I recently took the time to reflect back on understanding my life, the choices I have made, and how these choices affected me.
Writing the blog ‘From A False Foundation of Abuse to a True Foundation of Self-Love’ allowed room for me to take time to truly reflect on understanding life in a true sense, and for the self-appreciation that I now know I deserve.
I have gone from someone who only thought about keeping her children warm, fed and safe (or what I deemed to be safe at the time) while giving no thought or concern to my own well-being, to a woman who now naturally does this for herself. This is nothing short of an amazing transformation. I went from hating myself deeply with every thought and action to having a conscious understanding of why I was doing this and replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself. This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.
Meeting Serge Benhayon & Reintroducing Love into my Being
I remember sitting down with a man named Serge Benhayon ten or so years ago and him mentioning the word Love. I posed the question to him “what is Love?” He replied it is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them.
At the time I could not relate. I was so far from understanding what Love meant – I thought it was something to be received from others or given to others, not something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself. I know now what Love is and how amazing, energising and healing it feels in my body. I can feel love throughout my body, through tingly sensations where all areas of my body come to life. I feel a huge sense of completion and joy and I am very content.
Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them. At the moment I understand an impulse to be a feeling that comes to me, which quite often requires me to put it into some kind of action or expression. This may be a simple thought or feeling such as stopping and hugging my son or husband with all that I am.
I know it is an impulse/thought/feeling that will help me grow: what confirms this to be a true impulse is the contrast when I feel a sneaky thought or feeling inside of my head that is very dismissive, saying things like:
- “I can’t do that.”
- “Now’s not the time.”
- “You will look silly.”
- “They do not want this at the moment.”
or something along those lines. The reasons these afterthoughts are so damaging is because they are thoughts that try to keep me in an old way of being without allowing new ways of being and doing things – which then allow me to live life in a more loving way.
Understanding Life is a Celebration
To understand what I understand today not only makes life enjoyable but makes it a celebration, simply because of how I feel in my body. If you had told me this was possible twenty years ago, I would have thought you were insane or on better drugs than me.
When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.
Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are. I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world. I can connect with others and be together with them in all the Joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that Joy – and in that, I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.
By Anonymous
Further Reading:
From A False Foundation of Abuse to a True Foundation of Self-Love
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
“I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are”, is a great reminder/confirmation that we are all in this together. It helps us bring the understanding that everyone is carrying this illusionary issue that keeps them suppressed. When we take the steps to true healing, then we realise more and more the superficial life we have been living.
What an awakening and freeing when we realise more and more the depth of knowing of what life is constantly presenting to us. Whilst the Soul is patiently waiting for us to finally align so in that we can truly serve, rather than just turn up to work and do the motions.
Knowing who you are is empowering and joyous to be around.
On Tue, 22 Dec 2020 at 2:11 am, The Truth about Serge Benhayon wrote:
Shushila commented, ‘I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first… before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are’, is a great reminder/confirmation that we are all in this together. It helps us bring the understanding that everyone is.
How important is it to catch any negative thoughts that we get sneaking in…there is no other purpose to these thoughts than to break us down, wear us out, undermine who we are. There is no need to play this game… But what governs if we fall for this or not is the foundation of self love that we have build – with a strong foundation of self love, those thoughts hold no chance. Hence why this foundation is so important.
Henrietta I could not agree more in the importance of self love. It has to start somewhere. It begins in taking the steps in taking care of ourself first. The thoughts of selfishness will pollute our minds, but we are deserving of this and only then can we ever be there for another.
Once again, Anon, you have shared a huge revelation – that one cannot truly love another if one does not love oneself first. Often we can feel motivated to want to do things for another and this is not a bad way to begin the learning of loving and caring, be this for another and then also for ourselves. Through being with others we learn to love them and ourselves more and more.
Hello Anon, and thank you for your honest sharing – there is true love in not taking on anothers woes, but instead to walk alongside them as you hold your own essence to be with them.
“This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.” what a beautiful line, this is how it is for me too. And what an incredible blog, I really enjoyed your expression and all that you shared, it was so relatable it felt universal as a truth we can all know and connect to within ourselves. I liked how you asked Serge “What is love?” because it came with such an honesty and openness.
To be with another and not take on their ‘stuff’ is an incredible experience for both parties. The person you are supporting knows they are ok, that they have the skills to deal with what is in front of them and that you are there as a support, and you walk away knowing that they are perfectly equipped to deal with what they have in front of them and therefore do not need to take it on.
Absolutely Linda, appreciative-ness is honouring our essences and putting asunder the wayward energy that can fools us into appreciating physicality.
Appreciative-ness is the corner stone for us feeling the connection to our essence. Also we could say that Sacredness is appreciating everything ,and appreciation comes with an authority and conformation of that connection.
From feeling that we don’t know what love truly is, to knowing it in our own body as something so tangible as reality every day – that is a huge change. And the feeling I get is how this relationship really is a forever deepening one if we make it to be, and the ‘changes’ really are just us returning to who we naturally are, and that is a very beautiful journey that exposes and smashes everything that has kept us away from this gorgeousness.
“To understand what I understand today not only makes life enjoyable but makes it a celebration, simply because of how I feel in my body.” Serge Benhayon presents the true meaning of Love.
So glad I found your blog this morning anonymous as I really related to what you had to say here
“I went from hating myself deeply with every thought and action to having a conscious understanding of why I was doing this and replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself. This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.”
I feel that I have gone through life times of self-hate as it has been so deeply ingrained within my body. With the support of Universal Medicine practitioners I realised I could go through another life hating myself and self-sabotaging or, I could start to pick apart why I was choosing self-hate and self-loathing rather than making self-loving choices.
Great points here Mary, so many of us can hold a self loathing rather than a deep appreciation of who we are and what we bring to everyone around us. Deep appreciation is so needed as this is what allows us to blossom and take the next steps in life and bring what is needed.
Honouring what we feel is the stepping stone to appreciating and living more of who we are.
So true Jenny and yet we have created a world based almost entirely on dishonouring what we feel. Most of us don’t consciously feel much and when we do we tend to automatically discount it. We also have a dreadful habit of discounting what kids feel, often we’re ‘too busy’ to really pay attention and so our kids, in turn, quickly learn to discount how they feel. And so it goes.
Listening to our body, and honouring what it says is a wise choice, ‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.’
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me.” This is such a great point because the body does know exactly what is true and what isn’t.
I love the words Serge Benhayon offered you to show what love is, so different from what we are brought up to think or expect love to be. No emotional outplay or taking on other peoples issues, just a loving way to be.
Well said, and we need to hear these truths so our body can remember how to live them, because of course, what has been shared is entirely logical to our body and it just needs the reminder.
That’s gold having the understanding and knowing that when you are not effected by another person from what they are doing or saying because you know who you are. All the more reason to not leave who we are and join in on something we are not.
When we honour what we feel life becomes very simple.
To appreciate others and myself has been a deeply healing process and very powerful, and the more I appreciate I notice there is more to appreciate… it is endless what we can experience.
There is a simplicity to love that makes it easy to connect to, without needing to own or hold on to it. I love what you’ve shared here about how connecting to more love, to greater depths of it, can only happen if we keep building on what we’re already living and connecting to. It’s all right there, accessible and available to all equally, and the depth to which we feel it depends on how we live and move.
‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that.’ Sometimes a tension or unease in our body is also felt when we go out of our comfort or to be pulled up, when we are offered something new. It is always good to discern what the tension is and what is asked by this tension.
It is so important to observe ones thoughts that keep oneself from expressing what one feels to express and nominate them as not true.
Appreciation offers a deeper letting in of who you are as reflected back to you from life. Not appreciating is no different to being extremely dismissive. It is the same energy.
Appreciation is such an important part of life that we all seem to forget most of the time – but life without appreciation is like the sky without the sun – it can light up our whole lives.
Appreciation can light up our lives, ‘ I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.’
It is true, we might think we take care of ourselves when we allow to let ourselves be resting and taking time with things but when there is an impuls we have to at some point come in action and move and that is when the true magic happens for us. Great impulses are there to be activated not to be great in our minds…
There is nothing wrong in caring for others. Moreover, it is easy to be highly praised by others for doing so and building an image of such a loving person! Yet, when these actions are carried putting those who care about first and above you. This is telling that is made from a lack of self-worth and that caring for others is like the perfect alibi for not caring about you. Moreover, this overdoing for others is just a way to caress your hurts that impulse you to overdo it for others.
Well said Eduardo, and this does reveal the game we can play when we make excuses for not looking after ourselves. Placing others as more important than ourselves reveals a false and empty care that we can offer, rather than a knowing that we are all equal in importance and actually offering that quality to self as well as others equally so.
The more we appreciate the more loving choices we make.
Yes, it is appreciation that keeps loving choices going. When I make a slip up, appreciation is what makes me understand myself and then I can move forward with loving choices and not in reaction.
The more we bring joy into the flow in or lives the effortless is become and then we have the marker for the ‘new normal’.
The more we appreciate ourselves the easier it becomes to appreciate everyone.
And there’s a profound power in that – in holding another in that equalness, respect and true love.
“…I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.” – This is such valuable advice, so much in life is about living from what we have learnt from outside of us and can recall in our mind but without the honouring of what we have also sensed or know from our body.
Just let things flow but don’t hold back that everything is already there. So why would you need to struggle and drive?
I have come to understand that love is also about reflection – and the responsibility of living in a way that supports my body, so that my children see this and understand the importance of it. They are far too busy watching what I am doing – rather than just listening to me telling them what to do.
This is such a beautifully confirming blog for its author and helped me to see just how much negative self-talk goes on in the background of my mind, instilling doubt and delay of expressing my love to others. Also, I love the approach of not following through with a decision that caused you to feel a tension in your body that does not feel like it belongs. This is a good marker to pay attention to when we are perhaps making a decision that will not ultimately support us in the end.
Yes, our body always communicates and it is an opportunity to develop a deeper relationship with that communication so we can respond in a way that expands not caps us.
A parcel of joy is well described that we are, and we have to be. We are rich by nature – by our essence that is. Appreciation is something we can truly use in a growing way..
Beautiful, it is a key to appreciate for us to grow in life: without appreciation there is no possibility of setting true and solid foundations. And so accepting is very needed to work together with appreciation.
Our body is constantly trying to bring us to absolute honesty, and if we were to listen to what it is telling us we would realize that it is our best friend because it is through absolute honesty that we deepen our connection with ourselves and the universe.
This is is a powerful quote about love that you share from your meeting with Serge Benhayon. How simple to be love when we can acknowledge another’s pain and stop being in sympathy or trying to fix things for them.
“I posed the question to him “what is Love?” He replied it is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them”.
Coming from a background where there was an enormous amount of distress and trauma I learnt to do as much as I could for others from a young age, in that I lost my essence of love – to simply be me. Today I walked past a baby who was just being himself in full, absolute love, light and joy, which everyone could feel, he was lighting up the world around him. I’m still learning to be me and that that is enough and not go into other people’s stuff. Reading this blog today and seeing the baby as well really consolidated the truth presented here.
Thank you for this beautiful reminder that knowing love through feeling in the body is amazing, but it doesn’t last unless expressed and expanded through movement. It is for everyone.
When we are assured in ourselves it matters not what another does. As when we hold so much value on what we know to be true.
Knowing who we are is very supportive, we can then just observe another, ‘Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are.’
Beautiful, beautiful, as it reveals the burden(s) we have put between us and our endless love.
Appreciation can only start from inside, it has to be re-connected too and breathed as then it is so powerful it can not not be shared. Thank you for sharing your understanding and choices of where you have come to so far.. Appreciation.
A beautiful sharing and a joy to read this morning, thank you Anonymous. There is nothing like this feeling of being fully present in our bodies and open to living life to the full.
Re-connecting to the power of love and discovering all that love is not that I had thought it was is utterly joyfully liberating and exquisite. Unimedpedia Love provides a glimpse: http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-love.html
Love is so very much grander and more vast than we can even imagine and yet we all know it for we are of it and know what it is not. To get a feeling for the size of it we know God is Love but even then we bastardise the word by attributing all sorts of totally unloving qualities to God. At Unimedpedia you can also find further insights into God: http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-god.html
How many times have we all made a choice and followed through on it all the while our heart and body was saying no.
Anonymous you have offered some very practical step by step guides on how to listen to your body. Little markers that speak loud to us if we chose to hear. Building more trust in the communication from our bodies, then the communication from the head.
A gorgeous sharing thank you Anon, what an amazing transformation takes place in our lives when we open up to truly loving and appreciating ourselves and hold others in this same love. ” I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world. “
When one chooses to not be in the authority of the truth of their body, what are they choosing? Love or lies? Even dismissing ourselves in the slightest can be the outplay of a significant choice of energy.
“I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.” As we appreciate and live the Love that we are it is felt equally in others.
Delicious to read and feel you open up here Anon. Shows it is never too late to say yes to love and embracing who you are as who you truly are never leaves and remains as a possibility to one day live.
There are two different movements: one is propelled by the doing for the others (perfect alibi to leave you behind); the other is a movement propelled by the all (a movement that includes you, but not the you as in you with your name and last name).
Eduardo thats really lovely to read and feel the difference in doing for others vs moving for all.
It’s amazing, Anonymous, that you have taken your body from one that appeared to be completely lacking in any form of love and was so very abused – not only by yourself but by others as well – to one that is love and holds love in a manner that can be felt simply from the words you have written. You embody and are a living example of the power of love.
We truly learn how to appreciate others when we start appreciating ourselves – in who we are and what we are worth, and I dont mean money wise. We need a deeper acceptance of ourselves to give then space of love and appreciation to others. Hence our key lays within our own living – how we are with ourselves ends up to how we are with each other.
Beautiful Anonymous, we can become so used to living hard, to pushing through and ignoring what truly feels good that we think it is ‘normal’ to feel sore and exhausted. But there are certain things in life, like the Esoteric Modalities that cut through all this stuff and reveal that our body naturally knows love back to front. Just give living it a go and see how it feels. My experience is our bodies revel in being cared for.
Appreciating the many little things that we feel about ourselves, even if we have got something wrong it does not matter – accepting our imperfections is part of the process. Building appreciation in this way changes our perception of ourselves and then the world.
It seems ridiculous for us to not know what love is, we have made so many variations to what it is in truth and have come so far from what love is. It was very refreshing to read the description Serge gave you in your session. True love is a holding not an absorption.
What a beautiful transformation – thank you for sharing how the power of appreciation ignites our will to re-claim the love we are, be the love we are, live the love we are and share the love we all are in essence.
“To understand what I understand today not only makes life enjoyable but makes it a celebration, simply because of how I feel in my body. ” This is simplicity and love all rolled into one, because it is a confirmation of who we are from our bodies movements from what we first feel and then it is also an appreciation of who we all are as we are all connected via the joy and freedom we feel from our bodies as an expression of all. That is a true celebration.
I have started connecting more with my joy lately. It sounds weird but I feel it in my feet first and that gives me a marker of joy for the rest of my body. Slowly I am allowing the joy to spread to other parts of my body, for it is the shoulders where I hold back expressing joy the most.
Beautiful Thomas, I have visions of your feet dancing and your body deciding whether it will play along.
It’s absolutely miraculous to feel the changes we can make when we choose to live with love and responsibility as our focus.
Appreciation and confirmation are essential daily activities for us all, ‘I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.’ Great choice, I too am making this choice.
Imagine driving to work everyday and continually taking a wrong turn every time and perpetually ending up in a dead end. This is a bit how life can seem to me. I know the way I am to go, know the truth of what love is, but can find myself sidetracked and delayed going this familiar ‘wrong way’. These days the sooner I can realise I have done it again, I can reroute and get my bearings again. But today thanks to your words Anonymous I am wondering if I truly need to get lost, when the way ahead is mapped out so bold in my heart.
There is a lot to appreciate and celebrate about life. It starts with the small things with every moment to cherish understanding that through your movement will determine what type of thought you will have. The awareness is the celebration.
I love the fact that Love does not take on other people’s stuff. This is a great way to identify what Love is and what it is not.
Very true Elizabeth… without markers like this to guage what is love and what isn’t, it’s very easy to fall for the idea of what love is, rather than what it actually is. Many times l’ve been pulled up for something l’m doing or saying and much as I don’t like it at the time, I can easily feel if it comes with judgment and critique or whether it comes with love. The former is very hard to let in and feels condemning, whereas the other feels holding and supportive.
This is a massive turn around to go from hating yourself to loving yourself, ‘This is nothing short of an amazing transformation. I went from hating myself deeply with every thought and action to having a conscious understanding of why I was doing this and replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself. This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.’
‘I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.’ We are all parcels of joy, I love it!
Taking time to reflect is a very self honouring thing to do as it gives us an opportunity to appreciate who we are and how we are in life.
Appreciation is as essential to us as the air we breath. Without it we do not establish a sense of who we are as a foundation in life that is unshakeable.
Beautifully said Jenny. It is so true, as with appreciation we confirm of the the vibration of love, who we are in essence, in activity.
Yes exactly Carola, without confirmation of our essence, we get filled up with a constant flow of self-negating thoughts. Once I understood this, I could see how much in control of the choice to foster one or the other I was.
Very beautiful, Anonymous. What you have shared has brought a greater deepening of my understanding of Love. Thank you.
‘Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am’ – This statement is so true. The more I get to know me and the more I choose me, the more love that I hold in my body and there is no room for anything else.
Dear Anonymous I too used to think love was something that was given to me or that I gave to others rather than something I could nurture and grow for myself. This new understanding of being love for myself first has transformed my life and all my relationships, especially when it comes to allowing others to be, and not taking on their emotions.
What you show here so clearly is that life is a step by step process with allowing ourselves to learn to be loving and deeply caring with ourselves and with that we slowly build a solid foundation we stand on and can keep building form there.
Thank you Anonymous. I have a new job in a part of the city where there are many homeless people sleeping on the street. At first I went into sympathy and reaction as it was horrible to see people choosing to live this way. Now I am beginning to see that sympathy does not support anyone. Instead I accept what others have chosen and see who they really are.
I had a similar experience yesterday Leonne. I was walking under a railway bridge where I saw at least 6 homeless people on their makeshift beds. At first it distressed me and lowered my mood, but I soon realised my emotion was not supporting them or me.
Love is so simple but we let ‘need’ get in the way and masquerade as love. Once we un-mask this intruder the presence and simplify of what is – Love is there.
‘if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am’ we can just connect back to our stillness and see things clearly and deepen that connection.
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that.” It is that simple when we stop to listen we know when we feel the unease or tension in that moment its not write for us.
I love Serge’s response to what love is. He is a master at making the complex, so simple.
‘Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am’. What a powerful confirmation of the changes you have made, this is pure gold when we observe we no longer react. For so long I also got affected by others especially if I felt hurt by their actions. Very recently I received a little package from my Soul which provided the confirmation of how much I had shifted and expanded. The situation that presented itself to me, would have in the past left me feeling a victim and/ or very hurt, and I would have stayed in my protection not expressing. However, I was able to bring understanding and allow this person to be where they were at which meant I did not take on any of their stuff but neither did I impose judgement or criticism on them either. And most importantly I did express my truth, which was a healing for me. Much for me to appreciate….
This blog is such a gem, thank you so much, when you write ‘if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am’ … it was a lightbulb moment for me to realise that when I feel annoyed in how another is and that they’re not being true, it’s to come back and deepen my connection with me, and know who I am. Great to be reminded.
When we know true love we can no longer fall for the trappings of emotional love that keep us held in what we think love is.
My understanding of the word love has changes so much over the years. Coming to a place where I can appreciate myself and not judge my bad choices had been life changing. This is one of the things I do that is loving.
I too used to think love was only something you shared with another but that is crazy because how can you share something with another that you are not 1st living yourself? The beauty is when we live the love we are and then meet another who is doing the same then together the love explodes and literally anything is feels possible. And this is definitely not reserved to your intimate partner it can be with anyone but does have to start with someone and that someone is you!!
It was so lovely to read about how you have transformed your relationship with yourself, choices and brought such appreciation into your life. I didn’t even really know the word appreciation, well I did, but not how to apply it into my life and how i viewed myself. So could really relate to a lot of what you shared. Very delightful.
How beautiful you went from not knowing what love is to now experiencing all it’s qualities and learning to live and embody true love through your choices and the deep appreciation of you.
Love is everything, it “is who we are, where we come from and what we are made of” Serge wrote that in one of his books – it has been on my mirror ever since. If we live knowing we all come from love, that is is our responsibility to be that love in our expression in the world, then the ripple effect we share with others is the potential they too can remember where we are from and what we are all made of and their expression will reflect the same to another.
I love how you mention that a number of years ago you would have thought you were insane simply for following your bodies natural impulses and listening to what it is saying. It shows how much we miss out on a true quality of life when we live only in our heads. I was like this a number of years ago too and was presented the truth through a workshop with Chris James only to find myself vehemently resisting what he was sharing. Only to find that today listening and celebrating ourselves in our bodies is the greatest way of living we could ever choose.
Your words ‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.’ This is so true, I have learnt more about what choices support me simply by being more aware of the effect they have on my body.
‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. ‘ Thank you for this. It’s so simple and signals I’ve over ridden even for reasons like the ‘greater good’. I’ll think I don’t want to do something because I am lazy but actually I know when I am being lazy and when I am hearing a communication from my body that has the wisdom of the universe within it. Listening to my body can scare the part of me that knows the grandness of what I am aligning to and how it doesn’t want me to know and I will see its small ways and self-interests for what they are and no longer choose to be consumed by them.
“Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them. At the moment I understand an impulse to be a feeling that comes to me, which quite often requires me to put it into some kind of action or expression.” This is the key, its not only feeling the impulse, but understanding that we have to put it into an action or expression, this allows for the next impulse to then come along.
Appreciation is an interesting word. It can seem a bit glib, as in “I totally appreciate the trouble you’ve taken to do such and such”. But it really is a word of remarkable depth and warmth, and to deeply appreciate oneself (or another) is to deeply love all of who we / they are – to see the divinity within.
Yes Victoria. Appreciation is a word we can take at surface level and make it all about our actions and contributions in the world, yet we could also take it further and start bringing awareness to what we bring to the world when we know where we are from and the power love has to bring to the world.
The more we come to know ourselves the more we can make informed choices about life. To know our body also requires honesty and awareness of where we allow our thoughts to wander, how the breath comes in and out of our body and the physical movements. This is truly claiming ourselves and the way forward is then a deeply loving one.
‘I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am.’ Pure gold, Anonymous. Knowing who we are is a powerful, powerful anchor – one that, as you say, prevents us from being buffeted by the vagaries of other people’s opinions.
Now this is a big thing:”I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are.” To see first the truth of who somebody is and than see how they separated from this fact is building a base on connection and truth. From here there comes more understanding and the knowing of what is needed now.
A beautiful appreciation of what love is: “ something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself”. Understanding, accepting, appreciating and choosing this for ourselves transforms our lives in ways that previously weren’t even imaginable.
This blog is a beautiful celebration and appreciation of all you have chosen Anonymous.
Thank you anonymous, I am appreciating all that you have shared here, it is for all of us.
‘I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.’ We all can learn so much by listening to our body, for it speaks truth always.
Great call being that we are forever expanding from inside when we choose and nothing can be brought to us greater than that from the outside. Yet we indeed have a huge opportunity to not only feel it in ourselves, but equally in others, and if they choose so to, we have a union of equal expressed parcels. Now that is an opportunity worth taking.
When we listen to what our bodies are saying and we honour its messages life becomes magical. Looking after ourselves is paramount if we want to live a quality that is worth celebrating.
It is beautiful to be able to see people for who they innately are and not for their behaviours… recognizing it is only their choices that take them away and at any moment, like yourself, can choose to connect to the love and beauty within and express that no matter what.
Reading your wonderful blog I found myself asking the question: how many in the world have the “understanding that life is a celebration?” I have a feeling that there would not be many and once upon a time I was one of them; life was a struggle and something to survive, not celebrate. How wrong was I? I realise now after many years of being committed to understanding me, others and the world around me, that even though there will be times that life is challenging those times are definitely outweighed by the times that can be absolutely celebrated.
Life is amazingly perfect in all it’s imperfections and big lessons, yes there’s much ugliness and evil, but the way it’s all divinely designed for us to grow, and re-know who we are is absolutely astonishingly amazing, and without doubt worth celebrating every single day.
Love feeling your appreciation of this Meg 🙂
I felt a real sadness of when you wrote about growing up hating yourself, not only for you, but also for me (as I did too in parts) and for the millions (possibly billions) who think the same. The hate levels may vary but I know for many it is there. It is the trick of the spirit that allows these thoughts to come in, that feed us to keep us less and not liking ourselves. To hate a body that is love is one of the cruelest games of all. Congratulations for seeing past this and recognising your true self and learning to love and appreciate that.
How true Sarah, how do we come to hate a body that is love, that love being our natural way. Is it a game of the spirit that we have allowed so as not to fully embrace the all that we are, and respond to all we are being called to be?
‘I now own a parcel of joy called me…’, what a beautiful way to express how it feels when we have claimed ourselves for all the love we are. We are a bundle of joy that is so full and complete that we know nothing else is needed.
Thank you anonymous. Your blog has blessed me with a much deeper understanding of the practicalities of love, choices and appreciation and how they all can support, nourish and build each other and thus me.
Appreciation from the inside out is a way of life, it is confirming who we are and that we are all bundles of love.
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me” So true – yet for a long time I was so numb that I didn’t even register that I was feeling unease! Good to wake up and feel again……
You describe beautifully the feeling of love from the inside out, something we all can rediscover and live.
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.” My body has been giving me messages all my life but only since I came to Universal Medicine presentations have I appreciated – and listened and then acted upon its messages.
I loved the explanation of what love is . . . to be able to respond in a way that does not take anything away from another . . . it really is the ability to live and let live without an iota of holding back, sympathy or judgment.
So true Kathleen, the explanation of love was brilliant to hear again and be reminded of how we can love others in a true way.
Wow what amazing transformation anonymous. The word and meaning of Love has been so bastardised that we can spend life times looking in the wrong places, you found love real love right under your nose and in doing so have allowed others to also see that this is possible.
Love starts and ends with the feeling that we have within our own body. Love does not depend on another to love us for us to feel it.
I do so relate to what you share here about letting your self appreciate your self, in full. I know what a big transformation it is you have made, slowly and steadily, and it is so worthwhile, and well worth celebrating.
Thanks anonymous for the article, our choices determine how quickly and how much love we do connect to.
It still astounds me that we walk around with an incredible wealth of love inside, and yet we spend many lives searching everywhere but within.
So true Kim, it is crazy how we avoid connecting to the immense love we all have within.
This is lovely anonymous, thank you. When we learn the truth of who we are and then start to know others are the very same as us – before any other choices they might make – we bring something very powerful to life. It feels like beholding what is true in both ourselves and them first, regardless of what other choices are made. I find this helps me let go of judgment – which is pretty awesome really!
This is a beautiful sharing we can all benefit from. I love the simplicity it brings, like simply hugging someone if you feel to, in other words allowing us to express more freely and with that getting a feel for what is deeply felt and wants to be expressed.
The phrase “a parcel of joy called me” offers a pathway of living that says once you connect to who you are, let yourself feel the joy of being that, and walk each day knowing the joy you are.
“it is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them.” — BEAUTY-FULL!
From hating yourself with every thought and action to understanding, loving and caring for yourself is indeed an amazing divine transformation. I love how you appreciate what you have achieved here, as I do. Thank you for sharing your experiences, your wisdom and your love with us.
“‘I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.” The relationship I have also built with ‘me’ is a celebration each day in my body, no more letting those natural impulses go as they are our bodies normal response to sharing the joy we have connected with.
I find when I act straight away on impulses that come from the heart, it feels amazing – like stopping to hug someone. It’s such a different way to live, instead acting upon what you feel, rather than thinking and calculating everything you do… Life is one billion percent less controlled and calculated.
The transformation you write about might seem impossible to some, even many reading this, but I have experienced it and witnessed it for myself and so know it to be true and very very possible.
Once we start to reconnect to our bodies we understand that there is more life than what the eyes can see, and the more consistent we are in living in this appreciation the more loving our relationships become with ourselves and all those around us.
So one thing that I’ve come to appreciate is that you can use words that sound great but there can be no substance behind them. I would often tell people I love them and firstly not know what love actually was and secondly not have any love or care for myself. In the same way that you can’t get a blue jumper from a shop if they don’t have a blue jumper, how can we love another if we don’t first love ourselves? Seems obvious when written down but it was not something I was consciously aware of growing up and in my early twenties.
“what is Love?” When we feel in our body the answer and truth of this question we know who we truly are.
‘To understand what I understand today not only makes life enjoyable but makes it a celebration, simply because of how I feel in my body. If you had told me this was possible twenty years ago, I would have thought you were insane or on better drugs than me.” So true Anonymous how often do we look at life as a celebration and a joyful way of being. We may have fleeting moments but do we live this consistently and make it the forefront of our day. Listening to our body is something we are not taught in life but is the bedrock of understanding life and all that happens in it.
Dear Anon, I can’t get past this para of yours: “I posed the question to him “what is Love?” He replied it is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them.
This is so deeply touching. If we all expressed love and did not absorb, react or take on anything from another that is expressing less than love in that moment – wow the world would be such a different place it completely blows my mind to even consider it. This is how it will be one day and it starts here, with each person who starts to make these choices.
If we are honest we always know that there is in every moment in our life a choice, that like an open door leads to ‘more’. But what is the nature of the doorway that we often choose? Do we go for what we know feels right? or more what we think should be nice? For no wonder we often feel misunderstood and overwhelmed if we don’t listen first to what our body has to say. What if this understanding relationship is the bedrock of our life? Thank you Anonymous for your understanding notes.
Its been so powerful to know that we do not give or receive love. What I have observed is that if I think I am giving it, then I am probably in sympathy for the other person, which is not at all helpful in any way shape or form. Love is who we are and where we are from…I haven’t completely embodied this but I do know that to the core of me being. I also know that the more and more loving choices I choose to make, the more I will embody and live this.
“I know it is an impulse/thought/feeling that will help me grow: what confirms this to be a true impulse is the contrast when I feel a sneaky thought or feeling inside of my head that is very dismissive, saying things like:
“I can’t do that.”
“Now’s not the time.”
“You will look silly.”
“They do not want this at the moment.””
It really is that simple. True impulses are always loving for everyone involved but if a thought comes through attempting to put us down even in the most subtle way then we know that it needs ditching.
What a transformation, its incredible the changes and more so the choice to really appreciate these. For me reading your blog has asked me to look at my loving choices and bring a deeper level of appreciation to where I am today.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world”….so true Anonymous so true. There is nothing like it, which is why so many people seek a substitute because we have been sold a lie about what love is. And I love that Serge Benhayon is re-connecting us to what true love is and that students of the Way of the Livingness are stepping up to live it – not in perfection but in commitment to it.
Thank you Anonymous for a great blog, about how your life has changed, and how you know the difference between a thought and an impulse. “‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me.’”
What an awesome way to love/live Anonymous! It’s hugely inspiring to read about the turn around and how it is such an accessible thing for us all and all comes back down to a simple choice.
I allow so much negative self talk in, but more and more I’m recognising how those thoughts are not actually part of who I am. ‘I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.’ This is my experience also…Sometimes it take a few goes before I choose not to repeat a choice, but that’s ok. Discerning the difference between what we perceive to be normal and what is actually naturally normal is only possible when we are listening to our body.
When I was practising Buddhism I thought I knew what being detached meant and perhaps I did but I did not live this in full. I am still learning to live like you Anonymous and allow everyone their reactions and to allow myself mine also and to have true compassion at these times and to later reflect in order to understand why these reactions took place at the deepest level. Sometimes I think I have it but on talking with another I can get to an even deeper level and the actual source of the discomfort. When we are full of ourselves and living from our essence these ‘issues’ do not exist.
Beautifully expressed Anonymous, there are many pearls of wisdom to reflect upon from your blog, I especially liked this awesome reminder – ‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me.’
Thank you anon – I love how you show that love is ever expanding, ever deepening and evolving – not a static thing but something that naturally has an activity and movement for what is needed next.
Thank you for sharing your appreciation of knowing who you are and the solid foundation this gives you to appreciate others as well, even if they are not able to do this for themselves yet.
Like you Anonymous I continue to learn to deepen my appreciation and love of others and of myself. I enjoyed reading about your experiences of letting go and deeply feeling divinity and love within, thus allowing true love to emanate. Thank you.
‘Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them.’ wow what a wise understanding of evolution.
Thank you anonymous for sharing what is and isn’t love – that which makes us expand IS and those thoughts that create doubt and erode our sense of wellbeing are not. It’s important to cast these aside and come back to the love that we truly are and know ourselves to be.
Love is the ability to freely be and let be.
Love is a sense of being that is all encompassing, that allows one to see all life as it is lived, but equally see life in its highest possible potential.
It is incredibly sad how much we learn to loath ourselves when we grow up. When we look at a baby there is only but deep contentedness and an absolute stillness of being, when we look at a grown woman or man we see behaviours that this once content baby displays to prove it’s worth and right to exist. So it is clear that we are made/we let us be formed into something that we are not thus we can reverse this making and return to the inner stillness and contentedness we know deep inside.
I have so many times in the past allowed my thoughts to take over, allowing me to stay separate and in the hiding. This was when I was looking for love and recognition outside of me. Now I know that love is within me and I no longer need to look for recognition, thoughts no longer get me caught in the separation, as I love being with people and socialising.
Our thoughts can come to sabotage us – those thoughts like being unworthy, stupid, less than. Ideals can separate us, when we think things should be a certain way and others behave differently. The thing we can solidly know is the love we know in our bodies. This solid foundation, this knowing truth, when deeply connected to, changes everything.
Thank you Anonymous for an inspiring sharing, at times I would have an impulse to call someone and then a thought would come in ‘ they might be busy or now is not a good time,” I did not realise at the time that these were thought that would keep me in my old pattern of hiding, So next time when the impulse comes I will respond to it’s calling.
What a beautiful sharing Anonymous. I can relate to the thought processes you describe that get in the way of expressing the natural loving impulses we have – your blog inspires me to get out of my own way and simply let others know I love them from a foundation of love within myself.
The turnaround you have experienced in your life since meeting Serge Benhayon is astounding on many levels and your words, ‘Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are. I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world,’ so confirm there is a true and loving way to deal with one’s hurts and be free of them.
yes, how many times do we/ have we held back acting on an impulse. whatever happens in place is just not me and is usually the opposite of the impulse. It can be as simple as holding back a compliment that you feel to give about something they are wearing. I was meeting a painter to settle payment for a job he had done for me. I loved his yellow t shirt but held back saying so. What followed was some forced small talk and I felt pretty empty, confused, awkward after speaking to him because the conversation had felt like fake and empty politeness and etiquette. Just shows that even the small impulses like appreciation for a yellow t shirt are huge opportunities to genuinely connect and be with people.
There’s so much to take away from this blog. I found it very confirming as a reminder of the raw truth that ‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me.’. From there, the thing that makes the difference is heeding the feelings and not overriding them. That comes down to the choices I make in the next moment and that’s where my true responsibility lies.
How often do these after thoughts as you call them, hold us back from true impulses. Thanks for writing this article as from now on I am going to be far more aware when ‘the after thoughts’ creep in and hold me back from what is presented to be done.
So true Brendan. If we don’t stop to celebrate and confirm what we feel and do we will constantly look for more to do to prove ourselves simply because we are not appreciating the fact that what we do and bring is enough.
I have to say I am like a sponge when it comes to taking on others peoples stuff. I’m getting better at appreciating that it is not in fact mine to wear, although this is a huge work in progress. Learning to appreciate that all you bring is enough to help another heal, is a big deal and involves learning to accept ourselves first.
‘I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.’ It’s amazing how quickly the awareness grows when we start to actually pay attention to the bodies we walk around in every single moment of the day.
So true Elodie, paying attention to how our bodies feel brings us back to reality and supports us to stop getting preoccupied, distracted and overwhelmed by all the busyness and complications in the world around us.
Thank you Anonymous I loved reading your blog, these words especially, made me smile “I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world. I can connect with others and be together with them in all the Joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that Joy – and in that, I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.”
Understanding Life and appreciating ourselves is definitely two big asks in this life! I agree that really listening to our bodies is so important and as you say if we feel uncomfortable this is not the decision to make for ourselves . Thank you Anonymous.
What you describe about the afterthoughts is so true, they are there to keep us in old ways, as there is always a possibility to grow when we don’t choose to go in them and truly follow what is impulsed.
The more understanding and appreciation we give ourselves, the more we build a foundation of self care for ourselves the more able we are to care for others too.
I agree Sally, I would say that I am now beginning to feel the power of appreciation and how important it is to assisting the change from the old patterns of self abuse. Along with giving us the ability to appreciate and then truly love others – giving us the ability because without the self appreciation first it is easy to dismiss others and what they bring.
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.” . It is about listening to our body that we can feel and know whether a choice is true for us or not. Our body does not lie and it is the greatest marker of truth, this is what I have come to understand and experience through the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Appreciating myself is something I am choosing to practice with others and very gently much is changing in the way I move and hold myself each day. We are brought up to believe that life is about caring for others and to put self first is selfish. This way creates so many barriers to the truth of the way it really is. Your blog shows how breaking down these barriers and getting to know who you are and becoming aware of what the truth and love feels like in your body, has changed your life. I loved your statement – ‘Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am’. This is ‘inspiration’ and love in action. Thank you Anonymous.
‘I thought it was something to be received from others or given to others, not something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself’ – this puts our day to day experience of love firmly in our grasp, to choose it with everything that we are or not. Either way, it is always available and that is awesome to know.. no matter if I have turned my back or ignored it in the past.
That’s the great thing about love it is not outside of us, or something we need to go out and obtain, because it has always been there within us, and is only a choice away.
Thank you Anonymous, I loved reading your blog and how your life has changed from thinking that love was something to give and receive, to realising that love is who we are and living from that loving impulse found in our bodies. We can now live with joy, for the love once lost, is now found deep within.
It is lovely to read that you have learned to self nurture and are experiencing all that follows that way of being. Following impulses has been quite a hard one for me to do, being self conscious at times holds me back, but to be as natural as a little child when impulsed to express feels important. Thank you Anonymous
Being able to recognize what is a true impulse, and then, as you say, to be able to act upon this and carry this on into our life, is a great way to start to live, instead of being crippled by the negative thoughts and habits that lurk in our lives.
We all have the ability to feel that tension when something does not quite feel right, but what do we do about it. That is the love, that even if we have invested our time and energy into something… if it does not feel right we can make a different choice.
Simon that is so true, we have a different choice, as we are more aware through our connections and feelings. Our bodies are amazing as they show us through feelings and tension that something is not quite right.
There was a few gems in this blog that I noticed this time around. By knowing who you are there is no attachment to the choices and expressions of others, I have started to experience this and to the extent I have it’s such a contrast from reacting and going off on a self-bashing tangent because my expectation wasn’t met. Instead I can focus on the warmth in my body and whatever the other is doing I don’t feel attached to tightly to them anymore. This will build in time but the other thing that stood out was that expanding this love is very simple – feel it, say yes, move, feel it, say yes, move and repeat. I feel this is something worth experimenting with, thank you Anonymous.
It was powerful what you shared about Serge Benhayon’s description of love and the huge understanding behind that description. To love oneself and another so much that you do no loose yourself in sympathy when another is hurting, but instead simply stay with feeling and acknowledging. I got a clear picture of walking through life like this, not taking stuff on – how incredibly different life could be, how vitality could expand and how one could live inspiring others simply and humbly.
If we all truly allowed whatever is being felt to just be there – to not alter the love we are and the presence of love we hold, feels ‘absolute’ in its surrender, acceptance and appreciation. It allows space for one to completely release what is no longer needed and that which in truth is not them. I can feel the breath of a world that is steady, solid, consistent, flowing and expansive. Because this can be felt I know it already exists within us all – Thank you anonymous for bringing this awareness to the surface.
A true wakening – thank Anonymous for sharing
Thank you Anonymous for sharing your story. The changes you have experienced are remarkable and testament to this step by step process of seeing these sneaky thoughts for the weeds and vines they are. I got a picture of you making a beautiful clearing where an overgrown jungle used to be.
Anonymous, appreciating and trusting what you feel from your body and understanding how the mind wants to trick you into thinking that what you felt is not true, confirms for me how our body is a marker of truth not our mind. I’ve also experienced many impulses that once I would not listen to as my mind would jump in and present doubt of what the impulse was telling me. When I stopped overriding the impulse and just ‘went for it’ the result always felt true.
I agree Elizabeth. It’s a real eye opener when we start learning to pay attention to the impulses that come through us and then accept/act on them. If I hesitate I find my mind starts to play with me and I end up going on a wild goose chase and things end up in a mess. Sometimes I know I need to accept what has been presented and allow myself time to process what has been delivered, but as long as I don’t question its authenticity then I know everything will be OK regardless of what follows.
“I can connect with others and be together with them in all the Joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that Joy – and in that, I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.” – how totally cool is that in contrast to the earlier “from hating myself deeply with every thought and action” – absolutely so much to celebrate here, and both experiences I can relate to personally.
Yes Kate such a massive contrast, one that may seem impossible to some but has been proved to be very possible by Anonymous.
Full of gems, I really appreciate you sharing this blog Anonymous. With understanding, so much grace can unfold in our lives, which has been my experience. The understanding I have gained about my past loveless choices has been like a sword that has cut through the hardness I held my body in, which has allowed space for my tenderness, my innocence and my gracefulness to be expressed and still unfolding and deepening….
Jacqueline, it is beautiful and inspiring to read of your changes and unfolding in this way, thank you for your loving inspiration and tenderness, you share with the world the true beauty of women with how you express and live.
““what is Love?” He replied it is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them.”
This is a beautiful description and one I experienced with a couple of children this week, I had a moment of sadness when with them and explained to them what was going on with me. They just looked at me steadily, as if to say “we know” and carried on with what they were doing. There was no attachment, they felt it and let it go. And so did I. What a lesson in love that was.
This is beautiful Jeanette. The simplicity of feeling and letting go is what love is. Everyone is being honoured in that one moment.
