It’s only in recent years when I first began attending courses run by Universal Medicine and listening to Serge Benhayon present on the topic of Self-Love that I began to acknowledge that my body is actually something to be respected and treasured. When Serge talked about all the different ways in which we numb and override what our bodies are telling us, I could feel the truth of this – it all made perfect sense. I could see how some of the choices I had been making – such as drinking alcohol, taking drugs, staying up late, working till I was exhausted and certain food choices – were all ways of living that I considered normal.
I certainly had never considered these were all choices that I was indulging in to override and numb myself from feeling the fact that I had very little self-worth and didn’t feel that I deserved taking care of.
When I stopped these activities and gave myself space to truly feel my body, I became aware of a huge amount of hardness that I had built up in order to protect myself and to not feel what was going on in my body.
It was enlightening and empowering to hear that my body is a marker of truth: if I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me, and all the ways in which I choose to numb and override what my body feels, then it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.
This understanding was a breakthrough for me although I still found it difficult to let go of certain aspects of how I was choosing to live that affected my body, keeping it in a state of tension.
I’m much more respectful of my body now compared to how I used to be but it’s taken me a long time to acknowledge the depth of disregard I’ve had and still have for my body.
My understanding of Universal Medicine’s teachings is that self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all.
Self-love means living in a way that is respectful of myself – making loving choices for my body. This I understand, but I found this to be a simple concept that was/is a stretch too far for me. So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life.
I’ve now had to be honest about this and bring myself back to basics – self-care was initially for me a more real and appropriate starting point – and even then I didn’t find it easy to change my approach to the level of self-care I had for myself.
Simple things such as showering, bathing, the way I brushed my hair, the things I chose to eat and drink were already a part of my daily routine of self-care, however when I chose to bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities I noticed just how much I lacked bringing any true quality to these moments.
I now have a growing awareness of the choices I’m making on a daily basis which keep me feeling racy – avoiding the stillness that I have felt at times within me. I find myself in a momentum of making these kinds of choices but my body is telling me loud and clear that it’s not happy. It’s uncomfortable but interesting to observe the patterns where I’m still disregarding my body because of external pressures.
For example, when I put pressure on myself at work to get things done, it’s so easy to skip breaks and shorten my lunch break: these are opportune moments when I can check in with myself and re-connect with my body, and by not giving myself this time I feel exhaustion and tension when I do finally stop.
Also, wanting to please others and not honouring how I feel is another great way to deplete myself. What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!
Also I see situations that I’ve put myself in which reflect the beliefs I have about myself, people and life – these all affect my body and I’m learning to observe and slowly change the way I am in these situations.
I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.
I’ve become more aware of how I hold myself back from expressing what I feel for fear of what others may think of me! When I see these patterns and feel the stifling effect they have on how I choose to express I can then stop and say ‘no’.
The choice to be true to me, and my body, can at times be a little uncomfortable but I can also make it fun – enjoying the ever-unfolding journey… when I choose to listen to and respect my body!
With great appreciation to Serge Benhayon and all of the inspiring practitioners who have consistently shown me that there is another way to be.
by Heather Hardy, Workshop Manager, Worthing, UK
Further reading:
Before and After My Self Love Program – Forever Unfolding the Real Me
Healthy Body Healthy Mind
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Self-care can start at a simple place, we don’t need to go in with guns blazing and huff and puff with exercise and strict eating regime.
Self-care and self- love, IS ‘living in a way that is respectful’ of oneself. When we open an opportunity to be with ourselves more, more is then revealed onto us.
Ultimately self-care and self-love begins with one important thing and that is you…simple!
Heather self-care is so simple and it doesn’t need to look as fancy as some industries are making it out to be. I observe so many people offering self care and companies pay large amounts of money to someone to educate their staff and yet within, its all there in every single person.
I’ve been doing some self-care presentations and some people are so oblivious to what it truly means, thinking its over there and when its not.
Self-care isn’t selfish, it is simple, it’s self-loving, nurturing, and it can be bought into our life at any time. Ultimately the decision is yours or it can be made for you by your body, when it says no more, it is that simple…
I like the simplicity of self-care but we often go into thinking self-care is outside of ourselves when this is the exact thing that depletes us. Looking for things outside ourselves is costly, when it needs to be bought within.
Everything in life can be simple, we complicate it. Life can be simple if we allow it to be, so stop complicating it.
My self-care has had a whole new meaning and make over. From a person who thought the body needed to go to the gym 6 days a week, and ignoring the bodies signals to say please don’t go, to now learning to go for a walk to be with the body (and that is still being mastered). Is a massive turn around for me.
Self-care is not all its made out to be, its actually more than that. It is attuning yourself to the body, listening and acting to what it requires, our job is to respond to its call so it supports us to be of service.
We need these reflections because otherwise we stay in the cage we have put ourselves in thinking this is normal.
Lucy I agree, reflections are amazing, they do two things, they either make you go within yourself or you go outwards to others. They can cause you to react or they can cause you to be inspired. Which one will you take?…
Distractions mask the indulgences, when you take away the distractions you can see what supports us and what doesn’t and you go from the passenger seat in your own life into the driving seat.
Heather – just rereading your blog, this paragraph stood out to me as it is a common theme for many of us: “Self-love means living in a way that is respectful of myself – making loving choices for my body. This I understand, but I found this to be a simple concept that was/is a stretch too far for me. So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life.”
Henrietta I agree, the bastardised version of self care takes us far away from us, and with this we continue to swim in the soup of emotions. True self care equates to true self love for ourselves and an honouring that is so sacred, nothing penetrates us.
Heather, with re-reading your blog, I do find it interesting that in life we are conditioned to not listen to the body. We are conditioned to over-ride what we feel, holding on so we do not go to the toilet, harden up and handle pain or harden up and handle the cold etc etc. It is commonly seen as a weakness to listen to the body, and yet really it is one of our greatest strengths.
Listening to our bodies is vital, many of us were conditioned to over-ride our feelings, ‘I certainly had never considered these were all choices that I was indulging in to override and numb myself from feeling the fact that I had very little self-worth and didn’t feel that I deserved taking care of.’
Come to think of it, it is quite incredible how normal it is for many of us to be living with no or very little self-love without us realising it, but it is something that we can definitely feel when we give ourselves a chance. It really just goes to show how constant this choice is to not be love.
We can be very good at numbing ourselves through:
– Different types of food or through over-eating,
– through over activity and busy-ness,
– through drugs or alcohol,
– harsh and excessive exercise,
– burying ourselves in studies or reading etc
Essentially these are all our ‘coping methods’ or ‘medicines’ that we use these days to NOT FEEL. We are incredibly sensitive beings and we feel energy all of the time. The simplest thing would be for us to learn to understand what we are feeling and then work with this to learn to handle it, but it seems we have a preference to deny our power to deal with these things and instead play it small and medicate ourselves with choices from the above list mentioned.
Well said Henrietta, we always have a choice about what we do and how we do it. It is well worth making space to consider what we do and asking why?
Yes, we have been experts in numbing ourselves through various means, I can relate with having built up protection, that I have for some time now been choosing to let go of, ‘gave myself space to truly feel my body, I became aware of a huge amount of hardness that I had built up in order to protect myself and to not feel what was going on in my body.’
Self care and respect of the body awakens it to greater awareness of what is going on around energetically speaking and from here we can then make a choice as to how to handle things. Often we struggle to handle what we are feeling and hence seek to dull out the body so that we can ignore that what is happening around us perhaps because we do not like what we are sensing or picking up on. But ignoring it does not make it go away.
The first time I heard the phrase ‘self -care’ I assumed it was something women did as it was a foreign concept to me. Work hard and play harder was the mantra I was familiar with and the body was just the equipment that allowed me to carry on. The body does have a fail-safe, and the last word, it just shuts down. Listening to my body has now become my goal, for working and living joyfully is never a chore.
Steve, this is such an honest and refreshing comment – many people can brush self care off as being something that they do not need to do or that they already do it and to a level they are happy with so why take it any further? I also used to see it as a weak thing, and that the ‘lower maintenance’ I was the better it was for myself and others.
And to add on – thank fully that has now changed and I have realised that self care is something I can constantly keep refining and hence deepening in the way I look after myself and hence all others around me – a constant deepening of the standards that I hold.
Our body does have ways of making us listen to and honour it; when we listen to what our body shares it is like a wise best friend, ‘it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.’
Bringing ‘true quality’ to all that we do is the magic.
“With great appreciation to Serge Benhayon and all of the inspiring practitioners who have consistently shown me that there is another way to be.” Never forgetting a forever deepening appreciation of yourself in listening to your own body and knowing a true way to be.
It’s true what you have shared about the body “…my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.” Self care based on body awareness is so much more than just having a healthy and functional body, the intelligence of the body is truly returning us to a loving and harmonious way of being.
Listening to our bodies, and honouring their wisdom supports us to deepen with self love, ‘Self-love means living in a way that is respectful of myself – making loving choices for my body.’
Feeling unworthy is debilitating, the story that runs in our head is just abusive – we think that we have come up with it and therefore believe that we’re unworthy but is it possible that these thoughts come from somewhere else? From an education system that teaches us that we’re not worthy unless we’re A grade students or the athlete. Or perhaps from family systems that teach us that we’re not worthy unless we learn to tie our shoelaces before everyone else, to read before we could talk and to recite story books from front to back. Going through these systems which supposedly prepare us for adulthood is perhaps more difficult than we give it credit. It is worth considering how these have truly affected us and not brush it off as “I was only little I don’t even remember that happening”. The fact that we don’t remember it happening is actually worrying.
Understanding that so many things that one takes ‘normal’ are not only not supportive, in many instances actually harmful, and are in fact all distractions as a means to not take responsibility is a profound realisation. Self-love is a powerful first step in turning this around and putting this understanding into action which leads to a whole new fife.
A great reminder here Heather about the quality we go about our day in, and how we can continue to deepen the love and nurturing we have for ourselves in our everyday self care and other activities.
When we are with our body we notice the quality we are living in, ‘I chose to bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities I noticed just how much I lacked bringing any true quality to these moments.’
Our body is there to support us in each moment, if we allow a greater level of cherishing and care of it, we give it and us a truly opportune way to feel what truly works for us. It’s a fine instrument, how do we use it?
How sad and crazy it is that we have created a society where honouring and respecting our bodies is a foreign concept. Yet in living with such disregard it is clearly showing up in our bodies, that this is not our natural way of being as illness and disease is on the rise. There is far more power of us to live when we honor and respect our bodies and being, as then we are guided by the truth it always offers.
We are a very mind focused and thoughts driven society, we make our way through life fairly disconnected from our bodies. I was like this before I found Universal Medicine and in particular Esoteric Yoga supported my return to a more body focused way of living. When I look back over my life I can see the education process was very much a part of the disconnection to my body, as it is such a long period of being mind focused and solely valuing it’s intelligence, rather than the whole body intelligence.
It’s interesting to look at how we can override what we feel by numbing our body with any distraction albeit the tension and over-stimulation that we experience as a result. It just don’t make sense.
Lack of self-worth and overriding what we feel goes hand in hand. Whereas honouring what we feel it’s a choice that reconnect us back to the beauty-full beings we all are.
What I find interesting is that in difficult times it’s often our level of care for ourselves that we drop first – and that is the one thing that helps us remain steady no matter what.
‘I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.’ This is gold Heather and worth repeating again as I know how this feels and I ddin’t want to take responsibility for the part I played in this, but when I did things began to shift and change over time.
I wonder do I consider my body as my best friend? Do I treat my body as my best friend? – when I put it like this there is work to be done in truly embracing what my body offers me all of the time. I still get caught in putting pressure on myself when there are demands from outside I want to abide by and please others but there is also appreciation for all the changes I have made and how the relationship with my body is growing and deepening.
As we become more aware, we can choose to let go of ‘pleasing others’, knowing where this is coming from, ‘wanting to please others and not honouring how I feel is another great way to deplete myself. What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!’
Thank you Heather. I’ve recently began to connect more deeply to my body and as a result I can feel subtleties that are stressing me, and now I’m listening more attentively to myself I can make changes to address these. The most important part is in the listening to ourselves and learning to respond with love and care to the body.
“I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” So true Heather, what is reflected to us from the world is but a reflection and confirmation of what we already believe and/or feel about ourselves.
A treasure that is not treasured… enough. Our body.
If our bodies are the best truthful marker that can tell us how our life is then it makes sense to really tune in and listen to what our bodies have to say.
We seem to fight our body more often than listen and honour it. And, not many people understand how precious and amazing our body is.
I could not agree with you more about this topic, self-care needs to be top of the to do list in that it becomes our normal way of life.
Without perfection I’m relearning how to respect my body and listen to many of the subtle and loud signals it speaks on a daily basis.
It starts with the most simplest thing and leads to more. Self-care starts by first making the choice to say yes to it.
My best friend…. my body. That tells me the truth all the time, no matter what, that is always there to support me. Perhaps it is time to honour that, to listen, and to give a little love back?
Yes, there is a great deal to be gained by honouring a true friend, particularly when it is one’s own body as it is our bestest best and true friend.
I thought I was taking a good care of myself, incorporating conscious choices to be more caring and loving with myself, but now I am feeling a bit exposed – not because I have got a cold, but the way I am dealing with it seems to revert back to looking for ‘what is right’ which comes from my mind, rather than responding to what my body is asking for. Ouch. It truly is an ever-unfolding journey, continuously learning to surrender into the body.
As I bring a deeper level of respect to my body and deeper level of self care, there is a shift in the quality of how I move with more delicacy from the inside out. We all have this quality within us to enjoy as we release the hardness of protection built up over many years.
“I began to acknowledge that my body is actually something to be respected and treasured….”
“but I can also make it fun – enjoying the ever-unfolding journey… when I choose to listen to and respect my body!” Yes, we can make it sometimes a bit heavy and serious even though returning to the love we are includes also joy and a lot of playfulness. It seems we have learned at school that being serious and working hard is the only way to grow but actually lightness and playfulness are important factors and without them we cannot truly grow in ourselves I think.
‘I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.’ So true Heather, when we hold ourselves as less we experience life in a more reduced and small way, if we confirm and appreciate our qualities we will magnetically pull people and situations that reflect our loving choice.
“I began to acknowledge that my body is actually something to be respected and treasured….” This is a great awareness that begins the many ways we can begin to discover ways to self care and self love.
It’s a vicious circle, when we are exhausted we are so tired we sometimes do not appreciate the little opportunities we have to rest and rejuvenate because we are being so driven by our list of things to do.
We start with self-love and self nurturing ….and a beautiful progression of being Love blossoms from there.
It is such a simple way of life to listen to and respond to the body. There is a wonderful autonomy because it’s just you and your body, no outer authority is needed and nor would it work to follow another.
And if ever we do find ourselves aspiring to someone else’s rhythm, our body so lovingly reminds us that our own body’s rhythm is the only one that truly sustains and nourishes us.
Great call Bryony – that knocks comparison out of the park…!
When we nurture ourselves with love in the little things they become a way of living with love with every thing and every one.
It’s amazing how love works. It starts with us and when we choose to be self-loving, it becomes very natural to be loving to others and this will inspire others to be more loving too. The ripple effects of love can reach far and wide.
Thank you Heather, this is a great line about the body ” it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.” As well as self care the body communicates with the purpose of love, for the being within the body to express the fullness of the love we all equally are in essence.
There is a crucial moment: when you realize that what was for you normal was not really normal at all. This is a Oh My God moment; a point of no return.
Normal is the super toxic, damaged and diseased world that we live in today… natural on the other hand is a whole different ball game. If we were to connect with what is natural rather than the normal, then this would be a major fork in the road, supported by and constantly informed by our bodies messages.
I was pondering on how many young people are taught to respect their body and taught about self-care? I ask this question because I am seeing a lot of young people around me looking a bit lost when it comes to self-care and respecting their body. I feel this is most likely because so many things in society, in media, in television, music, entertainment etc. are encouraging people to disregard their body. It seems to be a huge trend but the trend only exist because people are buying it, so how do we break this cycle?
Our bodies hold within the all-knowing intelligence of who we are, our past, our future and the multidimensionality and oneness we are part of. When we begin to develop a loving and honouring relationship with our bodies, we begin to bring more of who we are to every aspect of our life, in the fullness that we are here to live.
What is awesome is that the more we take care of our bodies, the easier it becomes to drop behaviours that aren’t part of who we truly are- so we start to live and express more of who we are without having to ‘do’ anything. It becomes a natural unfoldment.
The guidance of the body provides a path to true health.
It sure does Heather – beautifully said. Our bodies guide the way to all that is true.
“So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life.” This is the key, if we just ‘try’ to bring self-love into our lives, it is a stepping stone but to understand that the lack of self-love comes from a lack of self-worth, that means the movements are a deeper healing and more likely to become part of a way of living than a short-term fix for exhaustion or a diet like fad.
Honouring our body ensures we are supporting ourselves fully and we will therefore be at an optimum in all that we offer and deliver to others.
Very true Deborah, when we honour and respect our bodies we offer much, much more to others.
“For example, when I put pressure on myself at work to get things done, it’s so easy to skip breaks and shorten my lunch break: these are opportune moments when I can check in with myself and re-connect with my body, and by not giving myself this time I feel exhaustion and tension when I do finally stop.” You hit the nail on the head here for me Heather – hence why this weekend I am recovering after an intense week at work instead of feeling vital and alive.
Yes the body speaks and speaks loudly if we are prepared to listen. Such a blessing to have constant messages from our bodies about how to eat, when to sleep, what to express etc.
It certainly is a blessing Thomas and it is always worth listening to our body because it is deeply honest and truthful.
What is becoming more and more evident to me recently is that it is either truth or not… I’m either being true to myself and what I feel and know deeply, or saying no to that and doing the other which is pretending that what is happening or what I am allowing is okay. One leaves my body feeling light and clear and the other leaves my body feeling smashed, anxious, doubting and drained. Simple really!
A foundation based on self-care is always evolving and essential, in order to back us up for whatever comes up without affecting the quality within.
It is true that we are forever called to deepen our self-care and love and build a new foundation of support to hold us and therefore all others.
By working on and healing our lack of self worth, we can start to value, respect and truly care for ourselves in our daily lives.
Thank you Heather, great to read this again today. I can really relate to this line “So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life.” I have spent a lot of time focusing on others to the point that it communicated to me that my worth was much less, and I can see how that is still reflected in pockets of my life.
To be disrespectful of our bodies is to self harm and should be considered a crime against humanity. And yet it has become common place and accepted as normal. The real crime is when the majority of people no longer expect anything more of themselves, routinely abuse their bodies and often unaware of the consequences of their choices.. Respecting and appreciating our bodies is the foundation of true self care.
Thank you Heather, you’re just really turned things on their head for me today in reminding me that when we believe we’re not good enough we bring in everything that supports that, this is really something for me to dig underneath right now as I’m facing challenging situations and to notice when this is at play. A very useful insight.
I know what you mean Monica, where we are at within ourselves, how we are treating ourselves, honouring or not, is what is then mirrored around us.
‘I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.’ An interesting observation Heather, like we are reflecting our beliefs ahead of us.
“My body is a marker of truth” is an important statement as it defines that my body is showing me the result of my choices in life and that it is not a matter of good or bad luck, my genes or family inherited. It is all from how I have chosen to live my life and in the understanding of and to deeply feel the truth of this makes me to take more and more true care for myself in all aspects of my life.
To be the constant observer of our self should be a subject in school. It is so important to really know ourselves and treat ourselves with absolute respect and deep care and love.
Our body is like our best friend, a very wise best friend, ‘then it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.’ Beautiful.
Thank you Lorraine for highlighting this, it’s a beautiful way to live life in partnership to the body, understanding how that it is leading us back to living ever greater depths of love.
“What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!” This is a great observation, empowering oneself to take the steps that are needed and not stay stuck in victimhood.
Great to be reminded that the body is a marker of all truth and to stop and reflect on what have I been choosing.
It was a hard fact for me to realise that I too was the person who put pressure on myself to do more and therefore exhaust myself trying to please others. It is something that I still find I catch myself doing at times until I pull myself up and listen to my body..
I love how paying attention to the detail of our everyday actions can make a huge difference to the way we live. Its simple, yet the effects are far reaching and profound. I am still discovering this for myself, and life just gets more interesting and enjoyable.
Yes Debra, there’s wonder and magic in self care: as we go deeper, more is revealed and we find a never ending pot of gold.
I think it’s a common disease for us to hold back saying what we feel in fear of what others might think of us. And by disease, I mean quite a deadly one. If we’re all living with the same anxiety, then perhaps something’s not quite right. perhaps being polite and looking good isn’t the answer to life. If we all just let go a little, loosened up and just realised that all we have to do is be ourselves, the pressure we like to think we’re under will be lifted right before our eyes.
It does seem so normal in the world for us to ignore and over-ride our bodies but so fulfilling and enriching in life when we do not.
It’s incredible how we can hear all these great words, watch presentations and be delivered the truth about the huge significance of taking care of ourselves and then go away and bash our body. It illustrates so clearly Heather that there is a part to us who resists and runs away from our light, from steadily and obediently caring for life, from Love itself. Once this is understood and we know we are in a day to day struggle with this selfish part, we can start to understand that it’s simply a case of us holding ourselves steady and making our way all about the tenderly caring for our body.
That is one of the things about numbing ourselves in that we even numb ourselves to the fact that we are numbing ourselves.
‘when I chose to bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities I noticed just how much I lacked bringing any true quality to these moments’. I have noticed this too, and I can feel how much I take care of my own needs, and I love to give to myself, but I can also feel I can deepen the quality in which I self-care self-nurture.
Our bodies are a marker of truth, this has to be one of the most profound facts that calls us into account for no matter how much we place emphasis on something if it is not done from the truth of our heart it will need a correction in whatever shape or form it is needed, so a small discomfort or, fungus on the body is telling us to make certain changes to the way we live.
As you have highlighted Heather, it is so freeing, enlightening and empowering to know and that our body is the marker of truth. Our responsibility is to listen and respond.
‘So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life.’ Me too Heather and I agree, taking it back to basics is the only way forward when self-abuse has been normalised within us to the extent we no longer recognise it or the hammering our bodies and being are taking.
Until I truly cared and continued to deepened the care for myself, I can say now honestly that self-care is one of the most exquisite and precious things we can give back to ourselves, in fact, it is something very natural that we deserve, it should not be anything special, but in acknowledging the fact we have left it fallow for so so long, it is a joy to resume this deeply natural and joyous part of re-claiming ourselves.
For me self care is about being honest with myself as well as all the practical things I can do. The practical stuff only goes so far- if I’m doing it to check boxes and any form of trying to be something, then it doesn’t work at all and is not self caring.
‘It was enlightening and empowering to hear that my body is a marker of truth: if I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me, and all the ways in which I choose to numb and override what my body feels, then it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.’ A great reminder how we can either be our greatest friend or our worst enemy.
Heather, you have presented a golden key for us here – it is low self worth that often drives us to a lack of care for ourselves. So the answer is not to force ourselves to care more as this is impossible – well, you could say we will tick the box and do certain things or not do certain things, however if the true energy of caring for self is not there, then these actions will not have lasting effects. However, if we were to work on self worth and the fact that deep within it is about awakening the true value and respect and care that we have of ourselves then from there naturally follows the actions to care for oneself deeply. The same could be said for ‘healthy’ eating, for losing weight etc, for when the deep value, respect and care and worth is awakened, then there is no boundary to how we can support ourselves. You have revealed a golden key indeed! Thank you Heather.
You raise something vital here Heather, we often go through the motions in our self care, not willing to give ourselves the space to actually deepen our relationship with us. And when we do we change the simplest things into something that truly supports us.
To bring respect and dignity back to the body opens up a complete new way to be and take care for our bodies. Instead of only looking to the outer gestures of the body, we do connect more deeply and with that with an intelligence that is far more supportive to us then the thinking mind, which is able to allow abuse to the body instead.
What I am finding is that self-care and self-love is not something you can complete and leave behind. It constantly evolves as I learn more about my true self and what care that being requires.
Yes, the tick box approach to self care – and everything- is pretty perfunctory and superficial. It’s got me through life relatively unscathed and unnoticed, but completely disconnected and reliant on the satisfaction of completing something, rather than the joy of living life with all of me in it.
Feeling the pressure from others, is always us putting pressure on ourselves to please. Not to discount the fact that of course others can impose pressure, but we only feel it when we choose to take it on and then try to meet an expectation for the sole purpose of need to be accepted, like or recognised.
And that’s why relationships- whether they are partners, friends or colleagues – are so vital, because they reflect to us exactly where we’re at and all the expectations we place on ourselves of who we think we need to be. It’s so easy to blame others for ‘their stuff’ of their expectations – but what about our own, first? How are we already judging the other or needing them to be or express to us so that we can feel okay?
It’s really quite incredible to consider but true: it has taken a presentation by Serge Benhayon to initiate self respect, care and love for myself. These days this is something I now understand while lovely to learn and develop at any stage and age, there is great awareness that starting form birth this is a very loving way for us all to live.
There has been a sense today of how much it is our choice to enjoy our lives. Being tender and loving has allowed me to feel the beauty and grace I am. It is so easy to enjoy this.
Living from the mind creates a way of being that is abusive and harming for our bodies there is no marker of truth to refer to so we keep going until the body breaks down, learning to incorporate self-care in our daily living allows us to connect to the delicacy and preciousness of our bodies that needs to be treated as such.
When we live from the mind we sever our connection to the body and our innate knowing of what is true for us.
Life can sometimes be uncomfortable, but a healthy dose of fun and keeping things light is always good medicine.
Self care is one thing, to build self care and be consistent with it is absolutely another. There are days I do and days I don’t and it’s interesting to observe how on the days I don’t I slip into ‘I can’t be bothered and disregard is so much easier than self care on those moments’.
When we start to let go of the hardness that we have built up it can be quite confronting … but it is so worth it , because underneath is the tenderness that we all truly are.
“I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief” this is so true and just confirms that we are the masters of our own destiny.
Yes we are Samantha, we are all masters returning….good to remember that when we may slip into old patterns rather than beat ourselves up.
It is so easy to go through life ticking boxes and seemingly think we are doing well, however when what we do void of a true quality, we can end up doing more harm than good… and ultimately deny ourselves the beauty of the presence and stillness we offer each task, feeding us back what we deserve.
The more I build a connection to my body and what I’m actually feeling, the more the auto pilot way of being just doesn’t cut it anymore. Stillness is starting to feel like somewhere I want to be instead of avoid, because with that stillness and spaciousness there’s a clarity and settlement.
Hearing Serge Benhayon present that our body is a marker of truth makes so much sense and yet it is something that is widely unrecognised in our world. It should be something that is in the foundation of our education system and our way of being, something that we all support each other with. So often the mind alone is glorified as being the seat of our ‘intelligence’ but in this we dismiss the vast and harmonious wisdom we have access to via our whole body.
I read this feeling so much pain in my body. What I have been learning is that the worst thing I can do to my body is not express who I am in truth. That is most painful. Devastatingly so.
I am realising that observing myself and others is such a self-loving thing to do especially in my work. The behaviour of wanting to please another and hence disregard myself I can slip into but as I observe this behaviour and clock it something changes. I seem to be aware of how I am feeling and what is going on within me and another. It is indeed work in progress.
