852 thoughts on “Our Past Catches Up With Us, Eventually”

1. “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.”
   This sentence is so true, very often we hang on to the past because somehow we feel the comfort of this, rather than wanting to move forward to what we may feel in the unknown.

   1. Hello Mary, what I am realising more and more is that when I tune in to the body, focusing on how it is feeling, or what it is doing, there is a lovely harmony and presence to enjoy. The body so loves it when we connect deeply to our Soul this way, with the breath, with our movements, the past takes care of itself and the future is assured.

2. Our life and lives are a cycle so that the way we have lived impacts or supports us in how we live in the present and equally impacts or supports us in our next and next cycle of life.

3. How great if all people understood this, many old people just give up on life – so what are they taking into their next life? ‘It seems to me that in our early years we are preparing for our elder years, and in our elder years we are preparing for death and our next life.’

4. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” – a great question and I would add: What degree or amount of heaven do we embrace to live our lives with? And can we allow ourselves to be open to the All that Heaven has to offer us?

   1. Allowing ourselves to be open to the All that Heaven has to offer – I love your question Henrietta, it feels like a surrender, not about more knowledge or effort at all. If Heaven is a vibration that we all can access equally, it is so worth feeling deeply into our own sensitivity to live with all heaven’s glorious qualities. Harmony and stillness are so needed at this time of global wake-up call.

5. No matter what, our choices come and catch up with us eventually – these might be choices that then support us long term or they might be ones that we have made with little regard to consequences. It is not so much a punishment system but rather a means of learning what supports and what does not.

6. Bernadette, what a gorgeous blog about life and all its offerings, and I particularly resonate with the importance of developing our relationship with ourselves: “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.”

7. I am discovering that there is responsibility and then there is a greater depth to responsibility. I can say I have been fairly responsible in my life, I work hard, pay my taxes, live within the laws of our society, look after people and animals with care and attention to their welfare. But there’s so much more to being responsible. To be responsible to live deeply knowing God and the universe and knowing I am a part of this magnificent whole and then living and expressing this in my everyday life. I am realising that to do this I have to deeply love myself, so that means putting down all the tools I have used to self bash myself, such as a lack of self worth, running on nervous energy so I don’t have to feel the greatness within me, that’s huge to admit that there is a greatness within me that surpass anything I have felt before. I enjoined society to fit in, to hide and not to be seen or felt. But it’s not about me and what I want, it’s about bringing the universe back into everyday life so that we can all get to feel what I feel when I see certain people walking heaven on earth. If everyone got to feel and see Heaven walking on earth then they would know they have a different choice, theirs to make or not.

8. “Being able to observe life and not absorb everything around me, from the news on TV or the difficulties that others are experiencing, enables me to be compassionate and understanding, without having to have solutions.” What a sense of freedom, to let others be where they are, still feel our warmth and care, but not feel pressured to provide, as you say, the solutions. Surely that supports people to take more responsibility for themselves, something we all must do.

   1. Melinda this is a key aspect of all relationships that you have highlighted here – the fact of being able to live and let live. I still find myself wanting to fix or reach out to do things for others, when in fact this dis-empowers them, and so it is a process of letting go for me that then allows me to deepen the relationships… a work in progress indeed.

      1. Henrietta I also find myself wanting to fix something or reach out to do things for others, I also can feel this deep urge to just let go and allow every thing to just be because I cannot control life and to think that I can is complete illusion on my part.

   2. Allowing others to be responsible for their lives, and not trying to give them solutions is far more loving for all, ‘ Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity, and my body thanks me with more contentment and appreciation.’

9. Bernadette this is beautiful, i love what you share here.

10. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it? POW the question that all of us need to deeply reflect on.

11. Appreciation comes with a deep understanding that we are divine and so is everything else and that we also can not let go of being intimate (letting people in) with others as to appreciate and being intimate go hand in hand.

    1. There is so much to appreciate all around us, ‘As I walked my light steps along the beach, I observed the playfulness of dogs – they love to play together. I felt the cool crisp air on my cheeks, and walked at the shoreline with waves and sparkling water. I appreciated this moment of joy, feeling a part of everything around me, the space and light, and activity.’

12. “In our elder years there is a lot of letting go ” True – and if we can do this with grace it makes life so much easier. In this youth-obsessed world even young people aren’t satisfied with how they are. I wasn’t either – always wanting to change things and look different or wanting things to be different. Until I came to Universal Medicine and learned the power of acceptance and appreciation. I feel more settled now in my late sixties than I ever did when younger.

13. We don’t have to wait until we are older to let go of issues, ideals, beliefs or pictures of life we want to be real. In fact the sooner we let them go the lighter we feel. I don’t have any issue with getting older as I know I won’t have such a heavy loading on my body if I continue to live and grow the presence of my essence in everyday life.

    1. So true Leigh – and beautiful to read from a younger woman.

14. Indeed, as what was recently beautifully highlighted to me was that we can tick all the boxes – eat well, exercise etc but if within we are judging others, comparing others with ourselves or ourselves with others or even jealous of another or a couple etc we are actually destroying our body within. So every aspect of how we are and how we live is important, even the fleeting thoughts that happen so fast we pretend we didn’t have them or that is okay because no one else knows about them 😐 Everything we do is energetically recorded.

15. What you say rings true to me that how we are in our elder years is a reflection of our younger years especially how we have treated our bodies. From my own experience, when I was young I never had a thought about getting old it just wasn’t on my radar, I was invincible I was never going to get old.
    I now feel that young people should have more interaction with the elderly so they can see that the body needs to be honoured. Instead we seem to dismiss the elderly to the detriment of the overall health of our society.

    1. I relate to your comment about getting old not being on my radar as a young woman Mary, but I was very fortunate to have older women, my mother, aunts and grandmothers who were amazing role models. I appreciate what they showed me and how they were so much more now as an older person myself.

16. This is a beautiful sharing; ‘What I felt was that it is all about how we live with ourselves, how respectful we are of our movements and how we love and appreciate ourselves and others and everything.’

17. How we feel right now is a result of all our choices, so there is no one to blame not even ourselves because it is about taking responsibility and not about blame. If we get caught up in blame, all we would feel is misery, so what will we choose, responsibility or blame?

    1. Blame goes with judgement and guilt and does nothing but undermine who we really are and the potential we hold to live and embrace. Chan I love how you have brought the word ‘responsibility’ into this because responsibility is all about growth and embracing the next steps of who we are more and more deeply.

       1. Being responsible in how we live and the choices we make is very important, ‘it is all about how we live with ourselves, how respectful we are of our movements and how we love and appreciate ourselves and others and everything.’

18. There is comfort in holding onto the past, we stay stuck and continue to play out old patterns that don’t evolve us in anyway. Letting go of these pictures and old hurts we begin to experience a different way to move and express in the world that is more loving, expansive and true.

    1. So true Anna, the comfort of holding on to the past, mainly our hurts is not so comfortable at all but the pain is a delay, a way to avoid the immense love we could feel and the love that we are.

    2. Comfort is really a form of control by not evolving ourselves or others and keeping life the same.

       1. Melinda what you say is true, comfort is a form of control, some people don’t want to change and get stuck in the ‘rut’ of life however there are some people that do want to make positive changes and love the changes they have made. When we make the changes life is never the same again and it can feel so liberating to just allow ourselves to let go.