I just re-read my words above which were written some time ago, and have come to another level of appreciation that I had such a loving and confirming experience of what love with no attachments or expectations feels like. Every one being honoured in that moment for sure.
Vicky I have had some great experience of that this week, the simplicity of feeling and letting go, taking more self responsibility and holding the love.
And it also feels Jeanette that love brings with it an acceptance and understanding without judgment and in that it never leaves one feeling abandoned or alone but simply held and allowed to be.
Yes and it also brings appreciation. Appreciation is the golden key.
Children are far wiser than we give them credit for, and their ability to truly accept with no attachment by feeling the truth of what is being presented to them and then letting it go is foundational to this. All we adults could definitely learn from this, by not hanging on to all that we do.
“At the time I could not relate. I was so far from understanding what Love meant – I thought it was something to be received from others or given to others, not something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself.” The most shocking thing for me was that i thought i was loving with myself, of course i could enjoy a hot bath and rub some essential oils onto my skin, but what became very apparent was how disconnected I was from myself, my body, I was simply doing it. I literally had to relearn to appreciate and celebrate myself, something i knew I had done for myself but had left behind me far away.
Love is and life is a celebration, Live it.
True appreciation of ourselves and also equally for others is the key to build a strong foundation that enables us to evolve, live love and brotherhood. Actually we could celebrate each and every minute our divine connection to God, our beauty, our grace, our delicateness, our deep wisdom and so much more! We are part of something absolutely amazing! Why don`t we start to choose celebrating that NOW?
I feel before the celebration of the grandness of life and ourselves can take place we are required to fully connect to this as a possibility and then finally a precise knowing. And yes I agree lets start to really celebrate the grandness of who we are and what we are all a part of together.
Yes, we often don`t really go there because if we would really connect to that we would have to go into our power and never step out of it again and that makes us anxious an brings up loads of old hurts. But if we really feel into ourselves we know that we are designed to live this grandness.
I love how you wrote “….we are designed to live this grandness”. Our very design is grandness so we don’t need to worry if we are enough simply live what we already are.
I love this, although I no not your name I can feel all you’ve shared is truth and it feels beautiful to connect with you through that. Thank you for sharing your Joy.
Those self-demeaning and self-sabotaging thoughts are damaging and have the power to trip us up if we allow them to run unchecked. We have the choice to allow them or to stop them, but we have to be willing to be aware of them and to feel their lack of love and support of who we truly are.
Carmine what I have also found to be very powerful in not letting these thoughts take hold is to know they are not my thoughts as this seems to take the ability they have to get a foothold in how I think, I am blown away by how powerful this understanding is in disarming these thoughts and allowing space for more supportive thoughts.
‘I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.’ – what a beautiful way to live. Thank you for sharing how through choosing to lovingly care for ourselves and our bodies that we can live in a way that is more harmonious with who we naturally are.
Its interesting that the impulse/feelings we receive and the ‘sneaky’ thoughts we get are the complete opposites of each other. One confirms who we are and the other lets us feel not ourselves. One allows that celebration and the other hurts us.
This is such a heart warming sharing of the process of the understanding and the claiming of all that you are and all that you offer your family and the world. I, like you, have only just begun to truly appreciate the amazing woman I am and I now realise that I/we have so much to celebrate every moment of every day. No holding back anymore!
I know too well the dismissive thoughts that follow an impulse. It is a constant choice to live by what is true.
And this new way of being Brendan is an offering to all those that cross your path, I have personally had the Joy of experiencing you in all your grandness. Simply through choosing to be the love we are brings a lightness and ease to those who cross our path. This may sound simple and be easy to dismiss, yet it is very power-full and healing. We really are such power-full beings with so much to offer, no matter what our past choices may entail. If anything our past choices offer us a greater understanding and acceptance of where some people may still find themselves.
Thank you. This blog, and the comments have helped me accept and appreciate myself more today. I still can berate myself for what I haven’t done and then not appreciate what I have. This is the same with other people – seeing how they are not stepping up or being love and leaving out appreciating them for who they are or what they have done that is responsible, healing and supportive.
Your words are deep and heart-felt and resonate with true love and healing. There is nothing that can’t be healed and your blogs are powerful testimony to this fact.
Yes it is testament to many people that building a life of Love is possible no matter how many hurts we may have accrued along the way. All it takes is a dedication to be extremely self-loving and understanding while honestly looking at the choices that have led one to the point one finds oneself at. It took me a while to start healing as I lacked the understanding for myself and instead chose to blame and beat myself up, but once I made the choice to have an understanding and acceptance for where my life was at, the changes naturally occurred.
The foremost understanding is that we ARE Love – with this as a foundation there is nothing that can’t be healed.
“Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am.” This is amazing and very inspiring to read… I am working on myself to come to this place, must be so relaxing! I can get so worked up when I see people acting irresponsible… but I agree it helps enormously the more I build the connection with myself and actually know who I am.
The loving choices you are making are truly inspirational, when we can appreciate ourselves and the qualities we bring I find joy happens naturally within and around us.
Thank you for sharing Serge’s response to what love is and how important the point he makes about not taking on other peoples hurts and issues. I feel love is often confused with this kind of burdening and the great thing I got to understand is that it does not even support the other person. If we are in the beholding light that love is then this will truly support the other to come back and deal with their issue for themselves.
I loved that explanation given by Serge too Carolien, as It feels true – taking on others’ emotions is not love, sympathy is not love, nor is trying to find solutions to others’ problems. Allowing others to take responsibility for their situation is loving and empowering to ourselves and to them.
Great blog, thank you Anon, and a great reminder, to appreciate where I have come from, the self harming choices I used to make, to deeply knowing how amazing I am; and to choosing to love and appreciate myself first – more and more consistently – and not ‘once I have done so and so, or achieved this or that….’
The body is an all knowing and powerful indicator of what is true. Beautifully said Anonymous.
I love the definition of love given to you by Serge Benhayon, I feel that we did know love as children, but too often took on others sadness or allowed ourselves to be affected by others suffering. Thank you for sharing your life now lived as a celebration Anonymous.
So beautiful, the appreciation of who we are, and where we have come from. Knowing that this” little parcel of joy” lives within everyone.
Yes, Jill, and actually it is not even a little parcel, but a huge, profound and solid foundation of love and joy that we feel when we really deeply connect to ourselves.
‘I know who I am’, I do get a real sense that through the understanding you have gained from your life Annoymous, that yes, you do know who you are and you do understand the true meaning of life; which is just being, living what is true for you in every moment and sharing all of yourself with others. An inspiring read. Thankyou.
Your transformation is indeed amazing
I can feel that you truly appreciate the loving choices you now make; this is awesome.
Thank you for sharing on the importance knowing the love in the body and allowing this to grow by following our true impulses when we receive them.
‘Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am.’
SO inspiring and freeing. When we allow ourselves to fall deeply in love, we cannot help but be in love with all. I feel this is what Serge was saying in his response about love.
Love in a word is attached to so much emotion, I absolutely love the response Serge Benhayon gave you when posing the very real question of what Love is, your understanding now is so beautiful.
‘I thought it was something to be received from others or given to others, not something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself.’
We are that and we can nurture and grow what we know to be true inside us.
Thank you also for expressing the importance of equality, as in equality we now know each other to be divine first and foremost and the choices and behaviours become what we address instead of rejecting and/or judging ourselves and those before us.
The words ‘Know Thyself’, pop up here Carolien, for when we connect back to our own divinity, we can so easily see the divinity in all others which yes brings the equality.
This is a beautiful point Carolien – and true equality is knowing that we are all the same, we all come from that Divinity, which makes us all Divine. Our choices and behaviours are sometimes coming from that Divinity, and sometimes not. If not, we do not need to reject ourselves or others, but look at where the behaviour comes from and deal with that, knowing we can always come back to the Divinity that is constant within us.
Yes, Carolien, I have recently come to truly appreciate the feeling of equality, especially when felt within a group. Something just relaxes and there is such an ease and as you say, the connection is simply divine.
That is beautiful Judith, I have felt in true equality all the roles and ideals and beliefs tend to drop away and as you say there a simplicity in being together.
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me.” How simple truth is.
Yes I agree Carolien, and when we come from this absolute truth the thoughts have no place or power over us. I love the simplicity of our inner authority, which we all have when we choose to connect to it and allow it to come through.
A beautiful sharing of something so simple and readily available to us all.
“Understanding that life is a celebration” has been my way of life always, but never from a truly nurturing and self loving way. Meeting Serge Benhayon I realized that my lifestyle was draining me and pulling everything out of me and that I was adding on to it with my daily choices. Understanding to celebrate life truly brought me a consistent joy and feeling of contentment I never had before. I realized how exhausted I was from all the doing and how little I actually liked it and that this feeling of boredom actually came from the way I lived as it was creating all this denseness in my body that did not give me any space to truly feel my grandness.
Those dismissive thoughts keep us from expressing and being in our fullness. I know this all too well. They are losing their hold over me now but they are pretty persistent. Being aware of my body and how it feels and deepening my connection with it supports me hugely in this liberation from head-talk.
Thank you Anonymous for the reminder of who we truly are and the art of appreciation.
It is so true that the greatest asset we have is our body and its ability to communicate back to us how our choices are affecting it. The more we listen the more we hear.
‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me.’ How amazing, that when we tune into our body, it feeds us back with this awareness.
This is truly beautiful: “Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them. At the moment I understand an impulse to be a feeling that comes to me, which quite often requires me to put it into some kind of action or expression.”
I can relate to the “sneaky thoughts” that follow when my body has told me to do something, like to speak up, share from my heart, say hello, or give someone or hug. Listening to these thoughts has held me back for so long from connecting to and sharing the deep love I know is inside me. The awareness of my old patterns is confronting, but offers me an opportunity so that I can start to live more of me and naturally share the love that I am and come from, whilst appreciating this same and equal love in all others.
Thank you Anonymous for sharing this for all.
Wonderful. A very enjoyable read.
This is a beautiful revelation for me. Knowing who I am helps not to get affected when someone acts separate from the truth.
It is a beautiful revelation Felixschumacher8 and one for me to keep in my pocket, as in, close by at all times: Knowing who I am helps not to get affected when someone acts separate from the truth.
Wow anonymous, I can so feel the stillness yet absolute power and knowing from you. You absolutely live this now – it can be truly felt in this blog. I am inspired by reading this – it is supporting me to live with more love – as this develops for myself so it does for others. This message that love for others increases when and only when we begin developing the love for ourselves is one which needs to be shouted from the rooftops. What a way to start my day …. thank you very much.
Your words – “This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.” – are a great, and very timely reminder for me to appreciate myself more. I too have felt the beautiful expansive flow-on effects of self-appreciation but self- derision is such an old pattern and at times I find I slip into focusing on the negative instead of acknowledging all the ways in which I am amazing.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me”. Love that line and how you not only connect to that in yourself but see it in others too.
Me too Susan…..
True understanding is a blessing that invites a deep appreciation for the connection it allows with yourself or another, and the space and love that naturally expands from this connection.
I have found the development of conscious presence to be at the core of feeling my quality i.e. the me that is me, my essence. This has supported me to stay connected to me whilst chaos and confusion may be around me.
I love what you say about the voices that talk to us. They are voices of the old, of the hurt, of what is familiar. When do we hear these voices? When we go into unfamiliar waters of claiming ourselves (as amazing), confirming, accepting our grandness, etc. It is interesting, since these old voices may stop us because we grant authority to them. But who is speaking? Whose voices are these? What are they after? What are they really protecting?
I love your comment emfeldman! And I love the questions you are posing. These questions are so valuable! And even if we cannot answer them, it still is important to ask them, as they make us ponder and not normalize things that may not be normal at all.
Wow so much here to ponder on. I do know I am protecting an old way of being that does not want to be further explored to reveal the hurt I may still hold in certain areas, but I can feel it goes so much deeper than this, something I shall spend time reflecting on.
Wow emfeldman what a great command and your amazing questions make me ponder . . . Thank you for sharing them.
I agree great questions to ask as what is the real purpose of these voices and why have we listened for so long? I find it helps just to express them out loud if they happen as they are then no longer contained in my head.
Yes when these thoughts are not expressed they become like a CD that is on constant repeat, they own us. But when we express these thoughts we disempower the thoughts with clarity and start to see them for the ridiculousness they are. Expression is everything.
Sometimes I allow an energy to enter me and I know it is not who I truly am – I have to feel how far I have come and will continue to grow, for this I am so very appreciative of the commitment to myself.
It is so revealing to consider that thoughts that keep us in an old way of being are not love and therefore are very damaging as they do not allow us to expand to the amazing love that we are. Awesome.
Yes and it is awesome to be aware of the thoughts and just nominate them in the moments. It gives a sense of ‘power’ or more so a realisation that I am bigger than all these thoughts.
Allowing ourselves to feel who we truly are, and being able to distinguish the difference between the energies around us and what is in us, knowing how to observe and not absorb, these qualities of awareness are all wonderfully liberating and the foundation of what Universal Medicine has presented to me, for which i am most profoundly grateful.
Beautifully expressed Ariana*
Yes I totally agree Ariana, and one of the greatest tools that allows the foundation for knowing who we are is consistency. I have noticed when I lack consistency my understanding of who I am can become murky and unclear.
I enjoyed re reading your blog. To have the joy and Love in your life that you do now is all credit to your being open to exploring just what Love is. Serge Benhayon has inspired many of us to look within and Love and nurture self first , something I don’t always manage to do , but I am much more aware and catch my negative self talk earlier than I did and am appreciating the beauty within.
I thoroughly enjoyed rereading this blog for it has given me a greater understanding of what it is to ‘be love’ and how the constant mind chatter is doing its best to prevent me ‘being love’.
What you have shared here, feels like a true celebration, certainly in the sense of where you have come from to now. But also because it’s a daily experience now. The joy you are living everyday, rather than the struggle is a celebration for you and all who meet you.
This bit made me smile ‘I now own a parcel of joy called me’, what a lovely thought. The more I take the time to appreciate me and how my body feels, the easier it is to dispel the sneaky lack of self worth thoughts.
Its funny how we often find it easier to appreciate others than ourselves and that comes back to the developing of the self nurturing and love within. So celebrating life includes celebrating everything we come across because it is all here to teach us something.
I really enjoyed reading this article that reminded me of how I knew I did not know what Love is and the sadness this brought. Serge Benhayon has gently and consistently inspired me to feel my love for myself and in nurturing my own self-love I am now able to feel the love in others – and it is lovely.
What a turnaround Anonymous. Very cool how, as you made space to feel and appreciate, it became clear that these thoughts were not you but distraction from the simple beauty and loving impulses you feel.
Just what I needed to read right now. This blog clearly exposes and takes the force out of those yucky sneaky thoughts that are constantly trying to pull me into an old way of being. To hinder or squash any evolution in me loving me. I can really feel that right now and this blog is the blessing and key to understanding what is and is not me.
From reading this blog I felt the sense celebration we can appreciate in every moment of love and it is something to be embraced since in the embracing we allow the love to grow.
When I read the line where you say that previously you did not know that love was ‘something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself’ It planted a seed and reading on through your blog it is so clear that this is indeed what you have now done. We can all grow and tenderly nurture our own love just like a spring seedling.
I just love what you’ve shared here. And your insight on how we build love that it’s honouring those impulses from one minute to the next that truly support us. You’ve given me a very tangible feeling of how this is – thank you.
Who knew such simplicity, care and love are all innate in us and very live-able when we simply listen to our bodies!
Not getting affected from others is huge. I still find this challenging when others are feeling grief and sadness, I realise this is because I still have some deep hurts that I have not fully resolved in myself around grief and sadness. Having the awareness and acknowledging this is the first step to dealing with it.
The last paragraph is huge – you are describing not getting affected from others anymore, because you know who you are. I realized, that I sometimes don´t realize how much it affects me, or I don´t wanna feel then, where other people are at, because it would make me sad. Knowing me and being connected to me, gives me the support to be open to feel everything around me – not avoiding to feel where everyone else is.
I have found the same as well Steffi – I have often not wanted to feel where people are at, especially when they are not making great choices. 2 reasons for this – 1 I am often shown how I have made the same or similar choices in the past and so have to take responsibility for my own actions and secondly if everyone else is doing well then it does not matter how I am. Yet when I am feeling content with myself then I gain a much deeper understanding of where others are at and so can observe them much more instead of wanting them to change so I do not have to deal with my own stuff or my own reactions to what may be coming up in me as a result of their behaviour – which most of the time has absolutely nothing to do with me!
I know exactly what you mean Steffi, about not wanting to feel where people are at (especailly family) because it makes me sad. But as you stated, knowing me and staying connected with myself and my body, helps me to feel everything around me, from observing rather than absorbing, thus I do not take on other’s emotions..
It is huge, Steffi. I often find I’ve unconsciously protected myself from other people whom I anticipate, through prior experience, getting negatively affected by. From Serge Benhayon and Univsersal Medicine I have learned that the key here is to stay open and loving with all people as best as possible and as the loving observer I will be less affected, if at all. I am still learning this new way of being but I have found this to be true on all counts so far.
I can so relate to what you share Steffi. When we sense with judgment we absorb what we should be observing and therefore lack understanding and acceptance. When we put up walls to avoid feeling full stop we not only avoid the potential of understanding and accepting the world around us but it also blocks us to feeling the potential of the love we could feel. But, when we read others with an open heart that understands and accepts what we feel first and foremost, we are then able to observe what we feel and let it go. I very much work in progress on the latter but at least I know it is a choice I have.
I adore the example you have used of what love is. There are so many people in this world that are sad, depressed, angry and cannot find their way. At my work I hear terrible stories of what has happened and/or is happening for some people, things that are very sad, but If I was to take on and walk around with all the issues I hear on a daily basis, then I would not be a very pleasant person and my quality of life would be awful as I would have no Joy. My job is to reflect to others that I can live joyfully in a world that is not joyful, so even when sadness is in front of me, I can support by being me and not sympathising so that the person in front of me, has now seen it done and they to can be an observer in areas of their lives. In all our actions we are teaching others.
I agree, Arieljoymuntelwit. To be able to hold another in love without sympathy, or taking on their sadness, anger or whatever, is huge: also very liberating when we manage to do completely.
Gorgeous article Anonymous! Thank you! I love the thought of catching these sneaky, bad thoughts so that they eased out of our ingrained behaviours, attitudes and current way of being.
This is a celebration to read! Developing the relationship with me, listening to what my body has to say and living from there rather than what my head might have in mind, has been such an about face for me too. It reminds me that the appreciation I have begun feeling for the precious woman I am is something truly worth celebrating.
If I have an impulse no matter how subtle it is I am endeavoring to act on it, the more I act on these impulses even though sometimes they do not make sense at the time I am developing deeper trust in my knowing. At times I discover it was not a true impulse but this is okay because I learn from this and ask what do I need to look at here.
I can so relate to this Mary-Louise. This is what being a student of an evolutionary life is all about. Not getting it right, but making choices that show us how to discern truth from a convincing illusion. And yes this is the greatest way to build self confidence, which for me is simply trust in self and our ability to live life lovingly.
Anonymous, once again, the love and care in which you have expressed in your blog, and so in your life as well is deeply inspiring, thank you.
Thank you Anonymous, It’s all about connection and you have expressed it beautifully in the last sentence ” I can connect with others and be together with them in all the Joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that Joy – and in that, I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.”
Anonymous, this is truly an amazing blog, expressed with such love for yourself and others.
“I went from hating myself deeply with every thought and action to having a conscious understanding of why I was doing this and replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself. This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.” Thank you for expressing this so well.
One can feel the author here asserting their will to choose; repeatedly choosing connection, versus, the barrage of dishonesty from false thought. It’s rather inspiring, thank you.
Thank you for sharing Serge’s reply to your question as to what love is, “He replied it is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them”. How you have pondered upon it, learnt from it and expressing with your own words really helps me to expand my connection to love, “something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself. I know now what Love is and how amazing, energising and healing it feels in my body. I can feel love throughout my body, through tingly sensations where all areas of my body come to life. I feel a huge sense of completion and joy and I am very content”.
What a beautifully simple blog that contains so much lived wisdom with the understanding of how old patterns try to sabotage the true way back to ourselves in all the glory that brings.
On reading this blog again what really helped me is how you pointed out about the sneaky thought or feeling creeping in causing thoughts like…
“I can’t do that.”
“Now’s not the time.”
“You will look silly.”
“They do not want this at the moment.”
This is a pattern I experience quite often and one I need to get a handle on, thank you.
A gorgeous read, as warm as an embrace from a child. This is so poignant and perfect for me to read right now as I am developing my capacity to appreciate myself, and to surrender deeply into following my impulses. Thank you.
Thank you Anonymous for revealing how to ‘hold’ anyone with love by seeing first and foremost that they are the same as me and that they are love, regardless of the choices that are undertaken.
As you have written anonymous, when we know who we are we are no longer swept away with another’s plight or dramas. We can be compassionate and understanding, knowing it is not our responsibility to get involved, or be a fixer.