At one point this did support us but now a blog like this written today would need more depth. These comments support and the blog is still great don’t get me wrong. It’s just that it leads us to see life still in parts and not see the whole thing as one, almost like you do xyz and everything will improve which is true to a point. But it’s a constant unfolding, there is no end point and no place this doesn’t apply. In other words don’t just look for a fix because one part of your life isn’t that great, look into everything with the same eyes and then when you feel it’s better, look again and then again and again. This isn’t a task but more of a key to how not to let things slip or drop again. At times we don’t dedicate fully to the healing ongoing. We see an improvement and stop and then if it comes again we just bring it back to the good or better. Life and how things are brings those that can see it all at this point more responsibility. Not more in a sense compared to someone else but more as in relationship to someone else. Just like our life isn’t true to live in parts so too it is so with everyone else. What they choose isn’t our part but what we choose, the depth and reflection to everything else is.
“I certainly had never considered these were all choices that I was indulging in to override and numb myself from feeling the fact that I had very little self-worth and didn’t feel that I deserved taking care of.” This is huge Heather, yet seems to affect huge swathes of the population. Anything that is’t love – which heals – is harming to us, our bodies and thus a reflection that this is ok out to everyone around us. it would seem that it is ‘normal’ in today’s society to not care deeply for ourselves.
Self care is based on the quality of respect and regard we hold for our body. Self love begins to initiate our commitment to nourishing our actual quality of being.
‘When Serge talked about all the different ways in which we numb and override what our bodies are telling us, I could feel the truth of this.’ Me too! It is soooo incredibly amazing that Serge was the first person to ever make clear to me that our bodies are actually worth noticing. To this day I’m baffled about this. How is it that I cruised (so I thought) through 28 years of life without ever considering that I was carrying around an entire body that required love and acceptance and should not be abused in the way I was abusing it.
How on earth are we not taught this at home first and at school second? It’s simply mind blowing!
Thank you for this great reminder, Heather, that it’s not only just those ‘obvious’ choices such as drinking alcohol or eating food that doesn’t support us that affect our body, but the thoughts and behaviour, the way we communicate with others that are not true to us also have detrimental effect on the way we feel in our body.
‘Also, wanting to please others and not honouring how I feel is another great way to deplete myself. What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!’ A great realisation and one that never comes too late. How easy it is to blame other people or situations when the responsibility simply lies with us.
That is so true and right Heather : ‘The choice to be true to me, and my body, can at times be a little uncomfortable but I can also make it fun – enjoying the ever-unfolding journey… when I choose to listen to and respect my body!’
We often see it as a harsh thing or a struggle, but this only comes from the resistance we have build up all these years that make us believe that it is a harsh thing or one of struggle. Whilst, actually when we listen to our body, our Soul and our Heart, we know that being connected to our body and taking care of it well so, is actually the greatest joy! Way more joyous than poisoning it!
“I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief” . . . yes so true, Heather, we really do set ourselves up to confirm our beliefs about our self.
Hello Heather and great blog. It’s interesting, if we are able to see that we don’t or aren’t being self caring or taking a deep care of ourselves that would mean we already have a marker within us on what this actually is? I mean otherwise there would be no need to change. As you say our ‘body is the marker of all truth’ and so this would mean we make choices to actually make sure our body remains quiet. How you move and how and what you eat would be a couple of major factors in keeping your body quiet but then as you are showing at some point there is a noise that keeps growing. I enjoyed what you say about self care and agree. Setting up a rhythm or routine that you know with certainty will support those time where we walk away from stopping or being still. It would seem very obvious to me the link in keeping ourselves busy as a means to keep ourselves away from something known within us, also as you say. Create moments or stop points in our day as a consistent thing and you can’t help but listen to what your body is saying. The outside world would have you do anything while the inside world would have you do what is true.
I very much relate to pushing yourself at work when there is pressure. “What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!”
I am realizing that I am my own worst enemy to pressure, Being the boss, I actually do not give myself the same love and care that I give everybody else in the work place.
‘What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!’ Heather, what a great revelation this is – reading it I realised that for as long as I make life about other people putting pressure on me I will avoid looking at the truth that I am putting pressure on myself and I shall miss an opportunity to stop the disregard and deepen the self love.
When I have disregarded myself eg.not willing to feel every thing around me so I numb myself by eating too much food it begs to question the reason why… why do I not want to deepen the love for myself or why do I not want to say ‘yes’ and feel that I am worthy or deserve more love that is within my body. There is always more; it is a forever deepening and to accept and appreciate where I am today is key.
“Body is actually something to be respected and treasured” – this knowing makes a huge difference in the way we care for our body, what and how we choose to eat. I see many people reflecting to me that we could be ticking the boxes with regard to ‘healthy living’ but it doesn’t mean that it comes from a place of self-love and this is something I am catching myself in, and my body does know the difference.
I am in appreciation of how much I now listen to my body, my body is my wise counsel and has been life changing.
I cannot underestimate the power of appreciation to ourselves and towards others yet even with this knowing I have hit a brick wall in allowing myself to deepen my relationship with appreciation especially in the finer moments in my day. We are constantly being offered moments to evolve and it is a choice as to whether I choose these moments or not.
It is almost unbelievable when realise just how much we measure our worth from the world outside ourselves through relationships, the things we do, the lifestyles we choose. And all the while we override, forgo and disregard the one relationship that only ever reflects the truth of who we are, and guide us to live the immeasurable and uncontainable Love that we actually are. Thank you Heather for sharing so beautifully how this is possible, how through self-care and self-love a path of self-discovery is revealed, through which we can truly begin to live being ourselves.
If we do not want to feel something, the number one thing we resist most is our presence.
Its amazing the changes that happen when we apply more care, conscious presence and love to the things we do for ourselves and others on a daily basis – life transforming.
Drinking alcohol, taking drugs, staying up late, working till exhaustion, choosing certain foods to eat is as normal as getting sick by doing all of that. ‘Normality’-land is our worst creation; one that is killing us.
I’m glad that you point out how taking brakes at work or through out your day can be a time to reconnect and in that moment you are able to feel what ever might have come up through out the day. If we just push through, we can get a back log of exhaustion that can be difficult to catch up from.
It is so obvious to me now that I can only be as loving and respectful to others as I am to myself, but when I was younger for some reason I did not see it that way. I was quite uncaring with myself and thought I was being caring with others – what an illusion I lived in. Strange how some people think it is selfish to think of yourself whereas in truth it is incredibly selfish and irresponsible not to take care of yourself!
I can very much relate to your blog Heather. I too used to deplete my energy by doing things to please others and avoiding listening to my body. I used to push myself a lot, but now, I too am learning to self-care and learning to respect and honour my body. It is the best guide for me when I am willing to listen and willing to say no to things that doesn’t honour or support me to be who I am. Self-care and self-love truly supports me to be myself and to express what feels true.
It seems such a simple process doesn’t it…self care…but it is not something that is very understood from the small nuances that affect the body in big ways. “although I still found it difficult to let go of certain aspects of how I was choosing to live that affected my body, keeping it in a state of tension.” I found the more I listened to my body the more I noticed how things created that tension. An example might be how I showered, quick, rough and thinking of what I had to do, or with presence, being gentle with my body and having my thoughts in the shower to match my actions…conscious presence.
Wanting to please others and not honour how I feel is a great way to deplete myself.. I can relate to that one Heather. I’m learning that pretty much everything I’ve ever done has been for recognition.. admitting this to myself has been pretty huge as it plays out in so much – the way I am with people, in relationships, at work.. but once felt and acknowledged, it’s harder to ignore – it actually feels uncomfortable in my body, which helps to explain why I’ve resisted connecting to my body for so long – not wanting to have to change my behaviours and give up the need for recognition.
Seeking recognition is very common, I see this play out in myself and in others, and I agree, it does feel very uncomfortable. It feels false, empty and needy. I find the more I appreciate myself and value what I bring, seeking recognition is no longer active.
I recognised myself in so much of this blog Heather. Bringing self care and then self love into my life has me examining the quality I live in. This has made a huge difference to how I feel in my body and the joy I feel. Realising that the way I was living and thinking about myself, when it was negative, allowed all sorts of things to reinforce the low self esteem, and the opposite is true. When I am really loving myself things that reinforce the loveliness come my way.
When we feel into the quality of what we are bringing in every movement we make in our lives, we naturally bring a deeper love to our presence and consider the responsibility we have to humanity
Thank you for your honesty here Heather – and for presenting a way of initiation in which many have walked, and many more will walk.
There is an old saying ‘ you are your greatest asset’ which is funny because the last thing we focus on is ourselves, we have been conditioned to be selfless and think of others, but that clearly does not make sense as if we are not supporting ourselves how can we support another. Since turning this around and establishing a self loving and caring relationship with myself, I am naturally a reflection of self care and self love to everyone around, which can support more than all the assistance you can give, as it empowers another to support themselves
Thank you for the inspiration to look at the quality in which I go about my self-care routine and how easily it can slip into being perfunctory but also to remember to have fun with it and how that brings in a lightness that has been missing from the way I have cared for myself for so long.
“Self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all.” Being respectful and gentle with how we care for ourselves brings a whole new awareness to our quality in movements and this in turn awakens a new level of love for who we are. The reflection on offer from this quality is a shining beacon of inspiration for others too. Self love opens up a door to connection and one that is so much fun to explore.
Everything changes when we consider the quality we are bringing rather than simply functioning through lifes daily tasks and seeking a reward or sensation.
Thank you Heather, for showing us that self- care and building a relationship with your body is never ending, and at times can be very revealing of what ways that we had not chosen to love our bodies before. So beautiful example for us to see and if so recognize ourselves in…
‘bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities I noticed just how much I lacked bringing any true quality to these moments’. A lot to ponder on here……
So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life. I recognise this too and started with the baby steps of self-care and self-nurture which has continually refined and which has supported me greatly to love and accept myself.
So true Heather. When we start to treat ourselves and our body with more love and appreciation it reveals a deeper level of love that we can live.
Heather what a great blog! Thanks for all you have shared. You’ve given me awareness today of how I also choose activities that make me racy and disturb my own stillness. For me the resistance has been in admitting responsibility for where I am at, and allowing myself to therefore take responsibility where I would like to be at! It all boils down to observing the cause and effect of our choices, and as you say – making it fun.
Too much seriousness in life! I reckon it comes down to how we felt at school, like we needed to learn something rather than trusting we knew so much already and just needed to be supported to remembering it by connecting to our innate wisdom.
Self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all. This is absolutely true Heather, as when we choose to stay with our bodies and listen to its constant promptings and honour them, our bodies not only feel joyfull, they are so much healthier and vital, and this is our natural way.
Thank you Heather! I enjoyed reading your sharing again and reacquainting myself with your wisdom. I can see it has been a long haul for me to self nurture and this I know has been through my giving myself away to doing for others and not self first then the rest naturally follows. Love is where we learn to do this.
Because we are all one and interconnected with one another, the care we develop for ourselves will be equally available for all.
Yes and when we do not care for ourselves it is felt by others, particularly in those close to you. It is our choice what we reflect to others and whether we inspire another or not.
Indeed fiinacochran01, we either are an inspiration for others to develop taking care for themselves too and in that evolve or we allow the others to stay in the same indulgence as we do. That is in fact our responsibility in life, to live in such a way that we are an inspiration not only for ourselves but for all the people we are with and are connected to.
Great observations Heather, growing Love from deepening Self-love.
I can completely relate to what you have shared Heather. Self love has and still is one of my biggest challenges. I find consistency in bringing self love a major key for me. The more our cup is full of love, the less room there is for anything else.
Self-care is an ever deepening part of life that brings immense rewards, when it is truly about caring for self.
I can relate to that resistance to going deeper with listening and lovingly responding to my bodies messages that are solely focused on moving in a way that will bring out more love into my life and to the world around me. I have entertained a gulit that has at times felt so deep – a sense of ‘how could I treat such a divine body in such an abusive way?’ And thought such acts and choices to be irredeemable. But I am learning that this is a lie and when I ask my body no forgiveness is required, just connection and move on and forward with the body. No need to dwell on the past choices.
“I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” This really shows how powerful our ideals and beliefs are and how much our lives reflect what we believe.
In addition to my above words. Being liked and accepted by others matters less and less because you know your worth.
I liked what you said about how we think others are putting pressure on us when it is actually us placing pressure on ourselves, because of a desired outcome usually to be liked and accepted by them. Why do we not make the time to like and accept ourselves? When we start to deeply care for and about ourselves, begin to value ourselves, being liked and accepted by others matters less and less.
Thank you for the reminder of bringing a true quality to everything we do… we can make the movements of self caring choices but if it is lacking presence or any true quality of care, then it isn’t care at all.
How often do we check our phones as opposed to checking-in with ourselves? I observed in myself that the habit of checking in with my phone dominated and this led to an imbalance in my body. Self care is not just how we intimately care for our body, but how connected we are with ourselves throughout the day. Never let attachment to technology supersede relationship with self.
“I certainly had never considered these were all choices that I was indulging in to override and numb myself from feeling the fact that I had very little self-worth and didn’t feel that I deserved taking care of.”This is eye opening when considering my daily choices.
Something I’ve noticed as this becomes more refined, is how I use little treats are rewards… usually on the ‘approved list’, at the end of the day to give myself a pat on the back. I call them treats because I know in some way they take the edge off how amazing I have felt in the day… but there is still this habit of assuming that takes effort, and so I need something to help me reach for the off switch.
Self worth and what we make of it is the foundation of how much care we show ourselves in our lives. When there is any incident when I would choose a lack of care for myself, that is the area I will return to, to deepen by feeling and expressing more in honesty.
In my daily experiements I have observed that where I have allowed myself to lose care for myself, builds a momentum for this lack of care to continue in the rest of the day, if I am not aware of everything that I am feeling. When this happens I would go back to the original place where I have first decided that I was not precious enough to be cared for and find out why I have accepted myself to be less.
‘What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!’ Yes I can no longer blame others but instead acknowledge that my people-pleasing has had a detrimental effect on my own wellbeing and can still have when I choose not to honour what my body is feeling as happened yesterday at work. For me accepting that this is ongoing is something that I still need to deeply appreciate and not see it as a chore but as a way that I can support myself to live more fully and true to myself and my purpose.
Awesome title and for me acknowledging my lack of self-care has exposed the lack of respect I have had for my body and then how shocked I am when it lets me down! I have also found gradually building a self-care routine more challenging than I expected but approaching it from observing my patterns and recognising that at any moment I can choose to make changes has supported me to lovingly introduce different ways of being with myself that have transformed my life.
“When I stopped these activities and gave myself space to truly feel my body, ” these activities can be anything, like busying ourselves when we get home from work, when it may be that the one thing our body is calling for is to stop.
If we respected our bodies then there would not be the plague of world wide exhaustion there is, nor the levels of abuse, dis-harmony in any shape or form, with ourselves, in family homes or the in physical fighting and war, we would not impose on one another and allow each other to be our glorious living selves, people wouldn’t put up barriers or protections, everyone could breath again, in the sense of not holding their body in a configuration / a hardening / tension / holding pattern to not feel the onslaught other peoples stuff directed at us.
‘ my body is actually something to be respected and treasured.” This is the absolute key, we can go into trying to work things out in our heads, how to change things or what to do, which is complicating things, the power and simplicity of listening to our bodies is immense. It is so so so simple, yet we choose to not listen to it. It’s as simple as asking yourself, ‘what do you feel,’ and the answer is very very clear and very different to what your head is telling you.
I love the title “learning to respect my body”, it is really something we need to learn as we are very much shown and learn to simply use our bodies but not how to take care of them.
Self-care is the expression of the love that we live and the more love we are able to live the more profound our self-care will be.
‘self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all.’ This comment stood out to me and it is that simple when we bring it back to basics. The truth lies within us all, all we need to do is reconnect with our bodies through self-love and nurturing.
Our body Loves us to the Bone and Thank God, it never stops – Forever, our body is showing us where we are at, the effects of how we are living and whether we are with our natural flow or against it.
‘living in a way that is respectful of myself’ this is one of our number one jobs, learning to hounour, respect and deeply love ourselves first, from here I cannot help but love everyone else.
I have lived and still do at times with a large amount of disregard to my body, I often don’t live from it first, which has shown itself in a physical sense with warning signs of osteoporosis. This is in moments of dis-connection from myself, for when I listen to my body there is no way I can’t be precious with it and say no to everything be it food, relationships, thoughts, movements that do not support my body and us all. I was reminded of this when seeing a new-born baby being held in a supermarket café the other day. The absolute connection, tenderness, love and care the dad held his child with was absolute stillness. This was reflection of how I am to be with myself.
Self care affects every area of our lives and often founded on the amount of preparation we make before setting out on our day or on journeys. Recently, I made space to feel into what I needed for a long haul journey to the US and prepared well. Remembering how uncomfortable I felt last year on a similar journey, I bought myself a simple two-tiered lunch box and lovingly prepared food for the journey: fish, steamed and raw vegetables, salads. It made a huge difference to the quality of the journey, especially when faced with delays due to storms and hurricane warnings. I slept little on the flight, worked a little and watched films, on arrival I was still present in my body, a little tired, but not frazzled. The quality and type of food I chose for the journey made a big difference to how I felt. The one thing I forgot was air-conditioning and the importance of taking a scarf or shawl with me. It helped too to think through and have all travel documents easily to hand, to minimise tension at transit and security check points. There was a flow to the journey, very little fight or tension.
Recently, while in the company of people still trapped in the cycle of party hard, drink and smoke with abandon, I observed but did not judge. It reminded me of the life I once to led, trapped in a cycle of self abuse and disregarding my body completely. I had no awareness of self care. Now I do, and can appreciate how blessed I am to be out of that old self destructive cycle. It means I can enjoy, party and participate fully in celebrations fuelled by self love and inner joyfulness, no alcohol or other stimulants required.
‘I chose to bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities’ As you say Heather, it’s less about ‘doing’ and all about the quality we bring to all our movements.
Its a great comment from Gyl… this expectation that we should feel the same as yesterday, or perfect. Why not a more honest approach of feeling what is going on and allowing that to inform us of how we were yesterday, and what our body needs today?
It’s easy to get caught up in how we want to be feeling or expect that we ‘should’ be feeling, when we’re holding onto pictures of what that looks like. I’ve sometimes used appreciation to try to bring myself out of something rather than just be honest about where I’m at, allow myself to feel it, and appreciate all of that. It’s only when I allowed myself to feel something instead of pretending it wasn’t there that I was able to let it go and move on,
feeling clearer and lighter.
Waking up this morning I have realised I can often put a pressure on myself to feel the same as I did yesterday – instead of listening to how my body feels.
I began to acknowledge that my body is actually something to be respected and treasured.’ This is the answer to all our so called woes, so simple , so profound and yet so true. No matter how much we are told, hear, listen to, read, seek knowledge, look outside ourselves, the answer to every single possible question, dilemma on our lives, and not only for ourselves but the answers to support the whole of humanity, are found by listening to our body. It cuts out so much complication.
I notice how I can ‘park’ self care very easily when I am doing my work. This week I was taking my self care to another level when I was at home but when it comes to my work, I let my work schedule go first. I donot want people waiting on the care they need ( I work as a nurse in the community) but I know I only can truly care for others the moment I care for myself. And I love caring for other people so why not take this love for caring to myself and not only I but all will benefit.
I have this belief that I’ve got to keep doing – even when I am exhausted and need to take deep care of myself and rest. It’s completely detrimental as it has a knock on effect to how I live, the thoughts I allow in and my interactions with other people, as I don’t allow myself the space to stop, listen and be with them. I often end up resenting everything I have to do. I make it about self. What I have noticed is, it’s not the amount of work that is the issue, nor the driving, that’s easy – yes I do need to take care, plan and rest for big days or long trips, but, it is the quality I do it in, as in am I rushing, thinking about the next thing or am I taking care, driving gently, doing one thing at a time with full attention and commitment. If the later the outcome is very different, I don’t feel floored at the end of the day or grumpy with people, I have much more energy, space and time to be with people, there’s no rush, there is joy. A joy which is felt through every cell of my body, much like a little child.
I’m feeling more and more frequently how it really is the quality that we do things in that counts. When I focus on how I’m moving and breathing as I do something, instead of getting lost in the needing to do, and in my head working out how it should be done, whatever needs to get done gets done and there’s a flow to the day.
I can very much relate to this – “working till I was exhausted“- as I have been given the space to feel how damaging this is to my body, mental health, as when I am run down I feel more down and negative self bashing thoughts comes in and wellbeing. How I move changes. Though, when I stop and re-connect to myself, yes my body is exhausted, I need to rest and take much more care of myself, but I feel and am very still, deeply connected to God and feel amazing. I feel that same quality and love I have for myself as I did when I was a little girl, there is no need to do, there are no self bashing thoughts, what my body shares is so loud and clear and in honouring I feel so much joy and stillness. Imagine the whole world stopped, for a moment, and we all came back to ourselves and lived from here, we would be far less imposing on one another, brotherhood would be completely felt and lived. People would support one another, deeply care for and love each other, there would be far less hatred, aggression and misery, not to mention that illness and disease rates would go way down, and people would be so much more light and joyful with a spring in their step. We would go back or full circle to living as a true community again.
There is so much joy and stillness when we truly honour what our bodies feel.. It’s amazing that we override them in the first place and lose ourselves in the doing or the excitement of the activity. Whenever I get swept up in the thrill and excitement of something, it always feels like a temporary high, and it always takes me further away from me. By stopping and connecting to what I can actually feel, there’s a steadiness and a stillness that I can connect to that’s inside of me and needs nothing from the outside. It’s beautiful because it’s a far richer experience than excitement. There’s no end to it and all it takes to feel it is a choice – and commitment to keep practise making that choice – to connect to what’s already there.
It is interesting when we can feel pressure from others to do something or behave in a certain way when in fact it is us that is placing the pressure on ourselves. Learning to say ‘No’, letting go of any guilt that may arise for saying ‘No’ and trusting the outcome is so loving and not selfish like I once thought it was.
“Self-love means living in a way that is respectful of myself – making loving choices for my body. This I understand, but I found this to be a simple concept that was/is a stretch too far for me. So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life.” I love the honesty of what is shared here as I would agree – Yes it does seem like a big step and for me had been and was an unlived territory in to self-love but only because not loving me was so familiar. So first starting with having respect for ourselves is a great starting point. Thank you Heather.
It’s so true Heather, we can bring our true quality to anything we do from the way we walk and talk, to the way we cook a meal or take out the garbage. In fact, there is no task we do that cannot be lifted by the loving quality how we do it.
It is time we all woke up to the fact that the excesses, indulgences and disregarding behaviors we think are normal in this day and age are actually so abnormal and dishonoring of our human bodies they are actively contributing to our escalating rates of illness and disease.
Thank you Heather Hardy for showing that self-care is a step by step process and that it starts wherever we are and with what is most relatable and tangible for us as well as that we can deepen taking care of ourselves every day more.
“Also, wanting to please others and not honouring how I feel is another great way to deplete myself. What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!” I used to have this experience and sometimes still do but it was a light bulb moment for me and made me realise how much blame I had been placing on others and how at times I would avoid people because I didn’t have the capacity within myself to honour what was right for me.
I’ve found that loving and caring for the body is hugely supportive – it’s changing the way I feel about myself and the quality of my thoughts are such that I’m becoming less critical of myself. When we start to care for our bodies and feel what that does it encourages us to continue making those choices that are truly supportive. But like you Heather I felt that initial resistance and we have to be patient with ourselves and just take it a step at a time.
There are so many pathways to patterns of numbing and disregarding ourselves – but underlying is always the same thing – that we have walked away from who we truly are and instead of making it about reconnection we make it about distraction and escape from the emptiness we feel within.
“What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!” To me this was a big revelation in life, the pressure I felt in ‘stressful situations’ was not coming from the outside to me but was something that I created for myself instead. What I have learned from this is that by becoming more caring for myself I also became more aware of what I was doing to myself and so on, a continuous growth in self awareness and with that also being honesty to myself has grown and on top of that I could also feel that I become more humble, not feeling any special to others anymore.
“self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all” what a great line, this stood out for me as it is so profound in its simplicity. It is each of our responsibility to come back to the love that is within, to deeply nurture that, appreciating and acknowledging the divine within us all.
It’s an interesting thing to consider why we don’t let go of behaviours that are harming ourselves, no matter how subtle they are. In fact the more self-loving we are the more we are able to see the subtleties and the harm they cause. I am observing this myself at the moment and how I may let something slide, because it may not seem significant. But these are the really important ones to pick up on because although they may seem insignificant the effects are huge and actually allow in more harming behaviours.
‘I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.’ This is gold Heather, when we choose to live with this level of awareness and responsibility life changes in amazing ways.
My body asks a process of refining of what is love and to surrender to this love, I realise this is the beauty of life and living in cycles. There will be forever movement and changes to enjoy.
What I have realised about self care and the world is this – there are plenty of people in the world who do not have much self care – anyone who deeply cares for themselves is considered unusual or sometimes even a crackpot. So if we are hoping to go into self care with encouragement from the world we are lost before we begin. Anyone who has little self care does not want the reflection from someone who has a lot of self care. They will consider you strange and create a story around you so that they feel more normal than you will ever be. So self care has to be an absolute personal commitment to ourselves, without outer encouragement but something that is soulful and something our body will love. Self care is an absolutely brilliant, worthwhile, warm and joyful thing that feels beautifully nurturing. Self care and self love are the warmest of hugs available to us at all times.
Oh how self care and love have added to my life. I did not realize how capped and secular this area was. The lid has been lifted on these areas now. They are forever changing and expanding as the level and depth in me grows. Thank you for your sharing Heather.
Having recently been diagnosed with an auto immune disease among other things, I’ve started to really appreciate what it means to take care of oneself and the impact it has on my body when I don’t. It’s taken some time to reveal itself, but the health conditions I have now are a direct result of me mistreating my body, simply by ignoring it’s even there. Seems crazy and impossible, but it’s not. The level of neglect I’ve shown toward the only thing I actually own and am responsible for is huge. Thank God for Universal Medicine and what they offer and present!
‘I certainly had never considered these were all choices that I was indulging in to override and numb myself from feeling the fact that I had very little self-worth and didn’t feel that I deserved taking care of.’ How many of us can relate to this? I can. I had no idea that other people were not more important than me. I was taught to look after others, but never taught that I should do that only after I’ve looked after myself. These days, that makes perfect sense for the quality in the way I look after someone else will be directly affected by the way I’ve chosen to take care of me. Makes such sense!
I’m getting better at noticing the quality or lack there of, in my everyday movements. It doesn’t take long to realise that you flick the switch to auto pilot and off you go. We’re so used to just doing doing doing, we completely forget how we are being. I’ve absolutely loved the reflection I get from those that bring love and care to everything they do. Because at the end of the day, what is the point if we are exhausted, resentful and unhappy and forever waiting for the next thing to prop us up. Imagine always being content in the moment?
Heather, I could have written this blog post. All of what you say here is also my experience. It is truly astonishing how much we override our own bodies for the sake of pleasing others. You’ve really nailed it.
I like the idea of making this journey of discovery with your body fun. We can so get bogged down in the seriousness of what we are discovering, yet what we are coming back to is love and joy. Joy in our bodies must surely contain fun. This is an important part of appreciation. Fun, joy laughter are all part of coming back to love.
Thank you for articulating so honestly your struggle with one of the basic tenets of Universal Medicine – that of respecting the body through making self-loving choices. Sometimes concepts are simple in their logic and truth but in their application and translation into our every day practice, we suddenly come up against all we have been disregarding, avoiding, suppressing and protecting. So it can be a process of huge evolution once we start – but one that supports the development of our self-worth all the way.
It really is lovely to come back to this blog and read “Self-love means living in a way that is respectful of myself – making loving choices for my body” – so simple, and there is a constant deepening in what feels loving to my body, and sometimes I am surprised at different reactions my body presents.
Thank you Heather, the more awareness and love I choose to connect within my body the more I get to feel how much more there is to appreciate about my own unique qualities and the reflection offered to others.