       2. I agree, ‘Keeping life the same’ is a form of control Melinda and Mary, and I am realising that old patterns of behaviour if allowed to repeat do keep us stuck in a groove like a cracked record. Do I really want to stay in old familiar mud or create space for freshness and expansion?

    3. Our past affects our future, so how wise to let go of all that is not love, ‘Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.’

19. Yes, we are not moving in a straight line, we do not walk away from our behaviours or problems, we simply cycle round to deal with the imprints we have left behind. So it actually makes far more sense to deal with it at the time and make a different choice. I am realising that this is a choice for all not just our self.

20. It’s not until my forties that I’ve looked back and can appreciate each age and phase of my life and what it has offered. I can remember wasting so much time and angst wishing I was older when I was a teenager instead of celebrating what was there to learn and grow with each age.

21. Since attending the courses presented by Universal Medicine what really stands out for me is what a waste of time hanging onto stuff is, and how harming that is to the body. Having an ageing body is one thing but living the latter years in misery makes it all that more challenging, but it’s great to know that we do not just arrive in a situation randomly and that it is our choices that are responsible for our outcome.

    1. And there is much we can choose to keep bringing throughout our lives, ‘we can choose to keep working and being of service in many capacities, as volunteers in our communities, as teachers, writers, carers and whatever ways we are able to connect with people to bring our authority, love and understanding. ‘

22. Yes indeed… There is so much to let go of as we progress in life… And imagine if we were able to truly start to surrender and let go of pictures and ideals when we were young… Paving the way for us to continue to reconnect and build our body of love.

23. I love what you state here Bernadette. Being aware of every moment in this way is offering commitment, purpose and a reflection of quality in every movement we make “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?
    We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are”.

24. The great thing is that all our really great choices also catch up with us.

    1. Great to focus on how every loving choice we make today will lay foundations for our future, thank you Elizabeth.

    2. That is really great to know, so how important is it to make loving responsible choices.

25. Being in my elder years my days are full and the most fulfilled than they ever did in the past. I am vital and energetic and not at all how I ever imagined I would or could be as I aged. This joyful lifestyle is all due to my commitment to The Way of The Livingness and the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom as presented by Serge Benhayon.

    1. Wow! How many people amaze themselves with how they feel in their elder years?

26. It is so true that how we live, all of our choices are then shown as we age. We, therefore, have a responsibility to live in a way that supports our bodies as we age. and added to this is the fact that it is possible to be vital and healthy in our older years and to not think we have to just give up.

    1. It is only as we age that we realise we cannot argue with that sentence!!! I know when I was younger I would have worked very hard to prove you wrong – then life and my choices caught up with me!

27. Our body is etched in our past choices, and as we age we are constantly reminded of those choices we made, and yet through making more loving choices our body is able to start to rebalance itself and we are able to benefit from those loving choices as it moves us into the future and away from the past.

    1. So true Sally and it is quite amazing I am finding how much can be rebalanced through loving choices and healing unresolved hurts.

28. “When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom” presentations and workshops with Universal Medicine have shown me how to listen with the ears of the heart.

    1. Becoming older and wiser, as well as attending courses and presentations by Serge Benhayon has taught me the importance of listening to my body, ‘In fact, listening to my body is one of the very best things that I can do to keep me steady. When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation.’ So true.

29. ‘Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity, and my body thanks me with more contentment and appreciation.’ Sometimes people look to us for the answers but there is nothing more empowering than finding our own answers so being a true and loving reflection is a great way to support each other.

30. “The best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness” – so true. We are always living the consequence of our previous choices, so if I wanted some kind of guarantee for my future, it can only come from committing to life right now at this moment.

31. Not only does our past from this life, but also our past from many lives eventually catch up with us. This is a beautiful thing because it gives us an opportunity to correct anything that was not done in love.

32. Yes indeed… We can either live the past or live the future… And that is the choice of the wisdom of the ages.

33. ‘we can live our future now, returning to who we are’.
    No need to wait for something to happen or save for our last years, living who we are, living the future and actually our past/where we come from changes everything in your life.

34. ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ What a great reminder for each of us that we only get offered gifts from heaven to learn. I keep reminding myself to this fact very often when things may seem different from how I would want or expected them or when thoughts in my head try to convince me differently.

35. “When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation.”

    The other day I was packing for a full weekend of workshops and as I opened a drawer, I saw two pens and felt to take one but my mind said, no you have a pen in your bag. As soon as the workshop started my pen ran out of ink. I reflected back that my body knew I needed to take a pen but I overrode that wisdom and then had to find another pen. It knows SO much.

    1. This is such a great simple example Sarah, it made me smile!

    2. I love your practical example and just like you I can be blown away by the wisdom of my body when I listen to it. To the point that I know I need to leave the house right now to be in time somewhere or go back to the car otherwise I get a penalty for not having paid for enough parking time. Overriding always proved ‘trouble/learning’ afterwards.

36. Yes it is easy to blame another – but if we are willing to listen to our bodies, it is amazing how they are not actually against us but rather there to support us – our very own 24/7 feedback loop on how we are living.

37. We learn from young age to leave ourselves, and eventually to return to a version of ourselves that we have said yes to. We learn to manage life within some coordinates, without fully realizing that what we are doing is to make a decision for the present and the future at once.

38. Even though not many words were shared between the the young woman and yourself she got a reflection from you and your body of how to love and take care of herself that will be with her forever. I did exactly the same, when I was younger I lived not caring of the consequences and not thinking of the future but how we live at any point in our life is our future. These are really simple life lessons that should be taught to all from young and should be the foundation of our life. The teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine are pure gold and teachings that are and will be available to all at any time.

39. Appreciation… We can then be reminded too much or too often how important this is

    1. I agree Chris, appreciation is super important and makes an incredible difference to the way we live our lives and the quality of our relationships.

40. Our bodies carry everything we live and in each moment we have a choice in how we are, loving or not, aware or not, it’s such a gift to feel someone in their elder years embracing life and living a greater understanding of who they are and that how they live is everything, our greatest medicine is life.

41. Our past choices do catch up with us eventually and we can see them etched on the faces and crocked bodies of people as they walk down the street. How often do we meet people and think to ourselves ‘They’ve had a hard life’, and judging by their appearance, mannerisms and ailments, they probably have?

42. Thank you Bernadette, may I add to the conversation, by sharing that as a student of the Livingness we can appreciate our essence and the divinity we all have always held within, which holds us so “that we never stop evolving.”

43. It is my experience that there is a lot of letting go needed at all stages of our life and the more we allow ourselves to do it as we go through life the easier it is to let go in our elder years until we surrender into the letting go requires in passing over.

    1. This is great Elizabeth, and may I add to the conversation, that in “passing-over” we have the responsibility of understanding our divine purpose so then we would understand about reincarnation and how being responsible in this life will impact our next lives, would we not appreciate this level of awareness. Then could it be possible that appreciation is all to do with being-re-connected to our divine-essence?

44. I have come to the understanding that my past is with me in every moment, I haven’t left it behind and this simple fact shows in the many ‘scars’ my body carries from the multitude of disregarding choices that I made. How different life would have been if someone had presented me with the wise words you have shared here: ‘the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness’. And living with that awareness I know I would have been able to see clearly the consequences of my many choices but to know that next time I could always make a different and more loving choice.