I love this comment Bernadette – knowing it is not our responsibility to get involved – that made me sigh, 🙂 (in the best possible of ways) – life is SO much more simple, free and joyful too when we choose to live this way. I can even feel it’s not just about conversations, but can for example be in an email exchange, or even just observing, and it just makes so much sense. I can feel how often I have got drained from get involved or taking on other people’s stuff, ‘trying’ to help out, rather than detach from it, and I can feel how imposing and harming that is.
“Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separated from the truth of who they truly are, because I know who I am.
I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they truly are”.
Very inspiring anonymous, thank you.
“Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them.”
Thank you for this reminder as you put it – act when you feel it is there and do not let thoughts come in that keep you where you are.
Beautiful article and change in life Anonymous. In particular I like the line “I now own a parcel of joy called me”.
Yes I love this line, I just couldn’t stop grinning and can feel that bubble of joy in me.
Reading what changes you have gone through, what choices you have made is certainly something to deeply appreciate. From your writing you’ve gone against what most, including myself, would have thought is possible. A complete life turn around and one that is very inspiring for us all. In reading your story it also makes me appreciate the choices that I have made and I am sure will be a great support to many people across the world.
‘Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are’. I can relate to this and know from past experience how difficult it can be to practice. I find it helps me to connect to the person not their behaviour, and also to continue to be me and stay with myself, whatever the circumstance or however the person is.
To be able to replace those destructive thoughts and patterns of behaviour with consistent self-care and self-awareness is what you could almost say’ miracle’ of awakening that the world needs now. Serge Benhayon embodies this awareness of our true selves and reflects this with his extraordinary ordinariness that is able to bridge everyone to their own hearts. This is most definitely what humanity needs now.
I love the way you express, “this inner appreciation slowly made way for much more love and beauty to expand in my body.” This just fills me with joy. Thank you.
It’s beautiful to know love as a true foundation to really appreciate yourself and others. It’s just awesome to come back to your gorgeous self.
Understanding your body and understanding how your body responds to your choices is a very wise more in my opinion. Thank you A.
I too thought love was something to give to others or receive from others. From Serge Benhayon’s presentations I have been caring and nurturing myself growing my love and with this feel my joy and the joy of others.
I smiled from deep inside when I read your words “‘I now own a parcel of joy called me”. I do too, and like you, I never thought that this was remotely possible, but it actually was; simply from making loving choices and learning to appreciate me. A huge thank you to Serge Benhayon for reminding us what love truly is.
“I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are. I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world. I can connect with others and be together with them in all the Joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that Joy – and in that, I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.”
These are POWERFULL words you have expressed.
When I first “know who I am” as my foundation – it reflects life in a completely different way.
Wow what an inspiration to read the transformations that you have chosen to make in your life. And the how much Joy and appreciation you have decided and claimed to have for yourself in life. You’ve inspired me to choose a deeper level of this for myself. And I feel to add, that this is possible because of the consistent love and unwavering dedication of Serge Benhayon and the teachings of Universal medicine, a big thank you.
“Now I own a parcel of joy called me” – what a way to describe yourself anonymous, how powerful and loving it is to think like this about oneself.
I totally agree Bernadette curtin. What a beautiful way to describe oneself…a parcel of joy! I love it!
Children can teach us so much, bypassing the mind and letting the heart speak. I am appreciating that we are those children and can, as you have shared follow our inner impulses and express the love we are.
I hadn’t quite thought about it quite so simply but its true Victoria, children do indeed bypass their mind and let their heart speak which is why they are so refreshing and honest to be around.
Yes me too, the joy and spontaneity in children reminds us of our own. I love watching people connect with children and allow that part of them out.
Thank you for sharing, I love how you say ‘Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are’. That’s beautiful, what a journey you have been on. I can feel your joy.
Thank you Anonymous for sharing your understanding and livingness on self-appreciation. I am too finding my way in how to appreciate myself more and the part where you describe “I went from hating myself deeply with every thought and action to having a conscious understanding of why I was doing this and replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself. This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.” sounds true for me and will assist me in appreciating myself more and from there building the connection with the love and beauty I carry within.
On re-reading your article Anonymous I was lovingly reminded of appreciation. Appreciating how far I too have come since first being introduced to Segre Benhayon & Universal Medicine. Like you and so many I have turned my life around completely but have not been truly appreciating how far I have come nor appreciating the huge changes I have made in my life. These life saving changes have not just had a positive affect on myself but have also had a huge affect on my sons. It’s all been amazing and I have allowed myself to stop and truly appreciate myself and what I have accomplished and changed within thus far – it has been amazing. So thank you Anonymous for sharing with such honesty, it is very inspiring and greatly appreciated.
Reading your blog reminds me that there is no body that I would rather be in than myself, and that I wouldn’t want to trade the joy inside of me with anything in the world.
Love the simple and direct comment here Madeline… why would we choose anything else than to be everything we already are!
And what a great freedom it is to love being oneself this much, it is very fulfilling.
Whenever I return to this amazing blog I am so inspired and today when I read the line”I know now what love is and how amazing, energising and healing it feels in my body”.
Yes I too feel life is a celebration. Thank you anonymous.
Reading this blog allowed me to re-connect again with the definition of Love as you have offered it and is a beautiful reminder of the simplicity offered in accepting myself and others for who we are and not the choices we may be held by in a moment that do not allow us to reflect all of who we are.
Thank you for sharing, your blog is inspirational and has given me some new tools on how I can keep choosing love. The part on acting out your impulse was a great light bulb moment for me, I often have them but don’t act on them. I hadn’t connected it to a way I could build more love and confirm the love within me.
“I can connect with others and be together with them in all the joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that joy – and in that, I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me” … the truth so beautifully expressed. Thank you for sharing Anonymous, inspiring.
Thank you – for reminding us all that the sneaky thoughts that pop in to our heads, are not coming from us, our essence. They are simply distractors to keep us from who we truly are.
When you speak about how you brought up your children Anonymous, I remember how anxious I was about my children’s outer well being, and more or less ignored their inner well-being. As long as they had a warm coat on cold days it did not matter about what they were going to do or how or why. The whole process was full of anxiety. This was because I had no sense of myself or any respect or value of myself, let alone any love. After meeting Serge Benhayon and becoming a student of Universal Medicine I have a clearer view of the choices I was making then, and now, as I deepen my relationships with my very grown up children/adults, I discover how taking care of myself and feeling the tension around any impulses that arise in my relationship with them allows all of us to grow. So your article helps me to appreciate how far I have come in a short time after a long life of confusion and complexity.
I love how you say that you “see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are”. Such a great marker of true love!
There is nothing quite like finding a source of love within.
I have always been the hopeless yet silent romantic looking for love, and failing terribly I have to say.
When I first discovered it within myself I realised I needed to look no further than within my own heart. My own internal lover was the love I was desperately seeking in another but was unable to sustain. I am still building this love within me and learning to appreciate the beautiful women I am.
Reading this blog helps me appreciate the journey home and the unfolding that takes place for us all when we choose love.
Your description of love has allowed me to feel more the love that I already am. Please keep sharing your unfoldment, it’s deeply appreciated.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me” – I LOVE that!
And you are absolutely right when you say: “I can connect with others and be together with them in all the Joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that Joy – and in that, I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.” That´s so true. And it´s so amazing how it can grow everyday. 🙂
I love your description of love and how tangible the feelings of it are within your body – this inspires me to take full notice of what love feels in my body so I can nurture it; to become more aware of what is love and what isn’t love in my body so I am more aware of thoughts or actions I do that can build this love in my body.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me”… Absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing this. It offers a reflection to me of the relationship we can develop with self, and that love comes from within, first and foremost with ourselves and then with others.
Thank you for sharing the definition of love that Serge shared with you. It reveals the openness and joy of love that is so easily seen in children and a reminder for us to ask ourselves, ‘why did I let that go?’ Love does feel amazing in the body and is definitely worth appreciating in every moment.
What a very inspiring blog! I can feel your Love and resonate with every word. Love is soooo simple when we allow the impulse to express and share Love to flow. When I hold back being living with myself and others it always feels like I have a barrier across my chest. Being more open and following through with loving feelings – my chest no longer feels so tight.
“Life is a Celebration” – so true. And it is my choice how much and in which way I get involved in this celebration – do I enjoy it or not? Do I boycott the celebration (my life) or do I promote it/me?
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.” This is so profound, thank you Anon. A great blog.
What I came to really feel from your story was that love is something that lies almost dormant in us all. A little bit like a fire that seems to have long been extinguished and yet through the choices that we make it is possible to gently rekindle the flame. We fan the fire of love with every self loving choice that we make. Our fires become strong and burn more brightly. Each fire acts like a beacon, lighting the way for others and this is how we will return to living a soulful way on Earth again.
Wow! What an amazing and beautiful transformation. I loved reading ”This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.” Beautiful!
If you don’t start to love and appreciate who you are, seriously what else is there?
What a divine blog. I particularly love that you share “I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.” Lucky us I say that we get to share that too.
I love how you describe feeling a tension in your body if something is happening that might not be right for you. I have started to really listen to that in my body too and can now trust that I will know what to do because my body really does tell me loud and clear if it isn’t right!
Yes, I too deeply appreciated reading this. If there is a choice I am about to make and my body feels tension then I need to stop and listen. So many times I’ve tried to override what I knew my body was trying to tell me, mostly because I wanted to be liked. Because I’ve not listened to my body initially I’ve said yes to commitments I’ve later had to say no to. This has given me the experience to know that actually I do need to listen because then I know sooner rather than later what is true for me.
Saying ‘yes’ to be liked doesn’t get me liked by me!! Nor, more often than not, by others either!
Thank you for this article and the reflection it prompts. Once I started to turn around the patterns of behaviour that had me soldiering on regardless, I noticed that the opportunities to develop my relationship with myself and life were always there, ever deepening and evolving. What I love about this is that I have come to know there is always more to learn and the humility this offers is all-encompassing.
I have seen how a smile from a child, full of innocence and love can make you melt back to yourself, and change your whole outlook on life. We could learn a lot from children.
I agree with you Bernard, children can offer us such an amazing reflection of what it is to be open and loving. They also support me personally to reconnect to the tenderness I am as like you “melt” when I am with them…. I can’t hold hardness in my body when I am with young children…. my heart automatically opens, a bit like the doors that slide open when you walk up to them. My learning is to keep my heart open all the time even when I am not around kids.
So true Bernard. I am continually amazed at how connected and aware small children are. Yesterday at the checkout counter there was a shopping trolley with a baby and small boy sitting in it. I asked the mother if I could hold the baby’s hand and then she did not want to let go of my fingers. The small boy chatted to me as though he had known me all my life – it was a magical moment of connection. We do indeed learn a lot from children!
I loved re-reading this again, Anonymous…I could feel the lovely impulsiveness of just stopping and giving a hug where it’s felt to be given, in appreciation of your own love as well as for theirs. This is true expression! Beautiful.
Thank you for this very lovely blog – full of wisdom, deeply healing and a joy to read and feel.
Priceless…”I now own a parcel of joy called me…”.
I also love this quote about what love is: ‘what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them’. I can put up my hand and say that I really struggle not to take on other people’s ‘stuff’, particularly with my children. When they are really sad, I find it SO hard not to feel their sadness deeply within me.
“Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them.”
I love this sentence and could read it every day for the rest of my life. . . and I might just do that. When we let these impulses “go through to the keeper” it is like we have an engine with no fuel that is constantly sparking but never igniting into a fire.
Thank you.
Thank you anonymous for reminding me to be mindful of the negative thoughts that are trying to hinder me from allowing more love in and for more love to be expressed out.
Understanding life is truly a celebration, thank you for sharing, I enjoyed.
I really enjoyed reading what you have shared. The building of that relationship with yourself having met Serge Benhayon, understanding what love is and learning how to apply that into your life is really wonderful. I am and continue to deepen my understanding and re-connection to love, for me, family, friends, the world. Deep appreciation is something I also continue to deepen, this is one I need to keep reminding myself of as it hasn’t been a natural way of being throughout my life, but your beautiful blog truly reminded me of all there is to appreciate, so thank you.
I just came back to your beautiful and inspiring blog today to reread it. There is so much truth in it. It is so beautiful to feel how everything expands with each loving choice I make when listening to what my body tells me.
‘I now own a parcel of joy called me’. Beautiful.
Thank you- what a gorgeous sharing. I can totally relate to what you said about if someone has explained this love and joy to you 20 years ago- you would have thought that they were insane. It’s more of just not being able to relate to it – for me, many years ago life was the drive, the getting through, the feeling sad, the looking good and getting all I needed from the doing in life – but it was empty. And from this emptiness it is difficult to relate to the joy – but now that I self-nurture and self-care and honour my feelings and my body, I feel the love in my heart fluidly throughout my body like a silky feeling.
Your contribution is full of joy and appreciation, and best thing is that it is within you and not dependent on anything or anybody.
Yes Gabriele, how absolutely awesome is that. We are the key to our own joy, love and harmony. Our very own fiery light, lights our way.
Great point Gabriele – not needing or depending on anyone else to bring you Joy or Appreciation… we have it inside of us just waiting to be connected to.
What is love ? A big question you asked… and when reading this a s m i l e comes to my face when reading the answer Serge Benhayon came up with… it`s so simple yet so powerful and healing. Thanks to you for sharing xxx
Your line ‘I own a parcel of joy called me’ immediately made me connect to me, my joy within and I got a huge smile. Great start of my joy-full day.
I second this- I also loved this sentence. How precious we all are!
I can so relate to your article. ALL my thoughts and actions were hard, especially on me. That was the only way I knew, and everyone around me acted that way too. I ended up taking drugs and alcohol to rid myself of my thoughts – not realising that was worsening it. I was stuck in a rut and eventually hit rock bottom -until I met Serge Benhayon, when I began to see and feel a different way. I now had tools to start clearing those thoughts and understand why they were there.
I’m in appreciation forevermore how much I am eliminating those thoughts and actions I took against myself — truly blessed.
Awesome Rik and, yes, I really do appreciate every moment where my choices that are based on self-love and self-responsibility make every day a joy to be in.
“I went from hating myself deeply with every thought and action to having a conscious understanding of why I was doing this and replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself. ”
When one looks at this statement alone we cannot help but ask ‘why?’, it does not make sense, this deep self hatred so afflicting our world.
Having been in the same position, and doing things in life, thinking they were the right thing, eventually realising what a fool I had been. Then the light dawned, coming to the conclusion to change the way I was doing things.
On making those changes, I became happier, more loving and leading a more fulfilled way of living.
Yes, aspects of self loathing, rejection or lack of self love are definitely more commonplace within society than, self love, self acceptance and appreciation, which when we are left to just be, are our naturally impulsed way, that is innate in us all. A way so natural and simply who we are that one must wonder, how is it that we know this not? Could the world be moving too fast and are we the ones needing to say, stop, I want to get off the fast track.
Yes I too own a parcel of joy – Life for me now is so different in that I appreciate all of me and this is so reflected with all those around me. Yes I still have those little “blips” but I do not take myself so seriously, learning to express with honesty is opening up a new way of being. I shall come back to this blog often – thank you
I liked the part you wrote about not getting affected by people around you because you know who you are now – this is huge as this takes out all of the reactions and trying to be something to please another. Thank you for the reminder.
Yes , trying to be something to please another, or to get recognition or acceptance, are behaviours that are totally unnatural to our naturally loving and true heart that doesn’t need any of that. It’s only when we step away from our inner knowing, that we get affected by people/life around us.
This is a beautiful blog, thank you – I also loved Serge Benhayons explanation of love to you, that it is precious and – “now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are. I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.” This love is so precious!
I was a bit excited when I read your article and it came to the question to Serge benhayon: What is love?
It is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them.
This is the most beautiful answer about Love I have ever heard.
I love this too Iris. It is such a beautiful answer that almost anyone can relate to and thereby get a sense of what love is.
I agree with you Iris, about the words in quotation marks by Anonymous that were shared with her by Serge Benhayon – truly the most beautiful answer about What is Love that can easily be shared with anybody and so simply and easily expressed.
I agree Iris – such a beautiful explanation of What is love? Children keep things very simple.
I agree Iris, a beautiful description of exactly what it is and what it feels like. I connected to that comment too. 🙂
Totally agree Iris, it is a wonderful explanation of what Love is and so practical.
Iris thank you for highlighting that, I’d read past it but not appreciated the enormity of that on many levels.
You are not alone in needing to have the word ‘Love’ explained to you. Everywhere we look there are misrepresentations of this pure quality that so naturally wants to be expressed from our hearts. For some of us we have taken on the false belief that it is flowers and chocolates, sacrifice or compromise, providing for or protecting our families etc. The way Serge Benhayon can feel exactly how to express to each individual what love is in a way they will understand, without compromising the truth of the word, is truly inspiring.
Thank you for sharing your insights Anonymous they are a joy to read.
What an amazing transformation form hating yourself to loving ,honouring and appreciating yourself .Really inspirational and beautiful to read and so empowering for everyone. Thank you for sharing this and showing what we can all do in a gentle and very real way. A real celebration of life.
What good news you have shared Anonymous that love is what we connect to inside us and not something we have to search for and try to obtain from the outside. I know how awful that searching on the outside feels and I am also now experiencing what it feels like to connect with the love in my own body. It was there all along.
The power of understanding so beautifully lead to appreciation for yourself and love for others. I also find with understanding comes freedom.
Being there for me, appreciating me and most of all HONOURING me is the basis of my life is the way forth for me too! Thank you for sharing your story.
The love for yourself and in you that you have written this from is very beautiful…showing us how simple it can be to come back to having love in our lives in a very real way built from listening to our bodies…
Life is very freeing when we honour ourselves and chip away at not allowing those sneaky negative thoughts in.
I agree Tracy, life is very freeing when we honour ourselves, simple as that.
Appreciating what you have chosen now is an awesome thing to do – your blogs helped me realise that I might need to step this up a notch or two. Especially bringing understanding to how you used to be and why you used to act that way. Great learning, thanks.
Learning to make choices by listening to my body and feeling the tension of what the choice feels like is a process of development for me, and I am slowly understanding how this has a knock- on effect with the next choice, and so on…
I love how you describe the feeling of love in your body, “I feel a huge sense of completion and joy and I am very content.” I now know this to be true, when I feel love I have such a huge feeling of being content within myself and so much joy, at times I even feel like giving myself a huge big hug just because I feel so lovely and amazing, and I love to snuggle up in bed with me, simply because I feel so lovely and complete. ( As in I am not looking outside myself for another to bring me love me or anything to full-fill my life, as everything I have been looking for is there inside of me.)
‘Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them. At the moment I understand an impulse to be a feeling that comes to me, which quite often requires me to put it into some kind of action or expression.’
This is also my understanding. I realize more and more how important expression is in order to feel and expand love. As we can all feel energy naturally it is important to express that otherwise it sticks in the body and stops the flow of our love.
I love how share about what Serge Benhayon answered to your question: What is Love? I also thought of love being something emotional or to be only for my family and partner. I feel very freed by now knowing the true meaning of love, which is non emotional and for everyone. It is just a way of being with myself and others and expressing my love for everyone without being affected by others behaviours or actions. Like Serge Benhayon shared with you: ‘what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them’.
I love what you have shared Lieke, ” expressing my love for everyone without being affected by others behaviours or actions”. It is as simple as that: being love, truly being love ,is being able to express love for all others, yet not taking on their stuff. I can feel how often I have done this in the past, thinking I am being loving or supportive when in fact I am not.
To feel the truth of our choices is a gift. True a lot of the time we don’t like how it feels but that doesn’t take away form the fact that we then have an opportunity to make changes if we choose.
It is far too comfortable but oh so painful to stay with the endless mind chatter that can literally drive us crazy.
What you’ve shared here and the life you now live, accepting yourself and others for the amazing beings we all are, is inspiring.
“I know who I am.” I love this for in knowing the truth of ourselves we know the truth in all others. The essence of Universal Medicine – unification.
Thanks to Serge Benhayon for his tireless work in presenting this to the world.
I really can relate to a lot in your article about love and acceptance, and also resonated with the part about listening to the body and the effect my choices have on it, a guiding light into feeling into better choices.
True appreciation is something I have found incredibly healing. True appreciation doesn’t come with any ‘rah, rah’ or arrogance that I am better than another, it comes with a deep knowing that who I am inside is amazing and this I then celebrated through allowing myself the appreciation of this wonder, because in this knowing of my amazingness I also know everyone else is as equally amazing as me inside. This to me is the basis of true appreciation. Thank you for what you have written. As I allowed myself to feel what you were sharing I was able to feel a deeper appreciation for myself, you and therefore all others.
Thank you for sharing your experiences of love…I have a lot to look forward to.
“A feeling that comes to me, which quite often requires me to put it into some kind of action or expression.” Beautiful! An impulse really is this simple. It is us who make it complicated by bringing in the resistance and the questioning.
I could have said these exact same words “If you had told me this was possible twenty years ago, I would have thought you were insane or on better drugs than me.” What Serge Benhayon is offering is true medicine – life changing.
So true Eva, meeting Serge Benhayon did not only change my life – it changed the way of I lived my life…how I am in the world has changed and brought a lot of healing and…love. Not that it is necessary to bring it to me, because I AM Love. But love became alive – ahhhh.