When we bring awareness to being self caring in everything we do, being aware of the smallest movement and in the smallest ways we can support ourselves, our foundation of love expands. What I noticed is how well supported I feel just by insisting I look after myself and make supportive arrangements. There is a warm and embracing feeling that comes with being self loving.
I have also made choices in order to override and numb myself in order to protect myself from getting hurt. As I began to open up more and connect to my body, I could feel the tension within and as a result have made more loving choices and a new world has opened up, one of openness rather than one of hiding.
Dis-regard for our bodies is huge – a life-long habit in fact that gets promoted as normal at so many stages of life.
This made me really think about how many behaviours and choices that we often take for granted and even create functions and activities around – (the immediate ones that come to mind are common things like catching up for coffee and cake and drinking at a social event, staying up late, checking our with TV etc) – are generally accepted as ‘normal’, when if we ‘really’ assesses the impact on our bodies, we’d have to say many of these choices are certainly a long shot away from being supportive of health and wellbeing… Something that is certainly worth becoming more honest about in my view…
I agree Angela, and often it is not until we become unwell or ill, that we are prepared to stop and reassess what works and what doesn’t. And even then when we recover we easily drop back into the ‘normal’ routine of life.
It’s quite confronting to consider that your body is the marker of truth. How we run our bodies is the truth of the value we hold for ourselves. This needs to be deeply pondered and honestly faced.
Our bodies certainly are the markers of truth;
“Self-love means living in a way that is respectful of myself – making loving choices for my body.” Simple yet profound and at times challenging’
Thank you Heather for so honestly sharing your story; the truth is to be true to our bodies.
Thank you Heather for sharing so honestly how far you have come in making self loving choices, It certainly is an ever deepening of this love, and a continual coming back to the love we are, when we find we have been in disregard in some way, so simple, a choice in every moment.
What I am learning is that self-loving choices always come in response to what is needed. I can no longer plan what to eat, what to do, what time to go to bed and feel frustrated when circumstances do not allow it to happen. Self love is what we weave our everyday life with, and not what we sprinkle on top.
I find that when I plan things it leads to huge frustration when they are not achieved in the time or way I had planned! This is not self loving so I am allowing life to unfold as it is and if I allow this to happen all is complete and this amazes me!
“Self-love means living in a way that is respectful of myself – making loving choices for my body.” as you have mentioned Heather this can be quite a challenge for someone who has lived life in disregard not knowing any other way but as long as we can bring our focus to our body and be consistent at it we soon realise how much we deserve to treat our bodies in a loving and caring way.
I really enjoyed reading your blog Heather and your journey from disregard to truly loving yourself. Thanks to Universal Medicine presentations I too have turned my life around and now treat my body with more love and respect, and the lovely part is it is endless how much we can deepen this.
I really appreciate what you’ve shared in your blog Heather and I find it curious but understandable (when we have a lack of self worth) that we would rather put ourselves in disregard (something very familiar to me) and at risk of illness and disease than upset another. What about the upset we cause ourselves! Everything naturally falls into place once we develop a loving relationship with ourselves.
I agree Deborahmckay, there does seem to be a tendency to risk illness and disease in order to not upset another. On many occasions I have held back what I want to say to another and then later suffered the consequences of a throat infection. This has happened so many times that now I ask myself do I want to go through that again and remember that it is not worth it.
On rereading your blog Heather what struck me particularly was your comment about bringing a deeper quality and presence to your self love; I found this very powerful.
With really small steps we can change our attitudes that we have held towards ourselves. Each step we take to richer self care reveales the next step and the next level. It is a beautiful journey that everyone who comes in contact with you, benifits from.
I love this key..”I now have a growing awareness of the choices I’m making on a daily basis which keep me feeling racy – avoiding the stillness that I have felt at times within me.”
Heather I loved your words “It was enlightening and empowering to hear that my body is a marker of truth”. It took me a little time to build a relationship up with my body, and learning that the connection with my body tells me many things, especially if I am not eating the right food, or I sit at the computer longer than I should, I will get a twinge that tells me to move, or if I override it the twinge will develop into something else. It is very beautiful when we build a loving relationship with ourselves.
Its so simple and I have heard it many times that the ‘body is the marker of truth’. I have nodded my head and said ‘yes!’. But what I have found is there is tendency and a tension that pulls us away from honouring our physical and inner being. It require dedication and consistent choice to keep coming back. But when we come to understand the true power we have you wouldn’t want to live another day ignoring what it has to say, like a barometer for truth and love – our bodyometer is by our side.
That is a great point, Joseph, and what you say here is exactly what I needed to hear. Here I am finding myself yet again prompted by my own body that deeper nurturing is being called for. Just perfect. Thank you.
The momentum of our previous choices in respect of behaviour is sometimes a difficult pattern to break – it certainly does require dedication and consistent choice and the more we keep making more loving choices, the less hold the previous momentum has.
‘But what I have found is there is tendency and a tension that pulls us away from honouring our physical and inner being’ You’ve expressed this well Joseph and is something I’ve observed in myself. There are no easy answers, but going deeper to explore why, is the first step.
I always thought I took care of myself, however it was not until I attended the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I started to understand what true Self-care was. I now have a connection with my body and am building a greater form of respect for my body and all that it reveals to me, from true self-care and self nurturing.
Yes Heather, there is a part of us that think self-care is so very basic. Yet we don’t live this care in our lives. For me it starts to be so conditional, if I’m feeling ‘good’ I might treat myself lovingly. But how absurd is this when, if we are struggling this is when we most need a tender warm hearted friend? It seems there is no end to the deepening in the self-care we can bring, and no moment we don’t deserve to honour and cherish ourselves. Because in this honouring we value and appreciate the precious beauty of everything.
That’s beautiful Joseph, I tend to take great care of myself now as I would a very dear and precious friend, and I love how the incremental steps of self-care that I’ve taken along the way have grown into building a much deeper appreciation of myself and everything around me. It really is quite wondrous how something as basic as self-care can develop and evolve into so much more.
The utter importance of self-care is being highlighted at present and I can understand why we have so much disregard in the world. When we walk with the care, love and knowing of who we are we carry the light of God in our stride. To do this though, we need a foundation of care, to know what it feels like in our bodies otherwise it’s just knowledge without a lived experience. There in lies in the power of self-care and nurturing the rhythms by which we live our lives.
Thank you Heather for a very honest blog I really relate to what you have expressed, I have lived in so much disregard of my body, lack of self worth was and is still lingering there, it is a slow process for me, but gradually I am coming to appreciate me more, by adopting self loving practises.
Connecting with my breath has been the key in loving myself more. And this started with the Gentle Breath Meditation some years ago. For me this is an amazing tool to come back to my body and to the knowing that I am a Son of God and my body is my vehicle to express all that I am.
we are so dreadfully conditioned to not have respect for our bodies, or for anyone else’s actually, that the way we live, the way we relate to each other in relationships, are so often built on a foundation that has no substance indeed is corrupted innately, so this foundation of self care is essential for us all.
Here here cjames2012 – bring on self-care in education, we need to know and relearn how to love and nurture ourselves so we can understand the potential of our divine bodies.
Rachael, yes bring it into the education system in a true way. Imagine children being taught this from an early age? What a different world we would have.
‘My body is a marker of truth’ – indeed. Our body never stops communicating the Truth and our choices determine how much of it we could access. So, it makes absolute sense that by choosing to not feel the pain and numb ourselves, we are actually blinding ourselves from the truth.
‘What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!’ A familiar one for me too Heather. The space it gives when we observe and allow to truly see what it is we are choosing and change this in coming back to ourselves is enormous. At least that’s what I feel, it is as if I free myself of a tightness in my whole body and can breath for myself again.
I’m a big lunch and break skipper – I know this at times has detrimental effects on my body and even just taking a little 5 minute pause can have a huge effect on how connected to myself and content I feel at the end of the day. I DEFINITELY must reintroduce a few little pauses in the day to ensure the rest of the day stays on track.
Thank you for this great reminder of really looking at my deeper levels of disregard and numbing my feelings. I override the wisdom of my body in many situations and I feel this huge arrogance of the spirit in that. In many situations there is so much more to feel than I want to feel and instead of going there I avoid it because it hurts. Time to be more aware and honest about that and choose truth and love.
Heather I deeply appreciate your honesty with what you have realised and where you are at. It’s so supportive and inspiring to read. I agree self-love can be quite a leap from lack of self-worth, but as you say a great starting point is honouring ourselves with self-care. I too have found this a challenge to be consistent with this but am so inspired by the reflections being offered to me by other Universal Medicine students that step by step the quality I bring to me is becoming honouring and dare I say it, loving.
Yes Lucy I feel that the incredible reflections offered to us by the students of Universal Medicine are such a blessing.
What we choose to eat when more self love is introduced into our lives is such a broad topic and a very interesting one. Food is an ever refining and deepening lesson, and it is a different learning for everyone. Every choice in food is a learning to deeper trust this body, with acceptance and understanding of all the choices we have made in the past. Self love therefore, is an honoring of where our bodies are at and listening to that, rather than any regimen of what we know is supportive or not to the body in general. Self love is not a head decision that we can say, ok now we will love ourselves by eating such and such foods, self love is letting our bodies tell us what food choices will support us, no matter how the mind may judge these choices to be and trusting that. This is a topic where we can never compare with another if we truly love ourselves.
Love your comments on this blog! Returning to love by consistent choices, one small choice after the other, in every single moment, is all I want, but feels often so difficult. It`s so important to not beat ourselves up for making unloving choices but to decide different in the next situation. The needs for certain foods show us often very clearly how connected or disconnected we are and we can take this as a reminder to feel and reconnect.
Every choice that we come back to loving ourselves is a choice that is made to be back on track with the universal pull that we all feel. Consistency is the key, it is simply a choice after choice of returning back to this relationship.
When we begin to introduce self love to our lives, it is an awakening to the depth of disregard we have accepted and shown to our bodies, we introduce different more loving choices to our lives. We allow understanding to ourselves and accept the choices we have made in the past, without being hard on ourselves, there is never perfection afterall. Self love is a very human thing, because the human vehicle can never be perfect, but it is through the human body that divine will and expression can be brought forth on earth.
I love the line “I began to acknowledge that my body is actually something to be respected and treasured.” How important are our bodies if we consider all the facts. I’ve lived almost all my life with a deliberate disregard of my body, starting to deeply care for myself and my body and really treasure it has been life changing.
I can relate Meg, as many people can I’m sure. There has been a belief where self-care was lame or boring in my age group, like care was just so uncool. How twisted is that! Now instead of caring what other people think about me I am learning to bring the true care back to the way I live and hold myself in deep regard instead of dismissing the body I have been absolutely blessed with.
Well done Meg. We must do much work in this area. I love these two words..”respected and treasured” A great mantra to focus on for me for a time.
Heather, that is a brilliant, honest blog filled with so much truth that all can benefit from reading. Starting to love and care for our body so it may be the carrier of Gods light.
‘When I stopped these activities and gave myself space to truly feel my body, I became aware of a huge amount of hardness that I had built up in order to protect myself and to not feel what was going on in my body.’ It is very sad that we consume all sorts of things to make us relax or feel good when the very things we put into our body keep us from truly feeling what is going on.
iljakleintjes what you have raised here feels so true. It is insidious how this happens and we don’t even realize it is. it is not only consuming things but it also relates to the activities that we choose to distract ourselves from our true feelings.
Wow Heather that was an absolute honest blog and it was very inspiring to read it. Everything you shared I can relate to – for me the important thing is to keep on changing this hardness and lovelessness into love – is to have a bit of fun and lightness with it. Therefore I love your sentence: “The choice to be true to me, and my body, can at times be a little uncomfortable but I can also make it fun – enjoying the ever-unfolding journey… when I choose to listen to and respect my body!” Fun and lightness is for me a very good medicine to swallow what is not so pleasant at some times – it helped me not to chose a drama instead.
Keeping it light it a great tip, it’s easy to be so hard on yourself when you make mistakes and you see the effect you’ve had on your body, and that hardness makes it much worse!
Same here. Fun and lightness are also for me markers how I am within situations. I can easily get serious or hard on me about things. That creates a drama in itself. So just like kids stay playful with it all.
Yeah – it’s so easy to be hard on yourself, especially if you don’t handle a situation as well as you know you could, but that just makes a situation 10x worse than it originally was!
Yes I agree Meg I know exactly what you mean and if I chose this hardness and make the situation 10x worse and I am not able to be light – than I find it very helpful if my partner or a friend joyfully reminds me on that.
It’s something I am very much learning, and I hugely appreciate people pointing out that a mistake is not the end of the world and things are still ok too 🙂 I am retraining myself to not be so immediately hard on myself and to be able to go forwards with understanding rather than condemnation.
I am re-learning this as well Meg and my feeling is since I am less hard on myself I am also less hard with everyone around me and that is very beautiful feeling.
That is definitely true, when we surrender more in ourselves and live will less self critique and hardness towards ourselves, it definitely changes how we are to other people too.
I agree Meg – being hard on ourselves often magnifies a bad or not so supportive choice. I’m still working on this one but can certainly vouch for learning to take responsibility for my choices and for observing them rather than reacting or resisting them. By observing without judgement, it allows me the freedom to be aware I can make a different choice next time.
Being hard on ourselves when we make a mistake absolutely magnifies it! I love how you have brought observation in, knowing you can make a different choice next time makes life so simple, and whatever just occurred not such a big deal.
I feel this also Meg. When Heather mentioned this one I felt how strongly it pertained to me..”I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” This happens to me when I have had a great day of teaching and then I bring in the self-abuse the next time I walk into the class, which to me is pure self-sabotage. I was a master at that one.
Heather I loved reading your blog again, taking true responsibility for ourselves, with self-care, brings more love and joy to ourselves and others.
I agree Sally, and this resonated for me, “Also I see situations that I’ve put myself in which reflect the beliefs I have about myself, people and life – these all affect my body and I’m learning to observe and slowly change the way I am in these situations.” This one is a key one for me when choosing to take true responsibility. I have seen wonderful changes when I truly own this one.
It was only re-reading this part you’ve highlighted Irena that it feels like I’ve just noticed the big pink elephant on my lap. Our situations in life confirm our choices and the energetic quality of such choices. If a situation keeps repeating then thats just a fact that our choices haven’t changed. Even if it’s a situation we say we don’t like and play out on the surface as reactions and fighting the situation – we’ve on some level said ‘this is where I want to be’ as we choose to follow whatever image we have attached to OR because we have chosen to follow what feels true from our bodies. Often I have found that what feels true goes against every single image I have ever or continue to hold onto, but following these feelings regardless feels more stable and steady.
‘self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all.’
This line for me is capturing, I can feel the truth in the words.. especially the last phase where you share that it lies within us all.
Beautiful sharing Heather – thank you. It is so true that our bodies are our best and truest friend, as it does know us better than anyone and never lies or hides from us what is true. So when we choose to pay attention to what our bodies are telling us we begin to see that there is a truer way to live that is far more self-loving, honoring and so much more joyful.
I loved to read how honest you are in your sharing about all the steps in the process of becoming more self-loving, starting with self-care and exposing the lack of it in the different areas of life. Being so honest and respectful and accepting to start with self-care. This honesty and acceptance already feels self-loving and it is inspiring to me, thank you Heather.
Heather I have just re-read your blog as it speaks to me so loudly. I relate to it all, from overriding the body needs to please others or due to my internal pressure of what I want to achieve, to deepening my presence in all activities. The more presence I bring to my body, the more I confirm to myself that I am worthy of receiving nothing less than this tender loving care.
What a beautiful reminder and confirmation of the importance of deepening the level of selfcare, to self nurturing, and always checking in on the body as it is true marker of truth.
Heather I know what you mean by bringing a deeper presence to your daily routine. I thought I was doing a good job at being tender brushing my hair, then not to long ago after an esoteric yoga session I brushed my hair and the self love I had for myself was deeper than I had ever experienced and the feeling of love going through my hair as I brushed it felt amazing. It reminded me of when I was a little girl and my Mum used to brush my hair because she knew I loved it.
This is so beautiful Lindell and it is something that I have thought of on many occasions. The concept of being so super delicate and the tenderness that is possible within an action is truly so self nurturing and loving. This then confirms that we are indeed tender and exquisite beings that deserve warmth and love and honour.
Thank you Heather for such an honest and inspiring blog. I can relate to every word in it. The more I feel connected to my body the more I can pick up when I am leaving that connection to please others and try and fit in to what I think others want and bring myself back.
We are so used to overriding our body’s messages. For tiredness we have coffee, for stress we have a drink after work. The awesome thing about self-care is as we embark on the self-care path the overriding can stop, and we can listen and care for ourselves almost as our parents used to tend to us as children.
Dear Heather, your blog is a very good reminder to have a look at more hidden forms of disregard and not honoring the body. It`s important to have some Stop-moments during the day and to feel into if the way we move or do things is supportive for us. There are so many situations in which we just don`t listen to our bodies because our behaviors are totally automatic and seem to be so normal and useful for our mind. It`s quite huge how much tension and discomfort of the body I experience when I really keep on feeling during my days.
“my body is a marker of truth: if I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me, and all the ways in which I choose to numb and override what my body feels, then it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.” I loved reading these words Heather, and I am more and more appreciating the intelligence and wisdom that my body holds when I listen and feel it.
What Universal Medicine is showing us we can pass on to others, I feel blessed to have found my way to this loving way to live.
It is revealing of us all when we consider how much self-harming ways of being there are out there that are so generally accepted in society and in fact endorsed in our social etiquette. These are all in contrast to what our bodies, the very thing we have to walk around with each and every day are saying to us all of the time, if we choose to listen.
Until it was presented to me that I was being hard with myself and my body, I never gave it much thought and at first didn’t see the importance of feeling where my body was at, let alone being gentle. I suppose that had become my normal, but since I have been practising being gentle and more caring with myself I am able to feel the difference to how I used to live more clearly.
Before Universal Medicine, there was a part of me that relied on others to take care of me. In some way I had handed myself over to all those people that would ‘fix’ me when the time came where I needed the help. This unfortunately gave permission to be reckless with my body.
I see this daily at work, the amount of injuries caused by the choice to put our body in situations that cause harm, with fractures, broken bones, torn muscles and so on and these injuries have life long consequences that often require repeat surgery and/or ongoing hindrance to normal function. Giving our power away to others is really not caring for ourselves and we really need to consider what we are doing and how we are living and take the responsibility back. It will save a lot of time, aches/pain and money in the long run.
Your blog and everyone’s comments are supporting me to feel where I’m at with self-care and be more honest about the quality that i’m in. but instead of going into self-loathing I can feel from what everyone is sharing that it is an ever-evolving process of giving more space and love to this process of healing.
As with self-care, as with everything else.. it’s an ever deepening process of awareness, refinement and commitment. It can be hard to know where to start if we’ve never looked after ourselves, but it’s amazing how just taking one thing, like feeling our feet on the ground or going to bed earlier,and incorporating that into our rhythm, can support all other areas of our life. Slowly a foundation of self care and love is built from continuously making self loving choices.
I think the attitude of ‘this is fixable’ or we are ‘unbreakable’ or believing a doctor can heal whatever you present them is quite a vast consciousness…. And quite far from the reality of life, where one disregarding choice can effect you for the rest of your life.
I loved reading your very honest and open sharing, Heather. I can totally relate to the feeling of hardness in the body. I can also remember feeling puzzled by what ‘making self loving’ choices really meant. ‘It’s not as though I want to harm myself’ …. and yet that’s exactly what I’d been doing for most of my life, without even realising it. As you say, the sadness that follows when you really begin to feel that disregard, and choose to take responsibility, can be very overwhelming. For someone who is extremely good at self-sabotage, I’ve learnt to take one step and a time and to appreciate all that I AM doing and not concentrate on all that I am not.
I know – me too. I literally had no idea what making self loving choices was about, I’m so thankful for the Benhayon family for showing me a totally different way to be with myself, as what had become normal had become so ingrained I couldn’t see a different way, but through constant inspiration my normal is slowly changing from being quite harmful, to being truly loving.
It’s interesting what you share Heather about not realising that the disregarding way of life you spoke of isn’t ‘normal.’ When so many people around us are living this way, we can fall into the belief that this is normal and exhaustion, stress, overwhelm, loneliness, and all the things we do to mask these sensations are just part of life.
As you describe here, the way to live in amongst this without subscribing to it is to take your cues from your body rather than how others are living but in my experience it sure makes a difference to have someone in your life reflecting to you that maybe there is another way. This is where we all have a responsibility to live and walk out choices in the world for all to see … You never know who is on the cusp of choosing a more loving way but just needs to catch a glimps of someone else doing it before they choose it for themselves.
Heather thank you for reminding me of the need to self care, I often still over ride what I know I ought to do in favour of what I know doesn’t work for me. This brings me great sadness , realising that to choose to do something that is potentially harmful to myself. I truly appreciate the work of Serge Benhayon and the Practitioners of Universal Medicine for the loving support in sharing the truth of Loving self nurturing of our selves first before others. I know I have a way to go before I am there!
What stood out to me reading your blog Heather is just how much we as a society are not taught to love ourselves. It ought to be something that is presented to us from the day we are born, as it is so fundamental to our development. Like you Heather it took Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to present it before I started to love myself in the way that I do now. It feels to me that self worth and self-love are basic human rights.
Beautifully said Elizabeth, we are not taught in any way at all to love ourselves, you are right, surely self love is a basic human right and should be as natural and normal as walking, or picking something up. It doesn’t make sense how far away self love is from our current view of what is normal.
Great comment Elizabeth. It seems that quite the opposite occurs however, and it makes me wonder how we as a society have allowed this to be so. Now that we have this awareness we also have the opportunity to change the way it has been to date.
I hadn’t quite thought of it that way but it’s true Elizabeth, we are not taught to love and respect ourselves as all too often it is considered if you love yourself you are being arrogant.
Would we take self care more seriously, i.e. more responsibly, if we understood it as so fundamental and integral to one’s development? If we did, this would have a huge effect in all areas of our lives, from the way we move in every moment to the way we work, parent, relate to ourselves, others and life.
Thank you Heather for developing my understanding of the link between self worth and self love. It seems the two are connected and you cannot do one without the other. What I have come to understand also with the support of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon is that self worth is a deep acceptance of the fact that I am a divine multi-dimensional being who is super sensitive, super still and aware of everything all of the time and all the little ways that I hold and move my body every day are simple practical ways I can honour this.
Lovely to read of the process that you have experienced returning to who you feel you truly are “My understanding of Universal Medicine’s teachings is that self love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all” I have also attended Universal Medicine presentation and have fun them deeply supportive and inspiring, the changes I have made in life have happened when I have gone home and committed to care for myself in a more consistent way. There is a key to here that is accessible to all, I began this path knowing that something wasn’t quite right with how I had been living int terms of green stress an fatigue and a lack of contentment or what I would now call joy. This was self care, I began listening to my body and stopped eating foods that felt lie they bloated me or made me tiered, like pasta and gluten full bread, slowly as I built this self care it became self love, and I now live with self love. It is an ongoing path, but for sure that self love is a ’key’ it opens up awareness and connection that I thought I would never feel. It is amazing to experience.
On re-reading this blog I’m reminded of a trap I’ve fallen into this week, that ls ‘wanting to please others and not honouring how I feel is another great way to deplete myself.’ I override my needs to give to another, and of course it inevitably goes pear-shaped because I’m not fully with me.
Heather a beautiful blog, our body can tell us so much about what is going on, yet we do everything we can to stop that connection. I found through caring for myself self-care and appreciation helped me, when I felt the sadness, rather than spiral into it. I would appreciate that I could feel the sadness, rather than do something or eat something to numb it out.
The harm I create in disregarding me is coming more and more into my awareness, and a huge disregard I have is to align to the norm in society and hold back my truth. This is something I get aware of in the moment which supports me to express more.
It’s astonishing that we don’t naturally care and respect our bodies, and I was really struck by the surprise of it reading your blog. I know until I met Serge Benhayon and his life changing presentations it simply did not occur to me to look after my body, and I was exhausted and ill in my teens. What you have presented here is such great common sense, and so natural, what makes us choose the complete opposite to completely disregard our bodies?
I can relate to these examples of your experience Heather of disregarding the body due to external pressures. Thank you for sharing your journey with this.
It is challenging sometimes to fully accept the level of disregard we live in. I feel this is because we live in a society where we have learnt to champion certain behaviours to be good for us and make them “normal” when in fact they are very harming for our bodies but have the dishonesty to accept that as we are more often than not getting a relief of some sort to not deal with the real issues we have created.
Well said Francisco – it is seemingly easier to hurt ourselves with reckless behaviours, no matter how subtle, than it is to be honest about what really hurts.
Your blog reminds me on how I was setting myself up for failure in the past. I had created long to do lists every day and it was clear right from the beginning, that I was not able to do all these things in one day. This pattern lead me to exhaustion and frustration. Today I become more and more aware, that it is not about quantity of doing but rather quality of being.
Brendan, I love your take on, “Saying yes to the things in life that we know truly support us … ”
From your sentence, I see that putting attention on saying ‘no’ to unsupportive aspects of life creates an approach where one is ‘fighting’ against temptation or tricks or overwhelm – one is ‘on guard’ all the time and when one ‘fails’, there’s the usual self-beating-up and or sense of failure, etc … however when the attention is directed to that which truly supports, one can almost ignore the unsupportive stuff and just let it be ‘over there’ … and then simply focus on developing and expanding the good stuff … I like it! 🙂
Great point Marian. I find that self-bashing pattern is a habit that can resurface if I lose focus on what supports me, and instead indulge in the battle. By accepting and feeling what has occurred I can drop the ‘battle’ and get on what is needed. A great reminder to myself!
” … my body is actually something to be respected and treasured.”
It’s been a turnaround (and still is in process) to go from hardly being aware of my body and taking it completely for granted, to that of knowing it is a treasure and a support and miraculous and amazing and is to be cherished in every moment. How has this turnaround happened? … from all the books, presentations, healings and dedication of Universal Medicine, that’s how! 🙂
Self-Love and self-care – I can forever deepen my relationship to my body and to myself, that is a wonderful journey.
Thank you Heather, I agree, ’our body is the marker of all truth and can also become our best friend when we listen to it.’ This blog is so well presented, and I feel the truth through living such a routine inspirational!
Heather, when I started to attend Universal Medicine events and listen to Serge Benhayon present I also “began to acknowledge that my body is actually something to be respected and treasured”. Like you “I could see how some of the choices I had been making . . .were all ways of living that I considered normal”. Slowly as I became more and more aware to listen to my body and to re-connect to the love that I innately hold, my life transformed. Like you, I discovered that “when I choose to listen to and respect my body” it is an ever-unfolding journey.
Heather I am slowly understanding this too at an ever deeper level “.. if I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me, and all the ways in which I choose to numb and override what my body feels, then it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.” Honouring this way of being helps stop the tyranny of the mind and the relentless thoughts, raciness and anxiety running the show, and instead gives us an opportunity us to hear the silence and stillness always there beneath.
I love what you have written about bringing presence to what we are doing, and being more self loving with ourselves. “Self love is the key to healing and re-awkening the truth that lies within us all.”
I feel most of us are masters of abusing our bodies, well I speak for myself. Since I have made many new and different, loving lifestyle choices, I have become a master of deeply appreciating, respecting and honoring my body, but I am pretty sure, there are many more levels to master which I am ready to embrace.
Thank-you Heather, quality of presence in everything we do say and think is the most important part of our livingness. I love saying, it is not what you do but how you do it – I know what to do to take care of myself and mostly this is habit without requiring much thought, but it is now the “how present and with my body am I” that I focus on.
