. Is that why many prefer not to connect to themselves? As you would need to be more responsible and aware of your movements.

31. I always feel sad when I am not connecting to myself or when I am asked to connect deeper. So I allow myself to feel sad and it changes my movements.

32. Beautiful blog Jacqueline. I still use the Gentle Breath practise sometimes to re-centre myself and find that it allows me to discard tension in my body and deepen the connection I have with myself. It lets me align to grace and feel the beauty in my movements. It’s like coming home.

33. Jacqueline thank you for all you have shared here, I was as a teen addicted to sugar, I would not I have known though because it was so normal to eat sweets, cakes, biscuits and have sugary drinks. Later when I discovered the New Age spirituality and self help books I would say that improving myself became an addiction. It’s interesting that both of these things are very harmful yet they are very normal, even encouraged – depending on what the mind believes. That is why whole body intelligence is so vital for the next step in health and wellbeing for humanity, as despite what beliefs or ideals the mind may hold that may tell us something is good or healthy, the body does not lie about the true effects of the way we eat or exercise, and the body also communicates clearly about the true effects of our behaviours, thoughts, and emotions on the body.

    1. ‘Improving myself became an addiction’, same here Melinda, and in this ‘need’ and investment to better my life, I was not able to discern or feel what was true, but in actual fact I set myself up….to ignore or be ignorant to the fact that what I called pleasures were actually distractions to living a true and simple life – the Soulful Way. Why? I was not ready to take responsibility for my choices and the life I had created that took me way of track – that simple and that honest.

34. Being honest about why we eat certain foods etc. is key to deepening our quality of life. We then get to enjoy all the benefits of such a deepening, which allows us to support others more deeply too.

35. It is so ironic that our ‘pleasures’ to make us feel better, more comfortable, are in fact distractions which take us away from the gorgeousness we already are.

36. What a great understanding you came to, ‘ that there was another way to live life and that I was enough exactly as I was, as everything I needed was inside me.’ and so you could let go of your old damaging beliefs and way of living.

37. From what I see we all have a knowing there is something more then we are currently living it’s just that some have it hidden deeper than others. It’s not a judgment but more an appreciation and true equality. You are not just saying we all know but I’m better because I know, .you are saying it’s all there for all of us and if I see this then my responsibility is to allow others to see it. They may not need to walk the road I just walked on as it’s is only about the quality of that true return.

38. This is GOLD Jacqueline – “Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life.” Claiming this as a foundation sets yourself up for a path of truth. What I have realised further to this, with the true support from Serge Benhayon, is to be honest along the way to reduce and be aware of the distractions of earthly pictureous pleasures ie. “I was not able to connect to me as ‘my pleasures in life’ kept me distracted from my true self.”

    1. Spot on Rik, honesty is the best medicine for making change. We paint our own canvas of life, and at any moment we can choose different colours and different expressions with eyes that are honest and humble.

39. Setting aside the so-called pleasures of life for good is one of the most truly pleasurable things we can do. When the day finally arrives when we no longer need that glass of wine, cup of coffee, hard-on-the-body regime or whatever it is we’ve relied on, it is a joyful day indeed.

40. Those things we seek and use keep us away from the treasures within, how very true and reading this today gives me a new understanding of how we rob ourselves with our props of feeling who we are, and the delicateness we are and bring.

41. Many of us have been pushing ourselves to do, to better or improve ourselves, and as you say, nothing truly changes, and yes; what a blessing to come across Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine who has shown us there is a different way to live, ‘that there was another way to live life and that I was enough exactly as I was, as everything I needed was inside me.’

42. Chocolate was one of my pleasures, as was exercise and reading self-help books. I used these things to manage my way through life, without really dealing with what was happening in front of my face. If you had said to me 10 year ago that I would willingly choose to stop eating chocolate, I would have laughed and said, ‘no way!’ It’s so true Jacqueline that the things we call our pleasures are actually distractions away from dealing with and feeling the pain of the issues we are burying and then allowing ourselves to feel the real beauty of who we are from the inside out.

    1. The pleasures are really the bandaids that make the misery of living without being connected to our true essence more bearable.

    2. Exactly Debra, who wants to give up chocolate, no way! What I have discovered is that when we are ready for change (which occurs in the openness and honesty that our life is not working the way it is) the teacher appears.. . and its like we are able to take of the shaded glasses and really see anew and from this space able to make different choices – one of them being giving up sugar and the once beloved chocolate as we begin to direct love towards ourselves. Self-love moves mountains!

43. When we realise that nothing has truly helped to change a life for the better, we also realise that most of what is available in the form of modalities, advice, solutions and comforts are just numbing and distraction tools that take us further and further away from our essence.

44. ‘All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart’ – I had not looked at the distractions in this way before but this is true. Everything we overload the body with leaves less room for who we truly are.

45. There are so many distractions built in to the Western style of living that the idea of even a few minutes of quiet contemplation time seems absolutely foreign. Such is the truth of how far we have moved away from a loving and supportive way of living.

46. It is very humbling when we feel for ourselves that the many things we say we enjoy actually keep us from the true joy we already hold within, but have not known how to live. Learning to do this is in itself the greatest of pleasures, way better than chocolate and coffee.

47. “What struck me the most was that there was another way to live life and that I was enough exactly as I was, as everything I needed was inside me.” As women we tend to have incredible self-worth issues and this can so easily turn us into machines, we can keep flogging ourselves and never reach the carrot dangling on the string in front of us. So many of us suffer from overwhelm and exhaustion as a result of this false and debilitating belief. Never feeling good enough-is a trick. It is not real and should not be taken seriously. It is an untruth and when it surfaces in our thoughts we need to be ready to catch it and throw back into the vast abyss from whence it came. We can then feel into our truth and appreciate our magnificence just for being and not for doing anything. We haven’t been educated this way in life so it is a challenge but it can be done.

    1. I agree Irena that we don’t appreciate ourselves enough and habitually focus on what we think we are lacking. As you say ‘Never feeling good enough-is a trick. It is not real and should not be taken seriously.’

    2. Thank you Irena, your whole comment was beautifully shared. I agree “Never feeling good enough – is a trick. It is not real and should not be taken seriously. It is an untruth and when it surfaces in our thoughts we need to be ready to catch it and throw back into the vast abyss from whence it came.”

48. We spend our lives searching without and miss the treasures within while we do so, that voice in us, loving and always there and showing us through our body how we live affects it. And no matter what it never stops, and then when we strip away all the distractions and stimulants we are left with ourselves, and in our true nature we can live the treasure in us. It really is about bringing the inside out, but first we need to get rid of all the things we cluttered ourselves with on the outside.

49. ‘…my pleasures in life’ kept me distracted from my true self.’ It’s a bit of an oxymoron (not sure if that’s the correct word), suggesting that pleasures come from outside of ourselves, things that we need to add onto or do to feel good, as opposed to connecting to our selves. It’s like we completely ignore the fact that we are already everything and so all these other things that tempt us away from that are what we choose to believe are what life is about, but it’s an illusion, because take those crutches away and what are we left with? Just ourselves, and if that’s an awful feeling, then isn’t that alarm bells for how we actually feel about the person we are, our true self?

50. I love what you share here Jacquline on your change from reading self-help books into writing your own journals which in fact are more beneficial to your connection with your innermost then these self-help books were able to bring to you, as in fact they probably did the oposite.

51. Sugar has become a major addiction for many people, the crutch that keeps many individuals going when we run out of battery power, yet it is a very short term fix that then requires copious amounts more to keep going, when we find a way of living without the need for sugar, we realise that it is possible to naturally reenergise ourselves as we are no longer being depleted by living in distraction.

    1. Sugar is not only to keep us going while we are tired and feel depleted, but in fact it is affecting on much more levels as well. Sugar is creating a constant nervous tension in our body that makes it difficult to come to that place of stillness we all hold and do need to visit regularly to maintain a healthy balance in our busyness.

52. Beautifully expresses Jacqueline, when I look back at my life I was the queen of distractions and spent a lot of time, energy and money indulging in everything outside of myself to fill me up. Of course nothing ever worked until I meet Serge Benhayon and also discovered as you have this deep knowing and wisdom we all have within and how amazing life becomes when we connect to this immense love and then the need for any distractions and the continual searching just naturally fall away.

53. Such a perfect blog to read as I start my day, thank you so much. I could feel my body want to change the way it was sitting and reading and as I honoured the call from my body I could feel my thoughts change and the pulse that I could feel in my body from the blood pumping round it changed too – less obstructions. clearer messages and thoughts. Great start to the day!

54. Making the choice to stop doing and searching is so freeing and self nurturing; also deeply knowing and appreciating, that exactly who we are, is enough . Thank you Jaqueline for highlighting these points.

55. Because we all feel in a way that the life we are living as a society is not it, we are looking for remedies and sometime distractions to what life is actually asking of us. Life is asking of us to return to a way of being that we naturally are from and deep down all have a remembering of. The only thing is that we rarely see a reflection of this way of being in our daily lives and that makes us wavering as we have lost the confidence in just being ourselves as the basis for our lives.

56. Considering the high demand for yoga these days, one has to question if there is a real benefit to it? it seems that in order to not feel the discontent people are finding more ways to indulge and find distractions to keep them away from true responsibility and evolution. Just today I was reading about a new trend called Beiryoga which combines what they call ancient practices of drinking beer and yoga in order to find enlightenment? this is a total lie which offers absolutely no healing or communion with self, only keeping further and further from embracing our true essence within.

    1. You are right Francisco, yoga has been totally bastardised and it’s true meaning of ‘union’ has for the most part been replaced by a practise that is for relief and distraction. There is even stone yoga – people smoke marijuana whilst they perform poses, so I’m not surprised about the beer yoga. Esoteric Yoga is the pure essence of yoga – union with the body and our divine essence and living in that union everyday.

57. “I realised that yoga was providing me with temporary relief from how constantly tired my body actually was, but not actually changing anything.” And this happens with so many things we do, we think they are good for us however they actually just give us a moment of distraction and relief without truly changing anything in our state of being.

58. I love the opening paragraph of this blog because it shares the wisdom that the wheel of ‘self-improvement’ in truth has the effect of confirming the belief that we are not enough. The basic premise is, ‘I am not enough and I need to better myself’, negating the innate beauty and love that is within us all. It is my experience too, that letting go of such efforts, has been an important step in embracing who I truly am – and as Jacqueline shares here, this is ‘the greatest true pleasure in life’.

59. Round and round in circles we go – the cycles of life being inescapable, we are asked to look at our choices, how that affects the way we live and how we can makes changes. We may condemn cycles and repetitions, but they are there to support us to learn and evolve.

60. I find now that when we say “I am addicted” to something, it either supports us to find out why or offers an excuse to continue because well “I’m addicted”. It’s really more honest and truthful to ask ourselves ‘what exactly am I addicted to? Am I addicted to the rush of sugar; am I addicted to the relief or numbing of watching TV etc.’

61. When our way to walk in life is based on ‘doing’ we are accepting to measure life, and us in it, based on our performance and to accept that the way forward is pretty much linked to the results we get. It is a whole way of moving through life.

62. The key is that when we eat for comfort we dull ourselves and our senses – all of them. So we don’t feel the tensions in life but also not us and how delicious we are as you say here so beautifully: “This joy in my body helps me feel how sweet and gorgeous I truly am because I have reconnected to my inner beauty and stillness, which was always there, but before I was not able to connect to as ‘my pleasures in life’ kept me distracted from my true self.”

63. We tend to think of pleasures as those moments when we allow ourselves to deeply enjoy life. Moments of freedom, of allowing, of feeling alive and surrendering to the fact that life is beautiful thanks to that which we choose.
    But, why do these choices bring so much to us? Because there is a need being met. Meeting it allows us to stop feeling what we were feeling in the first place about us. This is where the plus comes from. It helps us to avoid feeling in full what we are feeling.

64. The more I make space in my life to stop and be still, and just be with me, without any distractions, the less I want the distractions in my life. Doing the gentle breath meditation every day has hugely supported this process of enjoying simply being with myself without any distractions: it creates space in my body that then plays out in the rest of my day, and it’s quite beautiful to feel this spaciousness within and around me.

    1. So true Bryony, I have the same experience. Every day I commit to sitting down on my morning break with a cup of tea and reading one of the purple books from Serge Benhayon. This brings me back to my stillness which greatly supports me when I go back out to work again. I have more awareness of my movements, and clock more quickly when my movements become driven or a little rushed…its a constant choice to move in stillness and a work in progress.

65. I love how you have come to realise that certain pleasures in life kept you distracted from connecting to and embracing your true self… yet after letting these go have found ways to deeply support you to connect instead to the pleasures within and to live and emanate these daily for all to see how joyful life in connection can be.