45. Society does not value the lived experiences of the elderly and the wisdom they have access to; which is a huge shame for humanity as they are discarding a valuable resource of what elders have to share.

46. A lot of wisdom shared for us readers here. A piece of gold for me today was that everything will catch up with us eventually – which got me thinking about how I am with myself and the times I can be hard on myself. I know that creates a tension which means wear and tear on the body, and if I allow it to continue – without making a choice differently – that is a lot of wear and tear as I age.

47. We cannot avoid the fact that our past will eventually catch up with us. I can remember as a child being told to ‘not make that face or one day you will look like that’. I didn’t pay much attention at the time not really believing it to be true, but as an older woman now I clearly see how this really does happen, and its not just with our faces but how we hold and move our whole bodies.

48. Anyone who thinks that the past will not catch up to them, is living in such an illusion, and this bubble will most certainly be burst… Catching up is inevitable as the sunrise or indeed the sunset

49. “Have we been living with beliefs that are restricting us as we age?” …and for me the answer is yes, yes, yes! Listening to the beliefs of what to expect as we age I was prepared to be feeling rather decrepit and slowing down markedly in my late 60’s, but that is definitely not the case. What it has taken to dismantle these constricting beliefs is acknowledging the preciousness of my body and with that the deepening of the love and care for it, as well as building a new and very wonderful relationship with me, the woman. And the person who I thank deeply for reminding me how precious my body is, is Serge Benhayon. I didn’t have to take on what he has presented, but what he has presented over many years simply makes sense.

    1. How beautiful Ingrid, to acknowledge the preciousness of our body and building a ‘new and very wonderful relationship’ with ourselves as women. I have also found this easier to do as my ageing body communicates its messages to me. Paying attention to these messages feels very loving and transformational.

50. Every moment is so a gift and we have the choice in how we live it … isn’t that just magic.

51. I love this statement “As we age, there is nowhere to hide”, for the truth that it states so clearly. In the past I used to hide a lot and was expecting to continue the hiding as I aged, but nothing could be further from the truth. At the same age as you Bernadette, I have no thoughts of hiding, in fact I have never been more visible in my life; wrinkles, sags and all, I am loving being out in the world in all my gloriousness.

52. ‘To observe and not absorb life’ has been such a powerful teaching I have learnt from attending Universal Medicine presentations. When we live this truth it brings a greater understanding to ourselves and others and stops any judgment we may have.

53. True appreciation is the pathway to ‘letting go’. It allows us to see the bigger picture and our part of that picture. It also assists us to see that we have done nothing wrong and that regret keeps us stuck in the momentum that we have lived life in. Letting go of that which we regret is more important that very few have given credit for. Regret sets us up for a whole range of behaviours that we will carry through to our death and beyond.

    1. Thank you for your wisdom about the damage of living with regret Jennifer, and for reminding us that the antidote – appreciation– sets us free.

54. If we are reluctant to ‘let go’ throughout life, then the opportunities to ‘let go’ as we get older and perhaps enter the final phases in life increase exponentially. We escape nothing and it becomes all the more present as we face the pointy ‘end of our life. I am reminded of the phrase ‘no time like the present’.

55. Beautiful, sharing again as above you had quoted.. : “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving. ”
    Exactly that. Powerful.

56. Imagine being educated in a way that did actually understand that life is a cycle and we lived for our future.

57. Reading this great blog about how we can live our life to the fullest no matter our age really helped me to drop back and see the grand cycle of things and how each and every choice sets us up for what unfolds later in this life and all those thereafter. Another reason to choose to be with ourselves and appreciate more what is offered to us in every moment.

58. We have a choice to make life about simplicity or complication. When we set the standard to allow nothing less than what we know supports us then the answer is very simple.

59. ‘Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually’. How very true Bernadette, well said.

60. With the awareness and understanding that each and every life is a preparation for our next life we realise that our past, present and future are all one, as we feel the steps of the past as we walk through life today we are laying the foundations of how we will walk in the future.

61. “I did not fully understand how my emotions impacted on every aspect of my health – psychological, emotional, physiological and mental”. I don’t think you were alone there. Prior to Universal Medicine I had a limited understanding of this, i.e. if I was angry, I could feel that in my body etc… but that is just the tip of the iceberg so to speak. Our emotions – the big and the little – have such an impact on our lives, and those around us. I discovered that I have many more subtle tendrils of emotions running through my body that were draining me of joy and vitality. Once I became aware of them, I could see them and then let them go but I was not aware of them until I started attending Universal Medicine presentations. An eye opener for sure (and heart!).

62. Feeling the impact and consequences of our movements supports us to change. Unless we sense the consequences and how they feel in the body then we remain in the ignorance of what has been offered.

63. Not only do we pay the consequences for the choices we have made in our younger years we also pay the consequences for all the choices we have made in our past lives. Imagine if before every choice we made we considered the consequence of the choice.

64. It is a wise person who turns to their strengths in their elder years, even when the body has changed with what it can physically do, your presence in society is invaluable because your experience and wisdom of years can show the way for us all.

    1. We are certainly no less because we are older or have less physical capacity. Everyone has much to bring regardless of our age.

65. When I awoke to the truth of reincarnation, and that very choices I make in this life will lay the foundation I step into in my next, it was a revelation I found deeply humbling and empowering. That’s not to say I don’t have a hissy fit and throw my toys out of the pram from time to time in reaction to the responsibility this awareness holds, but on the whole, it is the greatest gift I could ever have been given.

    1. I love the honesty in this Lucy “throw my toys out of the pram from time to time in reaction to the responsibility this awareness holds” for reincarnation shows us we are entirely responsible for our own life – and the impact it has on everyone else in that incarnation – and their future lives also.

66. When we are willing to see, feel and experience we live in cycles then there is this preparation time for the next cycle we go into. Not how I lived my life when I was younger but it is how I live now and just like you have shared Bernadette, there is more space and simplicity than ever before by living my life in every moment and appreciating myself for the choices I make in letting go what is no longer needed to prepare for what is to come.

67. It’s our choice to stick with the old or address it and consider what is needed now, and either way we know for our bodies show us.

68. ‘And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness. Very wise!

69. “Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually” – yes, and it’s the quality of our past that lays the foundation for the quality of the present.

    1. So true Zofia and this is why it is important to know that with each choice we make we will be either laying a true, solid foundation for the next moment or a false shaky one.

70. In the Autumn of a long and full life we all learn and benefit when our elders honour their experience and worthiness and find the purpose in bringing and sharing this with their community.

    1. So true rosannabianchini. If we dismiss our elders and do not value what they bring, everyone and everything misses out on their wisdom and understanding.

71. An opportunity to stop and consider: how are we living, what impact is this having upon the body, and what is the long term impact of this? We carry around so many pictures of how life should be when it’s all very simple: when we just stop to feel what we know is true for us, we do have an innate knowing of how to live in a harmonious way where we are in the flow and connected to our bodies and that knowing. In fact we are always connected to it, but our moment to moment choices and how we live determine the extent to which we allow ourselves to feel and be aware of that connection and knowing. But there is always the opportunity to connect to this knowing, accepting our past choices and loving where we are, right now, at whatever age.

72. ‘What I felt was that it is all about how we live with ourselves, how respectful we are of our movements and how we love and appreciate ourselves and others and everything.’ So different than the picture most people have about life and it is not what everybody is doing is their business I will do my thing, no it is a matter of responsibility what you are talking about we all feel but maybe don’t want to feel.