I agree, the quality we do everything in is so important, and without that quality nothing ever feels great or complete. It definitely should be taught at school that conscious presence is one of the keys to life.
Awesome blog which reminded me about not only the choices I make in everyday life, which at all times involves my body, but also the QUALITY in which I make these choices or activities. Thank you, Heather.
I love how you shared about the presence when you are in self care. I have made many changes in my life in the view of self care and looking after my body, however have also noticed that there is still something lacking and that is the presence in everything that I do. I need to keep stopping and checking in with myself re presence.
I remember the first time I heard Serge Benhayon refer to the body as being the marker of truth, it struck something in me where I knew I could not hide any more and play the victim or poor me that I had been playing all along, but had to start making more self caring choices and and be more loving with my body in any way possible.
Self Care is the single most important things we can do on our way back to love. I love the powerful phrase you have shared, that the Body is the Marker of Truth – Very empowering to read this Heather.
It is very empowering as you say Heather, to realise that our body and how it feels is the end result of all our choices, it brings self-responsibility to every single choice we make.
Self care is the true icebreaker in all our lives. When self caring is initiated, it starts to immediately break down the tension or the hold that is on the body. I’ve found I don’t have to try and fix the problem, just bring a greater level of care to my body and often the issue just lessens or becomes very easy to deal with.
I agree mathew brown, it’s as if with simply bringing a deeper level of care to my body I settle into my body, and connect with a stillness inside where I feel at home and am more able to bring me, without those outside influences, to the matter at hand.
Great comment, for me that’s revelatory – no need to fix the problem just bring a greater level of care to my body.
I love the way you have described this Matthew, about worrying or focussing less on the outcome or the problem, but more on the level and quality of our self-care. What a great foundation self care can provide in all areas of our lives!
Self-care is a way of living that it seems we don’t like to give ourselves permission for. With self-care we actually care for ourselves. Sounds obvious – but how many of us want to do that? Once we start even a tiny bit of self-care, the cycle of feeling how lovely it is to care for ourselves starts and then more care and nurturing is not only possible, but right on our doorstep.
Great comment Matthew. Shows how much we underestimate self-care.
So very well expressed Heather… I loved reading your blog and the opportunity it provided me with to check in with where I am at. While reading I was able to honestly feel where my body is at and where I am at with self care and self love.
The choice to be me connect to my body and express my truth is definitely uncomfortable at times, but when I don’t do those things I find it really un-comfortable, particularly when I don’t express it becomes a sickness in my body.
Yes I agree Thomas, whenever I don’t express what I feel in my body and hold it back it is a sure recipe for disharmony to build up in my body. expressing in full connection and honouring of the body is true medicine.
True Thomas, I felt the same. Not expressing truth is like a sickness: the more we hold back, the more we invite disharmony into the body: resentment, frustration, anger, hurt. Lovingly expressing how we feel is one of life’s medicines and a powerful healing agent.
Brilliant sharing Heather thank you, I love that even when we know something to be true, it is only in giving ourselves the space to come to it at our own pace that we can make any change we need as we feel to.
I had an experience yesterday where I was invoiced for a service that had a component that I was not aware of and was going to be charged an extra half an hour.
This was already a very expensive service so to be told it was going to be 50% more than I had been quoted, felt particularly cheeky. I contemplated letting it go and just paying it, essentially giving my power away to someone I believed had power over me, but then I remembered how awful I feel when I let that happen. In that moment I took responsibility for the fact that only I allow people to pull the wool over my eyes, and decided to write back and state my claim that at no point was this additonal service quoted, and had I known I would have had an opportunity to either accept it or decline it.
Low and behold, in speaking my truth and expressing what did not feel right, resulted in the provider waiving the additonal non discussed fee. This was a great experience for me in being assertive and trusting myself.
Elodie a wonderful example of what happens when we take responsibility and respond quickly to injustice or unfair treatment. You’re right to speak of the harm we cause ourselves when we give our power away by not speaking up. Recently, I felt patronised and spoken down to by someone much younger. It continued, until I responded directly and powerfully by telling her her questions and manner were disrespectful and based on assumptions. It cleared the air and she apologised. Later I noticed how others began to speak up when they felt their wishes were being overridden.
It’s amazing isn’t it Kehinde? It only takes one person to speak their truth, for others around to feel it and know that they too have equal opportunity to do so. Now to put this into a consistent practice!
It’s great that you both stood up in these instances. It’s so easy to cave in but as you said Elodie the feeling when we do this is terrible. When we do stand up I feel we’re not only doing it for us but also the people coming along after us as in your example Kehinde. The beneficial effect of being responsible in these situations extends beyond just ourselves.
Heather, it has been some years now since I first started attending Universal Medicine workshops and you’ve reminded me that prior to them, I never considered that my body required any attention. I had no regard for my body whatsoever. As you say, everything Serge Benhayon presented felt absolutely true to me and made complete sense, especially the point about how much better care we take of our cars than we would ever consider to do for our bodies.
It’s beautiful what you have written. We should never forget that our body is our best friend and is “..supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.” Whilst we often override what it is telling us, the Truth in how we should be living is being constantly communicated to us. Thanks for your blog Heather.
I love the thought of my body as a best friend. It really makes me consider if the way I treat myself is equal to the way I would treat another.
It does give one a lot to consider. I have had a session when I’ve been asked would I treat my best friend like that, or even a child. Of course not, so why do I do it to myself?
Yes – it’s fascinating how many double standards we have when it comes to the way we treat ourselves and the way we treat others, and also the way we think of ourselves, I’m sure the way we talk to ourselves and about ourselves is much harsher and more critical than how we would ever speak to another human being.
I agree Meg, It’s a double standard and exposes the inequality we hold ourselves in to the all.
It really exposes how crazy our thoughts are doesn’t it? We have thoughts all day long and we listen to them all day long, but they feed us crap like this!
Thank you Linda – yes, the sadness I felt at not truly caring for myself was something I had never wanted to feel, so I would completely numb myself to this by eating too much, lots of distraction and generally doing as much as I could to harden my body so as not to feel a huge amount of sadness buried inside me. Allowing myself to feel this has been an important part in my building a true and loving relationship with myself.
Heather, the sadness you speak of is my experience too, not wanting to feel it, not wanting to remember why it’s there. But to truly know myself and build a loving relationship with myself, I first had to de-construct those barriers I had so painstakingly built over years to avoid feeling. As each barrier comes down my love and understanding of me deepens, and I feel so much freer.
I could have written these words too Heather. When I felt how very hard I have been with myself and on my body, a great sadness arose in me. For me it has taken some very firm dedication to make self-care a consistent thing. Even now it is quite easy for me to take sneaky little shortcuts, and shortchange myself, and eat a lot of nuts to take away the sadness. Doesn’t work – I can attest, then my dear body has the short cut and the extra handful of nuts to deal with.
Self-care is so much simpler. Not always easy, but always simpler.
The perfect blog for me to read tonight. Thank you Heather.
Thank you Heather, your blog is so good to read, its like reading ‘Self care 101: how to..’ as you have described so much in how to get started and the things that come up when you first realize and understand what self care and self love is. I love how you say..”body feels, then it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the love I know I am..” I totally agree.
Thank you for your sharing Heather, I can so relate to everything that you have presented here. I especailly resonate with your words, “Me putting pressure on me to please”, is something that I am very familiar with and I am now also becoming aware of the way this affects my body, thank you again I really enjoyed receiving this blog.
Thank you for your honesty here Heather. It’s not always easy to admit, when looking over our lives, just how much disregard we have been living in. But awareness is key, and every single loving decision we make from this point forward builds the foundation of love in our body. Every choice counts.
For me, observing has been that key that allowed me to see what amazing qualities I have and where I bring them everyday. From there I finally could see how harsh and hard I often had been with myself and what pressure I exerted on myself. Seeing so obviously why and how I did it has made it a lot easier to develop a loving approach towards myself and reintroduce joy into my life.
Reading your blog reminded me of how much energy I waste, trying to please others and how depleting and exhausting this is, thank you for the reminder.
Thanks Heather, reading your blog was great, and I too initially felt the same way about self care “….. I found this to be a simple concept that was/is a stretch too far for me. So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life”….
Self care is so simple, yet when I started taking more care of myself, it showed up the areas in my life, which are lacking in care or love, and this was quite “yuk” to see and feel. It can be easy to go back into usual patterns as a way of avoiding something, but It’s well worth persevering, as living with self care certainly enriches your day!
‘When I chose to bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities, I noticed just how much I lacked bringing any true quality to these moments.’ What you raise here is crucial to understanding why most self-care ‘programmes’ fail to truly deliver- and it’s because we lose sight of the importance of the quality of being we’re in, when we are ‘doing the doing’. It’s not about the doing, but the being. It’s about the quality I am in, in every moment – and the choice in every moment that I have for that quality. A huge responsibility yes, but an even bigger return on the investment, when we can become consistent with it.
‘What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!’
Heather, what you say here highlights just how easy it is for us to blame others and not take responsibility. No-one makes us do anything, we have the choice to say no, or to do it and we can choose whether we do it out of reaction or out of a true impulse to support the person or be of service in the situation.
I love how you point out that you started ‘to acknowledge that your body is actually something to be respected and treasured.’ As logical as this is, when we look at our body and how it works in its miraculous ways on a daily basis, this is not something we learn. There is no link on our education system that teaches us how very precious our bodies are and that they need to be respected and looked after with the utmost care. How awesome could biology, chemistry, physics and all the science subjects be if we would always relate them back to our bodies, to our daily lives, simply to us, as the natural subject of science itself.
‘I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.’ This is gold. We can convince ourselves that we’re fitting in for the sake of those around us, but all we’re really doing is ‘retarding’ our own evolution and that of those around us as we are in turn reflecting back to them their own lack of self worth.
Self care is an incredible building block that is infused into all aspects of my life. It has evolved yet is also has remained very simple. There are some standard everyday markers that maintain a quality, but also how certain things are done have evolved. How I take each step when I move is super important. Walking is the glue between every action or activity and it is an activity within itself. Self care is also my thoughts and not just physical activities, highlighting that ‘the way’ our body and mind are determines the quality of the overall end result.
I really love your point ‘self care is also my thoughts’ – bringing a greater responsibility to our personal awareness of what we are aligning to in any moment, which governs our thoughts as well as our physical activities.
Thank you for writing about the benefits of self care for our bodies. I have such a different relationship to my body now, more loving and more connected. In fact I would say that years ago, before Universal Medicine, I was not connected to my body at all, I just carried it around with my head ignoring any discomfort. Now I am prepared to listen to my body and I love feeling how tender and sensitive and delicate I am.
Thank you Heather for this totally inspiring open blog that supports anyone coming to that point where they know there is another , more caring way to live. This is a golden resource for us all starting out on that path back to a more self loving way. I have been living more caring of myself and my body and it really has transformed my body and me from being defensive, hard and reactionary to more open to people and more appreciative of myself and others too.
Heather, what you share here is very simple yet enormously profound. From the vantage point I have now, where I do deeply care for myself and look after my body, it seems crazy not to choose this self-care, but what I do remember was how easily I used to abuse my body — and I see this so often with people around me. It’s like we have an ingrained belief that pleasure equals attacking the body, be it with food it doesn’t really agree with, alcohol, drugs, staying up too late etc. And that is simply crazy because the depths of joy that is felt when our body is honoured with us is profound — no stimulation, excitement or short-lived pleasure can match this.
Well said Gyl , the pressure we put on our selves is a killer ,instead of letting go and feeling what is our way or next choice based on love or the most loving choice .
What you have shared Heather beautifully reminds me of the fact there is no limit to the depth we can appreciate ourselves, that I am beginning to get a sense of. In sharing all you have I feel supported to continue exploring this, thank you.
Heather great topic to discuss and all of it I can relate and one that jumped out was -‘I’ve become more aware of how I hold myself back from expressing what I feel for fear of what others may think of me! ‘ – This has been my everyday issue for me and what I have come to understand is that this holding myself back is simply and indulgence that I feed to stop reflecting the enormous, amazing Love and Light that I am to all. The responsibility that I am avoiding when I go into this is significant. Self-Indulgence in any form is abusive and as Julie said the more you start to look at it the deeper you can see how it can run us. Most definitely one to keep an eye on and keep choosing what we naturally are.
Yes Natalie, just lately I’ve been recognising how convenient it is to indulge in the limiting thought’s that I have so often allowed to come in. In fact they were so familiar to me I thought that’s who I was. I realise now that’s not the case and that they are just a story I’ve bought into to keep me from connecting to my true essence and expressing from there. I can see the harm this has done to me and how this lack of responsibility has harmed others also. Choosing appreciation instead has made a big difference but as you say, it’s one to keep an eye on as the thoughts can come in under the radar if I get distracted in any way.
And yes, blaming others or outside stuff for the pressures we feel in my case is more often than not the pressure I put on myself. This is a comfort and complication I choose to stop myself feeling just how simple the choices I can make are – love or not love, that is it.
Its funny as I never initially thought I was one for pleasing people but I can see how much of my life has been dictated by this – but also how much we exhaust, impose and dishonour ourselves by doing this, it’s like a never ending game of giving our power away that we all play instead of just being honest. Imagine if we all just stopped – literally – and honoured what we felt. I’m sure coffee sales would drop, work productivity would go up and we’d all be a lot more truthful, harmonious and joyful.
That is amazing to even contemplate, the world would be a different place!
Heather, I can relate to so much you share, in particular the overriding of my body and what it so loudly shares with me, it’s crazy that we choose to do this. I too feel this stems from a lack of self love and self worth – but I am realising that lacking self worth is a choice and can be a cunning complexity game and excuse card to play – instead of simply choosing love.
Yes re-reading this post, it is the presence that develops awareness, and the other way – it is the lack of presence that means less or a stunting of awareness. ‘What is it that we don’t want to see’ is a question I often prompt myself with. For to see (more), is to be (more) aware. With vision we see ourselves and the world for what it truly is.
I too can relate to the résistance I had to be more aware of how self-care actually was not in my life. I actually reacted to the fact that I basically did not really care about myself in a loving way. Oops, and this was quiet intense to feel. But I knew somehow deep down inside that I was capable of much more – and YES also self-care. I have slowly integrated self-care into my life, and have built a rhythm , a daily rhythm, that holds more moments or I prefer using ‘spaces’ that hold self- care.. Such as taking a bath when I feel it is time to get my body nice and warm etc. It is worth spending time on!
What I found abusive to my body before attending Universal Medicine courses is so far removed from where I am today, but I know that I am still abusive to my body, its just at a lesser level. There’s definitely more to be revealed as I deepen my relationship with my body. Great topic Heather.
There is always more – a deeper level of self care, more to express, appreciation… I can feel how the more I allow myself to feel my body, the more sensitive I am to what is needed, less food, earlier bed time, more exercise, different food choices, time to cook and I thought I was doing all of these things before. As has been said, what felt OK today, feels like a lack of love tomorrow. Thanks Heather, it’s good to know I’m not the only one experiencing these things!
Heather there are many things that I’ve done in my life yet none of the things such as drinking too much, getting angry, frustrated, feeling unconfident, scared or being jealous etc.. are things I would have considered as choices. I just took them to be life and out of my control. What I’ve also learned by the teachings of Universal Medicine and presentations by Serge Benhayon is that everything is a choice. Whilst super confronting as it means I have a responsibility with everything I do, every choice from the quality of by very being, it does also bring a real sense of purpose to life and understanding along with the fact that I can by choice change the way I am living and come out of the suffering I accepted as human life.
What I am getting to feel more and more, that as we get into a rhythm in our body, the day just flows, the body supports our mind and brings us back when we are out of sync, the key thing I am finding is to really listen to the body.
I am learning how patient my body is. Always showing me things to reflect the choices I have made. My mind is less patient of my body, when it is adamant about wanting something, usually to numb or distract. But my body is always there, patiently bringing me back. So the question is, how long will I carry on the yoyo affect?
This is a great blog Heather. What I am finding more and more is that what I used to think was Ok is now abusive to my body and this keeps changing as time goes on. I can’t believe what the poor old body has had to put up with and process what is not harmonious for it over the years.
If I went on a night out now and did what I used to, it would quite literally kill me.
Allowing knowledge to get in the way of Truth has supported me to be dis-honest with myself as I build a committed, consistent and loving relationship with myself.
Thank you Heather for this great blog has revealed much of where I’ve been, am currently and continue to choose to go.
A truly awesome blog Heather – you have touched on so many things I have slowly been realising for myself. In particular the concept of self-love, which was well beyond any knowledge or understanding before, but as it becomes part of my daily practice, an amazing awareness starts to build – and I can start to see what holds me back from choosing such natural and joyful way of being…and how this affects the quality of everything I do – which in turn affects everyone and everything else. The benefits of what can happen when we take these simple steps are grand beyond imagining.
I too had no idea about the level of disregard that I was choosing for myself and saw my choices as being much better than a lot of other people. Having changed my whole way of being since Universal Medicine, just blew that thought, right out of the water, I wasn’t anywhere near the mark. Now that I have chosen to build a more tender, self caring and loving rhythm in my day, everything changes, as this quote from Albert Einstein reveals, Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics. So true.
Prior to Universal Medicine, I could very easily disregard my body and just expect it to function a certain way, no matter what I did to it. What I thought was respecting my body was not even close. Learning what Self Care really is from Serge Benhayon has been life changing, putting it into practice and developing this in my day to day living is now a normal part of my existence, like eating, drinking or sleeping. The results are staggering.
I love how you realised that there many behaviours that you considered normal but that are actually really disrespectful and harming to your body. This is very common in todays society and developing a way of being more caring with our selves and more loving as you describe can be uncomfortable, but ultimately learning to love our selves again and see ourselves as precious is something that can become normal too, and is much more beneficial, not only to ourselves but to society as a whole.
It’s a big topic Laura – not only does how we care and love ourselves affect our lives and everyday output greatly, it also affects everyone else very much. It is not something we necessarily like to hear but it is a reality, we all affect each other greatly for better or for worse.
To see ourselves and our bodies as deeply precious, that is the key. Most of humanity does not see this really, they’ve forgotten that they are so tender, sensitive and precious no less than a baby is. When we reconnect to this preciousness that we all are, it’s not so easy to bash ourselves. It feels terrible and we quickly stop it!!
It’s often easier to treat someone else as precious and take good care of them, especially children, and completely drop self care for ourselves. I wonder if all parents were told that the way they treat themselves is the way their kids will end up treating themselves, no matter how much they care for them, they will learn how to care for themselves by watching them not by how they get treated… and there builds a cycle of lack of self care continuing throughout generations…
Yes, Laura, this new normal is the natural way to be and once we come back to that it is hard to imagine how we could have lived any other way. However, it is amazing how resistant we can be to embracing true self-care as it means we have to let go of a lot of drive in our pursuit of recognition. Once we allow ourselves to feel how disregarding this is for the body we naturally embrace self-care and by appreciating ourselves more we no longer have any need for outside approval, nor are we then so dependant on any recognition to feel our value as we confirm our self-worth through appreciating and caring for ourselves.
Great article Heather. I relate to putting pressure on myself at work and skipping or shortening lunch breaks, which leads to feeling exhausted at the end of the day. For me this then can lead to unsupportive behaviours resulting from the exhaustion, such as seeking stimulation from food or sitting down exhausted in front of the TV for some relief, and then giving myself a hard time. Better to take the time to give myself that care and take the lunch break
“When I see these patterns and feel the stifling effect they have on how I choose to express I can then stop and say ‘no’.” I love this – I have seen how holding back impacts others and it is not pretty. I went shopping with a friend recently and she pointed out how uncomfortable I made the cashier because I treated him like a robot and was completely shut down in my interaction with him. I was feeling really vulnerable and insular that day and felt like I had every right to behave this way until it was called out. From this moment on I made a choice to change and a whole new world of love and connection opened up. This was a huge gift for me and everyone I come into contact with.
Interesting Leonne, some years back I too had a similar experience not being quite as open as I felt with a shop assistant and realised the protection I was holding, keeping people at a distance by controlling the amount of communication – to what I wanted, without considering another’s. I realised then that (and how much) we all like and want connection. And so, since then, this has been my way with shop assistants, to the point that they/the activity of connection, brings me back if I’m ‘out’ or ever feeling discombobulated. It is such joy to be welcomed by them whenever I’m out shopping (!)
Great article Heather thank you. I started to look back at the reasons why I still allow certain things to hold me back from my true expression, and how we let the outside world affect what we know to be true.
‘I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.’ Like overeating, once we start it’s hard to stop and we end up in a worse state. It’s an addiction, we can indulge in negative thoughts about ourselves and everything around us confirms those thoughts. When we appreciate who we are and how far we have come, and look at our ‘mistakes’ in a less critical light, we can move forwards into the true joy that is our natural state.
I agree Carmen, indulging in negative thoughts is an addiction as it that way of living has become so familiar to us, we always end up in that pit. Appreciation of the choices that we have made and choosing to be present in our bodies to the best of our abilities is a way to break this negative pattern and allow us to be more caring and loving with ourselves.
Yes Carmel, appreciation is crucial in moving forwards. Indulging in beliefs and thoughts which keep me locked in old patterns simply create more of the same. I found appreciating my qualities quite alien at first but this has grown the more I re-connect to me and say no to those negative thought’s.
Thanks Heather. Reading this made me wonder about my break taking at work. I’ve just started a new job and hardly take a break at all.. Now I have a little hint into why.
What a delightful and honest blog – thank you.
It has taken a while to believe that I am good enough no matter what happens in life. Self doubt is a disease well worth erasing.
Yes Matthew and a life without self doubt is a very natural one.
This is great Matthew and so true. Self doubt is so harmful and by erasing it we return to our natural state of being and self nurturing. That is pretty awesome.
‘Self doubt is a disease’, oh yes so true Matthew Brown, it a disease with life limiting symptoms. We should treat it very seriously.
‘Self doubt is a disease’ – SPOT ON! It’s a disease that spreads very fast if not caught early on, and an imposter that will affect every part of your life.
A difficult time for me is when I have build a certain level of self-care and then seemingly drop. Again it is asked of me to self-care and realize that much more is at play than just a self-abusive choice. A beautiful way to look at it is to see: what has been self-caring for me in the past is now abusive because I live much more love on a daily basis than before. Having this in mind I can move forward joyfully.
But isn’t that a trick that is being played against us Felix? Are we actually dropping or is it that we are just being asked to take it up another notch as that level of care we were at now needs to be greater.
Really good point to ponder tonysteenson, perhaps in feeling like we have ‘dropped’ it is easier to go into the negative thoughts that keep us down – when if we look at the signals suggesting that we have ‘dropped’, we might find it is an opportunity to grow. I certainly have found this – thinking I had somehow dropped when actually I hadn’t – I had just come to a new level of self-awareness to step into and found space and a necessity to self-care more deeply in order to grow even more… and that felt great!
Why is it that we so often think of the negative when something arises, as the saying goes the glass is always half full but we see it as half empty. The mind is definitely causing us an issue in this instance when there is actually not an issue at all, just an opening for expansion.
felixschumacher8 I love what you are sharing here, it is that constant fine-tuning of the level of self-care that is needed as we choose to be more love in our lives.
It’s a super important point, there is always a constant fine tuning when it comes to how we care for ourselves, it’s amazing how even when we appear to have mastered it there is a much greater depth we can go to.
“If I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me,”
“bring more presence and a deeper level of care”
“I now have a growing awareness of the choices I’m making on a daily basis which keep me feeling racy – avoiding the stillness”. These quotes really resounded in me, related to me in a timely fashion and reminded me of the true responsibility here to choose. Thank you Heather.
I love your honesty here Heather and can relate to all you have written! When I first heard about the concept of self care and self love through Universal Medicine I created a mental tick box job sheet that I thought would bring me very quick success. It proved to be very unsuccessful. As you shared it is all about quality and whilst this is very much still unfolding for me I can now feel an enormous amount of joy when carrying out the most simple of tasks whether it is, for example,folding clothes to put in drawers or cooking yummy food.
Most people I feel can relate to holding themselves back for fear of what others may think. Thank you Heather for sharing with us that there is a way of living that can support us to stand within ourselves and express from there without worrying about how we will be received. It is all about staying true to ourselves, which requires a commitment to self-care and self-love.
I can feel your strength in this Elizabeth, we do worry a lot about how we will look and end up looking less because of our holding back who we truly are – a catch 22 that keeps us constantly less – and perhaps even on purpose – not willing to face the responsibility and power of being all who we are.
It just makes perfect sense to put ourselves first and treat ourselves with the love and respect we have always deserved. Thank you Universal Medicine for showing me the way back to a path I had long forgotten…
I can definitely relate to so much of what you have said Heather , from the putting work and others a head of my own needs of self care and love . Also the part about learning to express and deliver and not hold back from speaking the truth, when it needs to be expressed as it can allow and empower another to do the same. Well done , there is so much to re learn in love and life 🙂
Thank you Heather for reminding me that “I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief”. I can be my own worst enemy and yet I have had glimpses of what it feels like to be entirely connected, it is delightful and liberating. So I keep on learning.
Hi Heather, I enjoyed reading your blog and the words that stood out for me this morning were “I’ve observed by believing that I am not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” I have over time discovered that also – awesome revelation isn’t it, and the other thing that I have observed is that by learning to appreciate me more truthfully and lovingly, knowing that I am more than it would appear to be on the surface has the affect of magnetically pulling me to experience a deeper love, a love of grace and wisdom – that is for me I feel another awesome revelation of note. I give thanks for the grace of having met Serge Benhayon some years ago, and the choice I made then to attend the presentations of Universal Medicine for the opportunity to learn to be more aware of my past behaviours and patterns.
Beautiful blog, and something I am sure everyone can relate to in one way or another.
It can become hard to take that time to truly care for and love yourself with all of the pressures that life brings, but definitely something to be consistent with as the body will thank you immensely for it!
Yes Thomas, it takes real commitment to not get distracted by the pressures and busyness of life but it’s so worth while to build consistency. Deepening my commitment to self-care just keeps bringing greater awareness in my body and it feels so supportive and loving to develop this relationship with myself.
I am thrilled to read this Heather! How super honest and it reflects absolutely where I find myself at – making self-loving choices but in what quality – what is still driving the choices? I too am still feeling the attachment to self-loathing which drives my disregard. My life is certainly improved and a miracle to where it was 6 years ago but there is still tension and exhaustion. How amazing to observe this, be honest and look at the effect of these choices so we can take responsibility for them – until there is honesty and responsibility to see where we are really at, we are stuck. Once there is willingness to go there, then we can let it go with the will and intention to deepen to a true level of self-love. Let’s keep bringing on this commitment to go deeper and deeper with this kind of relationship with ourselves.
Thank you Heather.
In my understanding, self-love is an ongoing relationship with ourselves that never stops or reaches its final end, as we grow and change and as life changes too, we are constantly learning what self-love is.
Heather you have shared much that I can relate to. It has taken me a long time to change the quality of my morning routine. I would always getup and get on with things because of a feeling that I needed to get things done before I showered. I am now loving putting the focus on myself and showering first and taking a lot of time to get ready before I start my tasks. Interestingly I feel that I am able to get more done.
A great reminder to feel the quality in each action … the body certainly responds.
I know this very well, putting pressure on me to please, to be this and be that – but really all I can be is me and that is quite enough.
Hear hear Judith, that is quite enough.