66. I agree Jacqueline, nothing outside of myself can come anywhere near to the feeling of connection to myself, everything and everyone yet I still choose to not live in this connection consistently. It is a choice and the more I observe and be honest with myself in the quality I choose to live in every moment to the best of my ability the closer I get to living my life in connection to myself.

67. When we are in the ‘doing’, where exactly are we? It is clear that we are not settled in the body. The doing is the activity of that expression. We move with some level of anxiety, some nervous tension, some restlessness. The doing, on the other hand, is all that we do against ourselves to feed that unsettlement. It is not just an externally oriented activity.

68. When we believe we are not enough exactly as we are, imperfections and all, we come from the basis of a lack. And from that lack we can tend to put pressure on ourselves to be what we are not.

69. The feeling that we can ‘improve ourselves’ is endowed with ways to measure this fact. A double falsity.

70. Reading this again today I can feel how much your story on how you used sugar as a crutch resonates very clearly, I know this so well, and right now I’m looking at how I do use sugar in various situations, and it’s a distraction as I’m not dealing with what I need to deal with, but instead getting my sugar fix. It’s amazing to get this understanding and start to unpick those areas where sugar is still very much in charge and how much that impacts me.

71. We can get so lost in our pleasures we actually miss the gem that is us. And letting go our pleasures can be one of the most healing things we can do – we find ourselves.

72. Finding pleasure in just being oneself is the greatest pleasure there is as everything else will be met and experienced with this inner contentedness and feeling enough.

    1. Beautifully said Esther – we don’t need any relief from life nor any treats, rewards or out time when we are being our full selves and living life in a quality that is true to the Soulfulness we are eternally part of.

       1. So very true, it just struck me again, how we then actually need less and less from the outside to content ourselves. How very simple and immensely awesome.

73. Yes I can relate here to the challenge in giving up sugar. It took me some time also to break my addiction with sugar as I was also caught up in the exhaustion and anxiety cycle that would constantly mean I needed sugar to keep me going. It was only when I looked at the reasons why I was so exhausted all the time that my dependence on sugar started to shift.

74. If you make your life about needing to get somewhere, then there will always be something to strive for, somewhere to get to – which in itself causes exhaustion and depletion of our natural essence. And of course we justify such an existence by convincing ourselves that life is all about the journey and not the destination, that we need to live in the moment – all supposedly wise words, until you realise that such words feed and support the very same restless form of being that we are trying to escape in the first place. That is not to say that life should be bereft of movement, or that there is nothing to be done. That “buddhist” way of thinking is in itself illusion and fallacy. Instead, what we need to ponder and look at is not so much the outcome of our movement or focus, but the quality of such. By that I mean, there is a certain quality of movement – connected to at first in the movement of gentleness – that actually supports us to remain vital and connected.

75. That’s so true about the many therapies out there, Jacqueline, I’ve done the merry-go-round of various new age things, and nothing in any of them ever had an lasting impact on my life. Finding Universal Medicine has changed my life and the simplicity of it means I can take what I learn there and apply it in my life, I don’t need to run away to a mountain top or hide in a cave – I can be in the world living my life, working in a busy office and with the support of the many techniques I’ve learned including the Gentle Breath Meditation, I am now far more committed, and present in my day to day life and work. It has been and is an amazing journey.

76. I can so relate to the list of comforts, pleasures and distractions you’ve shared Jacqueline. I used to have them too. I used to look forward to some sort of treat or reward during or at the end of my day because I felt something was lacking. I now realised, it was the lack of connection to myself that often led to cravings and the need to reward and comfort myself. Once I started living more connected to me, choosing to drop things that wasn’t supportive, especially certain foods that made me feel heavy and grumpy, I no longer felt exhausted. It is incredible how we choose to live affects us on all levels, it affects how we feel and it affects our relationships, with ourselves and others. I am now choosing to let go of things that were blocking my connection to me, constantly refining this and as a result, this supports me to deepen my connection and relationship with others.

77. It’s hard to imagine when you are in the life style of distractions and pleasures that letting them go will make a huge difference to how you feel but it is totally true and no pleasure feels as good as being me.

78. So great to be enjoying the new awareness felt with every choice made Jacqueline. That is the gold – the freedom that the body feels.

79. Beautiful to re-read your post Jacqueline. “I now have a deeper connection with my body as I have learned to respect and honour it with a new awareness that all my choices affect my body in some way or another.” Our body does let us know – sometimes in subtle ways – what is going on. When we choose to stop and listen and then make new choices, the results can be astounding. This affects not only ourselves but everyone else as the ripples extend outwards.

80. You know, the deeper I go in my relationship with myself – the more I feel open, loving and connected with others, and the less I feel to use the ‘go to’s’ of the past that would keep my life seemingly ‘full’, but devoid of true and deep connection. It’s great that you expose this with such honesty Jacqueline – how easily we lead lives on a treadmill of late nights, sugar and coffee for example, and yet, fail to recognise the richness of love within that our behaviours may actually be keeping us from.

    1. Beautiful what you share Victoria as this is also what I am experiencing. The deeper I connect with my body and/or relationship with myself, the distractions just drop away, so there is no effort or trying to give up something. And as my relationships develop and as I share more of myself, I am also finding that I need less of the ‘go to’s’, to find relief, and instead beginning to feel the richness and magic in connection with firstly myself and then with others.

       1. Very, very beautiful jacqmcfadden04. Life need not be a ‘descending spiral’ where we lose more and more connection with ourselves, need it. The full reverse is actually possible – and rich beyond measure. Very much appreciate your sharing here.

    2. Awesome sharing Victoria. I remember feeling exhausted and knew to some degree what I was doing was not loving, the late nights, consumption of sugar, and heavy glutinous foods wasn’t great for me but I continued to repeat these behaviours because I didn’t know how to let go of them. I felt it in my body that my choices we not supportive and everywhere I turned, everyone around me were making similar choices, so I use that to confirm my unloving behaviours instead of listening to my body. Now, with the inspiration of many people I have met at Universal Medicine, I am listening to my body more and more and allowing it to guide me through life. I am much more aware of not letting outside influences distract me from listening to my inner knowing, connecting to me and the wisdom of my body’s messages/intelligence.

       1. Such transformation is so commonplace amongst students of Universal Medicine chanly88. I experience the same myself. And this is no small thing, in a world where we tend to (predominantly) only further imbed in behaviours that do not support us in full, as time goes on… (our physical and mental health stats show that we ain’t, as a whole, doing so well…)
          It takes true courage and a willingness to go there, and look honestly at what we’ve set up in our lives that negates our bodies and the true light within, but the richness of allowing more love into our lives through the process can simply not be denied, can it… And we are all so deeply worth it.

81. Just how many things do we regard as ‘pleasures’ – yet just scrape the surface a little, and many are actually devices we use to fill a ‘gap’ we don’t know how to fill.
    Re-connection to the essential nature of who we are is fundamental in restoring such a balance in life as you’ve experienced – without this, we are left flailing, and yes, so readily seeking of that which may fill our ‘gap’ or void, without the conscious awareness of why we’re doing what we’re doing, or even that it’s not necessarily truly loving at all. This is deeply inspiring Jacqueline, thank-you.

    1. I love how you have captured this in a nutshell Victoria, that when we lose connection with ourselves and our bodies: ‘we we are left flailing, and yes, so readily seeking of that which may fill our ‘gap’ or void, without the conscious awareness of why we’re doing what we’re doing, or even that it’s not necessarily truly loving at all’. The stakes are costly when we shut down/close off from who we truly are.

82. Just this week I realised how much has dropped away, rather naturally when I started looking at what I do from inside instead of outside of myself. I still do lots of outside of myself ‘doings’ but this is a quarter of how I used to live. I used to love the thrill, adrenalin and excitement of an action packed suspenseful movie, football game, or getting wrapped up in an emotionally charged TV show or book where I could fantasize the rest of the day away. I used these things to not look at the reality of the life I was living and the people in it… and how much I reacted to it all. The best medicine has been feeling what is there, being honest with it and seeing what is mine and what is not, to the best I can.

83. “All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart” and living in this way always keeps us going around and around in circles looking outside ourselves for that which we know is the real truth deep within our bodies. With honesty and our commitment to truth we can let go of these and embrace the truth of who we are.

84. It is such a strong consciousness about entitlement for pleasures in life -we work so hard, we deserve the pleasures. Man in the gym I go to: “…well after all the reason we work out so hard is so we can party hard”. It shocked me how accepted this is. Really? get fit to trash yourself? This may seem a long way from those ‘little pleasures’ but it may also be a slippery slope, where if life is not enough, then we do not look at why and instead feel entitled to seek a little more pleasure and then when things are really horrible, then even more and a then lot more.

85. True connection with ourselves is the best food we can eat.

    1. Pure gold kim, my blog summed up in one short (and very true) sentence.

86. Being myself has been a breath of fresh air. After a decade of personal development I have come to know I don’t need to be better in any way, but I do need to be more of myself equally with everyone. It is nothing alike, for with the latter I know I am already worthy.

87. Society has decided that some things are good for us, like yoga books and I am not saying that they aren’t but the first person I have seen boldly question what the quality of the yoga or books are first before deciding anything is Serge Benhayon. He brought up interesting philosophical questions like – if everything is energy, like Einstein famously said, then what energy are the people in that are writing the books we are reading and the yoga we are prescribing to? Rather than blindly prescribing ‘healthy’ things in my life, I was asked if I had ever stopped to feel which ones were truly beneficial. I had yoga teachers that were taking elitist drugs on the weekend and were obsessed in images, whose bodies were hard but my old approach was to say but they teach yoga, and yoga is healthy, right? What I know now, is when we prescribe to something, we don’t get to pick and choose the parts we like, we get the whole thing. So now, I look for a livingness in all I prescribe to, to know that I get the whole thing, not just the bits I like.

88. Its a fascinating selection of goodies when you list them like that – some obviously to support exhaustion but others are in the ‘self improvement’ pile. And yet they are in the same list. Its a very useful exercise to do it like this… there are the obvious patterns of behaviour that are propping us up, but by adding them all together it reveals that there are not so obvious things that are really doing the same thing.

89. There is nothing that tastes better than a deep connection to myself. For many the distractions of life have become the pleasures. The other day a woman said to me, ” if I had to give up sugar, I may as well be dead. Life would not be worth living.”
    There was a time where I thought this too. I thought life would lose its joy if I didn’t eat sweet things, but the opposite was true. When I don’t have sugar I am lighter and more joyful, I am not racy and far ahead of myself, so not really with me, I am more present in my life, so life is indeed worth living without sugar. Life is worth living with all of me.

90. “everything I needed was inside me. This had a profound effect on me” I agree Jacqueline, when I heard this it stopped me in my tracks and it has taken me a while to fully connect to my inner-heart and appreciate that it is the absolute truth. No more doing, distracting or searching, just being all that I already am.

91. I remember when I realised what I termed as ‘being happy’ was actually the complete opposite – a self-feeding entrapment into numbness. I knew it was a ‘hell’ I created and kept creating because if I thought I was ‘happy’ – why would I want to get out of it? But it was not until I encountered The Way of The Livingness and embraced what it offered some years later that I got to feel any real sense of what then was the true Way to live a life.

92. This is a great blog Jacqueline.
    Simply being me was something that I never really considered to be possible, as it seemed to me that every where I turned the world was forcing me to adjust to fit it. Oh what clarity when I learned that I had the choice as to wether I joined the world as it is, or to stop, remember who I am and make the many choices already made along with many more to come to be me in the world, without adjusting to fit any one or any thing.

93. To make true changes to our way of living does take some time and loving discipline and patience with oneself are a great companion in this as well as letting go of perfection. If we step by step walk in what feels true to us each step will bring us more clarity in what is truly good for us and the key is to register that and not dismiss it as something small but to build from there. Like everything in life the ‘good’ things are build one brick at a time with precision and dedication.

94. Something that stops me from doing the gentle breath meditation is that I think I’ll do it wrong or it won’t be as effective as last time. I’m putting conditions on the practice, which is reducing my ability to just be and connect (which is the point!). I’m finding now that even having the intention to take a stop moment and feel my breath is enough, I don’t need to perform or fix something, just being me is enough and my breath is very good at communicating that fact.

95. It’s amazing to feel how much we can change if we open ourselves to the possibility that we are absolutely enough without having to do anything.

96. Jacqueline those lists of ‘pleasures’ read very similar to my own. It’s curious that we find something pleasurable that has a harming effect on our body. I know I was only interested in the instant gratification that they provided and didn’t really feel into how my body felt afterwards or the long term ramifications that these continued choices had on my body. I have made some new choices now, and this will continue over time as I continue to feel the consequence of my choices, but with this comes a huge appreciation for the teachings presented by Serge Benhayon, with without these I would have never realised that our body tells us everything we need to know.

97. Jacqueline you wrote: “I realised that yoga was providing me with temporary relief from how constantly tired my body actually was, but not actually changing anything.” That is exactly my own experience as well and I was a bit shocked that I did not feel this obvious fact before.