73. We live in a giant sphere of life and as such we are governed by the cycles that pertain to that sphere. This means that no matter how hard we try, we cannot bury our past as what has been lived will be carried with us always. If what has been lived is not true to the love that we are, then these energetic imprints stay with us until such a time that we can see them clearly for what they are, renounce the behaviours that led to them and then begin the process of re-imprinting our lives with a more true way to be. Because we do not like this level of responsibility, it is convenient to idealise our existence as lineal in the sense that if we do not like something we have done, said or thought, we can simply ‘leave it all behind and start again’. But if that were the case then the world would be flat and not round.

74. “As I age, I am made so aware of how I lived my younger life and how my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived – the drive, the anxiousness, the overworked body.” . . . yes, Bernadette this is certainly very true. And this is something that the young do not want to know, it seems and I doubt I would have wanted to know when I was young. ‘The school of life’ eventually teaches us this lesson and then we have the opportunity to take responsibility and change our movements and ways or we can dig our heels in and blame our physical complaints on ‘bad luck’ and suffer the consequences feeling all very hard done by.

75. A great blog Bernadette with a powerful reminder of being aware of the consequences of how we have lived and how we can make new choices and prepare for passing over in a very different quality, in preparation for the next body that will be lived in.
    “I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness”.

76. There is a beautiful feeing of liberation when we let go of the drive in life, the push and strife I used to do long ago, and feel how it did not serve me. We definitely do get the body we have lived, but we can still live the future now when we discard the old ways. It is very empowering to let go of old issues and move on.

77. ” the beauty is that we never stop evolving. ”
    This is so important to remember we can take part in our evolution or be part of evolution.

78. Totally enjoyed reading this today, thank you. And thank you for this reminder – “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.”

79. Bernadette this is such a wonderful and enjoyable post, and this line here : “As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies” – makes me think of how much we are like a ‘walking CV’ – with everything about us being written and known by those that read it.

80. ‘As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies’. And we do it all to ourselves – there is no-one to blame for what we have chosen! But it is never too late to begin to clear and heal our bodies.

81. It is great to return to this blog and bathe in all the wisdom that is on offer. I especially love this: “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving”.

82. I love this sentence: “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” Who knows how many moments we waste, we delay, we are disrespectful, when every moment holds unlimited potential.

83. It is awesome if we learn what you have regarding loving ourselves and letting go when we are younger as this would mean we would have lived more of a quality and brought more of a quality to all those around us.

84. “It is so easy and so irresponsible to look around for someone or a situation to blame for one’s stress or suffering.” Yet we do this time and time again to avoid our true power and the responsibility that comes with it.

85. “When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.” I love these powerful words of wisdom.

86. This is beautiful to read Bernadette, there is a flow in life and there is no reason to step on the brake or the need to think where to go next, it is the surrendering that is the key and I can feel it in your words.

87. We certainly do set up our elder years by how we live as a younger person and in our elder years we setup our passover and our next life. We start to realise this as we age. It would be great to have this humbleness and insight when we are younger. If we grew up being supported to respect our bodies from young we may not need hindsight.

88. Beautiful Bernadette, the way you explain this it’s so clear to me that we have life upside down. Fancy being born in so wise and full of Love, or aging to prepare to be born again. There is no age that is important to dwell on just appreciation for our divinity – it’s ageless.

89. It may feel unfamiliar to move our bodies gently, to again feel the potential of the grace we are. But moved enough, choosing to be gentle over and over again, our body begins to know this way as it’s normal and in time it will feel unfamiliar when we move abruptly or without care.

    1. This is where and how our aging bodies can be honoured more fully.

90. “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.”
    The beauty is that we always have choice, something we innately know within. Our choice to evolve and bring more grace and presence to how we move in our lives is one that can always be made, no matter the circumstances, as our body is our vehicle and how we use it to express is up to us.

91. “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.”
    I love this statement for it speaks of what I feel. Loving myself and appreciating the qualities that I innately am in how I live each day opens my awareness up to feel the pull of the future. This is not the ideal of where I will live, or what work I will be doing, but the quality of Livingness that I will again be living.

92. Love what you’ve shared here Bernadette about preparing for the future by taking care of how we are in the present moment. If I’m with myself, observing what I’m doing instead of lost in my head, open, present and vital, then that is the foundation I’ve set for whatever comes next. Letting go of our need to try to nail life, to have it all sorted, and to allow life to flow to us, knowing that it’s really only our quality of being that we have any dominion over.. all of this starts to slowly happen when we accept ourselves more and connect to what we feel in our bodies.

93. These words have stood out and touched me deeply today ‘… it is all about how we live with ourselves, how respectful we are of our movements and how we love and appreciate ourselves…’ and in doing so we bring all of us to the world.

94. At the age of 68 I too have become so aware of the way I lived my life for so long and the impact the choices I made have had on my body, with many of these choices being very disregarding ones. And like you “my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived”. It surely does and I am reminded of this every day but I have also learned that it is never too late to begin to make different choices to live a in different and a much more loving way.

95. We have been fed with lies (ideals, beliefs, images) all attaining that we have to learn who we are, instead of reminding us of what we truly know. Simply all lies are revealed by connecting to our truth, the knowing that we are eternal, energetic beings and that we are love from origin, nothing else.Hence our agening proces is only a physical experience and always comes second , as we are energetic beings first. We can not judge, only observe our ways and grow from there.. We know everything already.

96. I very much feel this is where I am now in my life. In the future there may be decisions of where I want to live and do but what I know is that by listening to my inner voice I will easily make these decisions !

97. Thank you Bernadette, learning to let go of being a problem solver and “to be compassionate and understanding, without having to have solutions” is something that still comes up for me. This pattern is what I took on many years ago to cope with not living with my essence. My return to soul is one of letting go of everything false taken on to cover up that which was already beautiful and complete.

98. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” When we see life like this we can’t but live moment by moment instead of looking forward to the next thing or looking back and desiring to be younger.

99. It is a great thing that our body is so honest. If it wasn’t we would be in a far worse situation than we are now with our overall health.

100. When we take one step at a time and do not invest in how we think our future should look we allow it to unfold and we are supported to be exactly were we need to be and to do exactly what we need to do

101. Maybe there is many blessings being in an ageing body. For one as your title suggested – Everything does catch up with us eventually. Because of that ageing is something that we often dread as our bodies become much louder in their honesty. This offers us the opportunity, not an inevitability.

102. Life is a sequence of movements that prepare us/set us what comes next. It unfolds as we move and in response to our movements.

103. If I had known what I know now I would never have have been that reckless but now that I do know the responsibility just gets greater. I am really tired of seeing the slogan ‘one life so live it’ because no one has only one life and if we all knew this we would use each life to prepare ourselves for the next.

104. “And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” A lovely expression of life lived moment to moment and the opportunity to continue to deepen our awareness of life and the way in which we move within it. Thank you Bernadette.

105. Accepting the ageing process does not have be one of giving up – indeed it can be a deeply beautiful, joyful and evolving experience as we commit life and its natural cycles.

     1. Aging is about letting go of things that no longer support us that allows us space to enjoy the end of this cycle.

106. When I was in my teens and 20s I allowed myself to be so consumed by issues and tension I felt that I really didn’t consider how that would affect me later in life. Now that I’m in my 40s, all those little things that I didn’t focus on and didn’t care about have definitely caught up with me, it’s very humbling actually.