What exquisite and inspiring honesty Heather, thank you for writing. I appreciate how you looked at the basics of your self care and the quality of how you were doing these basic things like how we eat, how we shower and dress and exercise. I surprise myself at times when I sit down to use the bathroom by how much I actually needed to go and didn’t register it, or how if I have registered it I find myself doing one more thing when the signal in my body is telling me using the bathroom is the first thing to attend to – how much more basic can it be? I have found the same thing with thirst and how I can get caught up and even feel the thirst but not attend to it. I would call these things self care but I find there are also many aspects of self love that are being developed at the same time, that were not so obvious to me until I heard Serge Benhayon speak. He opened self-love far beyond the basics and I can now feel the lack of self love in so many more areas of my life, not as a critique though- its been the opposite actually- it has been freeing and deeply confirming as it resonates with what I felt was true but did not have the courage to disentangle from pleasing others and choose it. Sometimes in the midst of re-discovering self-love, the disentangling feels messy but there is so much support provided by Universal Medicine teachings, Serge Benhayon, the Practitioners and Esoteric Healing Therapies, the messy pales in comparison to what is a very fun way to live.
Awesome blog, Heather. I really love how the blogs from students of Universal Medicine are always reflecting back to me the same processes I go through! Self-love IS the key, it unlocks so much that’s been waiting within to be lived and expressed.
Learning to respect for me and my body has been a huge step and still is a work in project, as there always seems to be a new level to it. Feeling the support that comes from it is just incredibly beautiful.
Lets make it fun – thats the crucial point. Bringing this lightness together with responsibility will let us grow and blossom.
I would also attest to the fact that Serge Benhayon was the first person that shared with me the fact that the body is one of the greatest gifts as its the marker of all truth. That by taking time to listen to the body and not numb it out we have everything we need to feel what true choices we can make. It makes complete sense then that by deepening the care and respect for my body everyone benefits.
When I found Universal Medicine and reawakened the understanding that my body was the key to pretty much everything, I realised how much of life is asking me to function like a walking head – in total disregard of the body as a whole! Self-care takes on a whole new light with the awareness that my body holds the key to everything I tried to attain in my head!
Learning to listen to the messages of the body takes a willingness to face up to what it is telling us. I find that the messages that my body gives me are so accurate but I have to be willing to listen and learn. An example of this might be if I find a small bruise on my body and I can’t remember banging into anything I know that I have not been present with myself because if I had I would know how and when I got it.
Elizabeth this is very true – I too have noticed that if I am willing to listen and learn, my body will tell me everything I need to know.
Excellent blog Heather I learnt a lot from it, particularly what you said about the desire to please others and how exhausting that is.
‘…it’s taken me a long time to acknowledge the depth of disregard I’ve had and still have for my body.’ I can relate to this Heather. Like you, I’ve been aware of this concept for a while but am still discovering the subtleties of self-abuse. The overt examples are clear to see, it’s the smaller ways I can harm myself that are far less obvious.
‘If I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me, and all the ways in which I choose to numb and override what my body feels, then it would be my best friend…’. Gorgeous – words to live by Heather, thank you.
We are the creators of how and what our lives are like – be it joy and love or misery.
Realising that all of this is but our choice and choosing to take the responsibility for our lives is probably the most powerful choice we can make.
It is such a beautiful concept to think of and treat your body as your best friend, one who will support you to live the love you know you are – listening and respecting it through self-care to self-love in a forever deepening and unfolding relationship. Gorgeous and totally inspiring.
Heather, I can relate to everything you share here about deepening our self-love and self-regard by simply bringing in a much deeper respect for our body. The disrespect that we place on ourselves when we go about pleasing is nasty — and it’s also rife! We have been so accustomed ever since being young to be polite and nice — and whereas there’s nothing wrong with polite as such, the message most of us got was that it’s more important to display politeness than our true feelings. Letting ourselves be real, humble and honest in all facets of our life is so self-loving and a very inspiring reflection for everyone around us as well.
“I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life”. This is something I have felt also. I can see how once I discovered one area of disregard I’ve been living in, there’s another one one I’m hiding from myself. I can see my resistance to seeing it so I don’t have to feel it.
I wonder if it is actually our resistance we feel or a learned behaviour, as we all want joy and love in our life so why would we have a resistance to making choices that result in it. Maybe this learned way is so familiar we follow it before we give ourselves a chance to REALLY feel what it is we want??
Changing some of my ingrained habits has been a bit like turning an oil tanker, it takes a while and a lot of focus and commitment, but once the course is reset things really start to flow. I have wondered along the way how I will manage all the attention to detail but of course the new choices to take care of myself become, in quite a short space of time, my new normal…creating space for the next development. A super accessible article about the power of our everyday choices, thank you, Heather.
I smile – as consistently the way I think things will work out, isn’t what happens, yet still I can go into thinking so easily instead of trusting that my body does know what to do…in its own way as you write Matilda continuously creates new normals.
I can really relate to this blog Heather. Being hard on myself does stop me from feeling. After spending a lifetime not practising self-love I am finding I have to make a conscious choice to change my ways. Every self-loving act increases my awareness and I feel more.
Yes Bernard, love keeps building, the more we commit and dedicate ourselves to being loving and caring the deeper this love keeps going. And we’ll forever be riding pockets, ever so tiny at times where we can bring more love and understanding with ourselves and with others. It’s the most beautiful journey to be on 🙂
There are many things we do because we have deemed them normal, like drinking alcohol or eating diary, or going on holidays, now these are more obvious ones but what I know is that most things I was doing was because I thought it was normal according to societies standard.I have stopped many of these so called “normal” ways and am doing things from listening to my self, many people now see me as”abnomal” where as I regard myself as being normal in a real way.
Great point Mary-Louise. There are many behaviours, less obvious than the ones you’ve named, that we have because of what is ‘normal’ by societies standards… These actions and ways of life are silently crippling, and overtime the behaviours try to dilute our true self and stop us from having a strong connection with our body. It’s super important that we call these behaviours out, as Heather has done in her blog and you have in your comment. Then in no way do they have the same hold on us!
There days the ‘check in’ is just so natural it’s like breathing. It’s such a lovely way to live, always assessing and connecting to keep myself on track. I couldn’t live any other way.
I agree Matthew ,it is such an awesome way to live with the knowingness that we are in control of the quality of our beingness at any time.
Its almost like magic, when you really respct and take care of yourself your whole life changes for the better. Its like everything around you reconfigures to mirror the self love you have for yourself
A few years ago self love and self caring was certainly not a part of my every day living – I only connected to my body if I had a 3 day migraine, or laid out with a bad back or a very sensitive digestive system basically, not performing in a way for me to keep working – a constant in my life was a hot bath at the end of the day. That was not self loving at all living with a constant ‘push’ to keep going with a ‘no matter what’ attitude. This has considerably changed since I attended presentations by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine also attending the amazing Women’s presentations offered by Natalie Benhayon and Sara Williams. Yes I’m finally learning to respect my body and what a difference – so thank you Heather for this awesome blog reminding me of what a difference it makes to choose to feel and listen and respect my body and what amazing changes this can bring.
I loved reading your comment Marion. It is interesting how we use things like hot baths to try and recover from the end of award day but neglect to address the way of living that made things so hard in the first place. I recently discovered that I get really nervous about simple things like writing an email or completing a chore when there is actually nothing to stress about. Just addressing this alone has made a huge difference to the way I feel throughout the day.
It’s quite amazing that so many people, like myself, lived in a way that didn’t treasure or look after our bodies. I remember “thinking” what a hindrance my body is and that I have many things to create or do that I can’t if I get sick or tired. Now I see my body as a blessing, as something to value and to treasure as with this care I feel what life is truly about. That it’s not about accumulating, looking the best or doing the most things but about the quality of my being.
This is a fabulous blog. It brings up so many of the issues we face when we start to self-care. Caring for ourselves should be easy, all other animals do it without thinking, they just listen to their bodies and respond to nature. It is awesome to have a road map for some of the issues that can come up to get in the way. Pressures we perceive and respond to outside of us is a big one for most of us, but the simplicity of feeling what’s right in our body is always there.
It was a huge wake up call for me, when I came to the realisation of just how much I had abused my body through smoking, alcohol, an unhealthy diet, etc. At the same time, it was very healing to know that I had the power within me to reverse this unhealthy trend. Now I am aware of the importance of respecting my body, by taking tender loving care of myself.
I love how you have written this, Elizabeth – no regrets or guilt about choices past but an openness to learn and change – thank you.
I was having thoughts about my body in the morning while having a shower and moisturising. At some point I stopped appreciating it because it started to age, wrinkles appeared, some places become saggy, ageing spots etc. But in truth it is the same MY body, miraculously caring me through everything in my life. It is with me 24/7 and it is strong and beautiful.
Your article, Heather, with so many aspects to ponder, was another confirmation how important our relationship with our body and self care is. Thank you.
“I’m much more respectful of my body now compared to how I used to be but it’s taken me a long time to acknowledge the depth of disregard I’ve had and still have for my body.” I would echo this Heather. I am now more aware of deeper aspects of disregard as I peel away the layers of protection that I – falsely – believed were supporting me. . Without undue focus on the disregard or giving myself a hard time I am using this awareness as an opportunity to make new choices. Accepting where I am currently at and appreciating how far I – and others – have come is also so supportive.
I was like you Heather, I thought staying up late drinking alcohol, working until I was exhausted was normal until I attended Universal Medicine’s presentations. Knowing these were not normal was almost a relief, but then as I started to understand that there were many ideals and beliefs that I carried about how I lived my life that were not true. These were so ingrained in me it has taken a long time to see how they play out in my life and how much they affected me and everyone around me. The consistent and constant love that is presented through Serge Benhayon who lives everything he presents has allowed me to see and feel what self love and love really mean and that I too can live in this way.
We are truly blessed by the fact that we have met Serge Benhayon and accepted the stop moment he offers, to take stock of the body and realise where we have been and what have we done to ourselves by ‘living’.
And to make the choice to make love our way and start to live by the fact that everything is energy and nothing else.
Heather I too have had to be honest with myself and come back to the basics because I can feel myself avoiding deep abiding self-love. It feels connected not only with self-worth but also to my willingness to take responsibility for the part I can play in life – if I do not back myself up with a true foundation of love then of course I will never feel ‘good enough’. Time to end this game and focus on bringing true quality into the self-loving choices that I make.
“I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.”
Ouch … but so very true – I have been a master at this. How lovely to be reminded that I can simply choose to accept that I am amazing instead.
Yes this is a classic – I too have been very good at this Leonne.
Learning to listen and then take notice of what my body is saying is an ongoing process and some days it’s like I take five steps forward and three back – then I remember the days when my body was rigid and I had only pain as my marker and did not have the awareness I have now.
With awareness I now understand that there is more going on than just having a physical pain and having to put up with it, I can now ask why I have the pain and what choices have led me up to that point.
Heather, as I was raised believing that I had to put others first and myself last, self-love and self-care were initially difficult concepts for me to accept. However after meeting Serge Benhayon and attending his presentations, it became obvious that if I could not love and care for self then I could not love another. Like you, I now know that ‘self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all’.
I have also had an experience today of holding back what I felt to say, playing it out in my head saying is it okay to say this? Then it came out with hesitation and not the power and clarity it could have been said with. Why – because I was worried about what the other person might think or say – but in truth this serves no one, and is a simple choice to keep calling in comfort and making it about self. A great way to avoid responsibility, being seen and power.
Gyl I totally relate to what you have shared and how this stops us from being truly loving as to manipulate and hold back for all sorts of seemingly good reasons is just living a contracted small life. Just yesterday I shared what I felt and it lead to a much greater expression being shared by the other person which lead to greater understanding. This in self care and love.
Absolutely Vannesahawthorne expressing our truth is far more feeing for all, including our bodies – it opens up a space, in and around us – rather than holding back and clogging up the space.
When we speak through what I call a filter, the other person doesn’t hear or feel the truth and that’s what they react to or resist. When we speak straight from our heart, people may not like what is said, but they feel the truth of it.
I agree Sandra, reminds me of when a person asked a class how do you take a photo of someone and make them look like your equal …. ( they were looking for technicality) I cheekily and truthfully said ‘ hold them as your equal when you take the photo’ – the guy just laughed and literally couldn’t speak, he tried to, but couldn’t disagree – as they knew it was the truth. All done with a smile and playfullness.
Heather this is a great blog and thank you for sharing – ” if I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me, and all the ways in which I choose to numb and override what my body feels, then it would be my best friend ” how simple is this – it just makes sense, it would take a lot of time and energy to argue with this, which is exhausting in itself – but is that not what we do when we choose to override the simplicity of what our body is asking us to live. I know for me that is the truth.
Futile arguments or willing allegiance to a great ally – our bodies – love it, Gyl, thank you.
“I have become more aware of how I hold myself back from expressing what I feel for fear of what others may think of me.”
This has been a huge awareness for me, I have always felt the holding back and the discomfort in this choice; but I am now making more loving choices in self care and learning to respect my body as a foundational support to me – which “at times can be uncomfortable” and amazing healing as well.
Lynda I have the same fear ‘what others will think of me’ so I’ve become this person that is serious so people can’t see the real me. It has sucked all the fun out of me and I can feel in my body that this way of living is not natural. This way of living is not self loving as I am ignoring the beautiful natural fun loving me that my body can easily express because it’s who I am. It’s time to get my self love on.
I can relate to this fear too Lindell and Lynda, and I know that I can take life as something very serious instead of playful which I feel deep inside is my true nature.
“My understanding of Universal Medicine’s teachings is that self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all.” Self-love is key- rediscovering the tender woman I am is a beautiful journey.
So true sueq2012, it is indeed a beautiful journey.
Its amazing what we will do to ourselves, to not feel what is truly within and not even consciously recognize what we are doing ourselves. We know the body doesn’t like it, but the mind over rules it. Why??? Who is in control of the mind? I wonder… why do we have so much disregard for our body?
” some of the choices I had been making – such as drinking alcohol, taking drugs, staying up late, working till I was exhausted and certain food choices – were all ways of living that I considered normal.” And so many of us used to live this way. What is ‘normal’ about living in exhaustion and needing a caffeine fix before you even start your day? I prefer my current natural rhythm and now listen more to my body, not over-riding what it tells me – and if I do – I now know I’m doing that. More self-responsibility – and thus better health too.
True Sue, so many people accept being tired all the time as something that they just have to put up with, and use caffeine and sugar as props to keep going. As these substances are addictive, their lives become a cycle of more exhaustion, more caffeine, more sugar, on a hamster wheel of existence. Thats not living, thats not how our lives were meant to be.
Hi Heather, i love reading your blog and have experienced much you have so powerfully shared like : “It was enlightening and empowering to hear that my body is a marker of truth: if I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me, and all the ways in which I choose to numb and override what my body feels, then it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.” Yesterday i experienced that when i get tired i can stop and rest for some minutes to than continue or i can eat something to get going which is not respectful to my body. If i honor what my body feels this is beautiful and supportive to do.
Hi Heather, i love reading your blog and have experienced much you have so powerfully shared like : “It was enlightening and empowering to hear that my body is a marker of truth: if I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me, and all the ways in which I choose to numb and override what my body feels, then it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.” Yesterday i experienced that when i get tired i can stop and rest for some minutes to than continue or i can eat something to get going which is not respectful to my body. If i honor what my body feels this is beautiful and supportive to do.
I really related to the gradual unfolding of respect for oneself and your body that you described Heather. As soon as I consider and self-care myself more, I find that others respect and consider me more also.
Yes Jenny I wholeheartedly agree with you. When I show true care and respect I always see a greater care from others and it also offers help too.
Jenny I completely agree, the more we respect and care for ourselves, the more respect and care we get from others. It also inspires them to take care for themselves, it’s like a ripple affect.
That’s my experience too Jenny, people feel the truth of how we look after ourselves and it does give them an opportunity to do the same for themselves.
‘I’ve become more aware of how I hold myself back from expressing what I feel for fear of what others may think of me!’ This is a great awareness to foster, Heather, and sometimes a confronting one when I really get to feel how poisonous it is for my body to hold back my natural expression. I’ve recently come to see how this holding back links with a stubbornness in me and is not just about what others may think.
I really loved reading your take on the need to please Heather. I can absolutely relate to this. I can see that when I do things to please others I deny myself the opportunity to connect to any true purpose and this leaves me feeling exhausted and uninspired.
I had this experience today of pleasing people, where you stay in a conversation just so the other person doesn’t get offended that you must move on.
Instead you wait for a gap to say I’m off but the gap never comes so you begin to check out and not pay attention. You leave the conversation feeling exhausted and heavy headed.
Wow Luke that happens to me too, and it really does affect how I feel afterwards. I’m learning to see that situation coming and make a tactical withdrawal, its work in progress, I have to keep reminding myself that being nice and polite doesn’t serve me, or the person I am interacting with.
agree who and what does being nice and polite serve?
Something that has long fooled me that it was a pillar of being a good person.
However from the example above it enabled me to disassociate myself from another.
Rather if I said “sorry mate I must stop you there” That would associate myself to that person a lot more rather then checking out.
I do that all the time Luke…. It feels awful too because the other person can feel you are not really “with them” sometimes I feel that this is why they keep talking and talking – chasing a sense of connection that is absent from the interaction. In the end we all walk away feeling discontent at best and deep sadness at worst. Pleasing is not nice at all.
agree Leonne. “chasing a sense of connection”. it is like they are trying to regain our attention. A devilish game of both parties.
highlighting is a great place to start as I know from writing about the experience it has allowed me to become more aware next time I start ‘looking for the gap’.
Thank-you for such an honest sharing Heather, and one full of such appreciation for the steps we can all, truly take for ourselves. I can totally relate to your words at the outset about what you thought to be ‘normal’ – and realising just how not normal it was to live in everyday abusive patterns.
To steadily take the steps to come out of this, and find oneself so much more vital, joyful and committed to every day, is truly amazing. And the lightness of heart with which you describe this, revealing a depth of love in which you hold yourself through such awarenesses and change, is I agree, most definitely the key (self-flagellation being but one more way to abuse oneself…). Simply awesome.
Self care really does open the door to what is already within us. Each and every bit of care adds a little more quality to everything we do and the resultant state of being is simply beautiful.
This is a great sharing Heather. Self-love is such a simple fundamental thing, but for those of us not in the habit find it challenging, and the lack of self-love is revealed. Bringing more presence to the everyday tasks like you have done really pays off.
‘Self-love means living in a way that is respectful of myself – making loving choices for my body.’ This is so true Heather and developing this respect for self then allows me to deepen my respect for all others. It is so powerful and a daily activity.
Briliant article really. It is so important for us all to know again that by taking care of ourselves and our body – it opens up a way to being us – which is absolute love. Just by doing this so step by step we will all end up sharing the same love with everyone – until we have everyone around us reflecting love(by living it so)- then we have true religion and true harmony on earth.
Definitely Heather, one I still have to watch out for is, ‘wanting to please others and not honouring how I feel is another great way to deplete myself. What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!’ This is so draining and not honouring of our selves.
Thank you for sharing Heather. Your observations and more awareness is inspirational. I have spent most of my life in fear of what other people will think of me. How crazy is that ! This awareness for me has been life changing.
Lovely Heather. It’s beautiful how you can see and appreciate the changes you’ve made and also nominate the areas that still need attention. I have come to understand that this journey is a forever deepening, learning and unfolding and one that is well worth it.
Great blog and comments too. It is really great to get the refelctions which developing self caring bring because the more I care the more easily I continue to care and when I don’t then that too is my momentum. Its all reflections of my choices.
The more I feel how truly beautiful it is to be more energetically aware and connected to who I truly am, the more I am inspired to self-care.
Such a beautiful sharing Heather – so much of what you have shared resonated for me also. I avoided any stillness within me for a very long while – filling any spare moments with being ‘busy’ physically demanding jobs and yes numbing myself from truly feeling. Our bodies are amazing at giving us a true update of how we are living – appreciating those still moments to connect,stop and truly feel where we are at.
In life it is so easy to forget you body and push through – forget to take a break, or drink water on a hot day are simple examples, or more extreme example of self harm and eating disorders. In both cases a lack of care, respect and love is present for the body. So many women especially, suffer from a lack of self worth, leading to them having little resect for their bodies. And yet, as I am slowly discovering, the only way to finally heal the crippling lack of self worth is to take the leap of faith and love my self. As you say Heather, for me its starts with baby steps – self care – caring for myself as I would a baby, staying warm, keeping clean and exercising, eating nutritious food and drinking plenty of water.
“It was enlightening and empowering to hear that my body is a marker of truth” is so true Heather yet we are never taught this from young! Quite the opposite – we are taught to take notice of things outside of us to tell us what to do and how to be and we grow up in total ignorance of the fact that our own body has a voice if only we stop and listen. If we do stop and listen to our own body and live from our own truth, then life becomes very different.
This is very true for me too Heather, ‘It’s uncomfortable but interesting to observe the patterns where I’m still disregarding my body because of external pressures.’ I have been learning to self-care which has felt lovely, but when I do not care for myself and instead I am disregarding and override what my body feels it is very noticeable and feels awful, which then presents me with a choice to carry on with the disregard or to make a different, more honouring choice.
“My understanding of Universal Medicine’s teachings is that self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all.” Yes Heather what I love about the presentations by Universal Medicine is there are NO rules, NO imposition just love. It is simple when we lovingly start to listen to our bodies so much is revealed.
Self care and being deeply respectful and gentle to my body provides every day a new level of learning and understanding.
I loved reading this Heather and relate to so much of what you write. I know that my body truly is my best friend if I listen to it and take care of it, however at times I make it far too complicated but it really is that simple, listen and it will give me everything, ‘supporting me to live the Love that I know I am.’ Ah there is such grace in this. Thank you.
Great revelation: The hardness creeps in when I put pressure on myself to get something done. The mind takes over, gets driven and overrides the lovely tenderness of the body. I am learning to be consistent in my pursuits so that the push to do more or complete something doesn’t need to come in. It feels like a stepping back from the actions that the mind will have me do and really considering the whole picture and then choosing from that awareness.
Thank you Heather for your blog, I can really relate to what you have said, like you I have found it difficult to self love due to lack of self worth, that I have had for myself most of my life, and also being there to please others. Thankfully to Serge and Universal Medicine this has slowly been changing, and I am starting to enjoy being there for me the true me, and gradually bringing that love into all aspects of my daily living.
That’s a great point about putting pressure on ourselves to please – and how freeing it is to let this go.
True Fiona – to let this go is life changing.
Time and consistency has revealed me that bringing myself back to the basics –self care.
Respectful of myself reflects back to others. Not the other way around by putting pressure on myself to please others. Living becomes simple and uncomplicated when we listen to that knowing in our body even though it may be a little uncomfortable. From each moment there is a wonder of lovingly holding ourselves in everything that we do, playfully so.
Heather, there are so many gems for me in your blog. To acknowledge and truly feel the disregard for our bodies which we have been living in is huge. I am really appreciating my body now and the messages it brings to me and am aware of how easy it is for me to override the messages which may be a bit more challenging for me to admit and to take the next step which may bring me a greater connection to me.
Heather I really love this blog. It’s really supported me to realise that there is so much to just doing the self loving thing but it is the quality I do the activity that matters.
How to bring quality to what I was doing used to be a bit of a mystery. I am discovering connecting with myself and taking no notice of outside approval is where I am able to discern the quality I am in is. I’ve read about it so many times but never took the action to focus on me before.
To make it usual practice means choosing to focus on me lots more than I have ever done. And not get caught up in where I am in the process. So no judgements just appreciation for my understandings so far.
Great blog Heather. A world of wise insight into why I find it hard to be self loving at times- because I’ve had so much of the not self loving .. It’s like a steam train your trying to stop and go the other direction, you can’t just suddenly change the pace and direction when it’s going at crazy speeds.
“We learn more from our mistakes than from our victories”
A common saying.
There are many truths in this sentence. Our bodies are a marker of truth and therefore at the beginning of anyone’s development to be more self loving they can learn more from their mistakes. However, I’ve also found that when someone becomes more aware of one’s self then they can learn equally from their mistakes and victories. As our victories can also confirm what is right for us and are naturally a joy to live.
Every time I think I know what self love is, I open a new depth to it and realise that there is so much more. It’s an amazing practice to enjoy and leaves no time for self abuse. Appreciate you taking the time to write this blog Heather as it sets a great reminder and is very supportive. It’s like you have built a bench in a park for people to sit down and appreciate the beauty on 🙂
Thank you Heather, reading your blog this morning one line stood out ‘supporting me to live the Love that I know I am’ – I am only just starting to grasp how much my body helps me and that it is in fact my best friend, if I allow it to be.
I find it so easy to be in the doing without conscious presence and it is so important to have a break so we can reconnect with our body, the quality of work we can bring after that is so different.
So true and important to continually choose to be connected and listening to our body, and the little love messages it continually gives us if we listen.
“when I chose to bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities I noticed just how much I lacked bringing any true quality to these moments.” I love your honesty Heather. Recognising where we are truly at is the first step and coming back to basics is never time wasted – re-imprinting every aspect of how we go about our daily lives. Self-care and nurturing is forever deepening for me – what sufficed last year no longer serves.
Heather your refreshing blog encourages me to keep refining the details, the simple daily rituals, domestic chores, and to stay present when “doing” anything. I know that this is the way to keep my body harmonious and not stressed or overwhelmed.
Thank you Heather. I’m now able to acknowledge the feeling of tension and hardness that comes when trying to please others. It has been a long pattern of behaviour for me which I imposed on myself because of beliefs and ideals about the person I should present to the world. Feeling that I can be myself and that the world will not fall apart around me is very liberating.
Thankyou Heather. Taking it back to self-care as the step before self love makes so much sense. This world is set up so that we don’t self love from every angle, lack of self worth is fostered and disconnection to the body championed on a massive scale. All this so that we don’t live the love that we are. How mighty this loved we are must be.
If we truly understood how mighty this love is Simone, our world would not be in the mess it is! We cannot ever take our attention from this truth and self care is the beginning as Heather has so beautifully presented here.
Heather I especially enjoyed reading how you bring more prescence and a deeper level of care to ‘ these everyday activities’ such as the way we brush our hair. This seems to be a key factor in developing true quality in our self care. This is a great reminder for me, to be more aware of how I do these things for myself.
Me too Sue – its starting with the simple every day things and doing them in a more loving way is how we start to make big changes overall. And it could even start with the way I type this response.
So many things are seen as ‘normal’ because we have watched our parents do them and have also done them ourselves all our life. We are surrounded by the normality of abnormality and an acceptance of ‘this is the way life is’. No wonder it is difficult to see through or beyond these walls, but it is beautiful real life stories like yours Heather that slice a wedge in these walls and show that there is another way.
And as more and more individuals choose, to the best of their ability, to embrace care, respect and honouring of themself through life as Heather has been, the ‘normal’ will return to one of love and care of ourself and one another.
And then we will all understand Golnaz that our bodies are ‘to be respected and treasured’ as Heather so beautifully expresses.
Yes Golnaz, well said – choosing to be more respectful of our body and building a more loving relationship with ourselves naturally leads to a greater awareness and connection with others. So needed in our world today!
Heather you’ve bought a whole new depth to respecting the body in that not only is it not about the junk food you don’t choose to consume but also about the very thoughts you don’t allow in your body as “believing I’m not good enough” is just as harming if not more harming. When we talk about self-care this certainly adds a level of real responsibility.
It is so interesting how as a society we consider not looking after ourselves to be “normal”. Drinking alcohol, taking drugs, exhausting ourselves are all considered to be a part of being “normal” yet none of these are good for our health. We definitely need to have a new normal and your blog Heather shows how that is done. Thank you.
Bring on the New Normal 🙂
I second that Simone, wouldn’t it be great if self-care was the new normal, and wherever you went self-care was supported. Then we would have a society which was a self-caring one.
Let’s introduce the difference between normal and natural!
Elizabeth, well said we need to bring on the new normal, focusing in self care, as the normal that the world is caught up in, is very harming to self and everyone around, especially with the alcohol, drugs, and exhaustion.