98. Well said Jacqueline, – ‘Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life.’

99. A great blog Jacqueline and many of your comforts and distractions I too indulged in for a long time, interestingly these all took me further away from who I truly was – it is empowering when we learn to let go of these comforts and enjoy reconnecting back to our true selves.

100. we search for pleasures and comforts because we feel unsatisfied with our life. More time spent engaging and appreciating with what life has to offer, no matter our current situation than it would be impossible to not to make light of what is going on for us.

101. Yes I agree, letting go of what is not our truthful way and reconnecting to who we are will lead us back to well being. Evident in all areas of our lives. Physical emotional and spiritual. With a stillness, clarity and vitality to our functionality.

102. Life has been set up in a way for us all to subscribe to images of the way life has to be, these distractions are harmful to our bodies and letting go of them is the first step in us claiming back our true nature as the sons of God.

103. Being caught in the constant ‘doing’ of life leaves us exhausted and in need of multiple distractions, using the Gentle Breath meditation to re-connect to our inner hearts allows us to feel the true joy of being connected our inner selves and the distractions we thought were so necessary fall away as we re-discover the pleasure of being our true selves.

104. It is interesting how a lot of the things that we call pleasures in life are actually harmful for the body and not so pleasurable in the long run.

105. What you describe is living science to me. You get inspired and you explore the effects your daily choices have on you by eliminating, adjusting and experimenting what is supportive of your daily living and well-being or not.

106. There is nothing like waking rested and feeling the true joy of being connected to myself. Being able to take on the day in the space I have created by not being rushed or panicked is lovely.

107. When we are preoccupied with constantly rewarding ourselves with the external pleasures of life this actively prevents us from finding the true love and joy that lies equally within us all.

     1. So true Suse, the amount of energy and time I have wasted over the years with rewards and pleasures, if only I put the same effort into connecting to my own qualities I would have discovered the richness and rewards I have within.

108. My distractions have been food and also keeping busy in the doing (sometimes both at the same time!) and it’s something I am continually working on. Awareness of my body through the Gentle Breath Meditation is definitely supportive in refining this process.

     1. Food is a big distraction of mine too, and I am just feeling how much I still use food to numb from feeling as soon as I sense there is something deep for me to feel. This awareness is asking/inviting me to reassess my food and also the way in which I eat – sometimes still a little too quickly if I am honest!

109. “All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart”

     This is so true Jacqueline and something i know and can feel in my body. I am learning to live more in my awareness so as to avoid seeking the distractions which take me away from me.

110. Such familiar scenarios – addictive food habits, unsupportive sleep patterns, tv binge-viewing – and all ensuring we’re in a pretty constant state of anything but connected to our bodies, to our best source of knowing what’s good and true for us. I’m finding that the key to reinstating that deep connection with my body is to learn a new level of respect for the body and ‘honour it with a new awareness that all my choices affect my body in some way or another.’ From that new awareness, different choices are possible and new scenarios that support a deeper connection with the body are open to me.

     1. I am finding that too Cathy, that the more I honour my body, my awareness grows, which allows me, supports me to refine my choices, so yes this awareness brings more choices.

111. Jacqueline, this is an excellent summation of changes many Universal medicine students have made from how we are simply connecting more to our bodies and honouring the feeling within us from day to day. It is not rocket science and it is not devotional to anything but ourselves and clearly understanding what life is about but it is powerful.

112. What I have found is these pleasures, as much as I don’t want to admit it, make me that bit racey and so make it difficult to connect to the stillness within myself. I can mask this by looking calm, but if I am really truthful, I am not truly myself when I use stimulating things like sugar or tv programs that hook me in. Anything that takes me away from feeling who I am is something to be seriously considered.

113. Far too many of us have spent far too much time going round and round in circles in the illusion that we are actually getting somewhere when we are in fact caught up in a vicious circle of so called pleasures that only serves to distract us from truly connecting to our inner hearts and therefore our true power Great blog Jacqueline.

     1. I agree and we continue to go round in circles until we are met with realising that there is a different way of life. I am very grateful to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for showing me that there is a different more loving and fulfilling way to live.

        1. Yes, the danger is that the circle becomes a downward spiral.

114. The sweetness of feeling who we are without all the things we use to numb ourselves can be challenging because we realise how amazing we are and with that comes the responsibility of living that all the time. It is just a way to be, a way to be truthfully ourselves, yet it’s been a long time since we lived that way. Instead of holding back, it is beautiful to gently appreciate how delicate we are and what a gift this is to ourselves and the world.

115. It is great what you present here there is no doing needed to feel fullfilled, as the fullness is already within.

     1. Yes it is Benkt, and nominating and removing the distrctions that get in the way from feeling our fullness

116. Anna, I was just appreciating how simple my life is now and how yummy that feels – having let go of so many distractions and letting go of things I was hanging onto internally and externally…. I just did a big clear out in my house, which feels amazing as I have created so much more space in my house and in myself – that is more space to express all of me!

117. Having spent many years distracting myself as well Jacqueline with various pursuits and always feeling continually empty I have now enjoyed simplifying my life and letting go of the many distractions I used to indulge in. Thank goodness for Universal Medicine presenting there is a different way to live and teaching basic self love and self care principles that truly change your life in amazing ways.

118. Reading this blog reminded me of how I would take on a new project to learn and improve myself every new year, always in the pursuit to better myself. Now I know it was only another way to distract myself from not feeling the emptiness inside.
     It wasn’t until I started to attend Universal Medicine courses and do the gentle breath meditation that my life started to change and I could build a relationship with my body.

     1. Same here Julie, when I began to care and truly nourish my body, I too began to build a relationship with my body, that had been non-existent before. This relationship continues to deepen as I listen to the intelligence that my body communicates with me.

     2. Yes, instead of bettering ourselves we can be more connected with ourselves and our inner heart – that is a nice way to ‘improve’ ourselves even though our inner heart is always there but it is worth feeling the connection more frequently and to live from that space.

119. If anything happened that I didn’t like the feel of I would reach for comforts, if anything I did deserved recognition in my eyes, I reached for rewards, even reward for being tired, the rest of the time I found many things to dull the harshness of life. I only saw the full extent of my avoidance of life when I began to listen to the talks given by Serge Benhayon, and it took me ages to see what comforts I used and how I used things to avoid feeling what was going on. The world can be harsh and we don’t stop being hit by things because we can’t feel them. It’s better to face the world head on, keen to live and be apart of it all. These days I feel so much more joyful. The world hasn’t changed but I was not only numbing the bad stuff, I couldn’t feel any of it. Now I can and there is by far more joy to feel right within myself.

120. When we are honest about our comforts in life, we can more easily see them for what they are – comforts. For a long time I felt I was ‘rewarding’ myself – when in fact it was pure harm. My rewards were very far from what was truly loving and supportive to the body. So it is so powerful to be able to see comforts for what they are and make a choice that is more loving.

121. What you have so beautifully shared here Jacqueline is so very inspiring. I too spent a lot of my life in the doing and searching for more, more, more. But now see that this was purely a distraction from the glory that already resided within me. Thank you for sharing.

     1. So true Kelly. Looking and searching outside ourselves for the wisdom and glory that already resides within will always leave us feeling empty.

122. There is, as described in this blog, clearly two ways of living. One that is in disregard of our human physical frames and this way is very good at silencing the being inside as well, or there is a way to live that cares for both in unison. What is important is that there is no prescribed set way that everyone must follow, and each person can find their rhythm according to their life, as students of life we are all learning how to love again and this is important to remember.

     1. However, what is very necessary is to learn to listen to our body. What our body says may be different for our body, but the listening we all need to do.

123. Beautiful sharing Jacqueline. Making the choice to stop ‘doing’. So agree distractions only give temporary relief – nothing changes at all, just more numbing out to not feel the truth of what amazingness resides within. Your journey is such an inspiring one thank you.

124. What is inside the body already just doesn’t compare with anything we can do on the outside and yet repeatedly I find myself pushing to do constantly. But then the same occurred with eating gluten, I couldn’t see a life outside of it – take away gluten and you might as well be eating nothing. All these outside things are designed to make us believe that we are nothing without them but thats not true. Like you shared Jacqueline the more we connect to what we already have the less we hold onto the things around us as if they are the all when in fact we have the all already. Thank you.

     1. So true Leigh. Most of us hang onto things tightly, ie ways of doing things or ideals and beliefs because they are so familiar and deeply ingrained, without realising they keep us stuck and in our comfort. Connecting deeply to our bodies and the wisdom within, these old ways of ‘doing’ start to fall away because they are no longer hold ‘true’.

     2. Beautiful Leigh. I agree. There is nothing compared with what is already in the body but our body reflects our choices and when we embrace our love, we feel love in our body. Likewise when we do not choose love we lack that love in our body. There is not justification to seek outside of us if the love is just a choice.

        1. How can we justify behaviours that are loveless and seeking outside of ourselves for a love that is already within us and requires no searching? We can’t, the searching only delays the fact that we created the lovelessness by leaving our love in the first place.

        2. And that shows that we do all know what the answers that we seek are. There is no excuse at the end of the day for creating an endless search to finding out something we already know the answer to.

        3. What I am also finding with this is that the fact that we know because we walked those steps that led us to any uncomfortable situation we end up in can be used to self-bash or self-empower. As Jacqueline has shared it’s not a quick-fix process to let go of the bashing because it holds off the moment of saying ‘I do know that I have a choice to not go down that road again’. Avoiding the power of our choices is one of the biggest issues in our world today.

        4. Absolutely Leigh, aversion of our power, our power through our choices is also an aversion of our responsibility.

125. “All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart”
     This is such a great quote, Jacqueline. I still feel challenged in this area at times as I find I can identify a comfort and stop having it but may replace it with another more “acceptable” one. What a total illusion this is! Distractions can certainly be addictive.

     1. Yes, the way out is the body. When we notice that these ‘pleasures’ make our body feel anything but pleasured – if not now, then very much so a little later, then these pleasures lose their attraction.

126. Jacqueline thank you for sharing, I have also found that when I am tempted by life’s so called pleasures, sometimes when I am out shopping, things will try to jump in my basket, or if I am stressed at work I look for a reward. I have found the Gentle Breath Meditation to be a great tool to reconnect back to me, and when I do this, I don’t seek the reward I once did.

127. It is so true that all the things we deem needed to enjoy our life, are actually distractions from the inner heart, that which brings true joy in life. In everything we do.

     1. This has been so true and revealing for me this year. The more I stay with what needs to be done there is true purpose and an ease with how it is completed. When I slip into the pleasures I can feel a level of tiredness in my body and a restlessness that was not felt before.

128. Thank you Jacqueline for for a great blog, my distractions have not so much been in the food area, but in the doing doing area, of life. This I know now becomes a distraction from feeling what is there to deeply feel. When I take the stop moments and gently breathe this is what brings me back to me.

129. I have found that distractions cause complication, similar to reward, if I reward myself with something, it is also a distraction and an added complication. When life becomes more simple, there seems to be less distraction, and I am now trying to observe when distraction presents itself, and through that observation be able to not choose the distraction. Something I would never have been aware of if it hadn’t been for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine showing me that there is another more joyful way of living.

130. ‘I had to improve myself’ – this is the stand out sentence for me Jacqueline. It is the root of so much struggle, so much looking outside of me to be better, with no appreciation that maybe, just maybe, I’m pretty gorgeous already and I just need to focus on being the warm, tender, loving man that has always been there since I was a boy!

131. It is amazing how far and to what lengths we go to in the name of ‘feeling good’, when if we stop for a moment to honestly feel, it becomes apparent these ‘pleasures’ are but instant gratifications, nothing more than a quick fix. I am not yet free of this ill ingrained pattern, yet the snippets I’ve tasted of true joy will forever keep me coming back for more.

132. It can be quite a shock when we realise that our many pleasures and comforts in life are actually having a negative impact on our lives.

     This is why perceptions exists, to warp the reality of honestly taking stock of our behaviours.

133. “With this knowing I can therefore just ‘be’ who I truly am; no more ‘doing’, searching or improving myself as that belief no longer holds true. With that old belief, and many more cleared from my body, I gained the awareness that what I was searching for has always been within me, in my inner heart”.
     I love what you have written here Jaqueline, so much wisdom in such a short paragraph, thank you.

134. Thanks for nominating all the distractions out there that are used to keep us in seperation from our inner stillness and love.

135. Brilliant blog on how our guilty pleasures in fact keep us firmly incarcerated in a cycle of ‘using’ and ensure we never get to really feel our inner stillness, our own exquisite beauty and tenderness, but keep us distracted from our true selves.

     1. And boy oh boy the world has an enticing selection of distractions to choose from. We can spend hours, days and years on them…. we can spend fortunes pursuing them and ultimately what is the payoff…. a short time feeling we have made it, which has to be repeated again and again. Or we just be ourselves.