107. ‘Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.’ No it never stops, we are forever Students of the Livingness, being part of the school of the future.

108. This is gorgeous ‘I was also planning to walk my sixty-eight year-old body, with the intention to enjoy myself on a pristine beach, feeling lovely.’ in just feeling how much you love and have accepted yourself and your body. I can feel how much you have embraced you. Very cool and super inspiring.

109. “Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity, and my body thanks me with more contentment and appreciation.” Doesn’t it just! There’s an ease and settlement in the body that comes with letting go of trying to fix anything.

110. I am in my sixties too and actually have a wealth of experience to offer yet often dismiss this. This does not serve anyone and does not allow the life/light in me to shine at it’s fullest. ‘When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives’ This is so true..

111. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” indeed its up to us and for that having the guidance and inspiration of truth is so deeply needed.

112. This is great awareness to have, and is much needed awareness with the rates of illness and disease escalating at the levels they are, ‘I did not fully understand how my emotions impacted on every aspect of my health – psychological, emotional, physiological and mental. I now appreciate how taking responsibility for healing from old emotional patterns is life changing.’

113. Perhaps our future is actually our past and it is we who are catching up with it.

     1. Very cool Leonne. I like it!

     2. Wise and profound Leonne, which on reading has made me stop to ponder further.

114. “In fact, listening to my body is one of the very best things that I can do to keep me steady. When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation.” – We often don’t appreciate the innate wisdom that we have access to in connection with our whole body, perhaps believing instead that it has to be something we think up in our mind alone…

115. What you offer here Bernadette brings a completely different quality and purpose to how we live our life than what we have accepted life to be.

116. “Does it have to be this way? Have we been living with beliefs that are restricting us as we age?” I know that the people I meet at the Universal Medicine events who are in their ‘old age’ are re-writing the history books. We still have to respect the fact that our bodies grow older and consequently care for them accordingly, but the vitality and vivaciousness for life can continue to deepen. These people are living examples who show us that many of our ill conditions are not due to aging and are not the norm.

117. Yes, observing life and not absorbing everything is a really important , it is like swimming in the sea and not getting wet, as we live in a sea of energy, ‘Being able to observe life and not absorb everything around me, from the news on TV or the difficulties that others are experiencing, enables me to be compassionate and understanding, without having to have solutions.’

118. “Every moment is a gift from heaven”. This is quite a statement to ponder on, especially after a difficult time or moment. I can be hard to imagine this and only assume that the “good moments” are the ones delivered by God. I guess too this is why we constantly ask God “why is this happening, I don’t deserve this” when we face challenges. Deserving is not what our challenging moments are about though, they are about helping us to see more of who we are and essentially what we are made of. To bring out more of who we are, not matter what the situation is. As a friend said to me recently…Its all learning. Sometimes the learning is difficult though because it helps us see what we have not wanted to look at.

     1. What you have noted here is super relevant to consider Jennifer, as the difficult or challenging moments are always offering an opportunity to respond not react, and as you say ‘To bring out more of who we are,’
        thank you.

     2. True Jennifer it is all learning and feeling what life is asking, to surrender and feel what is shown to us in these so called difficult and challenging moments, we all have in our lives.

119. It is true the way we have lived our life does show up through our bodies and what also can be felt is the level of giving up, misery and regret we have held onto throughout our lives. But what if this did not have to be the picture of old age that is currently the trend, what if there could be a vitality, commitment to life until the end and feeling joyful for waking for being you. I know this to be possible when we discard all of the ideals and beliefs that we have lived with over the years, which highlight how far away from our true selves we have been living.

120. Great to re read your sharing Bernadette. You remind us that we have much to look forward to in our Elder years.

121. ‘ And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.’ – Well expressed. We certainly can let the future run away with us, but then we miss out on life. Being present and in our bodies is so healing and powerful.

122. As we age, the truth of how we have lived becomes clear, we can no longer run from it. Some of us do however continue to run, we might hide what is going on by giving ourselves external youth, surgery and so on but internally we will feel the ageing gift and this gift is usually the thing that eventually humbles us back to our essence. Beautiful blog and a great offering to us all.

123. We should learn to let go when we are younger to … letting go of competition, trying to fit in, being someone else. being the best, being different, being individual, or trying the list goes on and on and on. Letting go should not just be what happens as we get older. I love this ‘And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.’ and preparing for our future can mean preparing for our death which in turn prepare us for our future as the cycle continues of what are we going to come back to in our next life. This is so true ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ ✨ and something I am beginning to understand more and more.

124. We live life as if one moment does not affect or influence the next, when the truth is that it very much does and what matters in each moment is how we are. As a society we are disconnected from this, as if life just happens. But there is a deeper aspect to life that is about learning and evolving, and responsibility is a key aspect of this.

125. Yes there are whole industries based on allocating blame all over the place… And when one voices the understanding of true responsibility for oneself and one’s actions, it is very often not well received.

126. I love the pearls of wisdom that are offered here from your lived experience, particularly about the limiting beliefs we can erroneously hold towards dwindling self-worth. The fact is, the value we can offer to the community when we honour our experience and worthiness is a true gift.

127. Beautifully expressed Bernadette! I love your words “Every moment is a gift from Heaven. How do we choose to Live it?” Food for thought here.

128. There are consequences to every action. Every child is usually taught this. Why should we adults be any different? We may think we are getting away with things but eventually our past catches up with us.

129. “It is so easy and so irresponsible to look around for someone or a situation to blame for one’s stress or suffering.” So true – and something I used to do in spades – anything but take responsibility for myself and my situation. In his Universal Medicine presentations Serge Benhayon explains so many things about the world that no-one else had been able to answer to my satisfaction.

130. ‘And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness. Being able to observe life and not absorb everything around me, from the news on TV or the difficulties that others are experiencing, enables me to be compassionate and understanding, without having to have solutions.’ This is such wisdom it is a joy to read and start living.

131. I love the fact that our past does catch up with us because it means that we have to be accountable for our actions and our choices.

132. Like footprints in the sand, all that we have walked in the past leaves an imprint in our wake. If our steps have been made in and with the love we are, these imprints will be healing to the earth and all who walk upon them. Likewise, if what we have walked has not been true to who we are, such steps (movements) will leave behind a ‘scar’ that will need to be healed by the retracing of our steps. And so this process continues until love is restored as our one and only true expression.

133. ‘And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.’ Bernadette, this seems to me like a wise approach to live life, even if this might be tricky to hold consistently, with a willingness to go for it much can change.

134. Bernadette it struck me how each part of life is a foundation for the next part of life, and indeed for the next lives. We seem to live in ages that are isolated from other ages, such a being a teen and then middle aged for example, yet all ages are one big connected stream of life. Each age could be a preparation for the next and we could see ourselves as much more than our young or ageing body, instead we could see ourselves as an evolving being.

135. I agree, I now understand being super fit with lots of different exercise and a healthy diet is not it if I am disregarding my body and its inner wisdom.

136. Bernadette, this is a great blog to read and while reading I connected to the waywardness of my earlier years. I wonder if we took school children into hospitals and care homes so that they could see the consequences of leading reckless lives can have on the body. It may just support them to understand that they need to take much more care of themselves when young and this will support them as they too grow old.