It is really weird that the self-harming behaviours you mention Elizabeth, like taking drugs and drinking alcohol are considered ‘fun’ and working ourselves into a state of exhaustion is unavoidable or even ‘the right thing to do’. As a society taking care of ourselves and our bodies is not really on the radar at all in a true way. Although we are taught about diet and exercise it is functional and not coming from the place of caring very tenderly for ourselves because we value and appreciate ourselves.
To listen to my body is so crucial, but sometimes still pressure and stress are creeping in. This is a call to look if I am self loving in my other choices, so to speak take the time to care for myself.
kerstinsalzer15 it is a great reminder, as soon as I feel any stress or tension creeping into my body, to take note of it and not simply let it run wild! The more I listen to my body, the more attuned I am becoming to it so the more I can sense the subtle changes and catch them before they have completely take over me!
Thank you for your sharing Heather. I have also been feeling a growing awareness and also the feeling of being uncomfortable. As you have said here, I too am learning to really appreciate both of these feelings as I understand that they are part of the process of knowing myself more and allowing more of me to shine.
Indeed wanting to please others and doing things sometimes at my own or my body’s expense is a sure fire way to exhaust myself. There might be a short term gain in terms of approval or recognition but in the end I deplete myself or become resentful when my own needs are not met by others.
This is so true Jenny. The short term gain of approval or recognition has no substance and leaves me feeling flat, empty and needy and then wanting more recognition and approval. Developing self care and supporting my body has developed a more loving relationship with myself and supported me to meet me which means I am less needy for the outer to meet me. The freedom of this is a joy 🙂
Your willingness to keep looking behind the habitual behaviours is inspiring, Heather, and shows me the extraordinary opportunities and forever unfolding-ness of life. Thank you.
” self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all”
I have just completed a mini detox and have found how self judgement and judgement of others can be so harming- allowing other thoughts such as self loathing, and not feeling worthy of love or good enough to fester. The bottom line is that it is not self love.
I have been reminded of feeling and knowing that within us all is a sacredness, preciousness, tenderness and divine beauty waiting to bloom for all to see.
Self care is the essential ingredient to truly heal the body. No other person can do this but ourselves. We actually have to take the steps and there is no magic pill or potion that magically heals. Even though self care seems simple and easy, the momentum of the life we live challenges us. Behind the simplicity of self care is a science, an energetic science that is quite amazing.
As you say Matthew ‘there is no majic pill or potion that majically heals’ but awareness, consistency, dedication in every day living. Each day brings it’s new (or same) tests for us to play with. I observed myself yesterday and saw that how easy it can be to slip back into an old pattern.
And the important part is to play with and be joyful with the tests and lessons – they are an amazing support if we see them as such.
Thanks Michael for the reminding us that tests an lessons can be playful and joyful friends.
Matthew yes I totally agree, although I know in the past I have wanted others to care about me (more than I cared for myself), and got upset when I felt they hadn’t. With some self reflection, and by attending workshops presented by Serge Benhayon, Natalie Benhayon and Sara Williams, I was able to see I wasn’t actually caring for myself that well and my relationship with myself was not great. As you say ‘Self care is the essential ingredient to truly heal the body.’ By developing a more self loving attitude towards myself, my life has been transformed and its an ongoing development that has me now feeling more positive about life.
Same here Debra. By spending time with myself and developing and deepening a connection to my body through self care and self nurture I have found also many changes taking place in my life.
Thank you Matthew for reminding us that self-care is a science. It somehow offers us an understanding of the respect it deserves.
Thank you Heather, this so beautifully reminds me to take more regular moments to appreciate the little steps I take on this ‘ever-unfolding journey’ to truly care for and cherish my body.
You have nailed it Giselle. It is not about becoming a “perfect wonder of self-love” from one second to another, but about giving ourselves the enormous gift of lovingly holding ourselves in everything that we are and do. You do not need to “built Rome in a day”, just choose to start with what feels possible and realize and appreciate the fact that you have started. Having fun along the way will not do any harm either ;o)
Indeedy Michaelkremer2212, ‘having fun along the way’ is that key vital ingredient, without it I know pretty soon something is missing! The knowing winks along the way sure do feed the fun, thank you! 😉
Here here michaelkremer2212!! I agree with everything you have expressed, also your comments about having fun along the way and being playful and joyful with the lessons that are gifted to us are a great reminder that choosing a lightness of being is also very self loving.
Lovely how you put it. It paves the way to self-love with ease, simplicity and joy. Just get started and keep on walking 🙂
Yes Giselle. Reminding myself to appreciate the moments and little steps of true care is a lovely way to nurture everyday. A beautifully expressed reminder thank you.
Thank you Heather – I can relate to how challenging I have also found it at times to make more loving choices. Often these choices are ones that are quite obvious such as not eating certain foods or taking time to go for walks or go to the gym, yet I struggle to really do them despite knowing how much my body would benefit from it. This is interesting to observe and often once I commit to doing these things I feel like it was crazy that I did not commit to them earlier, and how amazing I feel for having ‘adopted’ more loving ways into my life!
Henrietta I can relate to finding it difficult to stick with making those more loving choices. It’s as if I am saying to myself ‘I’ am not worth the bother. Luckily that is changing now. I do matter and I am worth the bother, but it takes commitment to break the old patterns of giving up on myself. Its so encouraging to read this blog and all the comments.
This is an awesome blog thank you Heather, bringing a very relate-able depth of understanding and practical approach to what healing really means. What you’ve shared makes sense of your statement that “self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all.”
Heather, I could relate to so much of this. I notice how loudly my body speaks to it if I override it – which I still do, although less and less. Overwork is a big one for me, but I’m learning to feel the consequences and that it just doesn’t feel good. It’s not about working less, but about me choosing to work in a way that doesn’t stress me out – staying with myself and being aware of how I’m feeling when I’m working. I’m learning that working can actually be revitalising, but only if I keep being aware of how my body feels, rather than lose myself in my head by trying to control my to-do list or inbox. I also notice how I sometimes blame others/work for ‘stressing me out’, when all that has happened is that I haven’t taken responsibility for stopping when I needed to and looking after myself first. Taking deep care of myself feels so beautiful, but there’s more: the more I do it the steadier I feel and more able to deal with challenges.
Thats the point isn’t it Bryony? Not to stop working or reducing your work but actually being present when you do work! When you commit and are dedicated in your quality then stress doesn’t get a look in. Continually developing this!
Absolutely Vanessa…amazing how commitment and gentle dedication without the drive can dissolve the stress.
So true, the more I do take deep care , the steadier I feel and more able to deal with challenges. It is in the deepening and refining of true self care, that the foundation gets stronger.
I agree, it is the deepening and redefining of self care, that supports the foundation to get stronger and we are then able to face challenges.
I love what you are sharing Bryony. It is true, the more I do things from being connected to my body – the more I can handle things (such as heavy or intense challenges). Well said.
Bryony I agree with what you have said here about blaming others if the going gets tough rather than taking responsibly for oursleves.
And yes…..Taking deeper care really does support a steadiness within.
How very true Bryony.
It is about taking true care of ourselves and being present with ourselves in everything that we do, then all will flow and feel simple and even an amount of work which before felt huge will be easily done.
Thank you Bryony – that’s beautiful what you share here. We spend a lot of time at work so it’s a big arena in which we can use those familiar old patterns and behaviours to keep ourselves from feeling our bodies and the stillness that lies within. I’ve used busy-ness and overwhelm at work to keep me in these old patterns until I realised it was a choice and then like you I have taken steps to support myself and deepen my relationship with my body. I’ve since increased my work load which feels great. I love how being at work is for me now like a school in that I’m re-learning how to be me and stay present amongst all that is presented to me each day.
Heather I love what you shared here, about being at work for you now, is like a school, in that you’re re-learning how to be you and stay present, amongst all that is presented to you each day….so cool.
Living life pleasing others is definitely a way of depleting our bodies of vitality and also the best way to disconnect and abuse our bodies. By introducing self-care into our lives we can start to feel and honour the true beauty and delicateness of who we are.
Very beautiful Francisco. Pleasing others has been huge for me and I still find myself falling back into this old pattern especially at work. Something to lovingly observe this week, because I am not this pleasing energy.
Me too Simone, the concept because I am being paid to serve someone means that I should put up with whatever, it is a crazy notion. I now more so than ever stand up for myself with my bosses and with customers and no longer am the doormat I was to be when I would literally allow people to walk all over me, just so I would please them and so not be hurt or rejected by them!
Yes great stuff. I was good at being nice and like you Francisco, it just depletes and exhausts the body. Saying no to that energy has changed relationships forever.
I agree Simone, work can be a tricky situation where I have been caught time and time again where I have found myself working longer hours and seeing clients because they are in need and felt I am the only one who can help them at that time and couldn’t say no, only to feel the results in my body later on.
I love your reminder that none of us are this pleasing energy. There are a lot of other energies I can also say I’m not. I’ve noticed an energy of fearing potential conflicts at work and fearing wanting to express something but also fearing the reaction to that expression.
It’s great to be able to recognise I am not this worry about the future which isn’t even present. I am not this energy of investing in outcomes, trying to control situations or judging my self worth by these outcomes . I can simply be in the world, know I am everything already and respond to whatever comes my way. Yes, this is a work in progress living this way!
Yes Simone I too can revert back to my old ways as the people pleaser. I can now observe it with less judgement and more loving awareness.
I think that this is a very important point that was made, Francisco, pleasing others is depleting, something to be very aware of when there is the urge to say yes to something that doesn’t feel right just because it keeps the ‘peace’ rather than make the self-honouring choice and say no. Every time we do something to please another we give a little bit of ourselves away.
Great point Josephine – “overtime we do something to please another, we give a little bit of ourselves away” so it is no wonder that our body gets drained because of this. So it makes sense why Exhaustion is sky high today and most people have it. Just not being the real you and taking care of you and honouring what you feel means the body will suffer. Applying practical ways to Live as presented by Serge Benhayon does offer us a life of vitality and for me personally it has brought an end to my moods which used to be up and down. That in itself I am very very thankful for today.
so true Josephine, it feels like giving a part of ourselves away everytime we do something that we know it is not loving for our bodies and at the end we don’t even know who we are as we have lost our sense of our true loving selves
It makes so much sense when you put it like that Francisco, we lose sight of our true loving selves and end up not knowing who we truly are.
Thank you Josephine what you have written here…. it is a great reminder, how depleting it is to say yes, when your body is telling you loud and clear to say no. If we override that feeling to say no…. our body pays for it.
Francisco, great reflection ‘Living life pleasing others is definitely a way of depleting our bodies of vitality’ I recall a time when when pleasing others and putting others firts was my way of living llife and constantly felt drained, but did not know why. Now I know and am enjoying doing things pleasing for me. Nurturing and caring for me is my first priority, with this I find I’m able to give more and still feel replenished.
Yes,It feels awesome to know that the more we love our bodies deeply the more we are loving those we care about.
Heather, I relate to your blog a lot. I am often in a lot of disregard of my body. When I am like this, it’s usually triggered by a feeling of anxiousness and nervous tension in wanting to please others. But the disregard of my body then feels so horrible. What you share is inspiring me to do things like use my lunch break to go for a little walk or do the Gentle Breath Meditation – to keep coming back to my body.
The first time I ever heard of self-love, my only concept of it was that it was something women do. I have over the years found what self-love is, and how it is important to everyone. Without self-love how can we love someone else?
Exactly sjmatsonuk, without self-love how can we possibly know what it feels like to be loving with others.
I feel it is important to highlight what you have shared, Kristy, as everyone does daily self-care tasks such as showering or brushing teeth. But what quality are these every day tasks done in? For me, they were things that I enjoyed sometimes and other times were a bit of a ‘tick the box’ exercise. Nowadays I bring a completely different quality to these tasks. It is a quality of care and loving me, a knowing that these tasks are more than just ticking the box, they are an opportunity for me to spend time with myself – a date with my lovely self in fact!
To become aware of how we are being with ourselves is such a vital step on the road to long lasting change. This blog is an amazing example of this. Thank you Heather for sharing your story.
Super opening sentence, robynjones11. As I bring more and more awareness and understanding to my relationship with me, inspired by the teachings of Universal Medicine, a whole new world of engagement with humanity is opening up.
Thank you for a great blog Heather. You have put into words so many great points about self care and self love, that everyone including me,can relate to.Its so true that our body can be our best friend if we listen to its wisdom.”Self -love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all “. Awesome writing.
I have participated in Universal Medicine courses and listened to Serge Benhayon speak. This I know to be true “…my body is a marker of truth…”. Through self care and self love I now have completely different relationship with my body than I did 10 years ago. I walk, stand and even sleep differently. I choose to eat and resolve stress in a new way, and this is all from feeling how my body feels and relating my choices to that feeling. The more I commit to it the more I feel my body as a marker for my own healing and live from this every day.
An awesome blog – thank you Heather. I particularly love this part “I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” I can so relate to this. It also works in the opposite way the more I allow myself to accept that I am enough the more loving and confirming my thoughts, people and situations are.
Self care is a huge, always improving and deepening journey. To realise that you are worth caring for is the first step, second and ongoing steps. Your honest blog has me reviewing my care regime to go deeper and to be more truthful.
Self love and self care have been life changing for me Heather, turning my health around, work and other aspects. It is a for ever deepening process that I enjoy more and more as I do. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine showed me the way and I took it, I haven’t looked back.
There’s a lot to admire here in what you have shared Heather. Definitely, removing that pressure to please, allows me to feel the pleasure of being just being me. Thanks for this reminder.
Heather I could so relate to what you have shared here. Especially the lack of self worth that keeps us in the cycle of making choices that harm ourselves, because we have the belief or ideal that we are less to begin with. It has been life-changing for me to realise the depth to which this plays out in my day to day life, and the thoughts that are fed to me because of it. Universal Medicine and its modalities have allowed be to feel the grandness in my inner most and so bit by bit these ideals of low self worth fall away as they simply cannot stay, when I am this amazing.
Heather this is a great blog, I can relate to so much of what you share. For me I have been caught up a lot in the pressure I put on myself at work. I find I don’t give myself the breaks to allow me to connect to myself, so by the time my long day is over I am feeling drained. There is only so much the body can take of this pressure. Something I have to really look at bringing self care to every moment, at work and at home. Lots for me to ponder on.
“I began to acknowledge that my body is actually something to be respected and treasured” and when we do it starts to communicate to us loud and clear to how we are living, what we are feeling. It becomes a faithful guide on our journey through life.
“The choice to be true to me, and my body…” if truly lived, these simple words lay the foundation for a new way of being, which is full of love and joy every day.
Lately I feel that self-care has a lot to do with expression too. When I hold myself back because of whatever story I come up with, my body has to keep its natural impulse to express inside, instead of letting it out. This causes a tension in the body, the natural flow is lost. Self-care is more than I ever thought it would be.
A good point Annelies, how we self care can be seen and felt through our expression…. in how we move and how we are not only with ourselves but also with another.
Heather this was perfect for me to be reminded of the simplicity of self-care done from a quality of deep self-care for ourselves. As you have shared, this process is ever unfolding which takes any pressure off to be perfect (which is very supportive for me).
Wow what a great blog, it felt like you were talking about my life, and the things I have done and the challenges I have had. It was written so beautifully that I’m sure everyone can relate to this completely on one level or another. It’s a true sign of how open you have come Heather, to truly share what you feel is going on, with no judgement and a deep honesty, and the deep relationship you now have with yourself and your body. Writing from this place is what makes this blog so real and deeply healing for all to read. Super inspiring.
I wholeheartedly agree Danielle, the wisdom that Heather has shared with us here is powerful, healing and very inspiring.
Absolutely – it even inspired me to read a couple of other blogs on self-care and take myself to bed in such a deeply rested way, all from one blog – amazing.
The body is so so so wise and so so so loves us….and it is a bit incredulous on how badly we treat it. I know I have been – at times – hideous to it – overworked it, overstuffed it, overfitnessed it, filled it with poisonous substances (ciggies, alcohol etc…). Your blog is super great Heather as a reminder on how/why we do these things and how the antidote to it is simply – self love. Bring more of that in and then there is less space for the other.
Learning to live from my body as the marker of truth has been very revealing and connected me to an awesome source of wisdom I had never imagine before. Serge Benhayon introduced me to the tools to connect to this wisdom and I deeply appreciate it and enjoy the forever deepening process of loving choices guided by my body. Thank you for sharing your story Heather.
It is interesting how easy it is to live life in ways that are not honouring for our bodies, but we go with it because it is what we consider to be normal. Unfortunately we subscribe to live like this until something happens that makes us stop and pay attention to the choices that we are making. It takes honesty, willingness and commitment to change to start to live in a way that is respectful and loving for us – and the results are mind-blowing!
What a powerful unfolding you’ve offered with your blog! When I read the lines “..Also I see situations that I’ve put myself in which reflect the beliefs I have about myself, people and life – these all affect my body and I’m learning to observe and slowly change the way I am in these situations. I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” the grey sky opened up and the brightest sunbeams were shining into my face. Obviously something I respond to and I truly have to look at closer. Thank you, Heather!
Love the way you took this right back to basics Heather with great examples. Self love was an anathema to me too when I first heard Serge Benhayon present it. I knew what the two words might mean, but I didn’t really have any idea of how that felt to be living with self love. It has been a gradual experiment and also a cultivation of the understanding that I am worth this way of being with myself – as you say Heather, “an ever unfolding journey”
I really relate to what you have said here Heather, the clarity with which you have described your experience has brought some things into a sharper focus for me. Thanks for a great blog.
Great blog Heather, I can relate to making many changes in my life in regards to what I eat and how I look after myself physically, but that quality of really caring and loving myself is not always there – a great one to catch when we get caught in thinking that we are looking after ourselves but sometimes it can just be going through the motions. Thanks for sharing your experiences, it is great to hear of your unfolding journey 🙂
I need to make the changes in my life with regards to what I eat!!!!
This is great Heather . . . ‘I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief’. This is so true. This is just how powerful we are. We can set these situations up for ourselves. I know I have. Little situations to confirm us in this way keeping us in the comfort of never having to step out and up to the baseline.
As you say Heather “I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” – conversely, when we are really looking after ourselves and feel amazing, everything seems to constellate around us to confirm that is who we are.
Developing self-love in the body is a gradual process but well worth the care and nurturing to then experience the self-worth coming back.
Couldn’t agree more Deborah… its something that builds day by day, on the foundation of how we are treating ourselves before. The more self love I have, the more appreciation overflows back out into the world as well.
It could be said perhaps, that it’s all a matter of evolving our normal, to be truer everyday. If there’s a normal that stays ‘normal’ for too long, there’s likely stagnation.
Thanks Heather for this blog, I know how easy it can be to skip a lunch break to get things done, rather than taking that time as a stop in my day to check in with where I’m at. It really does come down to feeling worthy of it and the time with me… knowing that I am enough and don’t need a few more ticks on the to-do list to prove that to me!
Thanks for the great insight Heather for how you and all of us, put pressure on ourselves in order to please others but blame the world for such pressure applied.
Dear Heather,
I love the honesty and the lightness of how you express. What you have written is me to a T. I too took a while to allow myself to love me, and my body. Like you the not good enough was given way too much credence. I continue each day to reveal this, as it very sneakily appears in many ways in my life, but I am now on it, because now I deeply love, honour and appreciate the gorgeousness of me.
‘when I chose to bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities I noticed just how much I lacked bringing any true quality to these moments.’
A great awareness among many in this blog Heather. We can be caught up in the motions of ‘self-love’ yet can forget that the quality is what actually matters… ‘How am I eating’ has been huge for me and newly exposed. Even though I am eating good food I am still bloated and lethargic. Am I eating with myself, in presence and care? Or is it in anxiety, shame and gluttony?
“I began to acknowledge that my body is actually something to be respected and treasured”. This is such a simple statement yet it is so profound. How many of us do not treasure our body, and instead ingest all sorts of things that do not support the body? Listening to the body is the beginning of making self-loving choices.
Yes, it is something so simple, so common-sense and yet, something that is foreign to the way that most of the world lives.
Treasuring my body as a great ally, advisor and guide – listening carefully knowing, as I do now, that my body never lies – knowing too that this is an ever developing relationship that will only get more amazing. Thank you Heather and Elizabeth.
‘So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life.’ I can relate very well to this Heather, I have found what sounds so straightforward (bringing self love into my life) to be something that I struggle with in favour of old familiar patterns. What I am beginning to feel is that with more self care in my life I am steadier with what is going on around me.
I love your blog Heather it is so honest and I can relate to it so well. I am too learning how to apply true self care to my routine. Connecting to stillness and to be fully present in every moment possibly is something I am working towards as this helps me return to who I am and brings me closer to God and to people.
You make so many pertinent points in your blog Heather. When it comes to self care/self love many people can relate to what we eat, drink, etc., and the quality we do those things in. It is more of an eye opener to consider how we push through getting things done, wanting to please others, but as you say, putting pressure on yourself, creating situations that confirm we are not good enough because this is what we project outwards. And another big one – calibrating to others for fear of what they may think if we express naturally. Put them all together as you have done and it leads to total depletion and exhaustion! In having been there myself and in working through many of these still I can totally relate to all you have shared – the stand out for me is the one around expression as I still find myself holding back. A big thank you for the reminder as to what this is doing to my body!
Michelle, I recognise myself in what you say. Self care shows through most clearly in the way we carry out many practical everyday activities. I sometimes push through to get things done, particularly when working on my laptop. I forget about my body and ignore signals to stop. When in this space, I’ve lost connection with myself. I’m learning to break down work activities into smaller chunks and stop before be I tire, to walk, refresh myself or do something different.
That’s inspiring Kehinde to know and recognise what you have to work on. To constantly check in with the body and allow it to make your choices is something I am working on too – it’s a choice I need to remind myself constantly make until such time as it becomes my natural way of being!
Beautifully said michelle819. Connecting with our bodies first is our natural way of being, we’ve just forgotten that it is! It’s our first nature, but we’ve pushed it further and further away and are learnng to bring it back.
Super blog Heather. This is so interesting … ” what I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now actually see that it’s me putting the pressure on to please ” I had not looked at it this way, it makes so much sense, I can really see how this is. Thank you.
Great Heather – your so right when you say that doubting yourself allows for situations people and thoughts to confirm these doubts – I’d never really thought about it like that before – but its true that the way we are and how we feel is confirmed by what happens around us. Magic.
A beautifully honest account of your relationship with yourself, self care and self love. Yes, I agree the concepts are simple but when it comes down to the commitment to practising this way with ourselves daily the challenge can begin. To me this shows that something else is at play and what I have learnt is it is down to how much I value myself, feel I am worth it and matter. When this is addressed caring for myself becomes natural and an ever deepening and necessary process supporting me as I come back to myself. Thank you Heather.
I like the point that you make here jsnelgrove about how caring for ourselves is an ever deepening process. What I find in my life is that I constantly have to check in with myself as to what is needed in any given moment, for example, sometimes it might need to go for a walk and other times I might need a bath or to finish off a project or do something else entirely. The only way to know is to keep checking in with my body.
Some great examples here Heather of how we can so easily choose to disregard ourselves and override our true feelings – in my case at work when I am under pressure. What kicks in is hardening to what I am feeling and thought of just get through this and deal with your body later – which in my experience does not work and it makes matters worse. Self-care and Self-love definitely helps with situations like this and a quick trip to the toilet or going outside to gather myself is all that’s needed.
This Heather is definitely an expression of great truth, I can so relate to everything you have written as I have experienced it all myself. I have come a long way in self caring but still have massive space for improvement in that area and as much as I don’t like to admit it I still have self worth issues that constantly need to be addressed.
Heather my experience of how I treated my body before universal medicine was that it was there for me to do whatever I wanted with. It would often be something that I would consider as a hindrance especially when I got sick or it wanted to rest and I wanted to keep going be it to party or to work in some way. It’s really interesting to consider that whilst there were a few things I did that took care of myself I had absolutely no idea what self-care and self-love or actually looking after myself was. Even though I finished school with top grades.
Awesome Heather. It is lovely to feel the embodiment in what you express here – writing what you know to be true from your lived experience. Thank you. No matter how many times I have moved away from it in life, I have always had to return to the truth that living with Love starts with self-love. How important it is that this message is shared with others in blogs such as this one.
Heather, this is truly an amazing blog. I so much know falling into the trap of pleasing and and it is inspiring to observe this now on a deeper level.
Self–care when is it sacrificed for others allows both to lose. Our body is the only true indicator we have to tell us what we are doing to the body. As you have said that by listening to our body can ‘make it fun enjoying the ever-unfolding journey’.
“I deserved taking care of” – that sentence alone is worth to ponder on…and to live!
Spot on Sandra, this sentence is the one that unlocks the possibility of being all that we can be. The very first step is the knowing that each and every one of us deserves care on the deepest level.
It is Sandra, one of the better question I’ve ever asked myself.
Yes that’s true Sandra. What Heather described I can very much relate to. To start self caring or loving starts with accepting oneself and by all means accepting that one deserve to be treated lovingly.
Heather this is a great blog with loads in it that I can relate to and am sure many others can. Self-love and Self-care is a biggy, in that, we should definitely talk about it and bring and build many moments of self-love and care into our daily lives and our bodies.
Making best friends with my body, the marker of all truth, is the simple all-encompassing way to my truth as taught by Serge Benhayon and one that makes absolutely perfect sense to me. The more choices I make that honour my body, the more discomfort I feel as I become more aware of the lifelong disregard I’ve sadly accepted as my norm.
Well said Raymond, it’s so much easier to blame others or circumstances rather than to honestly appraise what is going on. Heather, it is my experience too that self-love is a quality I’m building – it has shocked me how much resistance I’ve have to giving myself the needed self-care … but it is an unfolding process, which slowly but surely is building.
Heather I read your blog again this morning and the words that stood out for me were “I observed how my believing that I was not good enough brings in thoughts. people and situations that will confirm that belief”. – Wow! when we feel into those words, it reminds us what a force that energy is that seems to run the human brain to have those thoughts and beliefs as it endeavours to override the truth of who we really are – we could almost imagine these are desperate measures from an energy outside of us that is choosing a familiar way and does not want to look at the truth. How amazing it is when we can recognize this game of the human spirit – as has been shared with us all by Serge Benhayon and at the presentations of Universal Medicine.
A beautiful blog Heather that shows that the return to self love is simple yet not always easy and that it is an ongoing development. What you offer others here is a real and tangible understanding of this process and how there is no right or wrong way nor perfection, just an unfolding of yourself and reclaiming of your self worth that is possible for all to do.
Hello Heather, I can see what you are saying and thank you for your blog. With at least a care for yourself some things are revealed to you that may not support you in your day and life. But with a deep and consistent care for yourself in the little moments of your day much is revealed to you that may have otherwise lay hidden. So if life isn’t going so good or you have had a bad day or bad week then have a look at how you have been with yourself. Not critically but in a ‘what has going on’ type way, a question of if ‘things’ are like this and it’s not good than what can I do. Heather you ask us not to sit back and blame the world or others but to ask and self reflect on what we can do for ourselves, thank you again.
Heather and Raymond thank you both for laying the stepping stones back towards truth and harmony. By looking at the way we live and care for ourselves and taking responsibility for our choices, we can support the ability to feel what is going on and happening in our body and ultimately create more harmony and joy.
It is all too easy to blame others for the way we feel and the challenges we face in life, but as you say Jenny, “By looking at the way we live and care for ourselves and taking responsibility for our choices, we can support the ability to feel what is going on and happening in our body and ultimately create more harmony and joy.”