136. Jacqueline, I too had a very similar experience. I remember when I was looking for something, I didn’t know what it was exactly, there was just something missing, I knew there had to be more to life. Then when I went to a presentation by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, and I heard him speak, I knew how true his words were, and that this was part of what I was missing, truth and being the real me, both of which I am now developing to a deeper level.

137. I became aware that my sugary pleasures were feeding my sadness and this was the cycle I was in. Since being honest and calling it for what sugar is I have been able to debase this cycle but I have to be careful with my foods as sometimes I use a non sugary food to feed my sadness. It’s a work in progress.

138. A great sharing Jacqueline. Distractions are the things that tie us down and cause many ill ways of being. As we drop them one by one life becomes much freer and so does the body become more light filled and lighter. Life is much simpler and more joyful to live when we let go that which is holding us back.

139. Those little pleasures in life had a big influence on my connection to me. The powerful distractions created the illusion that I was participating in life, caring for myself and contributing to society. Quite a bind. Once I dropped away the different forms of stimulation, distractions and rewards, a whole new level of clarity, vitality and self care unfolded. There is now more honesty, love and joy in my life – all thanks to the teachings of Universal Medicine.

140. Self-help books keep us searching outside of ourselves to better ourselves, to reach a goal. Yet, as you share, we are everything already and all we have to do is to connect to our amazing essence and choose to live in that connection.

141. “I have found great support in the gentle breath meditation, a five minute technique from Serge Benhayon that helps me re-connect back to myself: this is true quality time with myself which helps me feel that I am enough exactly who I am and that everything I need is inside me”.
     Like you Jacqueline I find the gentle breathe meditation a wonderful tool to help me come back to myself. Being enough is also a very powerful lesson that you have highlighted.

142. I feel re-connection with ourselves is the panacea to all our personal and societal woes. It is easy to say, but truly takes a dedicated responsibility to ourselves and each other to live a life from our loving connection to all we are.
     I have also found the gentle breath meditation supports this re-connection, and in your words Jacqueline,
     ..”a five minute technique from Serge Benhayon that helps me re-connect back to myself: this is true quality time with myself which helps me feel that I am enough exactly who I am and that everything I need is inside me.”

     1. I agree Victoria; ‘ I feel re-connection with ourselves is the panacea to all our personal and societal woes’. It may take a long time, but we are all going to walk that path back to our soul…. with many already walking this return journey.

143. People often say ‘just be you’ but Serge Benhayon has shown us that there is a very literal and physical side to this phrase. It doesn’t mean sitting still on a mountain somewhere but living life in full connection. When you actually get to feel this sweetness as you have done Jacqueline its clear the distractions just don’t cut the mustard.

     1. Yes Joseph, once you taste the yummy sweetness that you are, and in your words, ‘the distractions just don’t cut the mustard’.

     2. When you’re in your sweetness you don’t actually need or want distractions.

     3. ‘Just be you’ did get its true meaning when I started to practise the Gentle Breath Meditation and later on when I met Serge Benhayon it became even more clear for me Before that it were just words in my head, now I feel who I am,my sweetness with my whole body, such a difference and the start of a true way of living.

     4. Just being you…. with all the commitment, and with everything that we are. Sounds like a definition of full-fill-ment.

144. Jacqueline what a truthful blog. This part of a sentences is a powerful hint: “. . . but before I was not able to connect to as ‘my pleasures in life’ kept me distracted from my true self.” Wow – is it not – that we all are falling for our pleasures in life? That is a very awful trap because we are so busy with wanting our pleasures that we did not get a glimpse of being trapped! It needs people like you as a role model to let people feel through observation that there is an other way.

     1. It is an awful trap esteraltmiks, in that I thought I was leading a healthy lifestyle because I did lots of yoga, exercised and ate healthly… but the truth was, all my so called pleasures kept me going round and round going no-where. Thankfully, I got off that merry-go round and found another way….

        1. It’s a real testament to you jacqmcfadden04 that not only did you realise exactly the cycle you were in, once realising it you were able to discontinue your part in it. It takes a great commitment to redirect well established momentums, and to initiate change to completely transform what was to what is today.

145. I am currently on holidays and it is currently much more obvious just how many so called ‘pleasures’ exist in life to numb or distract us from feelings we do not want to feel. I have noticed that whenever I am feeling something ‘close to the bone’ so to speak sometimes I seek those things which will numb and distract me from feeling the truth of what is going on. This seems like a temporary relief only but overall just keeps me even more disconnected from my heart.

146. It is interesting what we deem ’pleasures’, as you say “All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart: my true home where my truth resides,…” Why do we do this to ourselves…I have been on holiday recently to a place I am very familiar with, it is a classic family holiday location there are lots of food and drink to indulge in, sun to enjoy and beach play to have. I have felt challenged by the familiarity of this, many holidays I have been on in the past when ice creams, pasties, cream teas and fish and chips would play such a significant part of making it ‘feel’ like a holiday. I am reappraising what holidays mean for me, they can be about rejuvenation and connection, not indulgence and escape. I am learning to bring my own children up in a different way and food is not a reward, it is for nourishment and to support our bodies. They are growing up with less connection to food being something to numb or reward themselves with and I am learning to transform my habits around food. I have been learning this and making this my choice for last 10 years, and it have never been about losing weight. Through self care and love, I have reconnected to my inner heart, I feel more awareness, wisdom, stillness and truth, through these changes and they have hugely altered my life. It is something that is precious, exquisite, and divine, something to cherish and nurture.

147. Having indulged in many pleasures and distractions for most of my life I could relate to everything you shared here Jacqueline. I spent so much time and energy pursuing interests and pleasures yet always having that empty feeling no matter what I did. Having let go of many of the distractions in my life with the support of Universal Medicine has changed my life in many beautiful ways, there is still a few to go but the great thing is they naturally start to fall away as my love and connection deepens and grows as well.

148. In order for us to bring about true and lasting change to our lives, we must start with honesty about whats not working. From there we can make true choices.

     1. I agree Thomas, all lasting change starts with being honest about how we are living and if what we are choosing is truly supporting our bodies or not, with the understanding that every choice we make supports our body or it does not, but mostly we tend to forget that every choice comes back to us like a boomerang.

     2. So true Thomas being honest about what is not working in our lives is the only way to provide the foundations of true change and therefore true choice.

149. Jacqueline a very honest account of your journey, what we eat especially sugar gives us such a false sense of energy. It depletes us, after a moment’s high and leaves us feeling more exhausted than ever, and we then crave for more sugar leaving us in the same cycle. As we reduce and finally eliminate sugar we have more energy, we feel more of a connection to ourselves, and eliminate the highs and lows.

150. It is ridiculous just how harmful all the ‘pleasures’ I had in my life were, I still have a few which are taking longer to drop but as I connect to myself I can feel the need of these last few just fall away.

151. This is an awesome self-awareness Jacqueline;
     “What struck me the most was that there was another way to live life and that I was enough exactly as I was, as everything I needed was inside me”
     I am enough; how profound is that.

     1. Yes Shirl, it is profound and it is that simple; I am enough!

152. Jacqueline, beautiful blog of the simplicity of coming back to all that we are. My story of self-distraction sounds very similar to yours. The more I become aware of moments of distraction the easier it’s becoming to say goodbye them. Plus the feeling of who I am feels so amazing I don’t wish to distract myself anymore.

153. “Feeling yourself from the inside out” sounds like a very delicious recipe for true success in life and an amazing feeling of wellness and vitality.

154. Beautiful Jacqueline – I too am discovering on a deeper level each day, being connected to my true self is the greatest pleasure in life. And when I’m not feeling that connection and joy of being with me, I’m now asking, why? what is getting in the way of me being with me. It’s a development but one that is underpinned with a commitment to connect deeper with me in each moment, and to never move away from myself again.

155. Distraction has been a big part of my life and I still have times when I slip into it. However I too have observed there is a cycle that I can get caught in – like staying up late to watch a show that leads to waking up a bit tired, which leads to impulses to seek stimulants to get me going and then feeling a bit off my game at work which leads to seeking comfort in food or further numbing like television when I get home to rescue me from my feelings from the day … These days, as a result of what I have learned from Universal Medicine the cycle is less extreme, but I see how it comes into play when there is something about my life that I do not want to feel.

     1. It is very clear to see the ripple effect of how one unloving choice to stay up late has an impact on your choices the following day. Fortunately it works the other way too, making one loving choice can lead onto another loving choice and another and so on. Thus each and every choice is important.

156. I find it so interesting that food and comforts can keep us from feeling and knowing our deepest self. In my mind I always thought that I would be able to think my connection to myself no matter what the state of my body or how I treated it. Surely I could just meditate and it would all come. I was so wrong. Thinking is not it, the heart is the key. I found the foods that dulled me and made me feel heavy, also stopped me from feeling vital and connected to my wonderful depth. The more I am honest with how different foods make me feel the easier it is to hold the connection with myself that I feel and enjoy. If I distract myself from how something makes me feel, the opportunity is lost. I enjoy more things and do not go around worrying with a furrowed brow. The beautiful thing about this is that it is simple and I feel lighter and there’s more room for funny things, things that make me laugh and joyful days.

157. I too have had distractions in the past that I have let go of, particularly New Age books and can relate to the sweet foods being an issue. I do occasionally find myself tempted into sweet foods, but it is getting less often and I know I need to commit to myself more deeply. Thank You Jacqueline for your sharing.

158. I love how you say Jacqueline, that the Gentle Breath Meditation is true quality time with yourself. I did all kind of meditations in my life but it was never true quality time with myself. I got frustrated by not ‘seeing’ the beautiful things in my meditations others shared with me, my mind would make me crazy etc. The Gentle Breath Meditation offered me a connection with my inner heart, with my gentleness and I felt to not search anything else any longer, I have found me and there is no need for anything else.

     1. Yes Annelies, the gentle breath is true quality time with yourself and like you once I found the gentle breath meditation, there was no need to search for anything else.

159. I feel honesty is the key when looking at patterns and behaviours that we have learnt to call pleasures and see them for what they are. As long as we are disconnected from our bodies we will seek all these addictive behaviours that will give us relief to not feel what is there to be felt and once we choose to re-connect with our selves these seem to dissipate from our lives.

     1. For me too, honesty is key. If I am honest about the choices I am making and why I make certain choices and also share this with others, it truly supports me to get more awareness about the why I am doing certain things and then from there, to start making other choices. Dealing with your hurts and honesty, those two are key.

160. My continual doing doing too, has been a great distraction, from really feeling what my body was telling me, not knowing at that time that what I was searching for was held within. I love the words ” feeling myself from the inside out is the greatest True pleasure in life”. Thank you Jacqueline for sharing.

161. It is bewildering how much of track we are with all the things we treasure as being our pleasures or treats. Of course, when we are not in the sweetness of being ourselves we seek surrogates to fill the void. Once the void is filled it can be hard to let go of the stuff as we then feel the emptiness. Hence it is crucial to not only let go of the surrogates but also to come back to the inner treasures. The Gentle Breath Meditation serves as an easy to practise tool to re-connect to and re-build a sense of well-being with oneself.

     1. No other tool like it! Unveiling treasures perhaps long forgotten, awaiting rediscovery.

162. The old pleasures in life are now being replaced with real pleasure in life, living in connection.

     1. Beautifully said Matthew.

163. Yes, isn’t that interesting Jacqueline, how the things we think we love and need to have pleasure in life, are the very things that keep us away from the fullest, most joyful place that resides inside of us. I am grateful too that I came across the teachings of Serge Benhayon and re-discovered this innermost sacred place.

     1. This is indeed interesting Judith and totally exposes the world plague of comfort in attempt to escape from our true responsibility – which is to live and breathe the love we are.

        1. Agreed – very true Rachel, well said.

164. I can relate well to your doing and searching for years. I spent most of my life doing things but never finishing anything completely, I would always leave one small detail unfinished and it became a trademark. I have had jobs, relationships and basically life in general in constant motion and would just move on from one to the next… the ‘doing’ was the thing that was consistent, this was the pleasures of my life or me running away from who I truly was, is a more apt description. If I had not met Serge Benhayon almost 10 years ago I would be looking 20 years older instead of 10 years younger.

165. The pleasures in life, what a bittersweet pill. So often what I have percieved to be a pleasure has in truth been a complete distraction from reality. Sugar, has been one of my biggest distractions. I’m still in the process of going sugar free, and whilst giving up the white stuff is relatively easy, when you have alternatives to fall back on, like maple syrup, the hard thing to give up is not the product itself, but the feeling, and the meaning behind what that sweet taste represents. I know for me, that whenver I feel I have achieved something, or if I feel sad or angry, or anything emotional, I want to reward/numb myself with that sweet comforting taste. There isn’t anything wrong with enjoying a sweet flavour, but I know for me it is so much more than that, its a dependance that it will make me feel better about life, for a few seconds, only to find that all those feelings are still there the moment it wears off.