I love how you claim how deeply loving and nurturing you now are towards yourself, and the deep appreciation you have built from this. It show us just how simple loving acts towards ourselves are the starting point for deepening our own self worth and appreciation, and you have inspired me today to go deeper with this for myself. Thank you!
We can get so misguided and disillusioned in our search for love, seeking it from outside of us, while all along love is something within us that we therefore recognise and can relate to instantly, just like a baby can — the way you describe so beautifully in this blog. When we simply hold ourselves or another in our love, not judging or trying to fix anything, but simply being there in love and observing, we emanate that love and offer true healing.
I love the way you explain how you can feel whether or not the choices you make are true and loving by listening to your body. This gives me a great practical understanding of how I can also bring more awareness to my choices.
I love this line … “I now own a parcel of joy called me…” and appreciating that 20 years ago, before coming across Universal Medicine and The Way of The Livingness, such a sweet sentence would have never left the writers lips or been connected to in her body. A true miracle.
I too remember not really knowing what love was. My concept of what I thought love was, was turned on its head. Coming to understand that love is something we build in our bodies is a huge revelation. So wonderful to hear how you have expanded that in your body and life. An amazing transformation.
Feeling and Knowing that we are LOVE, and that it is not something that we can ever give or receive, but is there for us to feel constantly, has been the single most amazing thing I have ever learnt…felt.
Reading your words anonymous gave me a moment to feel that deep connection with myself which is love. I will take that into my day. Thank you.
To be transformed from being a person who used to hate themselves deeply to someone who genuinely cares for who they are and knows love in their body is one heck of a miracle.
I can relate to you very deeply and take this opportunity to celebrate what has happened for you and how special this really is. You are brilliant.
you certainly have made it about living more lovingly – starting with yourself. Isn’t that the basis of the saying – if you want to change to world, start with yourself? This is a very inspiring blog and a great reminder for me to make today about LOVE!
Learning to be aware of the feeling in my body of my choices was a huge revelation for me. It’s a fantastic guide within us, when we choose to connect to it, and we still have that freedom to make whatever choice we choose, but we do it with raised awareness and knowledge, because of the feeling in the body. Brilliant.
I agree Sarah. Serge Benhayon’s description of love is beautiful. “‘what is Love?” He replied it is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them”.
Thank you for sharing what Serge Benhayon said about love. So simple and gorgeous.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.” This is such a great moment of appreciation shared. You have highlighted for me the importance of appreciating just how much more love I have for myself, and how I live this love, compared to the years of self-loathing.
I do keep coming back to this lovely article – it so resonates with the way I’ve lived my life to this point in time – I am still a work in gentle progress but I am so appreciating the more self loving choices, listening and feeling so much more and to be honest with the way that I live on a daily basis.
I am feeling those tingly sensations in my body just from reading your blog.
Thank you for taking the time and care to express the joy that you now feel since your amazing transformation.
And thank you Serge Benhayon for inspiring so many others around the world to truly care for themselves and experience the joy of being all that we are.
Appreciating what you have been given in life, and using it for the good of all, is a blessing in it’s self.
This is one to really stop and consider the truth of – ‘Appreciating what you have been given in life, and using it for the good of all’ – This you can’t but feel the magnitude of and how it is all encompassing of the universe which we are innately from. Yes a True Blessing indeed.
I am in total agreeance with you Natalie.
It is work in progress for me but I am feeling my body speak to me more and more – it is a lovely journey to feel my self-love grow within me. Thank you for your story it reminds me to appreciate myself more.
A moving blog, it was powerful to feel the transformation that you have made from hating oneself to appreciating yourself.
I love what you wrote: “because I know who I am, I can see others and the choices they make which don´t belong to them”. This is so true – for me it is never about changing the others anymore, but to look at my stuff, which is holding me back in being the love I am in every situation! Isn’t it amazing to rediscover love everyday for oneself and how easy it is, if you just make the choice to?!
It has certainly been revelation for me about nurturing love in myself, and not just ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ it externally. I really loved – ‘I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world’ – this made me really stop and appreciate, thank you.
Your story is so great because it asks us to reflect upon the true meaning of love. Prior to my introduction to Universal Medicine, I didn’t really have a clue, perhaps only some intangible emotionally based movie-version. I certainly had never considered it was something that could reside in the body and could be nurtured into something tangible with loving self-care. These were revelations of the highest order. Thank you for sharing how you reclaimed love.
This blog is wisdom expressed and every time I read it my body sings, expands, with such joy.
Thank you Anonymous your blog has inspired me to keep feeling and honouring the impulse of love that connects me with my body. You have reminded me that in every moment I have a simple choice to love and listen to my body. And in those moments when I do not listen or make an unwise choice I have an opportunity to learn more about what feels right and what doesn’t feel right for my body simply by feeling how my body is responding. For me choosing wisely and lovingly remains a work in progress that keeps getting better and better as I align more and more to self-love.
Accepting others exactly where they are at while living and sharing your joy and appreciation everyday is truly worth celebrating. Thankyou for a lovely blog.
I agree Suse it us definitely worth celebrating, the power behind acceptance and appreciation is enormous.
Knowing love in your body and freely feeling this in an ever expanding journey is an amazing achievement and something to be truly celebrated. Thank you for sharing your beautiful choices to being love and your choices with this. A true inspiration.
How precious and guiding is this amazing super intelligent body. If we only listen to the body’s loving impulses that constantly speak to us of how to truly live.
Thank you for sharing Serge Benhayon’s answer to your question: “what is love”. It is time that we all knew what love truly is; that it is not just there for us alone, but that it is all encompassing and holds all equally and unconditionally.
I love the distinction that you explore between the loving impulses and those little doubting questions. This is very useful in making choices every moment of every day and is very empowering. Thank you
This is a beautiful line, “I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.” Oh this is so true and when you discover this you want to tenderly nurture and grow it so you can feel it more and then share the wonder of it with everyone.
Yes, being content in our skin is the number one thing to be in the joy of living, so everyone can also feel the joy, and it is contagious!.
That same line too stood out for me and made me smile as I read it. It reminds me of a children’s song that Chris James wrote, something like ‘I’m so awesome at just being me’…
I love the way you write about your body as the marker for your choices. It is so easy to override what our body is telling us when we make the choice from our head and not our heart. Thank you for sharing this.
This love story is very inspiring, and shows that anyone, all of us, can come back to feeling the joy of appreciating ourselves and being love no matter how we’ve been in the past or what is going on outside us. Thanks for sharing!
Dianne, it is amazing how we can return at anytime to the joy of appreciating ourselves and being love. This is never lost it is always there with us.
Thank you Amita, and Dianne for the reminder that we can all choose love, that it has never left us, it is just patiently waiting for us, always.
What you share, not word for word but shortened & changed slightly is gold … Love is
feeling and acknowledging another in their sadness but not taking it on to be something to be carried around … this statement when really lived will support each person in this world (me included) to really accept people for who they are, not need them to be different yet to offer true ‘loving’ support. Priceless!
So true…. Tanya, and anonymous.
A very valuable sharing here that offers keys to making loving choices. I am learning just how important self appreciation and understanding is in supporting myself and my choices. The simplicity of feeling into the body and applying all true impulses in life is super inspiring and a reminder I gratefully welcome. So many gems here, I will return over and over to build on my understanding of what has been expressed.
The simplicity of listening to your body is a very impotant point you have presented
Don’t loving choices allow so much more space in your day ! Its lovely to feel that every day we are here to experience and learn from the choices we make every day and previous.
‘I now own a parcel of joy called me…’
Thanks for sharing that absolutely divine gem with us ALL!
That is so true and a reminder to me that claiming our own unique connection to God is something we can all equally do…
That Divineness that we can access at any time is not dependent on any outside circumstance; it really doesn’t matter that someone else may have a better car, or job, or clothes, or whatever, as none of those things improve or impact our individual ability to connect with and feel GOD!
Thank you for the beautiful and heartfelt sharing in this blog. Two things really resonated with me, things I have felt over time and have learnt to honour… Firstly to honour and listen to your body, and secondly we are the culmination of our choices. I was truly inspired by your sharing, joy, appreciation for what you have accomplished and your gratitude to Serge Benhayon.
‘What is love?’ must be the greatest philosophical question of all time… The answer you received from Serge Benhayon is at once profound and also so very simple – what I would call the mark of a true philosopher, someone who lives, breathes and walks their talk.
To love so deeply that one can fully connect with and be with another, regardless of their pain, and not take on the pain of another or react to it – is something I feel that we all have the opportunity to truly know and live in our everyday lives. To commit to this, and the personal healing and awareness that by right must unfold and be addressed in coming to the true nature of love, is a fundamental part of my own life too, ‘anonymous’. And there is no perfection in this, for every day, I learn more and my heart also expands.
For all of humanity, I see no other way to address the level of harm that is readily brought to ourselves and each other. Such philosophical pondering on the true nature of love, and the intent to then bring this to our own lives, is a worthy undertaking indeed.
Thank-you.
I am also learning too, to listen to my body and make choices to allow myself to express and receive love. Awesome reminder, Thank you.
The effect that choices can have on your body is huge.
I know I have personally felt the ‘tension and unease’ when not following through with a feeling/impulse.
This blog lets everyone see what it feels like when you honour those feelings and express them.
I just want to express that it has taken a very long time for me, but in reference to the title of “Life is a Celebration” – there is now a more deepening awareness that this is actually so –
and life is there not to be ‘squandered’ with feelings of overwhelm or given-up-ness. Thank you for this wonderful blog.
It feels you have captured how important it is to appreciate ourselves, when we’ve made the changes like in this blog. It seems simple but I know I have made some big changes over the past few years, it’s really good to feel how we can make different choices by feeling and listening to the body.
“To understand what I understand today not only makes life enjoyable but makes it a celebration, simply because of how I feel in my body.” What a gorgeous sentence and one that says so much.
I so enjoy reading this blog. I used to have so many questions relating to what “love” really was. I thought it to be what two people shared, or something which was given between a mother and father to their children, or the words you say to a boyfriend, if you dare, at intimate moments. It felt like something outside of me as you express so well “not something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself”. Such a reawakening for me since meeting Serge Benhayon and like yourself I too feel a “huge sense of completion and joy”. The amazingness of Love.
Thank you.
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.”… Hear hear! For me, choice becomes so much simpler and easier when it comes back to my body and not my head!
Good call Angela, “choice becomes so much simpler and easier when it comes back to my body and not my head!” – so simple and so true!
When I read the part you describe of the sensation of love in your body my body tingles .. I love how you bring the simplicity of connecting to the love we all have in our body to it just being a choice.
Thank you for your story, I too get confused with what love is and should be. The way love was expressed came with expectations, limitations, obligations. With zero regards to self in the equation. Living to this faulty recipe of life feels a bit wonky to me. My life feels so much better with a healthy dose of self love and care first.
I thank you for the simple expression in this blog – much of it resonated with me – especially learning to listen to my body.
The following line stood out for me: ‘The reasons these afterthoughts are so damaging is because they are thoughts that try to keep me in an old way of being without allowing new ways of being and doing things – which then allow me to live life in a more loving way.’ This is so true. Horrible thoughts they are and I have been experiencing them today first hand! After reading this I could let these sneaky thoughts go and feel again that I am very much the joy you described too. Thank you for sharing this.
I love the simplicity of this blog and I can relate to how love is. Love is a continually expanding expression and so each expression builds more and more. There are impulses and you can honour them to ‘more’ love or you can go with the thoughts that are there that lead you away from love. Love is a feeling first and not a word to be used to gain something for yourself. In the same way love is not just for one but it’s purpose is for it to be shared with everyone, so keep feeling and sharing.
Thank you Anonymous for this lovely blog. I am finding appreciation to be a beautiful way to allow me to feel more love in my life.
This is so great to hear.
I also love the expression “I now own a parcel of joy that is me” I used to think that loving yourself was selfish until I met Serge and listened to what he had to say on love and to feel the love he shares with everyone. Self-love what’s that? It has taken me quite sometime to accept myself and that I am allowed to love myself and to therefore be able to feel true love for others.
I so love what you have shared, so simply put. In particular i relate to …
“Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them…”
I have found that not only does this confirm the gorgeousness that i am feeling, but it so effortlessly bring this out to the world.
Love is – listening to your body
Thank you for sharing this beautiful blog with us all – Smiling as I read your words “I now own a parcel of joy called me” that feeling alone sums up how I know when I’m truly connected and living in my fullness.
Listening to my body, feeling Me or simply knowing how I feel at all once was a mystery to me, like a foreign language or something not worth giving any attention to. Today feeling myself, checking in with my body and making choices from that knowing have become the foundation of my life. The belief that life would become less worth living with age has turned around to knowing that it gets better every day. What Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine present was a possibility in the beginning and I gave it and me the chance to find out for myself. Today it has turned out to be a very practical, real and true way of living.
I know that sneaky part of us you speak of very well. The one who says we can’t, not now, what if they don’t want that etc etc, and then the other side, the freedom to allow ourselves and to express truth and the amazing love that we are. To not be afraid to hold any of it back. I too have experienced both of these, and am now building within myself a more solid commitment to choosing the latter and saying no to anything other then the knowing that I am a living son of God – there can be no greater cause to celebrate then this!
I have learnt that the body is the marker of all truth.
Love this…
The depth of this is felt daily and constantly in listening and refining.
I love the simplicity you describe of simply listening to the body and feeling whether a choice causes tension or not.
Accepting your self in such deep way is an unfolding process but so rewarding. I used to be plague with judgment…always judging how much I could express, let in, let out, immediate judgments about people I have never met – thoughts that I could not stop but would be there in an instant, such an exhausting way to live. It has been through acceptance of how lovely and amazing I am, that I am no longer plagued with this disability. The stepping-stone of self love to love seemed like a massive cliff but having the loving support and reflections of Serge Benhayon and the student body I have been able to soar there.
I made a choice yesterday around food that about six months I would have ‘gotten away with’ but now it made my whole body zing and I hated it, and so that goes, simple, when the body says loudly NO THANKS and you listen you benefit in ways that are hard to imagine.
It was awesome to read your blog. Simple and easy. I found when I read it my voice was softer and I read it slower then i usually read blogs. It was a good stop moment and great to read about the changes in your life. Especially about your impulses and feelings you have. It made me ponder on my own and to start having a look them. I often get a thought but then ‘write it off’ as the second thought comes through and dismisses it- just like you have described… and thank you for sharing what Serge Benhayon described love to be. It was a great reminder.
Wow! This whole blog just melts me! I really can feel the love that it is written in and now lived – who does not want this? This blog is an amazing reminder to step out of the “working out” and get back to simply choosing and living love. Very inspiring and simple. I really love this quote:
“I was so far from understanding what Love meant – I thought it was something to be received from others or given to others, not something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself.”
Beautiful words that are so true.
I can so relate to your blog Anonymous. I have recently learnt to truly accept the joy that has always been living inside of me and is my natural way of expressing
‘Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them’ …this sentence made me stop and realise that love is never static, it is forever developing and you have just shared with the world how that works and how we all can keep expanding.
One of my biggest vehicles of reaction has been seeing and feeling people not living to their full potential as the loving and gentle beings that we all naturally are. This blog so beautifully presents that when we truly hold all others as equals and we dispel judgement to be replaced by acceptance, we have an opportunity to not only allow others the space they deserve to find their own way back to more loving choices, it actually frees us up to do the same and feel more joy in the process. What a simple but liberating way to live.
So true, how intelligent is the body if and when we choose to truly listen…?
I somehow felt to reread this, this morning and there was just what I needed to connect to myself again. I understood how these dismissive thoughts like to sneak in to distract me from my true impulses and from expressing my love and letting love in. Thank you!
In knowing who we are and staying with how we feel instead of looking for love and acceptance from others we allow others to be wherever they are. I am beginning to experience the real love in this. Thank you for sharing.
What so clearly stands out through this blog is that EVERYTHING comes down to the CHOICES we make, it’s as simple as that – loving or not, and that can be actions, words or thoughts.
Thank you, I love the fact that through the teachings from Serge Benhayon, we get to feel the love, joy and appreciation of who we really are, in our bodies,by the loving choices we make in our everyday lives.
I feel in your words how the power of love has transformed your life, I have a similar experience and learning of a deeper understanding of what love truly is through Serge Benhayon; my life is transforming consistently into a joyful, vibrant one.
Thank you for sharing – pondering and discovering love again, and learning to feel the things in our world that try to take us off the path of Love, offering us a choice to remain connected to our soul is such a wonderful way to live.
Thank you for your inspiring blog – what amazing changes happen in our lives when we choose to make our life about love!
Thank you for your sharing, it feels as if the first steps are to accept life,love and appreciation and feel them in our bodies, fill them to the brim and let them flow out and feel them return.
Your joy and love coming through your writing makes me smile.
It’s amazing and so simple how everything in life is connected and linked – appreciating myself helps me to make more loving choices, appreciating others and connecting to them takes any tension I am feeling away.
When I feel really low I remember a session with Serge Benhayon when he put his hand on my back over my heart area and for the first time in my life, I felt love within me -through the warmth of his palm and the total equality he held me in.
This warmth is a reminder that I am never alone and that LOVE is equally in all of us, all of the time.
“Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am.” That’s such a gorgeous equation. That by knowing ourselves and appreciating ourselves means we can stay steady in life and not get thrown off course by another person’s behaviours or words. The steadiness in this feels great.
I am starting to experience this and it is so FREEING!!!!
So freeing, especially following the impulse to celebrate through an action or expression.
Awesome Rosanna. Knowing ourselves offers us the freedom to stay steady no matter what comes along.
“Meeting Serge Benhayon & Reintroducing Love into my Being”.
After your above line, I 100% agree with it!
We are so blessed that Universal Medicine is presenting the truth and that each of us has the choice to try it out, agree and live the teaching of Serge Benhayon according to there own free will and rhythm.
Thank you, there is much within your blog to ponder. How many of us stop and ask ‘What is Love?’ – stopping short of accepting what the world presents as love, and truly sitting and listening to the response that comes from deep within. So much wisdom is presented here. Thank you, I feel myself expanding in joy already
To be Love is to accept that each and every one of us is already Love within, quite often buried, but that the choice to bury our essence is a choice to be appreciated and not challenged. For when we challenge another we are challenging ourselves with the possibility that we are not Love, which when this has been felt and registered in the body is an absurd paradox, but one that reflects the complications we choose to shroud who we are – LOVE.
Have we been duped into thinking freedom is anarchy and not having a care? Could true freedom be taking full responsibility for our choices and really listening to our bodies and our inner heart?
It’s amazing how the simple discipline of replacing the negative thoughts with more loving, caring and supportive thoughts of self can totally change the way you feel and bring a sense of joy into life.
The more I come to accept my choices and take responsibility for them the more love and joy I feel. I never knew that taking responsibilty for myself could be so much fun.
Hello Anonymous
This is a beautiful blog with so many packages of wisdom which confirm the fact that when we express ourselves with love and follow a true impulse this actually expands us. Life is indeed a celebration and we are all invited.
It was really amazing to re-read this blog and have this stand out, “While giving no thought or concern to my own well-being” – which I had completely presumed did not affect me anymore, but feeling it I realised at some level I still have this in me. It offers an amazing opportunity to go deeper with this, in the sense of seeing all the tiny bits where it is still left, and to let them go.
Here I am again.
This blog is so powerful. So Simple.
I love what you said about joy, feeling it in others. Appreciation.
Yes I truly like the comment re “parcel of joy called me”. There was a time when I wondered if I would ever discover the joy inside. Now the more I make a choice to connect to me, the more joy I find in the things that I do.
What stood out for me was this section – “When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.” – this is such a great reminder to use this marker to discern truly supportive choices. Thank you Anonymous.
I love what you mention about how to keep the love expanding by following the true impulses that are there in the body. I found this a great reminder of how important it is to stay true to those impulses we feel and not let the chit chat of our mind to get in the way.
The message that each day is a celebration has made me feel brighter. Something so simple and true to live each day with. Thank you.
I found this a great reminder to not stand still, ‘Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them.’
“I now own a parcel of joy called me…and there is nothing like it in this world”. How beautiful is that, reminding me of the joy I am. Thank you anonymous.
What an lovely, lovely blog anonymous. I feel as if I want to carry it around with me all day and nurture it lovingly in my pocket. I remember asking someone once what love was, he couldn’t give me an answer, it was not until I attended Universal Medicine Workshops with Serge Benhayon that I discovered what love truly feels like and it was within me all along. As I continue (work in progress) to make self loving choices this love is expanding inside me and it feels marvellous! Thank you anonymous and thank you Serge Benhayon,
Thanks anonymous your blog is truly inspiring. I know I looked for love on the outside never realising it was within me. I now have a deeper appreciation of myself and more awareness of my choices and am forever grateful to Serge Benhayon and his presentations.
I love your blog, I find it beautifully expressed and very inspiring to hear your story and how you have transformed. So many things caught me in what you write and just at present I will carry with me what you said about if you feel a tension in your body around a choice you are making, then you know it is wrong for you. Thank you for those words of wisdom.
How simple love really is – just accepting things exactly as they are.
What a beautiful little blog – “a little parcel of joy inside me” – reminding me of my own joy.