     1. I did visit an aged care home as a child, but without any awareness that how we have lived affects how we age.

137. Taking responsibility is great for our health!

138. Blaming others for our issues is a dead end destination, it gets us no-where and harms others in the process, whereas if we commit to developing being genuinely honest with ourself, without judgement, and seeing the part we play in any situation then we truly empower ourselves and build a way of living that supports everyone equally.

     1. Fiona there is such a selfishness to blame we don’t even consider how it harms another. Thanks for your comment.

139. Life is an opportunity and what ever stage of life one is in ,on this plane of life the opportunity is always the same. One part of the opportunity is to live the joy that’s there as the dogs so beautifully reflect. “I observed the playfulness of dogs – they love to play together.”

140. Far from being the end, getting older is a change. There has been a lifetime of opportunities to learn, there is a different way to interact and engage with the world, and the body reflects more strongly our choices and is a bit more prescriptive of what we can and can’t do. Rather than something to be feared or avoided it sounds exciting!

141. If only we understood the truth about re-incarnation, we would see that we are not so free as we like to think ourselves to be. How ironic – we move about fearful of getting elderly all the time repeating patterns and behaviours that eons of. It leads me to consider Bernadette that the greatest anti-aging approach we could ever follow is to heal and dissolve these restrictive patterns so we can live connected innocent and playfull – with a Joie de Vivre that is divine and eternal.

142. As I’m ageing I’ve noticed there is a very definite pattern that shows on the face and body of how we all have lived. Every moment is somehow etched like an accumulation of the years before.

143. So true… no ideals or beliefs take the place of truly listening… to ourselves, and the pulse of the universe.

144. Bernadette, this is lovely blog to read as I consider how much there is to appreciate and look forward to moving into my older years.

145. What a beautiful gift of wisdom this is. We can never escape our own choices, we may find ways to disguise them for a time but the body will always reveal them over time.

146. This morning walking with a treasured friend, I felt how beautiful is this stage of life, with space to reflect and appreciate what we have said yes to in our lives now. I have a completely different experience of ageing from what i thought it would be as a young person.

147. In every moment we can live ages of wisdom., nurturing us and sharing it with our Livingness. This is the best aging choice I can make.

148. Fast-forward to our deathbed do we feel like we have done everything to bring evolution to this plain of existence or have we slightly self-indulged. Could it be then possible that when we reincarnate we take our way of passing into our next life? If so, with a complete understand the ramifications of how I live, and, which basket my eggs are all in, my life is all about evolution to the best of my ability!

     1. ‘Fast forward to our deathbed’ is something we could bring more into our awareness for sure – being able to reflect upon our life with some measure of grace and wisdom, and knowing we are coming back to the quality in which we left. How soon do you suggest we start planning for this event gregbarnes888?

        1. From birth, then we can never be caught short of not living True energetic responsibility to the best of our ability!

149. Shining the light of wisdom on Psychological health is where Universal Medicine truly excels

150. ‘And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness’. I agree Bernadette, the future is now and how we live today.

151. As a nine year old my father dies and this was a catalyst to look after my health or so I thought what a joke I was looking back at all the fad ways of eating and thinking that it was helping but it was only buried my issues deeper.

     1. Arrogance is a power-full force that keeps us from thinking there is another way because we get so caught up in our own ways that anything that does not fit your picture is out of control.

152. It’s ironic that we regard a life well-lived as one pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve. Yet all along life’s riches live in letting go and totally surrendering to the universe’s flow. When we do this we get to see there is only truly 1 day we are here, the past and future not as far away as we think. And so our true age isn’t 55 years, but thousands of lifetimes. Thank you Bernadette for helping me to stop and reflect.

     1. “… our true age isn’t 55 years, but thousands of lifetimes.’ Living with this awareness does give us a nudge to move on from old patterns and road blocks doesn’t it?

     2. Wow, what is exposed here is huge, the way we use age to limit responsibility and awareness.

153. Serge Benhayon has said that the body never lies and every single body walking around in this world is a testimony to this statement – everything is there for a reason, is a consequence of something, from the gait and the posture to the wrinkles and marks on the skin.

154. It was not until I started to let go of my hurts and asked for Gods forgiveness that life turned around and I started to look for what Love was all about.

155. It’s fascinating to observe people who are at the stage where the story of their life is written large upon their faces and their bodies – and to observe the changes in ourselves as we age. Interestingly, I have felt ‘middle aged’ body-wise since quite young, the legacy I suspect of a past life or lives carried forward. Our bodies are a living repository for all our choices!

     1. Your awareness of a past life Victoria reminds me that I used to wonder about this as a child, and recently another young woman made a comment that she felt that she was a very old soul. Deep within we know this truth.

156. Bernadette, your elder wisdom shines through every word of this lovely blog. You’re a living testimony to the joy of ageing esoterically and a role model and inspiration. Thank you!

     1. I totally agree Victoria, Bernadette offers a joyful way to age and does not shy away from expression how this is done.

157. Retirement who ever came up with that IDEA . How can one retire from their life its just not possible . When I was growing up on the coast of south west Ireland , where most people were involved in farming, people got old and nobody retired until they died. They never stopped working of course they slowed down and adjusted to their bodies capabilities ,but they were always involved in the community and were always there with their lived wisdom to answer question , for example about the sea tides. From my observation retirement is used as a excuse to check out from one’s life.

     1. This is how it should be John. Everyone has something to contribute within his or her family and community, regardless of age.

158. “The best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” – These are wise words, written by a very wise woman.

159. Beautiful Bernadette, the are so many roads we can walk down, so many routes we can take but the truth is none of them are ‘it’. We actually have everything we are truly need, right here inside the whole time we are alive. All it needs is for us to stop choosing to look high and low and indulging in this distraction from being us. How long do we want to play the magical mystery treasure hunt game?

160. Our body responds very quickly to love, care and nurturing. As we age we see and experience more obvious signs of how we have been treating our body. Taking care of our body is so worth it no matter what age we are.

161. As a nine year old my father dies and this was a catalyst to me looking after my health or so I thought what a joke I was looking back at all the fad ways of eating and thinking, which at best only buried my issues deeper. Learning to listen to our bodies and not the controlling thoughts that imprison us by taking away our focus is a huge shift in consciousness. Feeling the body gives us the ability to feel things and by nominating what we are feeling the distractions disappear, which gives us a greater ability to have more awareness of what our body is sharing. So could it be this expanded awareness comes from simply allowing our body to nominate the different feelings as we move through out the day? Then is it our simplest of movements, because we can not stop moving so that our movements are providing our connection to what we feel? Looking after my health today is feeling what the body is telling me as I move throughout the day while staying focused on what I am doing to the best of my ability. This honest approach to life is turning my whole world upside down and I am appreciating that these are important steps on my path of return to being a fully claimed Son of God.

     1. As I unfold my Livingness I am opening myself to feel what is happening in my life what came up the other day was how I felt the pressure from my, mother to step up and be a man around the house and work. Feeling how this was a way of living that never severed nothing like the real work ethic, but I held a underlying belief around how I had to work, which was absolutely loveless.

        1. And in a way that showed little if any respect or decency towards others and myself so in doing this I was empty thus de-voiding myself of my connection. When opened up to our divine connection their is a full-ness that is felt in the heart and when this is maintained we become re-connected to the Soul and this is a complete lack of emptiness.