     1. Sugar was my biggest distraction and comfort for me too Elodie, and I agree with you, ‘ the hard thing to give up is not the product itself, but the feeling, and the meaning behind what that sweet taste represents’. When I uncovered the ‘root’ cause of my Sugar addiction it brought me so much understanding and clarity that supported me to go gently with the process of giving up my dependancy, and I did, and now I have been sugar free for quite some time now.

166. Thank you Jacqueline for a great blog. I have known the distractions of the doing, doing.
     My body has been doing for the last 65 years. Over the last few years, since coming to Serge’s talks, and understanding that I am love in my innermost being, this has slowly started to change, and with it a deeper awareness, that with this felt love I am enough just as I am. This has been a slow process of claiming more of me, the gentle, beautiful, tender person that is, the true me.

167. Funny I am currently reading a FANTASTIC book called ‘Time Space and all of us – Book 1 – Time’ by Serge Benhayon and there is much in it about how time is related to us going round in circles to keep giving us the opportunity to learn, observe and evolve and here you start by saying you are going round in circles, as are we all and as is the planet. You can find out more about this great book here: http://www.unimedliving.com/publishing/books-by-serge-benhayon/time-space-and-all-of-us/time-space-and-all-of-us-book1-time.html

168. Great article, I relate to having ‘pleasures’ that were/are actually harmful and keeping me away from connecting more deeply to myself.

169. It is amazing that by ‘being with’ and accepting myself so many things that I thought we so important in my life, I too, have come to realise they were distractions and they have fallen away to be replaced by, “Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life”.

170. Jacqueline, I like the part where you mention how it took you 2 years to go sugar free. I find even with the immense support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, getting rid of an addiction still requires discipline, commitment and surrendering to feel things that are painful at times. This is not something that I can avoid when I choose an esoteric way of life. The difference is though, that Serge’s support and the intimacy in friendships along this path are so profound, that choosing love is an option that is always at hand.

     1. I too have found this to be true felixschumacher8, there is no denying what is felt from the body, no matter how often or much I can pile whatever I can find on top of it not to feel it, the fact remains once felt it can not be un-felt.

171. I love the part about the ‘pleasures in life keep me distracted from my true self’. So true, for me they are like a heavy blanket that is carried everywhere you go, smothering any ounce of life and sparkle from the eyes.

172. The ‘doing’ is in itself a distraction as well. I find this as a very distracting pattern for myself, my body and foremost the stillness within me. I have noticed I have to become more acquainted with this Stillness like building a new, deeper relationship with myself. Instead of running from myself by doingness it is more and more being with myself in what I do, whatever it is at that moment.

173. This is a revelatory blog which could help those yet to see the distractions as fillers. As I was reading I was recalling how I had no idea that the rewards and comforts of life that I used to use, were harming in anyway or kept me seeking, in a ‘not enough’ loop. The distractions we use take on many forms, even things that seem quite harmless. But when they are done to keep us away from our inner self there can only be harm.

     1. Ah yes Fiona… The common distractions are easy to identify, but as you say, ‘anything’ that takes us away from our inner self is a distraction and this can include not only things we consider harmless, but also those things we might even consider ‘good’ things (i.e. pushing ourselves to achieve, seeking recognition, doing things for the community, eating etc). It’s not the activity per se that is the distraction in these instances, but the fact that so often we are not present with ourselves when we do.

        1. Great points you make Fiona and Angela, and if we were truly present with ourselves we may be making very different choices to begin with. From a place of true connection we would not be needing to fill any lack which is often the motivation for much of the striving, distractions and seeking recognition.

     2. Great comment Fiona. I love the ‘not enough loop’.

     3. Beautifully said Fiona and a great awareness to start my day – no matter how subtle or minor we may think some decisions are, if ‘they are done to keep us away from our inner self there can only be harm.’ Very powerful and exposing.

     4. Great point Fiona. I can pull out those less obvious distractions when I don’t want to feel something … problem is the disconnection also takes away the yummy feeling then there is the sudden pull to eat something sweet or stimulating. What a set-up!

174. Jacqueline, I so relate to the pleasures in life, I used to see them as being part of life, the so called ‘Normal’ existence. It was not until I went to a presentation by Serge Benhayon that I realised that there was so much more to life, and he spoke of something I had always known but had shut myself off from. Now I know if I get drawn to any of these things I have lost my connection to myself.

175. I can see how many ‘pleasures in life’ are just used as fillers and distractions. To fill voids and distract away from feelings of sadness/emptiness. All the new things keep people busy and so they don’t have to stop. When I started to stop it was like a brick wall and baby steps were certainly needed. For me, it’s like if you don’t keep moving all the not so loving choices catch up with you… Yet they are always there so don’t actually have any catching up to do in the first place.

176. I would not trade my connection to myself, and god for all the tempting pleasures and distractions in life. Thank you for sharing your Journey, I hope you will continue to do so.

177. Since I stopped going to yoga 5 times a week, eating sugar, drinking my daily latte, eating bread and cheese, drinking wine, watching TV and since I took out all my ‘How can I find myself’ books, my life changed 180 degrees. Universal Medicine is the real deal and showed me another way to live.

178. Wow what a blessing to read your words:
     ‘Being and connecting to my true self and feeling myself from the inside out is the greatest true pleasure in life’.
     All of society is set up in the opposite way; it’s all focused on the external pleasures of life and what we can acquire from the outside.

179. Yes Jacqueline I love what you have shared here. I too kept myself distracted from my true self as you say Kehinde2012 with all manner of things, thinking that the way I was living was actually okay. Yes I was okay, deep within me as that is unchangeable, but the okayness that I accepted as being my life, never knew, self love, self care, honesty, truth, aliveness, vitality, joy, harmony, trust. I only knew my day to day and what I needed to do to get through that day with no quality of true living within that. My true, amazing and Divine self, was that missing link.

180. Jacquelline, I love how you have with honesty questioned the so called life’s ‘pleasures’ we build our lives around and exposed them for what they truly are ‘my pleasures in life’ kept me distracted from my true self’

181. Jacqueline, how easy it is when we stop searching for what we already have. Beautifully expressed, and how simple it is to reconnect back to ourselves.

182. Thank you Jacqueline a beautiful blog and one I feel so many of us can relate too. So many distractions in life to pull us away from truly connecting to ourselves and connecting to others – The Gentle Breath Meditation has been a true gift and one so easily applied in our daily livingness.

183. A beautiful reminder of what we are sacrificing by choosing distractions over our inner heart and how denying ourselves from knowing inside that we are enough is just not worth the fleeting pleasure.

184. Jacqueline, it makes me cringe just remembering how I also burdened myself with “I had to do better, I had to improve myself, I had to push, I had to do, do, do.” And who said so anyway? In my case I was already top of my class at school, fastest runner, highest jumper, excellent at art, science and whatever I turned my hand to, and yet constantly felt this push of having to do more and better because somehow I had not attained the desired standard. But all this pressure was coming from ME, not anyone else! How crazy is that? This constant self-pressure also led me to seek comforts and distractions from how I was making myself be – double crazy! And it’s Serge Benhayon who has showed me that during all that time it was me myself that’s precious and enough, without any need to do or to strive. With that pressure off myself, the need for distractions falls away and I can do from my being, which turns out to be just as or even more productive than all the pushing and striving I did before!

185. Self-care is simply ‘living in connection’ with every-thing we do. There is nothing fancy or new age or even costly, in fact this is completely free. The Gentle Breath establishes a re-connection, and then living with this is the key. Self-care to me now is no different to what I did last year or 5 years ago, it is just a building and re-building of the ways to care for my body and bring presence to each moment.

     1. Beautifully said Matthew – a forever deepening of how we are with ourselves.

186. “‘My pleasures in life’ kept me distracted from my true self” Very well said Jacqueline. It is very important to understand how this is so. Numbing, overstimulating, relieving tension in our body are but three ways of doing so.

187. This was really healing for me to read, as I related to it completely. I particularly love this part at the end “All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart; my true home where my truth resides, where my stillness, innocence and beauty and love reside and also where true inner peace and joy is to be found.” and feel as if you are writing about my life and the way forth.

     1. I agree Danielle and totally love that power quote too. I know this to be true and it makes sense for all those ‘pleasures and distractions’ to harness such force to kept us from knowing the inner wisdom that lives within us all.

        1. Yes your right Rachel, it’s a lot of effort to keep from feeling the enormous wisdom within!

188. Such a gorgeous and honest blog Jacqueline, I feel to read it daily for 1 week as part of a self-loving program; as you offer and share so many truths and awarenesses that I connect to – deeply so.

     1. Awesome Rachel, and a delight to read this blog has been a support for you.

189. It feels amazing to share our unfolding back to our true nature together Jacqueline, our experiences shared here all have so much in common.

190. A great blog Jacqueline. There have been a lot of distractions in my life over the years also but with dedication to my journey and learning to trust my inner most feelings things are changing.

191. I love what you have shared here Jacqueline, in the past I used to indulge in many distractions just to keep me in the busyness of life, trying to fill the emptiness and to numb what was I was feeling. The Gentle Breath Meditation has also supported me to deeply connect with myself and the distractions start to drop away and space is made for the ‘pleasures of life’!

192. It took you 2 years to let go of sugar – I just love this bit of your article, Jacqueline. To me this is the essence of why you got there in the end: you give yourself time and space to heal in your rhythm, you are sweet with yourself in the process, so you need less and less sweetness in foods.

     1. Yes Felix I felt this too – the care and steadiness in Jacqueline’s journey to let go of what was holding her back. It feels more loving to allow space rather than abruptly cut out old momentums with food or whatever else is chosen to numb.

193. Great blog Jacqueline. i agree with you. Knowing the distractions of life and breaking free of them, looking on my inside for the answers through the inner heart and reconnecting to myself through the gentle breath meditation are the true pleasures in life.

194. This is wonderful, thanks for sharing. That inner stillness and warmth is always there and the more I become aware of it, I realise it can be there at any time of the day if I choose it. It’s wonderful to have an inner confidence and strength so when we are feeling ‘out’, i.e. not our self, we don’t go to the usual things to keep us in a cycle of not self connecting: ice cream, donuts, coffee, self-help books and yoga. They all feel the same to me; they just perpetuate us going around in circles and not really stopping to feel where we are at.

195. I too find the Gentle Breath Meditation a great support in helping me to re-connect back to myself. Something that I don’t do is keep a journal, but after reading this blog (and an article and comment before reading this one which also mentioned how supporting it was to write a journal), I feel there is a message for me here! I am inspired to write one especially on how I am feeling first thing in the morning when I wake. Thank you Jacqueline for sharing your insightful story.

196. Jacqueline the title of your blog made me realise how long i had not realised what the true pleasures of life are. being with myself and then sharing this with others is so yummy and the pleasures in life have become so very simple, a flower, a bee, the laugh of a child. I sometimes still leave myself and have come to realise from that that the choices i make then (my former pleasures and distractions) are actually very unpleasant compared to being with me.

197. I hadn’t watched TV for a while but last night, feeling tired and having had a difficult phone call and a brief visit to someone who had the TV on I found myself uncovering the big screen and getting into a show. I could feel myself asking what was I doing but I ignored it. I discovered that today I have been less connected and less effective in a meeting this afternoon. This blog has inspired me to follow through with a promise to myself to be very honouring of my early evening and preparing to go to bed and sleep time. I know this makes the world of difference.

198. This a lovely blog. I agree with the pleasures and distraction in your life were the lock on the door to your inner essence.

     I feel the same way and experience that very feeling today. It takes deep consideration and self reflection to unlock that door. As you have to find what actually keeps you there.

     – Not having enough time
     – another thing to do
     – I can be better
     – I give up

     Instead the answer is very simple, so simple its hard to believe. The door was always unlocked.

     1. Hi Lukeyokota, the answer is always simple, and I like simple, having always lived in complication…. The simple truth you present that the door to our heart has always been open can hurt at first but not for long as we begin to feel our natural playfullness, love and joy unfold when we reconnect back to our bodies.

        1. An import fact to point out is the hurt isn’t the love but rather feeling full well we chose to walk away from it

199. Another stunning blog Jacqueline, thank you! I can relate to how you have shared the many distractions that can be used to avoid feeling what is actually going on for us. It’s quite a bizarre game when you think about it – for if we distract ourselves from feeling, then we cannot address whatever it is that is going on, so the same situation or reaction will keep repeating, as will reaching for our favourite distractions to avoid dealing with it!

     1. I realised a few months ago that I was using tv shows in this way – especially at the end of a big working week. I was telling myself I wanted to relax, do something for me, take it easy but essentially I was just zoning out, staying up later than I needed to and avoiding giving myself that time to reflect on how the week had been and also take care of myself accordingly – be that through a lovely bath, an early night or hanging out with my flatmates and sharing how our day or week had been. TV shows can be pretty addictive but once I saw how I was using it, the “need” to watch the latest episode just fell away and I haven’t watched a show for over a month! Screen time is a poor substitute for time with me☺.