Beautiful article… It is lovely to feel how you claim your love in your writing, yet another expression from which we all grow… Celebrating you and celebrating us… you’re an inspiration, thank you.
I particularly appreciated in the last paragraph about seeing people exactly the same as me first – before seeing anything that takes them away from being their true selves. This brings a deep sense of understanding to humanity – removing judgement and separation. A wonderful and uplifting way to be with all – thank you.
Thank You Anonymous. The last words of your last paragraph TRULY resonated for me….I too am learning to “TRULY appreciate others and TRULY appreciate me!
I used to get affected by wanting to help people and this form of sympathy made me very drained because I took on energy that was not mine. I no longer do this with most people but still find it hard to watch my children make poor choices. Reading what you have written strengthens me to put into practice the knowing that: ‘I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are.’
The best way to support them is for me to be fully who I am and provide that loving reflection for them.
Thank you for your beautiful words. I am so ready to make more and more loving choices for my self and more then ready to start letting everybody in no matter what. The love inside me is expanding by the second.
I love how you describe ‘Love’ and how it feels in your body.Your description comes alive and I can feel it in me too.
Thank you for your beautiful expression. The ‘discovery’ of what true love is has the power to change everything in one’s life. And, as it has been for you, it has changed everything for me… And, it is ‘contagious’ as it changes everything for anyone who comes in contact with you. Amazing!
Thank you for your beautiful expression. The ‘discovery’ of what true love is has the power to change everything in one’s life. And, as it has been for you, it has changed everything for me… And, it is ‘contagious’ as it changes everything for anyone who comes in contact with you. Amazing!
Thank-you Anonymous for you beautiful blog. I can so relate to not holding myself with love and appreciation until I met Serge Benhayon and attended his courses and presentations. My life changed from that moment onwards and the love I am now building for myself is absolutely gorgeous and a joy to continually choose and feel.
Beautiful blog. A reminder to appreciate me more and the changes I have also made which have had such a positive impact on my daily livingness thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
I find I keep coming back to this blog,it is so powerful, so simple.
If I just stop and listen to my body, I feel it just tingling with joy.
It feels amazing.
Reading this I am inspired to feel that all that matters in life is to love myself, and to nurture and grow my warmth within, so I can begin to feel and understand my own love and let this out. This is the simplicity of the teachings of The Way of The Livingness, founded by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
This is a beautiful reminder of the love that we all have innately. Appreciating who we are strengthens the love we are and allows that to truly shine.
It is amazing what allowing you to see yourself as worthy and loveable will change inside you and in your relationships with others.
There is one sentence from Serge Benhayon’s meditations that for me has been like the key to unlocking the door to what love really means: “Love can sometimes let you fall flat on your face – lovingly so“.
Always trying to avoid arguments or only caring for others without considering yourself is not love. I start to understand more and more that love is to hold everybody equally – including myself and to give the uncomfortable truths as equally a voice as all the wonderful aspects.
In an amazing relationship with my partner I am blessed to learn day by day that it is about all these seemingly uncomfortable truths that bring us and our relationship to a new depth once they have been spoken out.
I love to re-read this blog as it gets me to re-confirm and appreciate how much more understanding and love I have for myself these days. Looking back, on how life used to be, is like looking into the dark ages!
Very warmly written. True self-love is so needed in this world today. I always smile at those booklets that we are all “suppose to” read on aeroplanes about emergency procedures. All of them say that if you are with a child, put your mask on first then help your child. It is that simple!
What an absolutely gorgeous blog, as I was reading the words I could feel the love in my own body, even though today my body is tired and sore.
How relevant this is. As I was reading, I felt, as you have, how life-changing my daily livingness has become since attending presentations by Serge Benhayon, seeing how life can truly be lived as shown by Serge’s example, and then feeling into the truth of how I had been living. Accepting and choosing to love myself, allows me to see and feel this beauty in others even if they may not feel it in themselves yet. Appreciating all I am becoming and listening to what is true inside me, has changed everything in life. This is then felt by everyone, giving them the opportunity to make the choice to be self-loving.
I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world. – I love it.
Thank you for your blog. It is so lovely to feel the honesty, acceptance and love of yourself, and appreciation of where you were to where you are today, knowing too, that this will continue to deepen.
Thank you anonymous for your inspiring blog. Life truly is a celebration!
At first when I read comments from students I thought ‘that will never be me’ because I felt so distant from what they were describing. While I know I still have a lot of ideals and beliefs etc to let go of, I am now starting to relate to what I am reading. That for me is wonderful and I thank others for leading the way and being so supportive and inspiring.
Helen, that is amazing.
Beautiful sharing if we all saw life as a celebration and appreciated ourselves for who we are what an amazing difference this would make to the world, thank you for highlighting this and the joy that comes with it all.
This is all such a foreign concept to me at the moment, but I can see how beneficial it is. This is a journey that is full of aha moments. At least I know it gets better and better as it goes.
This is beautiful and I can relate so much to dismissing certain feelings or impulses I have, to stop what I am doing and follow through on them. Whether that be to stay longer in bed or go for a walk. I am starting to honour and listen more to my body to confirm if it was a loving choice or not that I made. I love this – ‘I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.’
Hello, it was deeply touching to read your blog and you already had me when you asked the question “what is love”. Funny, love must be my word of the day, because just before reading this I found myself on the Universal Medicine Living website, and a page on Unimedpedia that gives a further feeling for the true meaning of love and how it does not have one ounce of emotion in it. There are a couple of great audio excerpts there too.
Thanks for sharing this. I have come to understand my body so much more since being inspired by the Way of The Livingness and the presentations by Serge Benhayon.
Being able to listen to my body is so worth celebrating!
I know in the past that I would take time to listen to another, but rarely would I take time to listen to myself. But what I can honestly say is that the more that I take that time for me, and to understand me, the more I am able to understand others.
This is truly inspiring for me. It feels amazing how we can just choose the right thing at the right time, as you say listen to that impulse and your body lets you know. Thank you for having taken the time to write such a simple and clear blog to share.
Reading this blog reminds me of how amazing I am and how I have to appreciate that. And Celebrate it each and every day. Thank You.
Feeling the tension of a choice I make is the greatest marker for me to know whether the choice supports me or not. And feeling when an impulse is true, expressing and following that, helps my understanding of life so much more. I very much love this way of living.
Gill I to find, “feeling the tension of a choice I make is the greatest marker for me to know whether the choice supports me or not”.
I love how you say “To understand what I understand today not only makes life enjoyable but makes it a celebration, simply because of how I feel in my body.” I feel the same too thanks to Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine and all that is offered to support this way of living.
I lived for a long time with no appreciation of self and would bring that to my relationships. Of course I now recognise though don’t always live the fact that you can’t truly care for another if you don’t care for or appreciate yourself. As a one time carer for another, I can look back now and see the truth of this in the way I was and how little self regard I showed and the impact this would have on the quality of care I gave.
Wow anonymous reading your blog again is so inspiring. The simplicity and the power of the choices you have made. So much to celebrate.
Celebrating my life is bringing a whole new dimension to it – even the bits where I ‘got it wrong’.
I love it Ariana. ‘ we can decide what we allow in our minds. They don’t have to be a dumping ground’ hear hear, such a gift to know this and live it to the best of my ability and bring it back to the body again and again.
This sentence just stood out to me today: “This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body”.
Following our true impulses and feelings and putting them into action is so liberating. My head has previously chattered its concerns about whether I’d be wrong or making a fool of myself, or whether someone would criticise me, and would stop me from expressing myself. But these days, life does feel a celebration in my body too.
Thank-you to this parcel of joy for the life you have breathed into your words.
“I can feel love throughout my body, through tingly sensations where all areas of my body come to life” I concur that I feel love in my body as a warm willing glow that makes each movement smooth and harmonious – a natural emanation that feeds itself back.
This is an amazing writing with such lived understanding of how our choices and love for ourselves and listening to our body makes. Very inspiring to read and I loved the bit saying – ‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.’ and I am feeling the same too, thank you for expressing all you have so beautifully.
I like what you say about noticing our impulses, our true feelings and being able to differentiate these from the ‘sneaky’ ones. For me I’m learning that it’s all about discernment – those times when my body wants a break from working at the computer and I get an impulse to go for a walk but a voice inside my head tells me sternly to keep at it and gets its metaphorical whip out. It’s in these moments that building discernment is supporting me in truly caring for my body and my wellbeing.
This is so true “When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.” I too love listening to my body and feeling what it shares with me, and yes, when the choice is not true there is a tension there, an angst or unease, or even a simple no is clearly felt, but when I make more loving choices the joy and ease is so clearly felt in my body. What I love, and love joyfully learning more and more each day, is that as you say, it is so simple; I know if I go into my head to ask, or doubt this or that, then I’m just complicating what I and my body initially felt – then the tension or unease comes in, and it doesn’t have to be that way. Listening to our bodies and Simplicity is definitely the key.
Really inspiring and lovely to read.
I love the lightness and joy in the way that you have expressed in this blog – it was lovely to read it again and touch base with your appreciation of how your life has changed to one of really feeling all that you are from your body.
I can relate to those moments of celebration and appreciation. I had this for instance yesterday morning, the first of January, the start of a new year. I didn’t stay up till 12, I went to bed earlier and I drank tea and water the whole evening, and when I woke up, I was alive, vital and looking forward to the day. I could feel the appreciation for myself and the choices I had made the night before – I had a great evening and a great morning.
I can relate to these moments too Mariette. Our New Year’s eve was very similar to your experience and so lovely to be tucked up in bed early and getting up really early the next day feeling filled with joy and well-being without a new year’s resolution in sight! Just another day to appreciate daily choices.
This is a gorgeous reminder of why we might want to listen to our bodies and love ourselves by following these impulses through. I know when I have started to feel joy it is because of the choices I have made to honour myself. Somehow I then think it’s ok to stop listening, and the feeling of joy quickly disappears. Yes we only keep expanding if we are consistently choosing love for ourselves.
It was lovely to reread your blog this morning. I can feel how by simply living from that ‘parcel of joy’ that is you, you are inspiring others to connect to their own joy.
‘This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.’ This is key – observing and stopping every little thought of criticism that stops us from being and expressing our true selves. I find it helps to say ‘That’s not me’ and then to make time and space for feeling and appreciating the true me.
Carmel, it really is that simple, we don’t have to make a big deal or drama out of it – I know I have in the past and it’s something I am working on letting go of completely, we can simply say “That’s not me” and allow ourselves the space and time to really feel and appreciate ourselves and others.
Thanks anonymous, great blog! It is a good reminder of how important it is to keep expanding and not just stand still and be content because we now know what love is.
And a great reminder from you Kev to “not just stand still and be content because we now know what love is.” but to always keeping expanding and evolving – thank you.
This blogs shows me the importance of appreciation and understanding, for who we are and the choices we make, and for all those around us. No matter what goes on around me or what people do, just being me and knowing that we are all the same, is such a beautiful way to be in the world. We are all the same, we just make different choices, this is the only difference.
This blog I will come back to, how beautiful you describe what love is and who we are. Owning a parcel of joy called me, thank you!
I love your description of what true love is, it’s how children are concerned but not taking it on – this is so apt, and not something I could have connected with until a few years ago, and even today I have lots of moments where I forget. And reading this reminded me of how simple it can be.
“Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are. I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.” I could read this paragraph over and over and never tire of it, because it is a little drop from heaven, filled with joy, acceptance and love of self and others.
Yes, it’s just gorgeous. We are all our own little parcels of joy! That’s so cute. I really feel the line, ‘Understanding Life is a Celebration.’
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.” Listening to my body has become part of my makeup these days, whereas for many years I ignored all its subtle and not so subtle messages.
Reading this helps me to clearly feel the difference between a true impulse, and the afterthoughts that sabotage it. How many times I have listened to the afterthoughts (they will not like it, it will be too much, too sweet, too this or too that) and believed they were true, so consequently followed them, than the true impulse that is first and pure, without doubt, and it feels more myself. It reminds me to follow my true impulses and how much joy I feel when I am myself. Even if it does not look “normal” to others.
Julie, I so agree – an impulse feels so natural, there are no thoughts there, just absolute joy. We can make it the new normal 🙂
That is so true, Julia and Gyl, how free and untrammelled by thoughts an impulse is. My body responds by feeling lighter and clearer if the impulse is a loving one, not a destructive one. Our bodies tell us so much about where we have expressed from.
I agree Joan.
Beautifully inspiring Julia, thank you.
I loved coming back to read this article again. I can feel your ‘parcel of joy’ that is you and I can feel how this joy when we connect to it in ourselves is what we can take out into the day to inspire others, so it can have a ripple effect out in the world.
It is true Jane – it is as simple as that.
Beautiful blog anonymous and I know what you are talking about when you mention those dismissive thoughts of ‘not being good enough, I can’t do that, etc, etc. Thanks to the presentations of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, and being inspired to know who I truly am, those thoughts are getting less and less and when they do come it is easier to politely ask them to leave. Like you say, life is a celebration and living this way offers me so much joy.
I also love what you have shared about Serge Benhayon’s example of what love is with you – so true and feels so amazing, just a simple holding, care and understanding without taking stuff on.
I totally love this blog, I love the simplicity of it, that love doesn’t have to be something we go chase or find, that it is within us all, and it’s by simply honouring what we feel each and every little impulse that this grows, and as you say it can be something as simple as feeling to hug someone, telling them you love them or holding their hand, it may even be sitting down to put your shoes on, honouring what your body feels to eat, or even feeling to go for a walk or a swim. All of these, each and every impulse joyfully and lovingly builds more love in our bodies.
This blog and the comments are so inspiring to reread and feel the connection of knowing love in my body. Yummy.
‘To understand what I understand today not only makes life enjoyable but makes it a celebration, simply because of how I feel in my body’. Yes I agree with you, it is so lovely to feel ones own body and to be impulsed by the body, this is a joy to feel.
It is so simple, listen to the body. And yet at times my mind will bring up a million distractions, emotions or criticisms to not feel. This blog is an inspiration in the sense that I deserve to feel, thank you.
That makes sense, even though I have been told before that being love is a process of re-learning, it feels like something has only now just sunk in. If I don’t even try to break away from my mind and feel, then I will never learn how to feel. It’s a process of trial and error learning rather than theory work. Thank you Jane.
It is very true Jane there is much inspiration here indeed, by the article and everyone commenting. What I can see is now important for my development is to continue to stay connected to my body and my choices, and not let my head make decisions that my body is not in agreement with.
I totally agree Jane I too am constantly inspired by Serge Benhayon and the simplicity he lives his life in, with a complete connection to his Soul and living that Love with all…
Jane, I am finding more and more as I am present with myself, I can feel a sense of stillness, this allowing me to feel deeper within and more connected to my body. Then there is no room for the mind to come in and distract. If the mind does kick in, it’s a great alarm bell for me to reconnect to my gentle breath and connect back to my body. We have been given so many tools by Serge Benhayon to support bringing ourselves back to our body.
I agree Amita, I too am loving deeply connecting more with my stillness, and as you have shared it’s a great reminder that when I go into my head and distractions kick in, it is a great alarm bell to stop and re-connect to my body and my breath. And yes so many, and such simple and life changing tools, have been given by Serge Behnayon and Universal Medicine, and I am deeply appreciative of that, as I know many others are too.
This is such a great blog. I can really relate to when the negative things creep in to try to take me out, but now thanks to your blog, I will be more onto those moments and less likely to stray.
This is such a beautiful blog – so tender are the words written. It is a celebration of you and of the potential of us all.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world” – so beautiful, thank you Anonymous.
Fabulous article Anonymous. Reading this and then the most recent of the 234 comments is so inspiring.
I love the understanding that you share of knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through any true feeling or impulses I have, immediately when I have them. I know I’ve done far too much holding back.
I too can see much of where I have held back and contracted but this is shifting and I can appreciate that I notice when I am doing it. From this point I can change this pattern and be all of me.
Before finding Universal Medicine Courses, I would have walked away from those around me exhibiting unloving behaviour towards themselves.
Since deepening my growing awareness of tension and unease in my body, as I learn more and more to accept and appreciate who I am, I am connecting to the “joy we all are”.
I just love the statement ‘understanding love is a celebration’ – It absolutely can be – when we actually take ourselves into account.
As a woman I have a tendency to want to support others – but I now understand the importance of including myself in the care I take. That inclusiveness of everyone, including myself, allows for a much stronger connection and an openness in me that is worth celebrating!
I can resonate with your comment hvmorden – “As a woman I have a tendency to want to support others – but I now understand the importance of including myself in the care I take”. There is much to celebrate with our inclusiveness of everyone.
Me too hvmorden – I have the natural tendency to look after others and often find myself slipping into a ‘mothering’ role, but when it comes down to appreciating and supporting myself I sometimes cringe at the thought! But as you said celebrating ourselves is equally as important, and definitely something I need to work on.
Me too Susie. I remember the first time I saw an airplane demonstration where they told us in an emergency, put your own mask on before helping others. I didn’t understand why this was the case – shows you how far I was from self care! The point is, sometimes we can be great at giving to others before ourselves, but really – if we’re not caring for us first, how is it possible to care for another? There is no lived experience. So the more loving I am with myself – the more loving I will be with others. It took me a while to truly understand that.
I have recognised more and more how these negative thoughts….. ‘I can’t do that’ or ‘you look silly’ … are just there to hold us back and block us from our true impulse, as our true impulse will help us to grow in so many ways, you can feel the difference. Why is it so easy to listen to the negative thoughts and override the true impulse? Something for everyone to ponder on ….
Ths is so true Jody and reading your comment has given me a chance to see just how I no longer have those negative thoughts. In the past these would run me and I would have very little confidence, self worth or self esteem.
Thank you for a very important description of what love is what it feels like and what love can do.
To see how much you have transformed your life, from the INSIDE out is amazing and shows just how possible it is to go from self loathing to self love.
Thank you for this inspiring blog and on re-reading it today it has reminded me of the simplicity of listening to my body again and acting on this impulse whatever I do, as it always comes back to me as a confirmation that I knew it anyway; and how silly I was if I did not pay attention and how beautifully confirming if I did.
I just wanted to say thank you for this beautiful blog. It’s inspiring and simple to listen to our bodies, to feel and honour each impulse from there.
A beautiful blog that inspires simplicity and love. Love, and life itself are simple when I connect to my inner heart.
I love reading this article anonymous, ‘When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.’ This feels very true and is something I’m beginning to learn, thank you for the reminder to be aware of how my body is feeling when I’m making choices – so simple and true compared to trying to mentally work things out.
Beautiful and inspirational how lovely to be able to look back and see the amazing choices you have made, the life you are now living and the journey and choices from here now. Thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine so many of us are now able to do the same. Thank you for sharing, it is a real gift and joy to read.
This is great to re-read anonymous, ‘The reasons these afterthoughts are so damaging is because they are thoughts that try to keep me in an old way of being without allowing new ways of being and doing things – which then allow me to live life in a more loving way.’
I love how you have written about keeping expanding yourself by following through on any true impulses or feelings, reading this makes me aware that I can get stuck and not keep expanding and living life in a more loving way every day, thank you for writing about this in such a simple and easy to understand way.
Thanks Rebecca for sharing that line again. It says so much on its own let alone when you look at the whole article.
Yes I agree Rebecca.
I second that, these afterthoughts keep me small, and thats not who I am.
I third that if that’s possible 😉 Yes very true. I am discovering, where once I believed I was powerless over these after thoughts, actually I am not and I can choose otherwise. It’s quite liberating and a great reminder to keep on choosing loving thoughts, because I actually can.
So much you have written here to celebrate, thank you.
I agree, much to celebrate.
It is inspiring to see so many people that have come from hating/rejecting/disregarding themselves (to some degree) to building appreciation and love.
I totally agree Julia, the transformations that I have seen throughout the student body and where they have come from to being loving, caring and respecting themselves (including myself) is deeply inspiring. With the unwavering commitment from Serge Benhayon and sharing how he has made these changes also and realising that is the normal way of being – to look after oneself, has been life changing.
To respect and look after oneself is transformational, it is deeper than the shallow superficial version we have allowed ourselves as a society to accept, and the benefits are far more far reaching.
Julia yes it has been amazing to see so many people changing and building true foundations of love and appreciate. It is very inspiring in need.
I agree with you Jenny, that as a society we have accepted a shallow version of self-care, it’s a cardboard cut out image, and we are so much more than that.
A beautiful, beautiful blog offering much inspiration. Thank you
I love your article and know how meeting Serge Benhayon has helped me reintroduce love into my being too.
I also love how you express how knowing love and freely feeling this only lasts if you keep expanding yourself by following through any true impulses when you feel them, by putting it into some kind of expression or action.
I am enjoying starting to express what I feel in the moment instead of holding this back inside me as I used to. This feels so loving and great to do and very expansive also. Thank you for your great sharings.
This is an awesome expression in itself Tricia, lovely to see how this blog is inspiring to others, showing that the celebration of ones journey by self is truly infectious…
It is inspirational to read that you have got to the point where other people and their actions no longer disturb you, as you can feel you and know who you are. This is something I am learning and for me what has made a difference especially at work, is speaking up for myself and getting my point across.
I’m learning too Julie, and its wonderful when I can accept others for who they are, without judgement, and knowing that deep within they are just the same as me, only their choices are different.