That’s beautiful Ariana, that’s exactly what we’re creating when we bring focus and quality to the everyday living choices we make – a solid foundation that can be felt and inspire others in a world that is desperately calling out for change.
before Universal Medicine i felt my body was letting me down when all along it was communicating with me the truth of how i was living, the lack of self worth, the hardness. Now i find that my body is actually the best personal coach in town and deserves all my tenderness and loving care.
I love your comment Carolien, in the past I too viewed my body was failing me, if I became ill but now I feel it is lovingly shown me that there are aspects of my life that are out of balance. Wow, what a beautiful and honouring way you have described your relationship with your body now……the best personal coach in Town.
Yes Nicole, when we listen to our body, it is amazing how much it is actually communicating to us and very simply….without judgement just factually….such as an ache in the knee is the body telling me something…..
A great blog Heather there is a resonance in me that I feel with all you have presented. Life’s momentum(s) can literally bowl us along and it takes a steadfast commitment to healing that often trod path before the body starts to feel the benefits, the being can fill up the body it is here to serve in.
It is amazing Heather, which you have so honestly shared here, how when we are willing to truly commit to ourself and how we are living by seeing our “body” as a marker we begin to see how we are living and as the layers of the onion begin to peel back… the ways we have been living that actually harm us. Instead we begin to bring loving choices it changes our inner landscape and our body. We begin to experience a different way of living, more energy, confidence, joy and love… which you have shown this Heather and it is inspiring…..
“self-love is the key to healing ” so simple, so profound, yet so many people have been tricked in many ways to not be allowed to hear this truth. That was until Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine came along. Imagine the billions saved across the world, imagine the huge changes across the world, in every family, company, work place and home, if everybody was to know the truth and live this choice.
“Learning to respect my body” there’s something I love about these words, it just makes me smile, as I can feel how deeply honouring and loving respecting my body is. It simply makes me aware of what a precious, divine and powerful vehicle this is, one that is to be trusted, deeply respected, honoured and cherished for the beautiful and amazing body it is. My body is my best friend in life – to be deeply listened to.
Heather, I really appreciate how you have connected the possibility of self-care with self-worth. I remembered basic caring for my body such as putting moisturizer on my face and body when it feels dry used to be something I was too “lazy” to do, in fact, I just could not bring myself to do it, as if the body was a separate part from me. When I disregarded my body, the mind becomes very strong and the message was that the body is less or not important–not worthy to be cared for.
The way to truly self love is not always easy, and I am still stuck on some behaviours that I have taken with me for a long time, but the self acceptance and not needing to get this from others is such an amazing experience, that this journey is time well spent!
Thank you Heather for sharing with us the journey you have undertaking to arrive at the conclusion, of how very important it is for us all, to care and respect our bodies. It feels like ,that even though it has been uncomfortable at times,you are enjoying the return journey, to the true you.
This is something that I really connected with “My understanding of Universal Medicine’s teachings is that self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all.” This has been my experience, self-care and self-love has opened up a new world in terms of how I feel and how I respond to life.
Thank you for your blog Heather. It is also my experience that to go to self-love is too big a step and self-care is the first step. And I keep being amazed how this can deepen and deepen. It is never a recipe I can repeat, always feeling what is the self-loving choice in this moment. We spoke a lot about what is self-care in our work with a group of coaches? Being so used of taking care of others first what does it mean on a practical level to make choices that support our body? Even the way you sit is part of this.
Thank you Heather for shining the light on the issue of self care, I have found it hard at times in the past to self Love but It becomes easier the more I listen to the presentations of Serge Benhayon and realise just how precious my body really is.
Very clear Heather Hardy. From little self- worth to a worthy blog. The body is a marker of truth – it is a continuous journey unfolding layer upon layer of ideals and beliefs that I used to run with in total contrary to my body. My body now holds my living expression and expansion of love that continues to deepen day by day. Words cannot describe what I feel. The challenge is to not hold them back and put these feelings to paper. From so much self-abuse, no self-worth and deep disregard to joy, stillness and love IN MY BODY! Bravo to Serge Benhayon and his profound consistent expression of Love.
Thank you Heather for sharing your words and wisdom and learning…I find it interesting how simple it can be to bring in more self care and more regard to ourselves and yet we can complicate it very quickly or bring in excuses to not deepen our level of care – this is certainly something that I have experienced: I know a certain food or certain activity no longer is good for me yet I have struggled to let it go or stop eating that food! Yet there is such simplicity – once the choice to be more loving to self is finally taken, then it’s like it was the most natural thing to do – which it is!
The hardness of the body that you describe is ‘normally’ applauded in the world where people think they actually thrive on toughening it out and sucking it up; how great to leave that behind and actually feel what is really going on and that pain hurts.
Yes Gabriele, “The hardness of the body…’normally’ applauded”
it hurts us to the point where we can get very sick, depressed, burned out, insensitive, exhausted, negative view on life and so forth…when our bodies have it all to live in a way that can be joyful, vital and confident, living with an ease… we have the potential to live in harmony in our bodies, in life…not a hardness to survive in the world but a harmony to be open and expansive in the world.
I enjoyed reading your blog Heather, its so true when you say self love is the key to healing and re awakening the truth that lies within us all. Something else you mentioned that really got my attention is believing that Im not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that confirm that belief, is quite interesting and something that I will monitor in my own behaviour
That struck me too Joe, how allowing the thought that we are not good enough simply brings in thoughts, people and behaviours that confirm the belief. Wow, I can really see how that plays put, but also, how we have the power to change things. Interesting how in society it is more acceptable to be modest, and to be in self doubt, than to be confident, and yet we know what this then brings.
Thankyou Heather, I love this line: “I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” – it’s so true and it immediately makes me think well, if this is true, then what happens when we feel the opposite and actually allow ourselves to acknowledge the grandness that we are? By virtue of this equation, we will bring in thoughts, people and situations that confirm our true selves, deeply so.
So true Liane…sometimes it can be so easy to believe we’re not good enough. I often wonder why is it so easy though? Instead of us acknowledging the grandness that we are. It’s just too easy to fall into the negativity about ourselves…..I wonder why….when I know we are so much more.
This is very true Jody. Perhaps because we have set up a society that confirms everything we are not. We then listen to, identify with and start to live from the point of a lie rather that stand on a foundation of truth and live what we so naturally are. It is a game we play in order to afford ourselves an excuse for reneging the responsibility of being the Grandness, but not living it.
So true Liane.
This is so inspiring Heather. Some days I manage to make good choices and I feel amazing. Other days I just lose it and feel awful as a result. It’s so important to build a level of consistency that then becomes our foundation.
It is true, we can care for us, but if we are not present when we do them they are just actions without heart and true purpose.
Great revelations you are sharing here. Thank you !
Heather, I love the simplicity and honesty of your blog. It’s vital to see that it takes time and to allow ourselves the space and time to undo old ways and to be understanding of us and our unfoldment – this is what I feel is offered to me today reading this, thank you.
thankyou. I too have realised that it is ourselves that get in the way of deepening our relationship with ourselves but also to others. Some deep ideals and beliefs to let go of (:
Thank you Heather for your honest sharing. I have found that developing self love has been a slow and steady process, only because of my own resistances. What I have found important, which you have also said is not having an attachment to what I am observing about myself. The more I attach, the more likely I am to make a judgement of myself. It’s amazing when we can observe our own behaviours and see what is going on behind them. This gives us the opportunity to make a new choice the next time we see ourselves in a similar situation, therefore letting go of these behaviours.
So well put Jennifer, there is so much here in Heather’s supportive blog. I love how she wrote on how powerful it is to observe and that she realised the false beliefs she was attached to attracted thoughts and situations/people to reinforce these beliefs. Ive found observing myself from a curious place – not a critical place allows me to understand what is behind those negative thoughts or behaviours of mine and helps me get to realise they are not me – so I can let them go. Its the same when I observe others – I have more understanding of them and their behaviours so I don’t react as much and get caught up in an emotional tussle – which has been super freeing for me and them.
An amazing change Heather, respecting our bodies is so important, but I can so relate to struggling with self-love, and starting with self-care and taking small steps from there can make all the difference.
This very honestly addresses many of the issues we all have with self-care. It is true that we can do things to care for ourselves but it is the way we do them that makes it caring or not. If we do it with presence, care and because we are worth it, we are on our way to self-love.
Heather, you have so honestly revealed the fact that sometimes loving yourself is a step too far at the outset. Learning to care can be quite challenging enough, especially when being an excellent performer, being good, doing what is expected…etc etc comes before anything you do to yourself in the process.
Care for self lays a beautiful pathway, through an unfamiliar landscape. Narrow and uncertain at first, that widens and matures with familiarity. This path becomes love, partly by intent and partly by an urge that cannot be resisted when the body itself calls for more. Care for me, yes, but make it with the quality that I am worth everything.
Thanks Dr Rachel, for me this is another layer to this blog in the fact that we are ask to self care and have a ever deepening self care to support ourselves but then also a ‘look’ at quality. This is it for me, “the quality that I am worth everything”.
Beautiful Rachel, thank you, make it with the quality that I am worth everything. I am going to take this into my day, and the next one…
‘the quality that I am worth everything’ – yes, another level of self-care.
Rachel, I love how you say the ‘path becomes love, partly by intent and partly by an urge that can not be resisted when the body itself calls for more’. I now know exactly what it feels like to have the body call for more. And yes it is very hard to resist this feeling. As the exquisiteness of honouring the love my body is calling for is better than any thing else I have ever drunk, eaten, thought or done before.
Beautifully said Dr Rachel Mascord and it builds on what Heather has shared so beautifully too. It’s easy to go through the motions and it seeming like we are caring for ourselves but it is so much more powerful when done with a quality of presence.
I can relate to every word you say Heather and how much we create our own reality. This is what’s beautiful about the Work of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon as it offers no quick fix. We’re provided with the opportunity to be very honest about our lives as part of our own self-healing and make changes through self caring and self loving choices. The more we commit to this the deeper we go. I used to accept that self-love was just doing loving things for myself like having a bath and going for a walk. Whilst these can be part of self love, honouring ourselves in every area of our lives including in our relationships is just as important.
A profound blog, thankyou Heather. As I deepen my connection with myself I too discover that ” self-love is the key to healing and re-awakening the truth that lies within us all.” Even with the small things, such as with the way I walk around my house – I can choose to stay with my body or leave and go AWOL. The responsibility is mine alone. Learning to appreciate and not judge myself, is also key.
Yes Sue, lack of appreciation and judgement can really keep us stuck in old patterns of behaviour. When I notice the judging thoughts come in, I now feel how crippling they are. I can see how I’ve let those shape my life and keep me from appreciating what I can and do bring. Talk about self-sabotage! It’s only through my growing commitment to self-care that I’ve been able to see these patterns more clearly for what they are.
Heather, I love that connection you have made about real self-worth and taking care of ourselves. Before attending Universal Medicine presentations I had no sense of my lack of self worth, nor that it was possible to nurture self-worth simply through practical everyday living choices. But now it is very possible, and even though I am still learning heaps all the time and making plenty of mistakes, having the power of my self-worth clearly in my hands is a gift I will always treasure.
I agree Shami, I love what you say here about “having the power of my self-worth clearly in my hands is a gift I will always treasure.” It is through the simple and practical everyday living choices that we can nurture our return to self-love and in turn we share that with humanity. An awesome gift for all.
Beautifully honest sharing Heather. This one really struck a chord with me this morning”I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief’ I can very much relate to this as I often create situations that confirm my lack of self worth. Thank you for expressing this is so clearly. Something for me to very much bring further awareness and understanding to.
Gosh I know this: “I hold myself back from expressing what I feel for fear of what others may think of me” – and what do I get out of this? It is the decision between being me or being liked. How can I like myself if I am not really me? And how can others like me if I am not really me? And what really happens if others don’t like what I show them? Do they maybe just not like what they are putting out is them? Here the cat catches its tail – do we all just confirm our choices to not express our truth? Looks like it for me. So who starts the change? And how? This blog from Heather reports so lovely about self-care and self-loving choices – what about to confirm each other in this? Lets start to confirm Love.
“I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” I think this is really great what you shared. Depending on the thoughts we let in will depend on what people we are surrounded by
It has been incredible to experience how, by the way I walk around and move every day directly effects how many or few thoughts of this nature I get.
There is so much more to us than what we think…
I can really feel the steadiness in the way you are building more respect, honesty and self love for your body, and the very gorgeous unfolding effects of this. What feels really supportive for me is the way you have described how you didn’t find it easy to make some changes, but your growing awareness and willingness to observe what was going on shows your commitment and how you have been able to develop that relationship with yourself. Very inspiring, thank you Heather.
Looking back I find it quite amazing how I engaged in activities and foods that were accepted as ‘normal’ but are in fact not only numbing but harming without acknowledging what they were doing to me. It is a great point you make that initially self-love can be a too big an initial step and that self-care is where to first start
Thank you Heather for sharing your journey with such honesty. It is quite a revelation when it finally dawns on us that we are very deeply worth cherishing and taking care of and as you say, the true extent of this self care keeps on deepening when we bring an honest awareness to it. It feels very beautiful the way you have kept observing and learning from each day, seeing how your beliefs deliver the goods in thoughts and situations that confirm what you have chosen to believe about yourself and consequently give you the opportunity to renounce them. Powerful medicine indeed and much to ponder on.
I love this Heather and I relate well to what you share here. I used to think that self care was drinking milk before I went out on a night out to lace my stomach so to not get too drunk! This sounds ridiculous to me now as there was not an ounce of me loving me in that action. Since attending the presentations of Universal Medicine I realise that self care is an ever deepening relationship between me and my body and a true honouring of what my body is really telling me and the openness and willingness to listen and respond to the conversation my body is instigating. Awesome to take self responsibility in this way and an explore an ever unfolding awareness of true self care.
Hmmm – I feel myself squirming at the drinking milk story Beverley and am reminded of the huge fried breakfast hit I would take the morning after as well! My poor body, how I have abused you! As you say though, learning true self care is an ever unfolding awareness and a joy-full one. I am so grateful to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon for presenting this truth for us all to consider.
So true Beverley, we do have some completely irrational ideas about what self care is, like lining the stomach with milk so its not able to absorb all the poisons we pour into ourselves. Universal Medicine certainly transformed my understanding of self care, one which is as you say, an ever deepening journey of building a relationship between self, body and daily life, with truly exceptional results.
Self care and self nurture is the way back to reconnecting with our bodies, and although much resistance comes up from time to time, the key is to have a solid commitment to choosing loving self supporting choices and be consistent, in the knowing that every-thing we need is inside us.
This is great to read Heather, ‘I’ve become more aware of how I hold myself back from expressing what I feel for fear of what others may think of me!’ I can certainly relate to this one, I am finding recently how awful this feels when i do not express what I feel and how this keeps me small and stops others from feeling the real me, as you have written there are so many things we do to keep ourselves small, it is lovely though that by choosing to listen to and respect our bodies we can change this and live in a more joyful, honest way.
Fully agree Rebecca – holding back from expressing and delivering the truth is the easiest way to play small, and stop others from seeing, feeling and knowing the real me.
When I do start looking after myself, I can feel my body more and it speaks to me with a truth that can only be described as divine. Not expressing that is a killer… it feels awful when that divinity stays trapped inside and can’t get out there where it belongs!
Thank you Heather for sharing your journey back to self-love. I am also on that journey and really recognise the example that you give about the pressure we put on ourselves trying to please others, it is not even about the other person we try to please, but the investment we have in wanting to be liked, accepted or whatever personal reason. It is very freeing to discover this, you start to look at a lot of behaviours in a whole other light.
Yes Diana and when we look at these behaviours in a different light we can recognise the game we are playing with ourselves not too care enough for the body that offers so much to us.
A lovely and clear sharing Heather of the steps you took and choices made to rebuild self worth. Self care is the core and in everything we do, in practical and everyday choices we make, respecting our bodies, having an awareness of mental patterns that hold us back and how we relate to others. I love your honesty about your unfolding journey to self love.
Thank you Heather for the honesty with which you share your journey with self-love and self-care which I can really relate to. This phrase really struck home for me ‘to acknowledge the depth of disregard I’ve had and still have for my body’. It amazes me how I can still struggle with actually bringing it into my life on a consistent basis and instead ignore and override the messages my body is giving me. Last night I felt so tired driving home from work but allowed myself to get distracted when I got home rather than having an early night to allow my body to deeply rest. Thanks to Universal Medicine I have the opportunity to lovingly bring more awareness to my body and recognise that I have the choice to bring presence to every activity and deepen my relationship with my ‘best friend’.
Its crazy isn’t Helen, that we do ignore the messages our bodies give us. And yet life is so much simpler when we do listen. I guess we’ve all made life a bit complicated with all the old patterns we carry, but to know that we have the choice to change is a priceless gift.
A beautiful honest account of your journey through self love and self care thank you for sharing this with a simplicity and understanding and the changes in your life that we can all make lovingly.Very inspiring !
Great blog as it shows in precision all the things we do and how it affects us when we don’t live ourselves deeply and maltreat our bodies. I can relate to all you write and have also chosen to self-love. It is a daily, constant and deliberate choice and it is worth it 100%, e.g.regaining my self-worth, re-connecting to me in full.
I feel the overriding of our bodies is something what most of us already have naturally ingrained. And now it takes willingness, honesty and awareness to again come back to the true sensitivity our bodies have naturally. For me this is an ongoing process, as my body is showing me every day new aspects of its natural sensitivity, which is worth celebrating. Thank you Heather.
Reconnecting to our body is such a revelation isn’t it! Worth celebrating indeed Kerstin.
I feel the same Kerstin, ‘For me this is an ongoing process, as my body is showing me every day new aspects of its natural sensitivity’. When I listen to and honour my body and its natural sensitivity and knowing, it is very lovely and allows me to change old ingrained patterns of abuse and overriding of my bodies messages.
I agree, its ingrained in us to override if we are cold or tired. Often we completely ignore our feelings. However, learning to listen, and to act, on the way we are feeling can build an amazing relationship of trust with our bodies.
Beautifully expressed Kirstin. Yes, I agree. The way I was living before I was introduced Universal Medicine was with this ingrained disregard that I have adopted and like you shared it takes honesty, awareness, love and consistency to unlearn those harmful habits. I am now surrounded by absolutely amazing and inspiring people, through them I am inspired and know that change is definitely possible and what it means to live a joyful life connecting to who I am.
Breaking the back of that ingrained disregard is the hard bit. After that it becomes easy, especially when the self love of others is reflected back at us like at Universal Medicine events. Then we start to discover our natural sensitivity and go even deeper.
Taking care of ourselves is an ever unfolding journey with every day a new day, where we can make new choices. And yes, it is fun and joyful as well as I experience that every day brings new opportunities to take it a level deeper and to build on even more care and love for myself.
Self care and self love were words that were never mentioned when I was young they were not part of my vocabulary and even when I first heard the words with Serge Benhayon they meant very little to me. It has been an amazing journey unravelling the numbness and hardness that I lived with every day and the extent to which I over rode what I initially felt, to get things done. Learning to be self loving and to listen to and honour my body and be willing to see the level of self loathing I carry, especially around being a woman has been for me a truly remarkable turnaround, and one that I am beginning to appreciate the more I allow myself to feel that I am worth bringing self love into my life. Thank you Heather it was healing to read your words on many levels.
Hi Heather, I also love this teachings presented by Serge Benhayon: “It was enlightening and empowering to hear that my body is a marker of truth”. It is such a simple ‘tool’. For me my body is indeed the marker of what is truly going on in my life, I can say for instance I like to do a lot in a short time to get high marks on an exam for instance, but if I then feel that my body is all tensed up and depleted after the exam it does not really make that much sense anymore… This simple yet profound teaching has supported me as well to make more self-caring and self-loving choices and to be more honest and real with my body.
Listening to our body and making self-loving choices – how simple and profound is this and doing just that has changed so many people’s lives including my own.
I know Elizabeth extremely simple and basic choices yet like yourself I have also completely changed my life around so much so that a lot of people who know me now cannot even fathom let alone picture me doing some of the things I used to do which at the time I considered to be normal!
I can share Elizabeth that my own life has transformed immeasurably also from making self-loving choices!
Mine included Elizabeth.
Lovely to read your journey with re-discovering self-care and self-love and the amazing changes this has made to your way of living. Our bodies are without a doubt, a very clear reflection of how we are living, working, eating, etc. isn’t it crazy when we choose to ignore it.
Thank you Heather and Aimee. Self-care has always been a forever unfolding journey, towards self-loving choices.
Thank you Heather for sharing the inspiration from Serge Benhayon to listen to your body and make changes to the way you are choosing to live your life. I too am having fun becoming aware of what my body is telling me rather than listening to the noise in my head. A line that really hit home with me is where you say “What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!” ouch!
Absolutely Mary, that line was a definite ouch. It’s so easy sometimes to blame our emotions, stress, anxiety, anger (etc.!) on other people when actually it is us that’s creating all these issues… I’m definitely working on turning the tables and taking more responsibility for how I feel and the things that happen around me.
Thank you Heather Hardy, for the honesty you present in this blog. I can relate to the fact that I too have lived in disregard for that long, drive by a deep lack of self-worth, that for me too self-love is is bringing in resistance and self-care has for me being the starting point to work on. But now I feel I have to choose to go to a deeper level and make self-love as the basis for my life. I can now feel the hardness and the pain up into my bones and that the the way I have lived life in disregard of my body is the cause of this. The ability to feel this in all its rawness assists me in choosing for a life in respect and appreciation of my body.
“I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life”. I too have found I can come up with a lot of excuses and distractions which ultimately keep me away from being responsible for my choices … A humbling pill to swallow.
It sure is a “humbling pill to swallow” Suzanne. I have also found that when I get busy, stressed or tired the most loving things which have supported me are usually the 1st things I stop doing, it does not make sense but nevertheless is something I find myself doing, it is as if my inbuilt default programme goes to disregard and survival mode rather than looking after my body no matter what.
Actually, it just seems genuinely difficult to break through all these ideas of taking care of ourselves except in emergencies is just SO uncool. That it can take a while until we get the hang of it seems normal to me and getting there at all is a very unusual achievement.
Yes Christoph I agree, emergency self love is just kidding ourselves, true self love takes a while to get the hang of and if you can stay there, it is an achievement.
Heather, I love how you shared the way the quality of how you perform self-loving activities is so important in building a true foundation of self-love. I have found myself how I can have many rituals throughout the day that I feel are nurturing, but when I let my mind wander off into say what the day ahead will bring, it can turn into just another chore and not bring that real presence and centered-ness that comes when I am really staying with feeling my body. Also, I love how you seem to be patient with your development of self-love, which can be so important in not dropping into the trap of beating oneself up for past self-harming ways of living. I know I have fallen into that one way to often, but am learning to let go of that and start each day fresh, always moving forward and learning along the way.
Thank you for your awesome blog, Heather. I love the way you recognise that whilst you are inspired to bring more self love into your life, you are being very honest with yourself and are choosing to start with something you know you can handle, at this point, with more self-care. It’s been a pattern for me to give myself unattainable expectations, setting myself up to fail. Having the strength and honesty to be realistic is so important and VERY self loving. The other is just another form of avoidance which has the double whammy of also contributing further to our lack of self worth, ouch. Enjoy learning to treasure gorgeous you.
An amazing sharing Heather, deep thanks. You write so practically and simply, just saying it as it was for you. I am sure that this the way many have felt and feel around self care and self love, issues of self wroth and self loathing and making truer choices for themselves. I know for me, your sharing resonates and really . . . it all does come down to choice; the choice of how much we actually want to commit to ourselves and to the love that we all deeply are within.
Beautiful question ‘how much are we ready to commit to ourselves and the love we all deeply are within?’
I love and appreciate the honesty in your blog Heather. I find myself get stuck at a certain level of Self care and feel the relation between this and me holding back my truth and expressing myself in full with no need for perfection or recognition.
That is where the support of esoteric healing is so supportive in that you can more easily feel the love that resides inside each of us, to feel that in the body has been what supports me to realise there is so much more to me than my issues of self worth etc and then I am willing to make choices to break patterns of abuse.
Thank you Heather I can certainly relate to what you have shared. Yes, self-care seems to be the first step towards self-love and eventually love is all there is – equally so.
Thank for sharing Heather. In my own self care journey I find each new discovery of connecting to and listening to my body creates a new marker of what I will and will not accept. What yesterday was a new marker of self care soon becomes something I leave behind, as the next new levels of self love and care for myself emerge. It’s quite fascinating to see the depths of self care – it seems never ending.
Fantastic blog Heather and a great reminder for me that self care is a journey of undoing old patterns and behaviours and integrating quality. Listening to my own bodies knowing of what care it needs at any given time, holds a lot of love,wisdom and I appreciate that greatly.
Heather your blog is so powerful and honest too in deconstructing that it’s a lack of self-worth that makes it then so hard to (self) love.. and so then how does one go about building worth if this is difficult as you share from your own experience. Such a valid point, and, as you say starting with being present with the small everyday things, gives way to there being quality that can then valued – and loved.
hi Heather, Thanks for writing such a great blog. I have found the more I understand myself, the more self care and respect I bring to my body and my choices. It can feel tough at times though as always I don’t want to feel my choices and their consequences. With Responsibility I have found it becomes simpler and easier to let go of old ways.
SusanG I have found the same as well, it is often easier to not want to see the consequences of my choices and actions but that keeps me in the same cycle of not looking after myself. The more I take responsibility for my choices and actions the more I am truly starting to enjoy life.
Yes, thanks, Susan. The more I look at my life and honestly observe the choices I am making, the more understanding and self-responsibility there is, which allows me to accept myself and my learning rather than blame the outside for everything and then not deal with my relationship with myself. Through this ongoing process, a deeper love and care for myself is developing.
Thank you, Heather, for sharing with such honesty. I am also learning how my lack of self-love have been setting me up for certain situations that I don’t enjoy being in, and how healing it is not to hold back myself from expressing.
Really loved what has been written here, feels so very real like a work of art being unfolded and developing all the time
Heather this is a super simple and yet profoundly important subject, thank you for writing and sharing so clearly your experience from a lack of love to self-love and of all that ensues thereafter. Loving my own body and treating it with the respect that it deserves is a continual process for me, it’s amazing to me how I can use it to try and be unloving at times and how much this deeply hurts me when I do. Thank you for your inspiration.
Heather, I love your comment about how you have observed the thoughts, feelings or beliefs you have about yourself are confirmed by people and situations in your life. This is a great reflection to consider. Are we confirming our own grandness?
Amazing blog thank you Heather, I love the depths you took this to and it feels like so many of us relate to much of what you have shared. There were many stand out lines for me that either felt like I could have written them or offered us a deeper understanding. The following really stood out “So long have I lived in disregard that is driven by a deep lack of self-worth, I found that I have a fair amount of resistance to bringing self-love into my life.” I love your honesty it inspires me to be more honest about why I choose certain behaviours.
An amazing blog Heather, thank you. I can relate to much of what you share here, especially at my work, where I can lose the quality and presence of what I am doing and get into the ‘rush’. I am beginning to bring more stillness into all areas of my life, reading this blog has been very supportive and a great reminder to make loving choices that truly honour us.
I too can really relate to getting into the ‘rush’ of work and not taking breaks to allow myself to connect back and support myself with more loving choices.
Heather the way you express is so familiar as I too find that I am beginning with the basics of self-care. It feels important to build from this foundation as it takes things back to moment to moment choices I am making about the simplest things such as the way and quality in which I shower or brush my hair. Like you I find it exposing and uncomfortable at times yet I can feel I am so worth loving and caring for in this way.