        1. Hi Hannah, in the past tv was a big distraction not to take care of me also. I would stay up late to watch a film, and then be exhausted in the morning, and that was my habit, it sounds crazy now…. Yes I agree totally; ‘ Screen time is a poor substitute for time with me’.

        2. yes Jacqui, it’s interesting how easily we can get caught up in crazy habits that do not support our health and well-being on any level yet when we do them for long enough, they become “normal”.

200. It’s great when you realise the so called pleasures of life are a distraction and you don’t have to continually chase the never ending rainbow for happiness – it is with you and always will be.

     1. Hi Christine, with our never-ending schedule of work and play to show our peers that we are not missing out on anything, we forget that the rainbow of happiness is within.

201. What a journey of great discovery, Jacqueline and, as you expose, your words here: “All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart”. It is incredible just how distracted or busy ‘doing’ we can keep ourselves, and equally how much modern life is arranged to foster all this. With the digital technological age ever increasing, I can’t imagine how much more further dis-connected to our truth we might be as a society. It’s people like Serge Benhayon, and businesses like Universal Medicine, that are our saving grace in these times, through which we can be inspired, as evidenced by your post.

202. I loved reading about how you ditched all the books and found writing and keeping track of your own experiences more enriching. It is a great reminder that we are already enough just the way we are without having to look ‘out there’.

203. Oh those distractions, I know them so well. But as you say Jacqueline, and as I have also realised; “All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart”. I am slowly learning to remove all these distractions from my life and it is an ongoing process, but now I know, that without the distractions, food, tv, books etc, I have the space to really feel what is happening in my body, and I love that the door to my inner heart has no longer such obstacles blocking the way.

204. Jaqueline I can feel your joy and truth in every word you have expressed here- your gradual transformation is inspiring and I trust the impact of your loving choices was felt not just by you but by everyone around you – offering a true way to just be. Thank you

205. Searching outside of ourselves can never give us a true understanding of who we are, whether it is through self-help books, food, entertainment or whatever, it is just a distraction, filled with dramas and complications. If we are all equal, and we are, then it makes perfect sense that we have all the answers we are searching for already there within us and life becomes simple, fulfilling, joyful and, what’s more, it’s free.

     1. Well said Deidre. I feel I am only beginning to realise the magnitude of the power and grace that all that we search for lies dormant within just waiting to be connected to and lived.

206. Jacqueline a lovely read thank you. It’s so funny to think how far from ourselves we really go to find who we really are. When in truth we hold everything we are within our hearts already.

207. A great article Jacqueline. It is very revealing that the pleasures that we ‘do’ can prevent us from the true pleasure of being ourselves.

208. Jacqueline, I particularly took note of your words ‘I came to realise they were all distractions as they all kept me in the ‘doing’ and kept me from the knowing inside that I was enough.’. While I have made big strides in terms of challenging old behaviours, I am still aware that ‘doing’ is a distraction I still get caught up in sometimes. Time for me to gently recalibrate as I prepare to go through my day …. thank you!

209. I loved how you came to your own realisation that the ‘pleasures’ in your life were actually what was blocking you from the one true pleasure in life – being connected deeply to yourself. Beautiful.

210. A very inspiring blog Jacqueline. Our greatest ”pleasure and reward’ is in reconnecting to our inner heart and true self. So beautifully expressed.

211. The reward of ‘pleasures’ for all the ‘doing’ is a tiresome spiral, in being and feeling the celebration has no end.

212. “Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in LIfe” – yes Jacqueline, what a gift from Serge Benhayon, who has shown us a way to live lovingly from the inside – who we truly are.

213. ‘I came to realise they were all distractions as they all kept me in the ‘doing’ and kept me from the knowing inside that I was enough.’ This is something for me to look at. Thank you.

214. This is a truly inspiring blog Jacqueline, I have the pleasure to personally know you and have really felt and seen how indeed you have truly blossomed and developed this strong connection within you.

215. A truly inspiring article very well written.

216. I really loved reading this blog again Jacqueline and the ending is very beautiful. I can feel the absolute truth in what you have written and it makes me question why I still choose false ‘pleasures’ that are such a poor substitute for the joy of living in a way that is connected and true to me. I feel that I have taken on messages from outside of myself and gave up on the fact that I was worth connecting to at some point. Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon have presented how to live true to yourself and with this support I have also begun the process of reconnecting to me.

217. Well said Adam and thanks Jaqueline for a great blog that I can totally relate to , spending a lot of my life doing a huge amount of things and many adventures only to find what I was missing was myself and being connected more deeply to me .

218. So true Jacqueline, no “pleasure” in life could ever equate to being connected to the inner heart.

     1. Great article, Jacqueline, really exposing an existence where the distractions used as pleasures are more like a punishment, because the body does not tolerate them well, and the punishments, like no sweets for a week or being sent to bed early when we’ve been naughty as children, the body sees as sheer pleasure and relief from the disregard it lives in. What a topsy turvy world it is.

219. You’ve reminded me to go back to the Gentle Breath Meditation. I’ve been avoiding being still because of the momentum I have been in lately which hasn’t allowed me to stop which always results in me eating comfort foods, not sleeping well, or sleeping way too much and generally feeling aches and pains through my body.

220. HI Jaqueline. This is a profound blog. For years I searched outside for the answer to the perfect life. First I tried filling my life up with as many “fun” activities as I could – surfing, skiing, fishing, partying, sport. All of these were a search to distract me from the fact that I was deeply missing something in life. The fact is that none of these things are “bad”, but rather that often we carry out these “extracurricular” activities in the search for relief from the tension of life, and thus we use them to escape. But in doing so, we also end up escaping ourselves, and never do we get to the root cause of the tension that we are trying to escape. There is a much simpler way to live, that is based on connection to ourselves and eventually to our own divine fire, but to live that way first takes the realisation that life as we know it does not work. Thus the high rates of exhaustion and deep unhappiness that exist in the world. We have long given up on ourselves in truth, and that is a large part of the underlying drive to find truth in what we do, rather than who we are.

     1. Adam, your last line really stood out for the truth you present: ‘ We have long given up on ourselves in truth, and that is a large part of the underlying drive to find truth in what we do, rather than who we are’. Thus our focus is in the wrong place; on the doing, the pushing, the acheiving and getting ahead, and the recognition from others; all subtle forms of distractions, but distractions nevertheless….

     2. Adam the power in the last line of your comment struck me. ” We have long given up on ourselves in truth, and that is a large part of the underlying drive to find truth in what we do, rather than who we are.” Its about re-connecting to our own inner knowing and not choosing to “fill ourselves up,” in doing things which take us further away from our truth. Love it thank you.

221. Great blog Jacqueline, “Going to bed early had other positive impacts; I saw I was less emotional and this also reduced the need for the stimulants and distractions I was using to get me through the day.” This is huge for me in learning to live harmoniously with my body, early to bed sets a foundation for a more love filled day to follow.

222. Thanks Jacqueline, and of course we have all had our lists of distractions, and it’s always enlightening to read someone else’s, especially when you know the person and know how gorgeous they truly are now.

223. Jacqueline and Alex – you have really exposed how ridiculous it is for us to look outside for answers or recognition of who we are, when this type of search never satisfies. I love your comment too Alex, “bring the future here now”.

     1. Its true Bernadette, looking outside of ourselves for reward and recognition is an insatiable quest that will never be satisfied.

224. Jacqueline how profound that you have found yourself on the inside rather than outside. But then again how odd that we have all spent so much time desperately looking everywhere else for us than where we actually are!! Thankfully, one day, it will be one of those things (like when people believed that the earth was flat) where we will say ‘can you believe that people used to look outside of themselves for themselves!’ and we shall all shake our heads in disbelief that it is something that we used to do! That time already exists, it is up to us to bring the future here now.

225. Well written, not many people admit that they are addicted to sugar because it is there comfort food. Of course people will say a little bit is okay but that is because they could not give it up themselves. Sometimes I still crave and want sugary foods to stop me from feeling the tension I feel on a daily basis. It’s amazing though how uncomfortable I am when I do have sugar though…(headaches, twitchy, can’t connect to people then the drop and laziness afterwards) the alternation is becoming not worth it at all.

226. A lot of the so called pleasures in life are actually not pleasures at all, they erode, rot and drain us from the inside out. When we discover that less is more and the abundance that we carry inside is enough to fill an ocean, it is a real magical moment to celebrate with a few gentle breaths.

     1. Beautifully said Matthew: “When we discover that less is more and the abundance that we carry inside is enough to fill an ocean, it is a real magical moment”. We can feel fully content in ourselves not needing to seek escape solace from any distractions, which we formerly would have called pleasures in life as what we can feel in our body is so much grander.

227. Thanks for your sharing, if it comes to yoga I had the same experience of temporary relief of what I did not want to admit was there to feel. Sometimes I even went in competition with the others in the yoga class instead of connecting to myself and my body. Living in connection with myself and my body is something I can choose every moment of my day and makes life simple.

228. I love what you share with us Jacqueline – “I was enough exactly as I was” and “everything I needed was inside me” beautiful and so true.

229. I can relate to how you wrote about the self help books and that writing your own journal was far more enriching than any self help book you have ever read. I was similar except only with spiritual philosophy. I used to find quotes and things online that I abided by. But I realised that I am wiser than those quotes. I now prefer to make sense of life by what I feel in my body, and I like to write things down.

230. Jacqueline I really enjoyed reading and feeling your transformation – the way you lovingly let go of so much but in your own time and in a way that supported you. I could feel the new level of commitment you now have for yourself and how lovely that is. It shows we all can make more loving choices in our lives and how it comes back to stopping and feeling from the inside out.

231. A true testimony to when we connect to ourselves, the relentless searching and seeking outside of ourselves ceases.
     What a celebration that moment is, what an awesome, magnificent stop point that is, the turning in to find life’s rich’s inside of oneself.
     After a life time(s) of looking outside to find, what we already are, deep in our inner heart.
     Thank you Jacqueline for your intimate blog.

232. What you have written Jacqueline speaks volumes – nothing is greater (or more pleasurable) than being your true self. I still find myself seeking out ‘life’s pleasures’ to make myself ‘feel good’, but these only take me further away from myself. Connection to myself is key.

233. Good example Jacqueline of the huge benefits of giving up the so-called pleasures in life.

234. I really appreciate the emphasis in this blog on the limitations of making life about doing, including in such activities as Yoga, which is really meant to be about exploring a quality of being. Try to find that type of practice out in the world beyond Esoteric Yoga, founded by Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine. Every other form of contemporary or traditional Yoga, even down to the most meditative, is about occupying the mind in an activity. As such these practices cannot help the mind to come to rest in a deeper feeling of surrender. So much of life is about holding on, controlling and contriving a life, rather than surrender to the rhythm of life that lives within us as well as in nature and is integral to, but not bound by, our physical world. So what is great about where this blog went, is the description of that new way of looking at life and I appreciate more and more how there is an unlimited number of ways we can express this.

235. Jacqueline, so simple and yet so true. “Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life.” I just had to re-visit this beautifully expressed blog.

236. I love this, so much is said here and so much I can relate to.

     “For the first time ever, I felt the truth in my body of what he (Serge Benhayon) was presenting; that is, I felt that everything presented I already knew on some level but had not as yet integrated into my life.” I felt exactly the same and also saw that there was another way to life, that everything is within. This was such a relief and Serge helped me get off the constant merry go round I had been on … and going absolutely nowhere!

     Also that ‘pleasures’ were actually distractions. You so hit the nail on the head here, they were in fact taking me further away from the truth and me from me.

237. Thank you for this blog. It covers all the everyday things we do to get by and kid ourselves that life is all that it is meant to be. I loved your approach of cutting things out for a few weeks to feel what happens (and then never going back!) I have also found you can’t feel the full effect of something you are doing or eating until you remove it. Only then is it possible to feel how your body responds. Having the mind shift that perhaps our pleasures are actually doing us no good is a great start.

238. A gorgeous expansion of yourself through living what you know to be true

239. It is quite incredible the feeling in my body now that I have taken out all of the comfort foods I was eating. Having a diet that is very clean and nutritious, and not eating too much has given me a similar feeling to what you describe here. Being able to feel how sweet and gorgeous I am, feeling a lightness in my body that was never there before, no more foggy head, no more dragging myself through the day exhausted. Food makes a huge impact on how I feel.

     1. Agree Kate, food is underestimated when it comes to how we feel. It has a big impact and it is ever evolving, my relationship with food.

240. Thank you Jacqueline, great blog that shares many of the things I thought were a pleasure in life. Thanks to Universal Medicine and the presentations by Serge Benhayon, the simplest thing in life is my breath and the choice that I now have to choose my own breath brings me to me, there has never been a greater feeling than me being me.