So true Julie and Catherine. It is great to have got to the point where other people and their actions no longer disturb you. Being able to accept others for who they are, without judgement – that is life changing! What you said Catherine about knowing that deep within they are just the same as me, only their choices are different, takes a whole lot of pressure off. Just to be who we are, this I am learning and it makes life a whole lot easier! It took a while to get to this point and it is great.
Yes Julie, it makes such a difference when I express clearly what it is I am saying, so others have the opportunity to clearly sit and be with what I am saying. It creates an openness in the relationship which then gives us both an opportunity to have a deeper connection. Most definitely one that I am learning and absolutely love where it leaves us to be with each other.
“Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them. At the moment I understand an impulse to be a feeling that comes to me, which quite often requires me to put it into some kind of action or expression”. I love this sentence as it shows us how love can then be forever expanding. Thee are no limits!
Same here Sue that’s a great sentence. It shows me how when I feel something just how important it is to express or follow through with that feeling instead of going into questioning it!
Thanks for highlighting this point, I just realised by not honouring something I felt means that I actively choose not to evolve, I choose another non-love direction…
Awesome point David “when I feel something just how important it is to express or follow through with that feeling instead of going into questioning it!” So simple and so true.
Yes, love is not a point we reach, it is forever expanding, we can be forever expanding.
I love your point Ariana about also being really gentle and tender with ourselves – I used to have a habit of beating myself up when I let thoughts in that attacked me and run riot, but, lovingly supporting myself to change has been life-changing.
A beautiful blog and reminder of how we are impulsed all the time and how natural and joyful our lives can be when we decide to follow our true impulses instead of letting our minds complicate our every way.
What a powerful phrase ‘letting our minds complicate our every way’ is. I know mine is constantly prowling with ideas that complicate and confuse. And if I lose focus, forget to breathe my own breath, its all too ready to try and influence my behaviour. Work in progress….
I find the same as well, Catherine and Mary. My mind can be a master of distracting me from what I am doing, by bringing in unnessecary thoughts instead of keeping things simple and focussed on what I am doing. I have found at times, if things are going smoothly without a hitch, I often look out for one, and in doing so create complications for no real reason.
Thank you, yes it is great to remember: the key to not reacting and not getting affected by people´s behavior is knowing who we are.
I can really feel how you have so transformed the way you care for yourself when reading this. I used to hate change in the past, and hold on to old familiar patterns, not anymore now. I now feel how important it is to appreciate the changes we make because they make a huge difference.
I love the simplicity of what you say that the Body is the truth of all markers. I know also that what I do say, eat and drink my body will let me know loud and clear. Over time I have become more sensitive to my choice and can feel it even stronger, the impact that my choices have. It is incredible the level awareness that the body has and it’s up to me to build that relationship that is deep and honouring of what it is telling me.
Serge Benhayon is an amazing reflection of love, the way he holds us all equally in love is phenomenal. But the truth is we are all as equal as he and we can do the same if we choose. His reflection is a constant reminder for us to keep choosing that level of love. As we appreciate and accept, we too are this love and come from this love, the quicker our reflections will reflect to the rest of the world. It’s all about us making loving choices and appreciating them.
I have enjoyed reading your blog and the comments, all very inspiring. I know those thoughts you speak of all too well, which at times can be a pain. Great to remember that life is a celebration and not a chore.
Cool blog. These negative thoughts that can come through sometimes… ‘I can’t do that’…’You will look silly’. As you said; they try to keep us in an old way of being without allowing new ways of being and doing things, this is so true. We can easily define ourselves by these negative thoughts and think that is who we are – which just isn’t true…we are so much more.
Meeting Serge Benhayon and re introducing Love into your being: This is such a transformation that you tell of here, that you went from “hating myself deeply with every thought and action” to “replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself”. I can also say that the Love that Serge Benhayon holds each and every one of us in, is the most powerful and potent remedy for all the mistrust, guardedness, protection and hardness in our bodies that keeps us from holding ourselves in a tender loving way also. Your appreciation of yourself now and the choices you are making are lovely to read. Thank you
I agree, Rosanna. This blog is a beautiful testament to the power of love.
An inspiring article to be read and re-read. Thank you anonymous for this great contribution.
What a totally inspiring couple of senences:-
‘Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are.’
How inspiring to see everyone by who they are and not what they do.
It is true Fiona and in that I can feel the importance of continuing to deepen our own relationship with ourselves so that we are not rocked by any situation that may occur.
Knowing the true meaning of love, to feel self-love blossom within me and in everything I do is a precious gift. It is a gift to nurture; the more love I choose, the more love I am.
A very inspiring Blog which ultimately highlights the true importance for the appreciation of ourselves and who we really .This allows the freedom to simply choose this love and live it on a moment by moment basis of ever increasing understanding.
I love to re-read this blog. I love your last paragraph, I love to live life in celebration too, to celebrate, to appreciate, and to connect with myself and others. No matter what age I get to, life is for celebrating.
The more I have understood how important the choices I make impacts not only me but everyone around me, the more I have been able to go deep within me to really feel and connect to the choice I am making. When my choices are inline with truth and felt in my body, it feels amazing and I am able to also now appreciate these moments. When I am slightly out and not connected, my choices do reflect back that it was not true on not loving and I can usually feel it in my body straight away now.
What a powerful blog, I love the part about love, what is love. So it is not about taking things on, but it is about being, and then we can give somebody a hug or listen to somebody when they are sad, but we just have to be who we are, without wanting to solve it or come with solutions. We are enough in our being, more than enough. And so is everybody else.
I agree with this blog that following our impulses is definitely a way to move forward, feeling much more free as I find by doing so, the choice is always true.
…’we all have a body that however old, young, or whatever kind of life we have lived is always able to feel what is true for us and what is not in any given moment’ – I love how you worded that Jane; very true.
A supportive blog and a great reminder to consider ourselves and care for ourselves. Simon Williams I love the description “something to cherish inside ourselves that no one can take away. It’s the ultimate gift to ourselves, and at the same time a divine right for each and every one of us.” It reminds me that it is in no way selfish or not considering others to nurture the love we have within, we all have it to access to this love, it is just about accepting it. Thank you.
When I accept the awareness my body brings to every situation I am then only ever one step away from the opportunity to choose: that which serves and supports myself and life (my body expands) or that which limits, isolates and holds back (my body hardens and shrinks). Then the next moment arrives with another fresh choice – now that is super cool if we consider the forever opportunity to call the changes.
Dear Anonymous, great blog! The more I am able to love myself the more I am free to love others as equals. It’s a great thing to know that we are all the same and it is only our own choices that makes things different. It makes for a more loving world.
great to re-read your article anonymous, this time I really enjoyed what you wrote here, ‘I understand an impulse to be a feeling that comes to me, which quite often requires me to put it into some kind of action or expression. This may be a simple thought or feeling such as stopping and hugging my son or husband with all that I am.’, thank you for this practical example.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me…” This is beautiful. I also have been learning the true meaning of love. When I choose to connect to the love that is always there just waiting for me to feel it I too know and own a parcel of joy called me, and it just keeps growing.
As I read through the blog and the comments again, I see a very deep level of care and appreciation that you hold for yourself (and others), the strength that this brings and the inspiration it offers. Before being reminded of the true meaning of Love, I also saw this as something that I got from another. Yet with every word written in the blog you can feel the strength and love that is within. I see it as a very practical and real example of what I have come to know is true, now combined with the inspiration to make it true for me. Thank you.
“Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them.”
This is such a great reminder for me. It is when I slip into ‘what to do’ that I forget to listen. I am working with training myself so to speak, to follow what I feel, catch myself when I go into overriding what was felt and follow through with what I originally felt. When I do this, is always feels very true and honouring.
“This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.” I feel exactly the same, as I have this deeper appreciation within myself and as I have been working on my self care. How easy it is to over look self care, and really it is such an important thing to do.
I can relate to what you say about – “I went from hating myself deeply with every thought and action to having a conscious understanding of why I was doing this and replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself”. I am learning to do this more every day.
I never used to realise even that I had choices, let alone how I made them. And now being able to feel sensitive enough to realise how my choices can make a difference to how I feel is an incredible change to how I had been living for decades. I am able to feel the tension now and then have a choice to do something about it. It’s never too late to learn.
This line for me says it all; ‘I know who I am. I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are…there is nothing like it in this world.’ Thank you for showing us it is never too late to come back to what we have thought we had lost… the love and joy within us all.
This feels like a deep and developing appreciation of the power of living in relationship with ourselves, responding to impulses and signs from our bodies and being in relationship with others from a foundation of self awareness, care and responsibility. It is gorgeous to hear the everyday, practical impact of this…thank you.
“I thought love was something to be received from others or given to others, not something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself.” This was a monumental shift for me and something that I am still learning to practice. The more I do so the more loving I am and so are my relationships.
I so agree with you, Jonathan. I also had the idea Love was something I received from another or give to another and never considered I could be love myself and share the love I am. The steps towards that began with taking care of myself with small practical things as going to the toilet in time.
Accepting how I am, who I am and appreciating me. If we continue day by day to be aware of the choices we make, then it becomes our way of being to nurture ourselves in this way, then as you say Tricia, we continue to evolve as the connection to the love we are grows.
Beautiful blog I love it! Meeting Serge Benhayon and reintroducing love into my being has certainly been my experience also and this is an ever evolving way of living and certainly makes life a celebration with immense purpose.
I totally agree Ariana, allowing thoughts as simple and seemingly ‘normal’ as, ‘you will look silly’ can as you say, ‘reduce us to nothing’ and effect our self confidence massively.
This is a gorgeous blog with gems in it about how to truly love ourselves thanks!
This is a very timely reminder to appreciate myself and the amazing changes that have come through accepting my responsibility for my life and the way I lead it.
As Ariana, Julie and others have picked up on – the thoughts we have can be one of the most destructive things. It’s great to be reminded that its our choice to allow these thoughts. It’s most certainly time to throw them out!
This is true. Our minds do not have to be a dumping ground. Those little thoughts can have such a big impact. It is great to know that we do not have to listen to them and can sweep them away, choosing instead to focus on allowing tenderness.
Thank you anonymous and Ariana, I agree with you both, it’s those seemingly innocent little thoughts which I have come to realise are not so innocent, which can play havoc if left to their own devises. It is great to know that these days I recognise them for what they are and can choose not to have them.
Wow, the fact that you can say “To understand what I understand today not only makes life enjoyable but makes it a celebration, simply because of how I feel in my body.” shows us that Love is a medicine every single person could do with.
Anonymous, I love your blog especially the part where you share …..I now own a parcel of joy called me and there is nothing like it in this world….a beautiful way to express how we each have our unique qualities we share with the world.
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me.” Once we learn to listen to our bodies and all of their little signals we come to learn the truth for ourselves in each and every moment.
“I can connect with others and be together with them in all the Joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that Joy – and in that, I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me” this sentence really inspires me to really work on opening myself more to others and connecting to them by staying with ‘me’.
This is a deeply beautiful blog. How you have continually built love in your body through a loving commitment to yourself is inspiring. I love how you describe a true impulse and how acting on this in the moment expands and assists your growth. I often feel these impulses which feel so instantly true but often let doubt slip in. Thank you for this it has really supported me in appreciating and trusting these truths.
When you say, ‘Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them,’ this is not what I have done in my life and explains why I don’t always feel life as a celebration but feel a deep sense of sadness or frustration for not expressing the love that naturally emanates from me if I don’t stop it.
As your blog attests, I am beginning to get that I cannot withhold expressions of love with others – whether that is a spontaneous hug, or something I feel to say to stop any action or comment that isn’t love. Love always wants to grow but to say ‘no that’s all for now’ puts a stop to that. So I’m getting that it’s saying yes to love in every moment – and the joy is that I have that opportunity in every moment even if I have said no to love for a while. What a great blog. Thank you.
“Reintroducing love into my being”. Simple, gorgeous, true. Changing your life by making new choices. Thankyou for sharing your story and celebrating you.
I can really relate to your blog, Anonymous. It’s like your words are speaking about me exactly. I am learning to “truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me,” too. “I thought love was something to be received from others or given to others, not something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself.” This is such a monumental shift in me as I have also gone from hating myself deeply to growing tenderness and love for myself… The development continues as I learn to accept myself more.
Those sneaky, dismissive thoughts are definitely worth watching out for – sometimes we can be disparaging about ourselves without even realising it. To see life as a celebration and not a chore is a simple and loving way to be.
Oh, those sneaky little habits I have used for years to make a joke of it all, and ended up putting myself down without realising what I was doing. They still get into my head, but less and less out of my mouth.
I agree Carmel, dismissive thoughts are definitely worth watching for – those dialogues in the head that can happen when we are not with ourselves. A celebration of life; now that sounds more like it!
Absolutely Carmel, simply loving and also very freeing… Those thoughts are so deeply ingrained that you have to be on the ball at catching them and saying, ‘no, that is not me’. Realising that all is energy and that before that, we actually realise that we have chosen the energy first – before the thought has come through; made a whole lot of sense because some thoughts I really have been scratching my head as to where they have come from.
Once we realise that those thoughts are not us, it’s so much easier to move forward free from blame or shame, the understanding flourishes and the love can take over!
I felt my body expand and lighten as I read your experience. Thank you, for the very timely reminder to watch the niggley thoughts when I have a true impulse.
A beautifully confirming and inspiring blog.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me…” I Love this line ! I feel the truth of it to my core.
I am just getting glimpses of this joyful sense of self-ownership for the first time in my life as I learn how to reclaim myself and like you said “…there is nothing like it in this world.”
That was the line that jumped out at me also… something to cherish inside ourselves that no one can take away. It’s the ultimate gift to ourselves, and at the same time a divine right for each and every one of us.
That’s gorgeous : )
We are so fortunate to have Universal Medicine with us helping us work on being ourselves again however that way is for us.
Yes, an awesome line and I also feel the truth of it to my very core and in the knowing that there is so much more beauty and joy to feel.
‘I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world’ – this is beautiful and a great testament to the amazing teachings Serge Benhayon shares with us. How great for everyone to read this and realise it is possible to turn your life around.
“Understanding Life is a Celebration” Simple, powerful, true.
I agree – and I love that line, too!
I read this blog and am so touched by its simplicity…thank you. I too know what love is and feel it in its completeness in my body. I also know that I still carry some incredulity that it can be this simple, and that this is an opening for me to sabotage the joy that is me in life. The patterns to complicate and challenge are deeply entrenched but the choice to honour myself and to build love, not doubt, is changing the tide.
Absolutely I am finding the same listening to my body, the choices I make and feeling if there is a tension or not, allows me to make the choice that supports me. How powerful this connection is.
A lovely description of how you feel within yourself now “…a parcel of joy.” It was great to read through the blog and feel your appreciation for where you have come from and where you are heading. Thank you.
Gorgeous blog Anon, I really appreciate all you have shared as life unfolds to reveal a simple and tender loving way to be with self and others.
I love how it feels that your inner appreciation of yourself is growing as I read through the article. This feels to be true love for sure.
Dear Anon, thank you for taking us along with you on your journey of discovery. The idea that we can grow and nurture love within us is very powerful.
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.” Is a good line to read. Often when I feel the tension I want to dull it and numb it by eating more, or use distraction tactics. Feeling the tension and appreciating that there is something to reflect on about choices I am making is a whole shift and turn around about how to deal with life.
Thanks for sharing what is love – that pure, constant presence that I have seen and felt in children before. I’ve often marvelled at how they remain completely with themselves, compassionate towards others but unaffected. Still their own veritable bundle of joy, regardless. Compare that with the messy neediness we can put onto someone else and them onto us under the delusion that it is love – a recipe for anything but!
Great piece of writing. What stood out for me was where you get the sneaky thoughts after an impulse to do something – I am learning to discern what is a true impulse and act on these.
I especially like your words, ‘understanding life is a celebration’. How beautiful is that. We have the power to choose this every day. I know I’d rather choose the life I now live rather than the days, not so long ago, when I felt hard done by and blamed others. Taking responsibility for how I feel is just one of the pearls of wisdom I have gained from Universal Medicine.
Oh the sneaky ways we have to sabotage our own true expression! I love the way you catch your true impulses by the tell-tale sign that one of those negative thoughts comes in like “you will look silly”. I know I have this too but as you say, these are the opportunities for growth.
“Now I rarely get affected if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am. ” love this line, it is funny how we read something and a line stands out and then you read it again and something else stands out. I am looking at the fact I react a lot to others and this is really helped me to understand what is needed for me to deepen my understanding and as always it comes down to appreciation, acceptance and love.
Dear Anonymous, I love this blog it’s left me feeling my deep child like tenderness and love – for myself and all others. I had woken this morning being super tough and hard on myself, all I feel to do now is be super loving with myself, absolutely honour what I feel, and hold all others equally in that love, I’m now looking so forward to going out into the day and meeting people with absolutely no need, as it’s all within me….. and in allowing others to be.
Another beautiful example of a life transformed by the teachings of Universal Medicine. This is one of so many and testament to the power of our simple, everyday, attention to detail choices. Thank you.
What a great example of what love is from Serge Benhayon. So simple and easy to relate to. Love is a word that has so many interpretations. I, too, used to think that love was something that you received from others or gave to others. It’s lovely to hear that you are now able to feel love within yourself.
Amazing blog, I like the way you have expressed your experience and the way you described what love is. It is so easy to get into the dilemma when we are not aware of how to handle it, simply because a lot of people do it and as we grow into adulthood, it looks like it is the norm!
Getting to know what love is, is a bit like learning to swim without getting wet.
I really enjoyed your blog! I loved how you shared Serge’s explanation of what love is, “what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them.” This deeply resonates with me and gives a tangible example of the feeling that love offers and when it is expressed how that supports others. The power we hold for another when we express love is off the charts.
Absolutely Rachel, I could not agree more and I love the explanation from Serge of what love is so much, too. And also how powerful the expression of love for another is.
Great blog. Your words are a standard we can all feel and be inspired by.
I love how inspiring your blog is especially the part about if ‘I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me,’ I am inspired by your love for yourself in standing true to what you feel is true in your body. And that this is how you have built a foundation of love, ‘understanding life is a celebration’ – beautiful.
To read and feel the truth of, ‘ I can connect with others and be together with them in all the Joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that Joy,’ is so inspiring for one who is often in the unawareness of that joy!
It is really touching to read about your account of meeting Serge Benhayon, and asking him the most important question of all – “what is love?” I can imagine that all the incredible blogs and stories that are being shared on this site and others will be the parables and bed time stories of the future, timelessly inspiring for all.
As I read your words Janet, I imagine a classroom of children asking Serge “What is love?” How magical that would be and their faces would beam at the simplicity of his answer as they feel the truth. Yes, the blogs and stories on this site will be shared as love reaches out around the world, Bedtime stories to inspire all, absolutely.
I love the way you illustrate that you feel the love in your body stay with you, when you keep expanding yourself by following through with true impulses or feelings you may have. This is such a lovely way to describe what true expression is – especially if it is as simple as the feeling to stop and hug your son with every bit of who you are.
Reading your blog again I could feel the simplicity of Serge Benhayon’s words to your question “What is love?”. It is not the complicated and unreachable version we think it is, or try to make it to be. I will remember these words, thank you for sharing.
Wow…..thinking about your last extraordinary blog, and the love that you live (and shared through your blog) after experiencing such abuse, many people might think that you would sit back and say, ‘I have arrived, I am healed, my process is complete’, and yet your next step was the opposite; in effect it was to say, ‘what is next?’, and from that you share with us the even deeper level of wisdom that was then available to you, and so also show us not to ever fall for the trap of saying,’this is enough’, particularly when it comes to love and truth.
I really appreciate your comments about the afterthoughts. In the past, I have allowed them all too easily stop me from what would be my natural expression if I was to let myself be the natural me that I was when I was a child.
Your explanation that Serge Benhayon shared about love was a great understanding for me of how to be in the world but not absorb it. Thank you.
Thank you, Anonymous – I love the question you posed to Serge Benhayon and your return to joy –
“What is Love?” He replied it is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them.
Thank you Anonymous for this amazing blog. This is a great example of how making simple self-loving choices can bring about a complete transformation from hating yourself to seeing yourself as ‘a parcel of joy’. Truly inspiring.
‘A parcel of joy called me’ conjures up a lovely picture of everything you are, and gives me a huge glow inside when I feel my parcel of joy for me. Thank you, I will take this to work with me today.
Inspiring indeed Bina, and it’s incredible how such a profound transformation can stem from just making consistent, simple, self-loving choices.
I love your explanation that Serge Benhayon shared with you about ‘What is love’. What a great example to regularly go back to.
Hi Anonymous, we are love but I too had no idea what that was and slowly I am re-learning just how much Love I can be. It is positively joyful. LOVE the line ‘ I now own a parcel of joy called me’ – me too.
“I am learning to be more aware of my choices by simply listening to more of my body”. Thank you for the reminder. I often forget because I have left my body and gone into my mind! I often find it is helpful for me to speak out loud and ask my body questions. That stops me trying to ignore the messages as it is “out in the open”, spoken and has to be listened to.