Thank you Heather for your honest blog – “my body is a marker of truth” there is such truth in those words. It is one thing to hear the words and another as you so beautifully expand on, to stop and truly feel where we are at any given moment and bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities. I love coming back to the basics.
“If I were to stop all of the indulgences, activities which serve no purpose other than to harm me, and all the ways in which I choose to numb and override what my body feels, then it would be my best friend – supporting me to live the Love that I know I am”. I found this very empowering to read. So many gems for me in your blog Heather, I’ll be back for a re-read.
I love how you have described coming to love and care for yourself Heather. Unfortunately it is not something that comes particularly easily to a lot of us and it is a big shift in the way the we live and treat ourselves. A shift that is so worth making, you are very inspiring.
Heather that felt so real to read, I loved that you wrote from where you are at. It made gentleness come over me with the way I can be with myself. Yes the journey back to self love can be hard, but you have captured what joy and love comes from it.
Serge Benhayon has helped me massively to appreciate my body and the great marker that it is for seeing the effects of how I am living. As you say Heather at times it has been uncomfortable for me too and still can be, taking responsibility for my actions, but more so it brings a great richness and true joy to life.
Also Heather, I enjoyed feeling how gentle and playful you are on yourself throughout your unfolding path. By simply observing patterns and old behaviours you have been shown some awesome awareness. Our body has so much to offer us, how beautiful to be in a loving relationship with it.
I loved you blog Heather, I can so relate to what you have shared, self love for me has been a difficult journey , but, little by little, I am becoming more aware of how my body is feeling, and with that awareness able to make more loving choices. My body my best friend, so beautiful.
I agree Jill. For too long I have pledged friendship with food instead of my living and breathing body! This is slowly changing and yes can be very challenging, but I know who my real friend is now and it ain’t food.
This is a great article Heather, thank you. I love how you described the relationship with your body as being “..my best friend – supporting me to live the love I know I am”. This does happen, as I have discovered too, how the more self caring I have become towards myself, the more my body becomes like a reference point that supports me in making self loving choices.
This is a good way of looking at it. If I make a choice that is not loving I am letting my best friend down – my body.
‘I certainly had never considered these were all choices that I was indulging in to override and numb myself from feeling the fact that I had very little self-worth and didn’t feel that I deserved taking care of.’
I love this honesty here Heather. It has allowed me to feel how hard I am on people around me for their choices (and myself of course). This sentence alone sparks much needed understanding for myself and where humanity is at.
Hi Heather, I enjoyed reading your article and found many parts I could relate to – there is much to reflect on still for me in your blog. I’m still learning to be more aware of the ‘quality’ of how I bring that attention to caring, nurturing and loving my self – I find that there is a subtlety between the actual mechanics of taking time to listen to the body, but more awareness to the delicateness and attention to the quality of how it is that I look to take action upon listening to the body. I have found there is a determination of the spirit to diminish and reduce this quality, attempting to have us believe that ‘to do the action is enough’ – when I am finding that it is not just the ‘doing’ of the action, but more the gentleness and quality of this action.
On reading your blog Heather, I have realized how I am at work sometimes when I am told it is my break as we have another employee to fill our break times.
It is a great reflector of how I am travelling in that moment as I can see that there are times where I can feel that I am really looking forward to the break so a great indicator for me of where my mind has been and an opportunity to self focus. So I can see how I can turn it all around back to me and my presence in that moment and take that time before my break to a whole other level of appreciation and enjoyment of me, so that when I go, there is no difference to the flow of how I am with myself whether I am having a break or still on the floor, it’s all one and the same, just my gorgeous self taking myself off for a break.
It becomes an on going process of refinement. And we find not only do these changes benefit ourselves but if done in a truly loving way these choices also have a positive effect on everyone around you.
True Luke, being truly self loving is never a selfish act, as everyone benefits from the love we then live. There was a time long ago that I felt self love and care to be rather indulgent. Now I know it to be the foundation for all else to flourish.
Self love in many respects is only the beginning and as you say allows the ground to allow other qualities to flourish.
Absolutely. We are always refining and deepening. Refining in a way that supports us to go deeper and remain with the depth of love we are and are allowing ourselves to surrender to.
… We are forever learning and forever students…
The point you are making here Luke is the most important part of self love. Not the benefits to ourselves of that self love but the difference we reflect back to humanity from making that self love.
YES!
I can totally relate to that, Gill & Heather, self-care is always unfolding. We are constantly offered opportunities to re-look at how we go about our days, and can care for ourselves with an ever deepening presence and love.
I agree Heather, what a joy to recognise that we are on ‘the ever-unfolding journey’. No more humdrum,knowing there is meaning and opportunities in all that we do.
Thank you Heather for a very practical blog. It has also been my experience that disregard can come in many different ways and I am always learning from my body the ways in which I do this – I don’t always pay attention straight away but I get there in the end.
Thank you Heather. I felt like i was sharing in a conversation about our lives and how we are slowly moving from irresponsibility to responsibility in living and deeply caring for our bodies. A beautiful reflection for many of us. A confirmation that if we choose to do it differently then the amazing outcomes will be there for us all to enjoy. Thank you Serge Benhayon for opening up the consideration that their is another way.
Thanks Heather. I have found self love difficult to be consistent with. It comes and goes, as does my presence with what I am doing. As my awareness and understanding of what I am feeling in my body increases then so does my level of self love. What was self loving for me last week was a step down a path and this week my body is asking for me to take another step and so on.. To feel more and honor what I feel. As I have felt the layers being peeled back, I to have felt empowered. Our body is certainly a marker of truth and it is up to us to listen to it, or not.
Great article Heather. I particularly related to ‘What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!’. So very true, the pull to want to please people is such a big one for me. You’ve described the reason I do this so clearly in your personal experience, it’s just an ingrained habit of overriding the very simple fact that I am enough, and therefore by pleasing others I get the ‘acceptance’ I am unable to give myself.
The Esoteric can be a conundrum sometimes. What comes first – self-love/self-care or connection to who we truly are? For the fact is that i we do not feel that we are worth caring about, then why would we self-care? Yet,if we do not at least start to self care, then how do we connect to the preciousness of who we truly are?
The truth is both of the above statements are correct. So where does that leave us?
The first thing is that the above seeming dichotomy is why there can never be any judgement and why being hard on ourselves can be so devastating. Life is and never will be perfect.
The truth is that self-care and self love is part of an ever evolving path, and is always relevant to the strength of our connection to who we truly are. What today may be self caring (such as choosing decaffeinated coffee over caffeinated coffee, might tomorrow be considered abusive, as our body reacts even to the decaffeinated coffee. So, acceptance is always super important – learning to accept that we are not just OK as we are, but also accepting the possibility that we are magnificent. The more we learn to accept the glory of who we truly are, the easier self care becomes, and the more we learn to take care of ourselves, the more we realise how glorious we truly are. Thus, just as we can never make life about any one thing, we cannot make life just about self care – for it will not work – for life is always spherical, and needs to be seen that way if it is to make any sense.
Wow, what an insight into true psychology: people that surround me confirm how I am with myself in the way they approach me. Great stuff, Heather.
“Wanting to please others and not honouring how I feel is another great way to deplete myself. What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it’s actually me putting the pressure on me to please!”
I love the above sentence Heather and have only just become aware of this in my life too.
Awesome blog Heather. I too have really found, ‘I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.’ It’s beautiful feeling that what is said that isn’t supportive of me isn’t true. Once I would have bought the put downs hook line and sinker! Now I know I’ve attracted the confirmation of these beliefs and can look to where that happened and more easily than ever let them go. I am so appreciative of all the Universal Medicine practitioners who constantly never let me get away with not being any less than who I am.
Only recently have I allowed myself to really get that I do not need to try, I already am amazing, there is nothing for me to achieve, just let go of all the things I put in my way.
“I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief.” Heather I testify to this. There is a law out there that confirms my worthlessness the minute I let go of responsibility, disconnect and show disrespect for myself. And yet with self care and love for who I am I reconnect to a joyful way of living.
Self care, self worth and self love. The choice to be true to me and my body, the ever-unfolding journey from choosing to listen to, and respect, my body!
A great blog Heather.
It was hard for me to accept that “my body is a marker of truth”. Which is silly in retrospect, because if one is a materialist it’s obvious, and if one focuses on the spiritual life it is also inescapable! I realized that I was resisting accepting this, because it would mean accepting that there were things I did that were showing up my choices badly in my body. As I gradually accepted it, I could make more loving choices and feel the beneficial effects. And feel more of everything around me in subtle ways. Thanks Serge Benhayon.
I can totally relate to what you have shared here Diannetrussel.
I had a similar experience Dianne. I realised I actually didn’t want to listen to my body, I wanted to numb myself to the messages so I could avoid having to take more responsibility for my choices., myself, my life. And yes thanks Serge Benhayon for showing me what a difference making self-loving choices makes to absolutely all aspects of my health, well-beings and life.
Thank you so much Heather for expressing in a blog what I could have almost word for word written as my story, I can relate to it so much..
I can very well relate to what you share Heather. Realising how far my body is a marker, and at the same time a support in everything, has been simply life-changing.
One thing you write about that I can really relate to is how feeling pressured by others is really just me putting pressure on myself to please; a very important thing that you have clarified here.
For me it feels like I have only scratched the surface of what true self care and self love is. I can only imagine and also bearing witness to those around me who have taken it to a much deeper level that the shift is profound when you do accept your are worth every ounce of gods love 100%.
Thank you Heather, I remember the first time I heard Serge Benhayon talk about the body being a marker of truth it really sank in the way I had been abusing my own body for most of my life, exercising and working long hours with no connection to how my body was feeling and how by choosing to bring more self care and love in my life in whatever ways possible is the answer for me to create more joy and harmony in my life.
Thank-you Heather for this honest blog and this part, (that I have also done) “What I used to see as others putting pressure on me, I now see that it is actually me putting the pressure on me to please”. I have found that as I deepen my awareness that what used to feel caring for my body was, is now not enough and that it is a forever developing process. I have also become aware that, true self-loving choices is the beginning to being able to feel the love within everyone else, for how can we be caring for anyone else if we aren’t willing to be responsible for the caring of ourselves
I like how you point out that your approach to self-love was basic self-care. It makes sense. Self-love is hard to grasp and live when we have lived for so long without it and practical things of self-care are a great way to start finding our way back to self-love again.
Heather I love your honesty in this blog and I agree we can all do self-caring acts but what determines whether it is truly self -caring or not is how connected to our body we are, the degree to which we can listen to our bodies and feel what is what is actually needed and the quality in which we are in when we care for ourselves.
Wow Heather thank You for Your honest and so clear words. For me selfcare is also the first step and bridge to selflove 🙂 with love Nadine
I agree that in my experience understanding self care and self love are a bit like layers of understanding and there is always a deeper level of awareness and understanding waiting to be discovered as soon as we have understood one layer or one aspect.
How inspiring Heather! I can relate to your story from beginning to end and I am aware there are still deeper levels of self nurturing to embrace and enjoy on a daily basis. I love the deeper connection and respect I have for my body now – thanks to the presentations by Serge Benhayon and the infinite wisdom and understanding of the practitioners who have supported new choices in my life to bring the much needed changes.
Heather, what you have written resonates with me as well -to be able to make self loving choices and be guided by my body has been huge, with the urge to override the messages just lurking n the background! Fortunately the messages from my body have been persistent ( the bleeding noses, the painful L) hip etc) and I have been able to go do a deeper level of connection with me but here are always more messages…. Self love is an everyday part of how I live now and the messages from my body are there to support and remind me about the choices I am making.
Thank you for your honesty Heather, it’s amazing to read your journey of listening to and understanding your body and how it’s showing you the truth of how you’re living. Very inspiring that you’re making self loving choices and choosing to be the real you.
Thank you Heather for this honest blog over the level of self care and self love. Sometimes I wonder if I even know what true self care is, there is still so much to discard and to feel what is true or not. I could very much relate to the putting pressure on yourself to please others. I have come to the same realisation and it always comes back to me, the responsibility for my choices is always mine.
I am forever amazed at how much more self-love and self-honour is always there like we can never go deep enough with where this can go.
So true Joshua, there is never a stop point where we can say ‘ now I have it all together’ as self-care is a continually deepening and this brings us a greater and greater awareness. You could say the more we listen the more the body will tell us until every cell in our body is so alive and heard that we once again have the full intelligence of the body and no one or no clever mind, not even our own, will ever be able to pull the wool over our eyes again.
Our bodies have a lot of power then! I feel that the wisest decision we can make is to listen to our bodies.
Without a doubt Joshua this seems like the most sensible and loving thing that we could note for our self and others.
You make some great points here Heather about how we put pressure on ourself and then ignore our body – for example putting work tasks before taking care of yourself by shortening or skipping your lunch break.
That is exactly how I used to be in the past and I would then grab and always eat the wrong foods as it had to be something quick and on the go. The thought of even eating now ‘on the go’ feels racy to me and it has made me stop and Appreciate how far I have come – thanks to the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Thank you Heather for this beautiful blog and timely reminder. We can always choose to honor our bodies but we don’t all the time, I certainly have particular patterns where I put my body in certain situations which are not self-loving. It is always healing to go back to why I do that. We are learning with the body every moment and it will keep presenting us with the same lessons until we get them.
Getting on to them right now!
Going against the tide can bring up all sorts of thing in oneself and in others. Family members and friends can often go into a reaction about the different choices made such as cutting out certain foods in the interest of health and well-being. But as you have said Heather, we have a choice to hold back for their sake, or not. By holding back, we only serve the dominant mindset that accepts ill health as normal. By expressing the truth that we come to from a relationship with our bodies, we are able reflect the truth of us all as a humanity.
Dear Heather I absolutely LOVE this blog and can relate to so much you have shared, as I am sure can many. When you choose to bring a quality and awareness to all of these things it completely changes the connection and deepening presence with your body. Things become so much more, simple, clear and joyful, and the feeling of love forever deepens in my body. There are moments that the love I feel within myself, pulsing through my body makes me stop for a moment to just appreciate how awesome and amazing I feel. I know that there is never an end point, and that love can only keep deepening and evolving.
So true – I have become very aware lately how the notion of wanting to please others seems to weave its threads throughout my life and how depleting it can be. I have noticed how this appears when choosing what clothes to wear, when saying yes to projects, holding back my opinions – I have noticed how much time and energy I waste with this rather than trusting myself and getting on with it.
A beautifully expressed blog, Heather, really making it clear how what we think is self care of ourselves and out bodies actually isn’t at all. For instance when you say “Simple things such as showering, bathing, the way I brushed my hair, the things I chose to eat and drink were already a part of my daily routine of self-care, however when I chose to bring more presence and a deeper level of care to these everyday activities I noticed just how much I lacked bringing any true quality to these moments.” When we pause and feel the quality we are doing any task in we can immediately feel if it is loving or not. We can “just do” it, or we can become present with it and feel how we are moving. This is respecting the body, and it will respond.
It’s funny that self-care as you say sounds so simple and yet making the commitment to self-care and self-love shines the spotlight on so many areas of our lives because living in self-disregard is so ‘normal’. It’s an ever deepening and ever evolving process that requires dedication and attention.
Thanks Heather. Learning that the foundation to expressing love is to have enough self love was a revelation to me and runs counter to so many philosophies but makes perfect sense. It is why airlines say, “if oxygen is needed, fit your own mask before helping others”, because without it you can’t help others…Replace oxygen with love and you’ve got self love!
Hi Joel, I love your analogy and writing in general. Heather, your blog is spot on and more than ever, now that I realise I have legs and arms (getting a sense of living in my body); I can second what you’ve written from personal experience.
Brilliant analogy Joel – thank you
That’s so awesome Joel L, what a great analogy.
Hi Heather, I can definitely relate to your experience at work – pushing through and not making time for breaks and reconnecting can mean you really lose perspective…Not only does your quality of work change, but boy do you feel it when you finally stop!
Yes, and why do we choose to make work more important than ourselves?
Heather your blog is a great reminder of how we start making these gradual changes towards self-care – and then self-love. I can relate to this blog so well.
” I certainly had never considered these were all choices that I was indulging in to override and numb myself from feeling the fact that I had very little self-worth and didn’t feel that I deserved taking care of.”
That says it in a nutshell. Learning and feeling that I deserve taking care of – I am of value. I am precious enough to be cherished! Until I do this it is hard to love oneself.
Awesome reflection of you opening to let in the truth about who you are Heather and reminding me that the only way to appreciate and connect with this truth is by falling in love with myself and feeling all there is to feel in my body! Thank you.
If we don’t believe we are good enough or worth it then that will be confirmed by others and by the situations we find ourselves in. It simply isn’t worth it to not value ourselves, self care is a great stepping stone to self love and then from there love for others and then everyone.
That is a very insightful blog Heather. Self care is such a fundamentally important step yet we are often not taught its importance and later have to step back into it to address the lack of self worth. Thank you for taking us through your learning. It is a learning for all.
As you describe here Heather, I have recently come to see my body as my “best friend” but still there are times that I don’t treat it with the respect it deserves. I get out of the routine of exercising, stop breaking for lunch and give up on my daily walking routine. But one thing I can say is this … once upon a time not too long ago I didn’t know that I was more than my behaviours, denying profusely that I was love. Thankfully, like you, this has changed and I now know that I AM Love … but when I don’t feel it in my body because i’ve allowed these behaviours to creep back in, boy oh boy do I feel it.
‘I certainly had never considered these were all choices that I was indulging in to override and numb myself from feeling the fact that I had very little self-worth and didn’t feel that I deserved taking care of.’ I am sure many others feel the same. A great topic to bring to light.
Heather it never ceases to amaze me when someone shares how they had been living – I’m also reading about how I lived. So if many people have similar past ways of living it is possible for many people to start to make self-care choices when they too are presented with the love and wisdoms as we have been. This is something to celebrate, supporting humanity in discovering there is another way to live the love that everyone is.
It is truly amazing how so much wisdom, knowledge, and divinity is held in the body – the super sensitive human frame – that connects us to nature and therefore God, the universe, the source or, whatever name you want to give It, and yet most of our life we not only choose but are encouraged from many angles to trash, drain, toughen and numb it instead of, nurture, hold with reverence and respect, honour and most importantly listen to what it is telling us on a moment to moment basis. Simple stuff like do not inhale that smoke, or I am exhausted I need sleep not more sugar or caffeine. And on and on it goes, the abuse and disregard of the body until it gets so bad that it needs for someone to come along and point out the absolute importance of redefining our relationship with our bodies. Thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for doing just that..
Hear hear Kathleenbaldwin, what you have shared is spot on and such a practical and real account of what our bodies are bombarded by and we put it through constantly… but how we hold the power to change this, by simply listening to what our bodies are most the time screaming out for us to hear.
Absolutely spot on Aimee, and we are in fact the only one that can change this, nobody can do it for us but if we leave it too late and over-ride too many times the body has no choice against the bombardment other than to cope the best it can and then we find ourselves hardly able to get through the day without copious stimulants such as sugar, caffeine and other forms of medications like painkillers and alcohol and if we continue to tune out eventually we are brought to a stop with an illness or a disease.
Thanks Heather, what a gorgeous and honest blog. I love the bit at the end when you say it can be fun. That is my experience too. When I actually listen my body is very responsive and has plenty to say. It makes life a lot more simple and answers a lot of questions having this wonderful wise friend who is there all the time!
There is definitely a direct link between wanting or needing to please others, i.e. an attempt to garner some recognition or acceptance, and a lack of self-worth.
I agree Gabriele – we look to others for what we deny ourselves: love.
As confronting as it is to feel where our body is at, it is also extremely real and humbling. I love what you share here Heather – “The choice to be true to me, and my body, can at times be a little uncomfortable but I can also make it fun – enjoying the ever-unfolding journey… when I choose to listen to and respect my body!” It is amazing to live life with this level of awareness, love and honouring of yourself and your body. Thank you Heather.
Wowee…tell it like it is sister! Awesome blog and honest sharing of where life has been for you and where it is going. I love it. You nailed it when you shared….”I certainly had never considered these were all choices that I was indulging in to override and numb myself from feeling the fact that I had very little self-worth and didn’t feel that I deserved taking care of”. How amazingly honest is that. And then to have the courage to change that and to start to honour and love yourself and know that you are worth it because you are it – another awesome! Inspiring Heather, very inspiring.
Heather, what a great blog. I can totally relate, as I to am on the same journey and experiencing the same things. It’s not until we choose to be aware that we realise how hard and disconnected we have been in our body.
Very true Gill, there is always a deepening of the love and care we can give to ourselves, and hence to others. Love is forever expanding, the more we nurture ourselves, the deeper we connect back to who we are, and the more love is felt. And it keeps deepening and deepening. it is a lovely way to be and to live.
Thank you Heather, it is true that self-care is so simple and it fundamentally comes from how we feel about ourselves. As you say, the simple act of brushing our hair can be done with so much love and care — or not.
Super cool, Heather. This line is really relevant to me at the moment, ‘I’ve observed how believing that I’m not good enough brings in thoughts, people and situations that will confirm that belief’. Sometimes when I’m having a ‘self-loathing day’, or am feeling really down about myself, the flood of thoughts that rush in picking out everything that’s wrong about me and my life is sometimes quite overwhelming! But it is 100% my choice, and when I don’t allow the opening of self-loathing, the thoughts don’t come in. Choices are very powerful.
Spot on Susie, thanks for sharing that.
I so agree with what you say here Susie, with the great line you quote from Heather as I have had the same experience.
Before I learned to live and feel in the way Heather describes, those ugly thoughts were a constant undercurrent in my mind, I didnt even notice I was having negative dialogue as I believed it to be normal.
For me a key change was that once I made the choice to notice as soon as those thoughts came in, then it was easier to choose to stop them. As you say choices are very powerful.
The more we make self loving choices the less those thoughts arise and they are so easily noticed if they do.
It is such a joy now to have a voice that appreciates instead, and so much more space in my head!!.
Such a lovely, simple one-on-one of how to apply the presentations of Serge Benhayon to life, and then seeing how those small changes change everything. I wonder what the world will look like when every one of us put ourselves on self-love journey?
Thank you for such an honest blog Heather, one that I can relate too so well. Learning to stop and to allow myself to truly feel what was going on in my body was a huge lesson for me. Breaking the old and ingrained patterns of the disregard I had lived with for so long hasn’t been easy, but making the commitment to care for myself more lovingly has brought me the most amazing results, though at times slipping back into the old ways was often easier and way more comfortable: a familiar old friend! But I have persevered, and one by one I have identified these harmful behaviours and have replaced them with choices that are much more respectful and healing for my body – definitely my marker of truth!
It felt like I was reading an account of my own experiences with self-love and self-care, it was so similarly accurate. At times I can still give myself a very harsh time for going into old, harming patterns ‘once again’, but even this criticism is a harming pattern in itself. To actually go from complete loathing and ignoring of my body to considering it my best guide when I do listen is amazing and gets better the more I pay attention to its signals.
Thank you for this blog Heather.
Heather when I first came to Universal Medicine I thought the way I was living was normal – after all it was not only the way other people lived that I knew but on top of that I felt I had refined it. I thought that because I didn’t eat cheap food, I went on holidays and had massages and got pampered I was taking care of myself. The truth couldn’t have been further from it as I drove myself ragged with being busy, drank, took substances, ate foods that made me sick and stayed up online or watching TV late into the evening having to drag myself out of bed the next day. As you’ve shared my understanding of self-care and self-love constantly deepens and when I look at how I was living it seems so ab-normal as it was totally out of sync with me.
Thank you Heather for this great sharing, honest and simply true , I love when you refer to your body as your best friend.
Same for me Gill. When I first started to be more aware of self care, I made it very practical and at times followed this like a set of rules (ie I would go to bed based on a set time instead of actually feeling my body and when i needed to sleep, and with little awareness of associating whatever else I had been doing during the day or the day before with my sleep rhythm and/ or how tired I was). I started to realize that it was / is the quality of self care that is important, and that this cannot be compartmentalized into time slots or separated activities, but that self care is about the quality in which I live every day and impacts everything I do each day… Something that is a definite work in progress. 🙂
I have also had this experience Angela in relation to bed time, just recently rather than going to bed at a set time I am allowing myself to prepare for sleep earlier if I find I am tired. It is really quite simple when we follow the clear guide our bodies give us, and in doing this I find I need less sleep. There is room to pay attention like this in all aspects of my life and it is quite heartening to notice how big a difference the little things make to the bigger picture of how we feel and are able to interact with others.
Thank you Heather. I also am deepening my awareness of and respect for my body, and I now have a much more loving connection to my body than I did before Universal Medicine. I really appreciate the way it speaks to me, and I love walking it around very delicately and gracefully. When I remember to do that, it feels amazing!
This is a gorgeously honest blog Heather. Yes once we have stopped the obvious self abusive behaviours more is revealed to us about deeper levels of disregard. Self love is such a simple term but reveals so much if we are willing to truly look and be honest.
Thank you Heather.
Its been so interesting for me to observe firstly what I considered a normal way to treat myself – ie hardness, eating bad food, not taking care of myself – and secondly to now understand and apply true care – which as you say – can be as simple as the amount of times I check in with my body at work.
These are little changes with a big difference, if done with love and consistency. I too am seeing the difference in me and how I am with others simply by the way I care for myself.
Wow Heather. Great blog. Clarity and truth in every word and I can relate to all of it. Staying with myself when I am brushing my hair,for example, goes deeper when I am truly aware of what I am actually doing. The quality changes from just brushing my hair to loving the feel of the brush in my hand, the feel of the brush on my scalp, how the hair feels as the brush moves through my hair and how vital my head and hair feels after brushing. The next thing is lovingly being with my hair brushing routine every time. This is still a work in progress.
Absolutely a work in progress for me also Janneprice – but it’s fun and I find that such a simple task can be so supportive. The simple act of brushing my hair as you beautifully describe really helps to bring me back to me.
Kicking old habits of self-abuse becomes easier the more we truly appreciate our body and accept that it is our responsibility, and ours alone, to take very tender care of it.
So true Carmel. I found that when the appreciation for my body began to develop and unfold I felt naturally more inclined to make more loving choices for my body. What used to be a chore is now a very beautiful opportunity to listen to my body and build a deepening relationship with it.
Thanks Heather a clear and descriptive blog! What stood out for me is self-care and how there are many layers to it …when I was first presented with this concept I arrogantly thought I knew what it meant. But did I? Definetely not!
I love you how you write…. and expose the arrogance. I was so with you there!
Certainly Ann-Brit, it’s only when I began to take a closer look at the quality in which I approached my self-care, that my arrogance was exposed and the many layers began to be revealed.
Yes Ann-Brit, the arrogance being yet another barrier we have put in place to not feel the lack of disregard we have been living in.
I recognise the arrogance of thinking we ‘know’ what is being presented instead of allowing our understanding to unfold so well Ann-Britt and the way you expressed it made me laugh. This arrogance is still with me, together with wanting to control and put the breaks on – it gets more subtle and more sneaky as I develop, but it is still there – it is a part of my mental chatter and needs a very watchful eye on it. In fact I could say watching out for such thoughts and emotions and not buying into them is part of my self care.
Heather,I found your article quite painful to read, because it mirrored my own current experience so much. I know there are times when I cling on to the old ‘easy’ way of being rather than simply listening to, and accepting what my body is telling me.Putting off what changes my body is asking for by eating that little bit more, working that little bit longer. Which isn’t really easy at all, it just hardens a body that is asking to be gentle and still.
Brilliant blog Heather. It equally sums up the realisations I have come to in this journey back to the truth of who I am, being more honest, delving deeper and allowing my body to be the marker of truth as it naturally is.
Elaine it is about being more honest, delving deeper and allowing the body to be the marker of truth. This is the great journey, of back to the truth of who we are.