241. Jacqueline, thank you for sharing your experiences of reconnecting to your body and your awareness around how comforting foods can be and what you considered ‘pleasures’ kept you distracted from feeling and living your natural loveliness. It is inspiring to hear anothers’ journey with this. It offers me the possibility of letting go of another layer of distraction and really feeling my gorgeousness in my everyday; offering to myself the gift of my stillness in each moment. And as you beautifully share, this is the true pleasure in life.

242. Beautiful and simple, Jacqueline – the words were coming to me while reading your article. I like how clearly you show that our “pleasures” are actually distractions on the way to our precious self, our true pleasure of being us, connected.

243. Isn’t it interesting what we have called ‘pleasures’ in life. It a bit like how we call sweets, cakes and lollies ‘treats’. When a child is ‘good’ or we are looking for something to make us feel better we have a ‘treat’.
     I have suggested that perhaps its more of a ‘punishment’ than a treat. Because really anything that keeps us further from our true gorgeous selves can’t be considered a treat now can it? Great Blog Jacqueline and truly a ‘pleasure’ to read.

244. Jacqueline, its great to read how you changed one thing but then it had far more reaching positive effects on your life than expected. Like going early to bed allowed you to be less emotional & tired, and thus not crave the stimulates – and that lead to being more aware of the messages from your body, so that you could listen to your body and go to bed when you are tired… best medicine ever!

245. The ‘pleasure’s that we have have in life are indeed distractions and not true pleasures by any stretch. I love your closing line Jaqueline – “Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life” – this is so true!

246. Jacqueline, a beautiful example of how listening to and honouring yourself brings greater vitality and joy to life – True Pleasure in Life.

247. Wow Jacqueline such an awesome read. I resonate completely with the doing and searching having done a fair bit of that in my time – I too am deeply inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine – the presentations have been fundamental in my making changes and living a much more fulfilling life.

248. When we are not filled with who we are, we have to find something to fill that space. For me, I found it in distracting myself with hobbies, food and pot. The latter two being a match made in hell! Now that I feel more of me, there is the less their is the need for those things to fill the void. In this sense it makes sense to say that we are vessels containing a life form – a form that can either be loving or not. I find all my choices depend on that initial choice I make.

249. I am inspired by your expression in this blog Jaqueline. I so enjoyed reading it, thank you.
     What resonated with me was your comment about being aware of and taking care of your body
     “I now have a deeper connection with my body as I have learned to respect and honour it with a new awareness that all my choices affect my body in some way or another”

250. Hi Jacqueline, your blog made me stop and consider something, particularly … “I had to do better, I had to improve myself, I had to push, I had to do, do, do. It was this belief that kept me feeling that I was not enough as I was, and kept me in the search of looking outside of myself for the answers.” I always thought it was the other way round, I am not enough so I go out and push, drive my body, whereas it’s the drive that leaves me not feeling enough, and leaves my body tense. Releasing the tension in my body and finding a gentler way to be with it, then brings me back to myself. No need to get caught up in the “I am not enough” story – it really feels that simple. Thank you.

251. Jacqueline the quote from your blog that I love is “being and connecting to my true self and Feeling Myself from the inside out is the Greatest True Pleasure in Life”. Thank you for these beautiful words and the inspiration they give me and I am sure many others will feel the same.

252. Yes, distracting ourselves is a major dis-ease worldwide and I know that I have certainly been caught in its grip. Since becoming involved in Universal Medicine and meeting Serge Benhayon I am steadily growing in my understanding and appreciation of stillness as a key factor to understanding what is needed for vitality and well-being. Jacqueline – thank you for reminding me to simply listen to what my body is telling me.

253. I love the simplicity and truth of this line “Several years ago, there came a day when I realised that I was just going round and round in circles in my life, and for all my ‘doing’ and ‘searching’, nothing ever changed.”

254. Amazing changes you’ve gone through and so awesome to read Jacqueline, Thank You. Finding comfort in food is a big one I can relate to. I used to surprise people by how much I can eat at meal times because I have always been very petite. I loved eating lots of what most people consider as healthy food but the quantity sometimes was just too much. I am learning to not have to take my body through pain and discomfort by over eating. To be more aware of why I want to stuff myself and make the choice next time to not do the same. Since being introduced to Universal Medicine I am not more aware and loving towards my body. I am still learning everyday and fine tuning as I go, being more gentle and loving. Reading your blog is a great reminder.

     1. Finding comfort in food is a big one for everyone, especially overeating, and once overeating becomes a habit we do it without thinking, because that is what we are choosing so as not to feel what we don’t want to deal with. Like you Chanly, I am more loving and respectful to my body which helped break my pattern of overeating. I started to get honest with myself and how I was living in disregard with myself with no self care or self love whatsoever… which slowly gave me more awareness to make changes to my diet; to choose and eat food that truly nourished me.

255. Jacqueline, what a huge revelation you are sharing here “I realised that yoga was providing me with temporary relief from how constantly tired my body actually was, but not actually changing anything.” The question is, are most people willing to admit that whatever ‘medication’ (in your case yoga) they are using in their day to day living, it is not really changing anything?

256. Thank you Jacqueline for sharing your awareness, who would have thought that life came from within in its fullness and all the other pleasures as you put it are mere distraction from the truth that we are life. As has been written “To Be or not To Be” that is the question. It feels like it is our only choice. We are naturally who we are but we can choose to distract our self from that which we are.

257. Thank you for a very practical post on how you have slowly but surely made changes to your life and how much better those changes have been for your livingness. After reading your post I can see more clearly the things that are causing me distraction and what I can change to be more supportive of myself.

258. I really appreciate the message in your blog Jacqueline. “Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life. It has inspired me as well. Thank you.

259. Well said Benkt. I have also noticed how much is said that need not be. We can so complicate things by overdoing our conversations too.

260. “All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart”
     I love this line Jacqueline, it’s gold.

261. Thank you Jaqueline, It is indeed a great thing to truly feel what is needed and what is not. I can feel how many things we do to just do and not feel rather than truly do something that’s needed at that moment. And how every comfort, un-true choice, we choose will take time from any other much more important task.

262. Jacqueline, I can feel the joy in your blog of letting go of your so called ‘past pleasures’ and reconnecting to yourself and your wisdom. The teachings of Universal Medicine have supported hundreds of people to reconnect and make loving choices that are true for them.

263. Amazing clarity you are presenting here, Jacqueline. Thank you. Re-connecting and re-developing a relationship with myself teaches me and proves to me the wisdom the body so effortlessly gives out – and exposes the choices I have made that never/no longer work. Lately I was feeling as if I have been in a process of collecting myself up from a rather large fall, but never quite making it up to a full standing position, and your blog felt like a perfect pep talk.

264. How easily the so called pleasures fall away when we connect with our true selves. When I’m asked about how I gave up sugar, my reply is “I didn’t give it up, it gave me up”. And I apply that to other things like watching TV or eating foods like cheese and chocolate. I found myself just not wanting them, not reaching for them and then over time, I’d look back and realise that I hadn’t had say chocolate for months and hadn’t missed it. It was because the underlying reasons for eating chocolate in the first place were diminishing…I used chocolate as my comfort. When I was hurt, upset, stressed, pre-menstrual – all the times I was not connected to myself. As I learnt and practiced staying connected…chocolate was no longer my best friend.

265. Absolute gorgeousness Jacqueline. I can really relate to the sugar addiction and thank you for your awareness. I must remind myself that it is a process and something that may not change overnight. The feeling of pleasure or artificial sugary happiness is so short lived and then comes the guilt and frustration I feel with myself for even going there, again. I can feel the potential of eternal Love and Joy available in my body and will continue to work at discarding this addiction and understanding why it’s there in the first place. Great inspiration here!

     1. Understanding why you have the addiction to sugar in the first place certainly helpled me to kick my own addiction to sugar… which took around 2 years for the cravings to stop. But I still have to be careful when I am tired, because the old thought/belief sneaks in the back door, silently whispering sugar will give you a boost…which I no longer fall for! Instead I reach for an apple or a small healthy snack.

266. It is a normal thing to indulge in life’s pleasures. For me – they used to be a treat and a reward for how I was living. But I now know that rewarding my mind hurts my body.
     Certainly I knew what foods were bad for me – but I was coming at it as ‘it’s bad for my figure’ rather than its harming to my essence.
     Now I make my choices with a whole new level of awareness. Based on support and self love.

267. This is a very similar to the way which I walked when I started to change the way of my life. It was worth it all! Thank you Jacqueline for sharing your experience.

268. That was simply stunning! Inspiring and reaffirming that everything I am is one simple breath away. What a great way of living! (:

269. Dear J, your blog is wonderful, you cover so many areas of daily life and how change is achieved with practical steps revolving around listening to yourself. I am realising that humanity is perhaps in an epidemic of looking for answers on the outside, propping up their lives with the distractions and comforts you speak of. I know I was certainly there, and am still working through it. It’s very disempowering to buy into the idea that the answer is outside of ourselves. I love what you wrote about your journal, it’s the same for me but I hadn’t fully honoured this until I read your words, thank you.

     1. It’s very disempowering to buy into the idea that the answer is outside of ourselves. Spot on Melinda, it is this idea that takes us further and further away from ourselves and further away from the wisdom that resides in the body, in our inner heart.

270. I can really read the difference you have brought to your life by simply being you. That is certainly an amazing offering from Universal Medicine – as it has allowed me to see the many pleasures and distractions I created to not deal with what was really going on! Thank you for sharing.

271. “All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart; my true home where my truth resides, where my stillness, innocence and beauty and love reside and also where true inner peace and joy is to be found.” I love this sentence. Once we have connected to this within ourselves, every time we look outside of ourselves for a treat or a distraction, we have a clear marker that we have left ourselves once more.

272. ‘All my pleasures in life and distractions kept the door closed to my inner heart; my true home where my truth resides, where my stillness, innocence and beauty and love reside and also where true inner peace and joy is to be found.’ So beautifully expressed, Jacqueline, life can be so beautifully simple when we let go of these distractions, and with the gentle breath meditation return to our truth and our inner heart where we truly reside. It was beautiful to read this blog at the beginning of my day and to remind myself that life can be as simple as I choose.

     1. LIfe can be as simple as I choose, I love the truth and simplicity in this line Susan.

     2. A beautiful comment, Susan, and one that I can very much relate to. We have a choice very day on how we would like that day to go: how empowering is that really, and how simple then can we make life in order to remain in our true rhythm?

273. I know what you mean Jacqueline about ‘lifes pleasures’ or what we can also say are ‘treats’ that seemed to be what I lived for. Having worked hard days I thought I deserved such things… but I realised that once I started connected to myself – through the Gentle Breath Meditation presented by Serge Benhayon that when I worked with this connection I actually enjoy doing it and that at the end of the day I don’t feel I need anything to reward myself. This totally turned itself on its head and as simple as breathing my own breath!

274. Jacqueline, lovely to re-read this today. Practical, simple and so self accepting, you allowed yourself to feel each step along the way, experimented with what worked and observed what happened when you dropped something – a great way to find your way. And one for us all to experiment and find ours without our distractions.

     1. Great point here about feeling every step of the way. I’ve found when I connect to my body and how I’m feeling, and the more and more honest I am with that process, the easier it becomes to make choices which support my body and to be aware of the distractions which take me away from that support and connection.

        1. It is that simple, to feel every step of the way, to be deeply connected to the body and from there feel how the distractions kick in. Yet in daily life it is a conscious choice every moment, as the mind seems to like being distracted. When I am more in my body and the stillness, I can see when a thought kicks in. Then I can choose to let it pass. When I am a bit racy or in a hurry, I am lost e.g. I loose the connection with my body. That is why I plan more time for my things now, so I can’t drop into this pattern of raciness and being in a hurry that easily.

275. Great blog Jacqueline its good to know that each and everyone of us is enough without all the outside influences and that all the answers lie within.

276. This is such a great practical example of how changes can be made in how we live our lives as one choice leads to another. Thank you for sharing and being an inspiration, Jacqueline.

277. Jacqueline, it’s so great when we find our self how quickly we let go of distractions – things which we thought as pleasure no longer matter anymore. Like yourself all my self help books went, as did the CDs, and TV is something that does not even cross my mind. I love to work and my days are long, when I am done I will prepare a meal sit with my husband and have some time together. Whenever I get a chance to go to bed early I make the most of it,as it supports me so much and I feel so revived and energised. I love my life now, I am no longer looking for anything outside of me, as everything I need is within me.

278. This is gorgeous, Jacqueline. The relationship between pleasure and distraction from who we truly are and what we truly have to offer ourselves and everyone, is definitely something worth exploring.