I loved your description of ‘nibbets’ Michelle, and in choosing not to give them energy, they just melt away. I have been telling them ‘go away you are not me’ which feels a bit strident now. Your example is much gentler. thank you.
Amazing Blog anonymous thank you again for sharing all this so beautifully and real to life. I too love the definition by Serge Benhayon of love and can feel this so deeply and am inspired by him ever since our first meeting and never cease to be amazed by all he brings, offers and reflects to us all.
Your transformation of your life and beauty shines out along with your joy and the harmony of everyday living and simply being with others with this. Honouring how your body feels and speaks to you shows the key to living the love you are.
Even if all anyone took from this beauty and wisdom packed blog was the simply expressed truth that love is something that we can ‘tenderly nurture and grow for’ ourselves it would be monumental, and potentially life changing. It is a radical concept, when considered from the commonly held perspective of love, being something that is given to us if we are deserving of it. When I compare the two, love which is there within to be nurtured and grown, and love which is bestowed, I start to understand how it is that we spend so much of our lives desperately seeking love, yet never quite feeling replete.
Thank you for sharing your amazing transformation. I love how you say ‘This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.’ We always have a choice and recognising the negative thoughts that come in and choosing not to follow them allows for this ever expanding Love to grow. Such a timely reminder for me as I am committing to appreciating myself and banishing my old negative self talk.
Lovely Helen in response to an inspiring blog. Yes to inner appreciation and expansion within my body, which is always a choice, allowing love to expand and grow, gorgeous! A timely reminder for me too.
“I thought it was something to be received from others or given to others, not something I could tenderly nurture and grow for myself.” I definitely relate to what you say here. From listening to presentations by Serge Benhayon I also have been reconnecting to true love. I now know and feel the love that I am tenderly nurturing and growing inside me. It is there with me whenever I choose to feel it.
Beautifully said Mary, until I met Serge Benhayon I too thought that love was something we received from others. I know now that love is an innate essence residing within that we can all re-connect to and nurture daily if we so choose. What a quantum shift in awareness this is and one I continually appreciate every day.
Really enjoyed reading your blog and how I relate to it is huge. The Love that I/we naturally are is massive if we let go of control and listen to what our bodies are telling us. I am definitely at that stage of returning to the constant, powerful, delicate Love that I am. To let go of the deep old patterns and mental abuse that has been there for so long is genuinely freeing and absolutely worth Celebrating – every choice I make to live that Love that I am and know that is enough. The fundamental principles of what Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine present is the simple key to a Joyful and harmonious life. Anyone and everyone has that choice – the best one I have ever made.
In combination of the support from Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine and blogs like this one Anonymous, the path is lit up for everyone to tread. Coming back to that child-like state of love where it is no object, but instead your simple wholly-owned focus in life is a great reminder of the people we actually are…loving.
Exactly Phill – the support and inspiration together can not be denied. The transformation that the writer shares is something normally un-heard of yet shows us all what is possible.
Well said Phill – it is easy to get caught in the world, in the doing, seeing people for what they bring us or do for us, and forget that we are all love, equally so.
I completely agree Phill, being that no holes barred love as children was easy, and all we have to do is read blogs like this one to feel how it can be a part of our lives as adults.
Thank you Anonymous, I love the simple wisdom you present here – “When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me.”
I really enjoyed reading both of your blogs. I find it amazing how you have healed so much pain and hurt in your life and now you are able to share what Love is with us, in such a real and meaningful way.
This is a great article and one that is very important for us all, it is great to feel how you are unfolding with your connection to yourself. A true celebration indeed.
Truly awesome anonymous! You are an absolute inspiration! I love this line: I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.
‘I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.’ – I love that too.
Thank you for sharing your experiences here. It is beautiful and I love how you have expressed your understanding of joy – simple and exquisite.
A few years ago, I too, would not have thought at all that my choices would’ve had an effect on my body. Reading about your transformation makes me appreciate how far I’ve come too. Now I really know that every moment is an opportunity to feel my body and I can feel the repercussions of every choice, good or not so good; but at least I’m feeling it now.
I loved to read Serge Benhayon’s reply, thank you, about ‘What is Love?’ My 3 year-old granddaughter gave me a cuddle the other day after asking me if I was ok. She had felt my sadness and I really felt her Love.
‘Now I really know that every moment is an opportunity to feel my body and I can feel the repercussions of every choice, good or not so good; but at least I’m feeling it now.’ This is great Gill, very simply written and inspiring to read.
I agree Rebecca, simplicity that is truly inspiring.
Ah Gill this is also an amazing appreciation. Appreciation is key to truly feeling the love we have of our selves. Taking time out to see how in tune I am with my body is a way I can always feel how I am actually doing and what if anything I might need…normally a good nights sleep. It is amazing to actually be able to feel all of you.
Thank you for sharing Gill, this is really awesome.
Yes it’s a great wake up moment Gill, when we begin to become aware of and feel the consequence of our choices in our bodies. I was diligently refusing to put two and two together before meeting Universal Medicine. It is such a joyful moment when we simply acknowledge how another person is feeling, without any need to change it or sympathise.
Beautifully expressed Andrew. I totally agree, this is true for me too.
Thank you for sharing an inspiring blog. It is great to read about your transformation. I can feel the joy you express and I love your words, “I now own a parcel of joy called me”.
Yes that is very beautiful and even more amazing when taking into consideration the history behind this discovery. It should be front page news as this is what the world really needs to hear, that there is a way to turn around deep abuse and re-connect to the truth of who we are, tender, delicate parcels of joy.
This was lovely to read “. I know now what Love is and how amazing, energising and healing it feels in my body. I can feel love throughout my body, through tingly sensations where all areas of my body come to life. I feel a huge sense of completion and joy and I am very content.”.
It is very inspiring to read how it is possible to change, learn and allow ourselves to be more of who we truly are at every given moment. I have learnt so much from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and like you, from a willingness to be open and see what is not love and have started to make choices with what is love and loving. The difference is huge and in this process my body feels more at ease, more open and more joy than the tension and hardness that I used to live in/with.
I agree Ariana, we talk little about how our choices impact on us and the immense power we have in the choices we make. Our health and well being is truly in our hands and it is so amazing to read articles like this that show us just what can be achieved when we truly take command of all our choices.
Beautifully said Vicky, I fully agree Arianna and Rowena, the choices we make ‘are the key to making changes’, we all have the power to change how we are feeling and how we are living simply by changing the choices we are making. Ultimately we are the only ones who can be held accountable and responsible for the way we live, are and feel.
Beautifully expressed Vicky and I agree it makes a huge difference when we start to make loving choices. From being neglectful and sometimes abusive to a loving, caring and nurturing relationship with ourselves is very inspiring.
It’s funny how we indulge in self-bashing and think it is the right way to be. How gorgeous that you are now turning that around. I love your words: ‘This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.’
Anonymous I will come back to this blog again as the message is so simple, a choice a very simple choice. Awesome.
A great reminder that we can either listen to our impulses which helps us to expand, or ignore them which leads to contraction. The voices of doubt can speak so loud and gain control if we let them. It can be very liberating to drop the thoughts and act anyway.
“At the moment I understand an impulse to be a feeling that comes to me, which quite often requires me to put it into some kind of action or expression. ”
This is so simply put. Often we hear our bodies talking but do not respond accordingly. Even if we do listen, the options that swill around in our head can be confusing, and then inaction seems like a viable choice. As you say some kind of expression is required – often not much, but it is something that has been felt and so needs to be honoured. We in our entirety are an expression, and so often it need not be any particular action, just us being us. When we understand the depths of this wisdom we have the whole world before us.
I am inspired by your writing Anonymous. This sentence has resonated deeply with me today – “When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body”.
The wisdom the body offers is amazing and as I give myself permission to listen more to my body, rather than the endless voice in my head, the choices are of a very different quality which comes back with greater harmony and well being in my body and my daily life.
Hello again Anonymous – your blog is so inspiring for me – it makes my heart feel all the joy that I am. And I once had the same question – What is love? – now I am on my way to discovering it every second in life and your blog reminded me of that. Thank you, Ester.
Thank you Anonymous, I have also found that the effect my choices have on me is felt more clearly; years ago I don’t remember feeling any thing and just plowed forward in life usually at the cost of my body. Things that would have stopped others just slowed me down as an annoyance. I now listen to my body more, learning how my choices can affect the outcome. Your last line says it all; ‘I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me’.
Thank you Anonymous. You cover so many great points. I particularly loved your explanation of the first moment of enquiring about the meaning of Love and how your understanding has expanded since then. A delightful blog.
Thank you for sharing. Although more infrequent now, I relate to the list of thoughts that come along sometimes when an impulse is there to express in a loving way.
You have offered much in the way of inspiration including – ” I now own a parcel of joy called me” I love this line, definitely one to remember.
Wow this is such a great blog anonymous, I loved reading, ‘The reasons these afterthoughts are so damaging is because they are thoughts that try to keep me in an old way of being without allowing new ways of being and doing things – which then allow me to live life in a more loving way.’, This really makes sense to me and is truly helpful, thank you.
Wonderful blog Anonymous, I love the transformation from “I went from hating myself deeply with every thought and action” to “I now own a parcel of joy called me…” Truly, truly Amazing.
A great point made here that love can only be truly experienced when we honour our feelings and express in full what those feelings are impulsing us to do or say. I can relate to feeling either fullness and delicious tingling expansion in my body or tension and contraction and pain depending on whether I choose to fully express what I am feeling or not.
A great point Andrew, it all comes back to our choices and whether or not we choose to honour what we are feeling and then whether or not we fully express what we are feeling or not. My body instantly tells me whether or not I am listening to it.
I love your blogs Anonymous, keep them coming! Thank you for sharing your inspiring unfoldment with us.
‘Thank you for sharing your inspiring unfoldment with us.’ – Inspiring indeed! What a blessing it is for us to read and feel your incredible transformation, thank you anonymous.
It is lovely to read the appreciation that you have for yourself. And also how you have built up this loving relationship you have for your body.
As you share this, it also asks me to appreciate the fact that I have a level of awareness that I didn’t allow before. And an understanding of what love really is.
A celebration indeed!
It truly is an amazing transformation, having read your previous blog, to how you live and care for yourself now. Thank you for sharing so clearly, so others can learn from how you have changed – because love for ourselves is something I certainly struggle with and I am sure others do too.
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.”
This is how simple it is, it is something we all naturally do all of the time, yet we have learnt to silence our body, at our own expense. When we listen, we can feel, and we can enjoy ourselves, truly, for who we really are.
A very powerful and open hearted revelation of what love can do, and expressing it with such joy.
A beautiful sharing. Thankyou. Listening to my body has made such a huge difference to my life. Loving and appreciating ourselves is so important, something I have only really understood since coming into contact with Universal Medicine.
I can feel this very loving blog about Love as a parcel of joy for me, too. I am also learning to feel my choices in my body and honour them when there’s a tension or unease. My head can still insist that it’s the correct course to take, but I’m noticing that the feeling about it remains steady and true. I then have a choice to make; it’s an ongoing process.
Another great blog, Anonymous. I can so relate to not understanding what Serge Benhayon was saying about love… I thought he was talking about what I meant by love, and because I had no true concept at all of what love really was, what I thought love was, was actually not even close to the truth, more of a caring of sorts than love. I am so grateful for what I have learned and am still learning from Serge.
Another great blog Anonymous, that I could really relate to. I too, have questioned ‘What is love’ not really knowing what it was if it was not emotional or needy. I am learning that it is ever-expanding, that just when I think I have grasped it, I find there is another level of love I can feel or choose to go to. These words I can totally relate to because I know listening to my body gives me a clearer understanding of whether I am making true and loving choices or not:
“When I listen to the effect my choices have on my body, and I feel tension or unease around a choice I am making, I know it not to be right for me. In that, I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body.”
Thank you for sharing and laying out the subject so clearly. Listening to the body brings joy and expressing or acting on those feelings allows for more feeling of joy.
I believe there is great love in dismissing the negative self talk that can stalk us and stop us from leaving our mark on the world. I recognise the lack of love in letting those voices say, ‘you can’t do that’ or ‘your’e not good enough’. The teachings of Universal Medicine and its practitioners is allowing me to overcome those long held ways of living.
Anonymous, what a joy to read this today! Yesterday I met with family and when I got home it didn’t feel right – because I had been holding back on something, my sneaky mind offering all of the suggestions you listed. Today I will see them again so am offered a fresh opportunity to know and feel the love in my body and keep expanding. In true appreciation of all you have expressed in your blog, thank you.
Thank you, this is deeply inspiring to read and provides a real depth of understanding about what love is.
How inspiring is this blog! Thank you for sharing the thoughts that have stopped you from expressing Love. I experience the same – now I see how silly this is, when in that moment we have clearly felt what is needed to be expressed – whether it be sharing a hug, to addressing a difficulty in a relationship and to hold this back stops us and our relationships growing and it in a sense attacks our own body.
This is a deeply touching blog. I love the honesty you bring, describing how “I went from hating myself deeply with every thought and action to having a conscious understanding of why I was doing this and replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself. This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.” Inner appreciation is indeed a powerful antidote to years of self-abnegation.
Anonymous, reading your blog has been very timely for me as over the last few weeks I have opened the golden box of appreciation starting with self and despite Serge and other Universal Medicine practitioners gently guiding me towards appreciating myself time and time again I was so caught up in beating myself up when I got things wrong that I could not see the woods for the trees. What I love about this process is as I re-learn to appreciate me, my appreciation for others naturally grows.
Your comment is an inspiration Fiona, thank you for sharing.
I am noticing this also, Fiona, “as I re-learn to appreciate me, my appreciation for others naturally grows.”
A joyful celebration of you. Thank you for writing this article as I too share this same unfolding of finding the true meaning of love and feeling my love grow steadily within me and the joy of sharing my love with others. Serge Benhayon was and is the inspiration to my finding myself and the love that I am.
Thank you for sharing with us again. It is so amazing to read about your complete transformation and I love your words, “I now own a parcel of joy called me”.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me…” So beautiful feeling how Yummy you are, Anonymous! Life is a celebration for sure and I loved your recount of Serge’s definition of Love, as I recognise that was myself when I was a child. The sadness of leaving it all behind nearly overwhelmed me as a young mother, yet learning to be with this sadness (for it is always there) with Love and it’s natural acceptance again, has been so deeply rejuvenating, it’s like I’m with my inner child wherever I may be…tender, delicate, playful, warm and precious.
Hi Anonymous, It is a joy to read of your own amazing transformation and the ever deepening appreciation for yourself and others.
I love this sentence – “…..if someone is acting in a way separate from the truth of who they are, because I know who I am, I see they are exactly the same as me first – before I see the choices that take them away from who they really are.”
Thank you for sharing your unfolding – it is extremely inspiring to read, as you said: ‘I am learning to be more aware of my choices simply by listening more to my body’ – very simple yet very profound.
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful transformation from self-hate to a life full of love and joy!
“I now own a parcel of joy called me… and there is nothing like it in this world.” What an awesome achievement and how incredible to be able to claim that after everything you have been through. There is so much immeasurable joy to be discovered inside us and inside other people and you are living proof of that. Thank you for your constant inspiration that keeps reminding us to build our love so strongly that any form of negativity simply cannot penetrate it.
Thanks Anonymous, wise words! I’m really going to take this line on board ‘Knowing love in my body and freely feeling this only lasts if I keep expanding myself by following through with any true impulses or feelings I have – when I feel them.’ So often I sit back feeling great and leave it there, not expanding or moving forward by following impulses.
I can put my hand up to this one too Kevin. Following through on my impulse with my expression is now something I commit to, to expand the ‘parcel of joy’.
This is so sweetly, accessibly and simply shared. Thank you. I feel love in my body often but still falter sometimes in that following through and allowing it it expand into the next moment. This blog has inspired and supported me with a beautiful, super simple way to cut through old patterns, dispense with the voices that diminish the love I am and feel, and that just by responding to impulses felt in my body as love: a thought, a gesture, a word, I confirm the love we all are, equally so.
This is lovely Matilda, ‘just by responding to impulses felt in my body as love: a thought, a gesture, a word, I confirm the love we all are, equally so.’ Beautifully written.
What a celebration that you went from, ‘hating myself deeply with every thought and action to having a conscious understanding of why I was doing this and replacing these thoughts with more understanding and care for myself. This inner appreciation slowly made way for much more Love and beauty to expand in my body.’ This is truly amazing, Anonymous. I also love how you now ‘own a parcel of joy called me’. Wow.
What a deeply exposing story of what we can do if only we stop and feel the consequences of the actions we have made in our past and how they affected everything. With choosing to make new choices from self-love, our view of the world and of ourselves just keeps growing and expanding. Thank you, Anonymous.
If I pause a moment and feel my appreciation of others and of myself that warm glow you mention, Anonymous, grows from inside and infuses my whole body, then all judgments that may be lurking are dissipated. “A parcel of joy called me”, I love that, for it infers a person who is complete in themselves, without need, who can move around in the world and relate to and enjoy others without being affected by the issues they are carrying, and so bring Love to every situation and relationship. What a beautiful opportunity for healing for us all.
beautifully expressed Joan!
An absolutely incredible blog, Anonymous. After reading both this and your other article – ‘From A False Foundation of Abuse to a True Foundation of Self-Love’, I personally think your comment – ‘This is nothing short of an amazing transformation’, is an understatement, because to me your story of how you have learnt to truly love and appreciate yourself, regardless of your severely intense background of abuse, is nothing short of a true miracle. You have gone against every ‘norm’ in society (as someone who has experienced such vile behaviour almost always turns to distractions such as alcohol, drugs or smoking to numb their sadness) and instead are choosing to connect back to the love that was always there inside, and are inspiring the rest of humanity by showing them that no matter what hurts we have collected in the past, aligning to our divine joy is always a choice there for us to make.
Yes Susie, Well pointed out!
I feel that this kind of turn around in a person is a huge testament to the human potential to truly heal and come back to love even in the same life where horrible abuse was accepted and lived.
A miracle and a huge encouragement to anyone in the midst of hell.
The love is always there inside and we can choose it.
It can be done.
This is a really beautiful blog.
Your love of life is evident.
“I now own a parcel of joy called me”……I can feel your joy, and find it very inspiring.
Thank you.
What a blessing it was to read your blog this morning, Anonymous. Deeply touching how you have changed your life and your understanding of love and what this word truly means. I could feel the love and beauty all through your words, so I know this comes from the foundation of that within yourself. Very inspiring, thank you for sharing.
Another amazing blog, Anonymous – thank you again for sharing.
Those afterthoughts are very sneaky and I have recently been realising how damaging they are, too. Often I can look back, and see that I had an impulse or feeling to do or say something, and didn’t, and then in hindsight I feel regret or frustration because I instinctively knew something and ignored it. I’m getting much better at honouring the impulse, even if it’s realising I need to go and get a drink of water, or stretch my legs at work, or ask someone if they are ok if they seem off…
This is beautiful, I love how you write and express the joy that is you, thank you. Your insight on true impulses is fantastic, I know those sneaky thoughts you mention and yes, when I ignore them and honour that original impulse, it’s often a lovely surprise. The clear way you’ve shared it is so helpful.
I realised I was going to be the first comment and felt a hesitation, a tension of – I will be first, people will notice what I say and I pulled back! I would not have noticed that 10years ago, I doubt I would have noticed it 5 years ago, maybe not even a year ago but today I noticed it, and I am honest about it and don’t shy away from what I would have deemed unacceptable. I loved your comment “I now own a parcel of joy called me” and its better than any drug, I say that often – no drug I have ever taken in my youth compares close to how I feel most days, and when I am really connected and feel the full presence of love, and my soul in my body that is blow your socks off awesome. Its the reason I live the way I live today, 100% inspired by Serge Benhayon.
Ah Vanessa I love your comment here. I want that feeling. The strength and absolute confidence and knowing that you express with is absolutely Divine.
Thank you, a beautifully expressed article with real life experiences and examples.
Thank you for sharing this blog, Anonymous. I too, have experienced that the more I listen to my own body, the more I am able to take responsibility for my choices, and the more I do this, the more understanding I have not only for myself, but for others. It’s a great reminder when you say, “I can connect with others and be together with them in all the Joy we are, whether or not they are aware that they too are that Joy – and in that, I am learning to truly appreciate others, and truly appreciate me.” Thank you!
Thank you for sharing Serge Benhayon’s response to your question ‘What is love?’ It’s so beautiful and the part about feeling someone’s sadness and responding to it but not taking it on seems a key aspect of true love to me.
Yes, I agree with you Fiona. It is such a beautiful way to explain what love is.
Yes I also appreciated the sharing of this question. The innocent and simple expression of true love is indeed beautiful.
Fiona, this example Serge gave to Anonymous of what love is, is very helpful for me now as I learn how to feel peoples’ sadness but instead of taking it in and losing myself I can hold myself – holding the love that I am. Very key, indeed!
Love: “…it is what a child feels when they sense a person’s sadness and, if choosing to hug them or smile at them, just feeling and acknowledging the sadness but not taking it on, to be something they then carry around with them.”
Totally agree Fiona!
Fiona55, it’s certainly a key aspect – observing but not absorbing the emotions etc. of another – and something I continue to work on and always something great to be reminded of!