     1. I agree Shami, plenty here to ponder on.

279. Great blog Jacqueline, I can relate to a lot of what you say especially the do,do do. And like you, thanks to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, finding out that there is a different way to go about life and that we do have a choice was a big revelation and inspiration for me.

280. A joy to read Jacqueline – and very encouraging.
     I love how you allowed things to drop away as they didn’t feel right for you and it’s great to be so open to letting go of things that we do it without any holdings or trying to replace it with something else.
     And as you say, Universal Medicine opened the door to what you already knew – relighting the fire 🙂

281. This is very true Ariana and in that reconnection everything is very simple, so much so that one can override or discount one feels with the thought of it being too good to be true or that one does not deserve it. We are so fortunate to have these techniques to reconnect us back to the simplicity that we truly are.

282. Jacqueline thank you for your sharing I can relate to most of what you share. I too was caught up in meditation and yoga, but felt something was always missing, I never felt content and always that I had to push myself more. Until I met universal Medicine and started to get a better understanding of what I was searching for – that was always inside of me. Now my meditation is in the Gentle Breath or Esoteric Yoga, which are more supportive and gentle on my body.

     1. I agree with you Amita and living everyday working on allowing my own connection with myself is a magical way to live and something that is simple when you know. Letting go of all the dramas and interference’s of the world is part of how we can strengthen our own connection as it allows a deeper commitment.

283. A great sharing thank you Jacqueline, and one I can so relate to. I used to push to do and to better myself, only now realising it kept me trapped in the belief that I wasn’t enough, and had to get something to improve me from the outside – so giving my power away. This was insidious, and stopped me realising that all I needed to do was to stop and re-connect back to my myself and my inner heart where all love, stillness, beauty and joy naturally reside.

284. This is great to read your article Jacqueline, I can relate to a lot of what you have written, particularly, ‘ I realised that yoga was providing me with temporary relief from how constantly tired my body actually was, but not actually changing anything.’

285. Great blog Jacqueline. I can relate to all you’ve shared. I agree that lots of small changes made in life make a considerable difference.

286. Jacqueline, I can really identify with what you say here about the need to be always
     up and doing. It can become a sort of obsession. Since my exposure to UM,
     I have been much more aware of the quality in which I do things.
     There is still a ‘To do’ list but everything on it is done in a more considered and caring
     sort of way.

287. Indeed Ryan there is another way to live life and my body loves it. I fell for the “self-help” industry for years before finding Universal Medicine. It is a very sophisticated way of distracting you from the truth, it felt like a temptation and it was easy to fall into it when I was exhausted and empty as it was the case then.

288. This is a great blog to re-read, so simple and a reminder of the true pleasures in life. Thank you Jacqueline 🙂

289. I love the simplicity of what you write here Jacqueline, it makes such sense.

290. I can so relate to what you have shared, Jacqueline. The push, drive and to do better for myself was entrenched. The “pleasures” of life, as you say also distracted and numbed me from feeling a deeper connection to myself and others. When I feel off or overwhelmed by life I can resort back to TV or overeating as a default button to cope with something I don’t want to feel. But there is nothing like connecting to the stillness and loveliness inside, and expressing and living from there.

291. “Everything I needed was inside me” – it’s a shame we are not taught this from birth so we did not have to spend countless hours, years and buckets full of money searching outside of ourselves. The truth and the love is so simple and we have it all inside us all of the time.

292. Hi Jacqueline thank you for sharing, as I can relate to most of what you have written. Also how the benefits of looking at how food affects me and the health improvements which have followed due to listening more to my body.

293. Great blog, I enjoyed reading it and can so relate to using food as pleasure, reward and comfort. Thank you Jacqueline for stating it so clearly, it’s very helpful as I explore where I still crave sugar.

294. “Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life.” – So true, thank you Jacqueline.

295. I had the same experience when listening to a presentation by Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine. “For the first time ever, I felt the truth in my body of what he was presenting; that is, I felt that everything presented I already knew on some level but had not as yet integrated into my life”.
     During the presentation Serge spoke of certain foods and how they harm us energetically (not what to eat) and for the first time ever, I felt the harm in my body. From that moment, my relationship with food began to change, as did the old ‘food issues’ which had become deeply buried with my previous food choices.
     An inspiring blog Jacqueline – Thank you.

296. Oh those distractions, I know them well…I have removed a lot of them, but there are definitely quite a few that remain. Your words ‘This joy in my body helps me feel how sweet and gorgeous I truly am because I have reconnected to my inner beauty and stillness, which was always there, but before I was not able to connect to as ‘my pleasures in life’ kept me distracted from my true self’ made me feel that it would be worth looking at why I cling on to them – It made me feel positive about making changes.

297. This blog shares with simplicity and clarity yOur way back from being distracted in the outer, re-turning to our true self and then living from there. Very confirming and inspiring Jacqueline.

298. Hi Jacqueline, I can also relate to using distractions to avoid myself and my feelings. I love the way you have called this out for us with such clarity – thank you.

299. Jacqueline. You write so well, and express true feelings on how things are for you.
     I find the Gentle Breath brings me back, as it gives me time to reflect on where I am and where I need to be.

300. Hi Jacqueline you have captured the merry go round that we get onto when we want to better our lives. I did this too. Knowing that there was something missing in my life but not knowing what it was so looking for answers from a book a cd or a course. They were all distractions because nothing said stop and listen to your body, as this is where the true answers lie. Your last line is so true and I am feeling this more each day, “Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life.”

     1. Yes, Alison it was like a merry-go-round, going nowhere. I too was searching for that missing something, and it was only on attending some talks by Serge Benhayon that I realised the futility in that. I came to understand and feel that, ‘I was enough exactly as I was, as everything I needed was inside me.’ No more searching, just connecting to myself.

301. Thank you for mentioning the Gentle Breath Meditation. This is such a powerful technique, allowing us to connect with our bodies and ourselves.. So simple too.

302. Thank you for sharing Jacqueline – it is crazy how we have come to value these ‘distractions’ as more important than feeling consistently great.

303. Thank you Jacqueline for your honest and open sharing. I relate well to what you say especially the multitude of self help books which I too thought were all going to offer the answer! None did and then I had the pleasure if meeting Serge Benhayon and the simplicity of what he presented was the key for change. No more looking outside in books for the answer, it is all inside. I am my own self help book. No purchase required just a willingness to connect to me.

     1. I love that Beverley – ‘No purchase required just a willingness to connect to me.’ That is all it takes to live a truly rich life. I have for a long time sought wealth as a security, but in fact it was always a distraction from what I was running away from – the devastating pains of not connecting to me. Now that I have started living with more connection, I feel much richer in a way that is not calculable to monetary wealth, but a wealth of knowing me and knowing love more deeply.

     2. I also love this Beverley ‘ No purchase required just a willingness to connect to me’

     3. Very beautifully put Beverley. Our bookshelves were so empty that we had to take a lot of them away when we redecorated the house because we gave away so many of our books. It created more space and now it feels so simple and uncluttered.

304. For me I too have felt the benefits of stripping away the distractions in my life from sugary foods and computer games. Now having found that one of my seemingly biggest distractions are the negative thoughts in my head. But now without all the other distractions distracting me I can see that these thoughts are no different to the computer screen, ice cream or hobby. Equally as obstructing from my true self but never bigger than me and like the distractions before it they too will be stripped away.

305. Lovely blog Jacqueline – I must say one of the greatest weights to lift off my shoulders came with the liberation of throwing every single self help book, CD, DVD and bit of promotional tat right out. Letting go of the hobbies I’d forced myself to like (to fit in with society and have something “interesting” to talk about) has given me and continues to give me more space to be able to defrost my body, to feel it so I can actually listen to its wisdom. I know categorically that my body knows what is best for me, in every situation. Gaining that awareness and actually acting on those feelings I get, is where I’m currently at. Sometimes I do and it’s magical and sometimes I don’t and things don’t go quite as swimmingly as if I’d have listened to those amazing signposts within.… It’s a clear (and easy) choice when present.

306. Awesome blog Jacqueline, thank you. I can relate so much to what you have shared. Among my guilty pleasures, was one cappuccino per day. I would walk for thirty minutes come hail, rain, snow or shine, to the best coffee house in town for my caffeine fix. It was only when I started to listen to my own body that I began to feel the effects of how just one shot of coffee stimulated my mind to become over active, and it also caused nervousness within my body. Furthermore, when I made the decision to stop assaulting my body with coffee I could feel how addictive caffeine is through the withdrawl symptoms I experienced.

307. Wow thank you for this sharing. I can also relate to so much of what you have shared. Recalling how exhausted and drained I was through the drive and searching for answers in contrast to the vitality and lightness I am now feeling by just being me.

308. This is a great article Jacqueline. I can relate to much of what you have written, especially about the yoga and self-help books. I now feel no need for these as I feel myself and I feel complete, it feels great not having this constant search for something to better myself and this constant drive to be doing, instead just being content being me, life feels much more simple and joyful.

309. Hi Jacqueline, I can relate to spending hundreds on self help books, and various spiritual courses from my early 20s through to my early 40s. Each course, book or diet would enthuse me for a while, but there was always something missing and before long, I was onto the next book or next course. During this time I was also a huge sugar and coffee addict and I used alcohol to help me unwind after a hard day at work. This food combination left me bloated, lethargic and overweight, not to mention miserable because I could never seem to control my weight. When I started attending the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, I knew my 20 year search was over. The changes I have chosen to make have been gradual but through the gentle breath meditation and learning to truly start caring for myself again, I too started to make more self loving choices. I have more vitality and joy in my life than ever before and that’s without sugar, coffee alcohol, gluten or dairy.

310. I love this. It describes so eloquently the paradox of when we believe we are being loving and caring of ourselves when we are in fact being the total opposite.

311. Like you, Ryan, I feel this quote deserves particular comment. I find it such a beautiful and evocative description of our inner heart and how we trick ourselves from connecting with it.

     1. Yes absolutely, it’s astonishing that sometimes what we seek and what we claim to ‘love’ keeps us from what we really want.

312. Thank you Jacqueline for sharing and it is back to front when we look at life closely how that in ‘doing the searching’ we get further away from what we’re looking for, which has actually never gone away and is inside. I have found for me, when I have indulged in sugar, coffee, treats etc. how my awareness of the simplicity and beauty of myself is numbed. It now feels amazing to actually feel I am enough and everything is already here so long as I choose to connect to me!

313. I love the way you describe all these ‘treats’ falling away, and then being able to look back and see that these were very much part of the problem, the overwhelm, the need to push ahead creating the need for coffee etc. Suddenly space and time open up before you… to just be yourself! How simple is that.

314. It’s lovely to reflect on all those things we claim are “pleasures” and start to be honest with ourself. It’s so easy to keep doing and seeking. Thanks for calling out so many areas and I love your ending line “Being and Connecting to my true self And Feeling Myself From the Inside out Is The Greatest True Pleasure in Life.”

315. Thank you Jacqueline for a great blog exposing how we seek to better ourselves by using distractions which actually ‘close the door’ on what we truly seek – our inner heart.

     1. This is so true Jess, the distractions we use only serve to take us away from what it is we most want, a connection with ourselves.

316. Hi Jacqueline, I can totally relate to the incessant distractions we can find to simply keep ourselves away from the beauty we are! Life can be so simple but we make it so complicated with these distractions! This is a great blog – thank you 🙂

317. Just beauty-full. Thank you.

318. Hi Jacqueline, that was a beautifully written clear and simple blog putting it all together. It is a great description for anyone to understand and be inspired to change their life. I know from my own experience that if I do things just because there is a list of things to do I end up feeling very tired, whereas if I let go of the pressure of time they all get done and I feel able to do much more.

319. Thank you.

320. Awesome Jacqueline.

     1. Thank you Shevon.

321. Just loved reading your blog Jacqueline. I can relate to so much of what you are sharing. Thank you.

     1. Thank you Priscila.

322. Oh yes – I so recognise the ‘doing’ and the feeling of not being good enough – your words are a lovely reminder to ‘feel that I am enough exactly who I am and that everything I need is inside me’.

     1. Hi Carmel, I too still have to remind myself that I am enough exactly who I am and that everything I need is inside me! This grows stronger every day…

        1. Hi Jacqueline, I agree Carmel it is a loving reminder that I am enough exactly as I am, thank you for sharing.

323. Hi Jacqueline, what a great simple, practical and real description of the path of regaining you. We have been so indoctrinated into thinking that coffee to kick start us is normal, and sugar to reboot us in the afternoon is normal. The true pleasure of feeling the connection to you can sound fluffy if your life is filled with distractions and stimulants, but as you have clearly stated, it is real and you are living proof.

     Thank you for the blog.

     1. Hi Heather, thank you, it was simple and practical, in that as you make one small change in your life, and then feel the difference in your body, this then makes it easier to examine other areas in your life to make more small yet subtle changes, that make a big difference in your energy and vitality. And yes indeed, I am living proof, how very true your words are!

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