162. We are all walking together Vicky, how delicious is this? No regrets is super important I agree, choosing instead to appreciate who we are and how we are living now.

163. The second blog this morning I have read where someone is walking on a beach and it reminded me just how much I love nature and how lovely it would be to walk along a beach in the early morning or early evening. I felt like I was there with you walking. So much is said here and so much grace is felt within your writing. This also stopped me in my tracks ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ Am I fully and consistently aware of this? Currently it would seem not so I still get caught up in the busy-ness of life! Also I could really relate with this ‘As a young woman I did not have a great awareness about my own responsibility for my health and wellbeing.’ same here. I spent much of my younger years, blaming others and procrastinating. If I knew then what I knew now (the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine) I know my life would have been so much more fuller, committed, joy-full and had a deep sense of purpose .. still I cannot have any regrets as I am starting to live this now.

164. The best anti-aging Medicine is to live the joy you are each and every day and do not hold it back. It’s not anti aging in the sense of not getting old, but the long term effects are evidently clear to see. Plus its free!

165. There is a beauty and a divine precision to the past catching up with us as it humbles us and asks us to look at things a different way and allows us to make more loving choices.

166. When our bodies and mind move as one these movements develop a way of living through our divine will to stay connected to our essence so even before we have a choice our will to move and align to divinity changes everything.

167. There is so much to appreciate the space and the pristine environments of nature for such reflections in life. God is felt through us every day in this openness, I deeply appreciate this feeling and my experience when I was in Australia. The divine is given to us equally wherever we are, living this spaciousness and pristine-ness is what allows us to receive.

168. I know all too well about the consequences of past choices, it is empowering to know we can bring true healing to the body if we begin to listen and embrace the body’s wisdom and make choices that are more supportive and loving.

169. To be present in every moment, knowing that this is what creates the future brings far more responsibility and love to our lives. The future is not just some random thing; it is brought about through what we do now in the present.

170. A gem of inspiration from your experience, Bernadette… the simplicity and wisdom of being present in every moment as a guarantee of the quality of what comes next. Thank you

171. I really paused when reading this blog. I find myself on the cusp… still feeling all the strength and vigour of a young man, and yet noticing here and there where age is beginning to diminish my physicality. And of course diminish is precisely the word… it is simply going to change and there will be a different way to enjoy life, more to be learn about being strong and gentle and for that quality to come from the inside. But always to keep expressing that no matter what age.

172. Ahhh… the wisdom of hindsight one would normally say upon reading the start of this article… that what is revealed is that we can have what would normally be allocated to the aforesaid hindsight any time in our life, even when we are very young if… And it’s very much an if, we choose to connect within to the internal awareness that gives us a spherical awareness that is so much more effective than any hindsight.

173. Awesome blog Bernadette, totally agree, we create our future by every choice we make now. It is that simple, and when we say yes to this responsibility, our life, our health and all our relationships transform, it is life changing. Responsibility is how we move forward and evolve.

174. Thank you for writing on how the past and our choices now are preparing the way for our next life. To read of how others have played hard it has shown us that there is always a choice to say – this doesn’t seem to cut it for me anymore. To just question is on the road to a great awareness and healing.

175. I can relate to what you have written here Bernadette of how our past choices catch up with us and register very clearly with regards to our health and movements. The other day I sat in an Esoteric Practitioners room and could very clearly feel within my body how I arrived at that point in time and all the choices I had made which were now presenting themselves in my body. We definitely do not escape the reckless choices we bludgeon the body with when young.

176. Indeed Bernadette, our past choices will catch up with us; sooner or later. Your blog is a beautiful reminder to make wise and loving choices now, in every moment;
     “And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.”

177. Thank you Bernadette, lovely to read that there is no drudgery in your experience of ageing, as is often portrayed by many, and reading your article I can feel that there is a gentle level of acceptance of what has past.

178. Beautiful Bernadette, bringing more awareness to the cycle of life, where there are cycles within the cycles. The quality of one moment leading to the quality of the next. Imagine if we all lived with this loving responsibility that it really is the one life we are living.

     1. I love the quality and responsibility that comes with accepting the cycles in life and that every choice affects the next.

        1. Yes, it brings purpose to life and a renewed appreciation of the power we have when we work with each other in our evolving cycles.

179. “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.” There are more studies coming out that a main reason for addiction is lack of connection. I find that anything I have become addicted to past or present drains my energy. Whereas in connection I feel awake and energised.

180. Boy… ! that is food for thought isn’t it… As we age there is nowhere to hide… It’s so true. Our faces become a road map of where we have been and what we have done… And try as we might to hide it… The rise in Botox speaks for itself, the readout is inevitable and very clear.

     1. Very true Chris, and though the exterior, the image may be polished, we cannot escape what has been lived on the inside.

181. Thank you Bernadette, for this powerful reflection of how every cycle in our lives, which in-truth we all are inescapable part of, offers an opportunity for us to deepen connection to our wisdom, our power, our love within with so that we can continue to deepen our relationship with our Divinity, in order to live and share our Sacredness through our every day, the future of us all of our true way of being.

182. Bernadette, I found you blog very healing, as I have aged I have been incredilbly critical of myself and past choices. As I too am feeling the impacts of those choices. I love what you said here…..”As a young woman I did not have a great awareness about my own responsibility for my health and wellbeing. I did not fully understand how my emotions impacted on every aspect of my health – psychological, emotional, physiological and mental.” I really didn’t also understand that being in lots of emotion, critical and self judging all can have a negative affect on your body. I know differently now, but the physical is still wearing the marks of yesteryear, which I am learning to accept, lovingly so.

183. Deeply appreciate your wisdom shared in this blog – thank you.

184. Do I blame God for my misadventures or suffering?” In truth I would say that most people do blame God for things that are occurring in either their life or in the world. It is easier to blame God than take responsibility for our own choices. Taking responsibility is the counter to wanting to blame anyone.

185. ‘And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.’ A great philosophy to live by Bernadette. As I get older I am becoming increasingly aware of how precious each moment is.

186. ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven.’ This is the second time I’ve heard the mention of every moment (essentially counts) today and it’s calling me to really appreciate what if I choose to commit to each moment and not think about what I should be doing whilst i am doing something else – even if both are equally commendable this distracts from the job at hand and I cannot be choosing quality of energy because I’m not fully present. So no need to baulk at the thought of being present as an arduous task but embrace life and deal with the hurts that I fear feeling once present because there’s nothing lovelier than being present with quality.

187. A gem of a blog….. I love the clarity and all the wisdom you share, but this part stood out for me today:
     ‘What I felt was that it is all about how we live with ourselves, how respectful we are of our movements and how we love and appreciate ourselves and others and everything’. How we are with ourselves is how we will be with another, the key ingredient being love.

188. A wise and exquisitely written blog that offers many opportunities to inspect held beliefs and perhaps live in a way that reworks ageing.

189. It’s awesome to finally align to the awareness we’re all born with because it frees us from the ideas we’ve had about how others make our lives diffiicult. We make the choices, and one choice always leads to another choice, and whether we like it or not – no one else is making them for us. So to take responsibility for that changes everything.

190. ” Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” So true Bernadette.
     I am in my 60’s and I am participating in life now more than I ever did at any other time in my life. I am also enjoying life more than ever before. Listening to my body and caring and supporting it has seen a huge change in how I see life. Through out the last 14 years since first attending a Universal Medicine course I have been letting go of all my old ways of being, all the ideals and beliefs that I was entranced in the drive to do well and the frustration with life are now no longer part of my day.. I feel ready for a totally new way of being that honours my elder years and offer this to the world. Hanging up my boots and retiring is no longer an option and nor is doing good, it is about participating in life fully and allowing this to unfold. The more I let go of the past the more I am able to see the beauty in all of life and that every moment is an opportunity to choose heaven or not

191. To me it is a great thing to let go of the idea that we need solutions in living life, for instance when something happens in my life, like an ailment or pain, I rather read and try to understand what this is telling me then to directly go for a solution as going to MY GP for a quick fix or taking medication to relieve the pain, as my tendency has been all of my life. Because if I do read, I do appreciate my body and am open for more truth that I can accept and incorporate to be part of my life as from then.

192. As much as we like to think it we cannot get away from or with the choices that we make. Our past always catches up with us.

193. I am starting to feel that every night as I go to sleep and every morning as I wake up – it is the same feeling, the same body, the only difference is the range of choices I make in my day. Then I wonder if there is anything really different about those or if, in fact, there is a familiarity to those as well – do they support or do they sabotage? I wonder if our days are a microcosm of our life …

194. Even as a young person, there is no where to hide, as our bodies do show the world how we are living. You just have to look at someone to see if they are living joyfully, or eating healthily as it is clear in their eyes, their skin, their body weight and shape. I love how the body speaks so clearly and never lies. I see it all the time as a Massage therapist.

195. I am in my late 40s and may not sit in the ‘old age’ bracket just yet, but I certainly am living the consequences of my younger years – physically and emotionally. Something that I managed to bury, ignore and deny for a very long time rears its head to be looked at – and I learn pretending something is not there does not make it disappear. I have a choice to further bury, ignore and deny, or take the opportunity for healing. I agree – every moment is a gift from heaven, preparing us for our eventual home coming.

196. Reading this today touched me deeply and reminded me very clearly and lovingly that we do not get away with anything that life is about embracing each heavenly moment that is offered and I love this line ‘What I felt was that it is all about how we live with ourselves, how respectful we are of our movements and how we love and appreciate ourselves and others and everything.’ If we take care of life, we support ourselves and all around us; it’s about being honest and seeing that we can let go in each moment, and that there’s no need to give ourselves a hard time, that each moment is indeed a gift, and the question then is how do we choose to live it?

197. Knowing we are not our patterns frees us to release what is not true and begin anew. And sometimes we need the support of others to get there

198. Living our future now, with the grace of accepting the grandness of the future we can feel is very real and possible. Being willing to explore, unravel, expose and let go of ways of living that don’t fit in with our future self is the true responsibility we all have.

     1. Letting go (surrendering) is one of the most powerful things we can do, leaving us freer and freer to feel each moment in its simplicity and purity.

199. “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.” This is a beautiful way of looking at life and living it, so very different to what we have made life to be where everything is focused on youth and achievement and that life forms us. We have a choice and can determine the quality of how we live.

200. And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness. Absolutely, Bernadette with this comes an appreciation of the preciousness of life.

201. It’s a important to know we can discard old patterns at any age and nothing stops us from living full purposeful lives until we die, unless we choose not to.

202. Yes it is true, the past catches up with us and even more reason to make each day count. We can re-imprint from now through self-care and love.

203. Awesome, Bernadette – definitely a blog to share widely!

204. I so appreciate reading this blog today Bernadette. Thankyou for sharing all your wisdom and love with us all. I do plan to reread this awesome blog again….there is just so much in it!

205. Our past does indeed catch up with us and in so many ways is a great thing that it does. It teaches us responsibility in that for every action there is either a response or a reaction and this shows up in the body. Everything that we do matters so if we have made non-loving choices in the past we need to address them at some point.

206. We are constantly wanting to take a break, feed the old patterns that keep us small or not living in our power. All of these things feel like that contribute to feeling tired, lacking in motivation and simply not ‘living our future’. As you say, these old behaviours can feel like a familiar old friend. So we have to be super conscious of that, love ourselves so much that we can deal with the tension, that uncomfortable feeling when we change a pattern, to stay with it, honour ourselves and not give in to the old ways of being, no matter how comfortable that feels.

207. Gosh – how much of our life do we spend actively seeking to ‘get away’? No wonder – the ultimate dream of so many of us is to go on a deluxe holiday, ‘escape’ and chill out. It is not just the literal escape either, but as our attitude to technology shows we are relentlessly moving to seek a virtual reality we prefer. So what would it be like if we stopped all of this, embraced everything that we experience and see in life, and finally committed to be ‘all in’? It seems to me having read your beautiful words Bernadette, that we would come to realise there is no end to what we can come appreciate and the true richness of life. What is great is that it seems we are all destined, in time, to come to understand this point.

     1. What you say is true Joseph. There is much to appreciate in life and to commit to be ‘all in’ the ultimate gift to ourselves. When we do, all of life becomes precious and full with little impulse to escape and chill out.

208. It is absolutely amazing how transparent and honest our bodies are. It is totally amazing to witness and feel its joyful response to loving choices, how our skin changes, our eyes shine and how our beauty emanates as we move. Conversely, it’s a big wake up call to see the obesity or the emaciation of a body bludgeoned or starved from the love that nourishes it from the inside out.
     Why have we walked away from this profound living wisdom? We have everything we could ever really dream of through the preciousness that resides in our bodies. And yet we cast it aside and then wonder why life has the pain and turmoil that is normal to witness in our day to day.

     1. What a good question Katerina, the proof is in our bodies, not in the pudding as the expression I grew up with taught me! Taking time to not react to how we have lived but see there is a pattern to our choices and to know we can be more engaged with what those choices are is a great awareness to have.

209. We really do need to look at the way we approach our elder years so thanks for writing this Bernadette, we are living longer these days thanks to modern medicine so it is up to our choices in life that will determine the quality of this longer life. I know for myself with the bones I have broken and the hard living I did before, has had a lasting effect on my body as I literally carry the scars but with gentle wiser choices I hope I’m still working when I am ninety if I haven’t passed over.

210. I can relate to having the attitude that everything revolved around me and that life was a struggle, but these days more and more I am feeling the joy of appreciating others and how everyone has a part to play of equal importance.

211. Such an uplifting look at aging Bernadette love your words “Every moment is a Gift from Heaven”. As we age it is important that we still see ourselves as an important part of the community we live in! Thank you.

212. ‘Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity,’It is amazing how much clearer and how much more supportive we can be when we let go of the need to help others. This need can sometimes be masking the fact that we are not addressing our own issues.

213. Reading about others’ experiences, and sharing ours with others, give us a great insight into how others live and shows us that ultimately, underneath it all, we are all the same, no matter what our age, background, choices we have made.

214. There is great wisdom at play when we come to realize that the best way to prepare for what comes next is to embrace each moment fully, living it in a quality that lovingly seeds forth the next. In dedication to love and to loving ourselves, we cannot go wrong.

215. ‘Being able to observe life and not absorb everything around me, from the news on TV or the difficulties that others are experiencing, enables me to be compassionate and understanding, without having to have solutions.’ Being able to live in this way is something I am stepping towards, accepting that it is a process being part of this evolution. So what once got to me now doesn’t. It’s a wonderful way of being – observing and not absorbing. And all the things that get to me are opportunities to clear old hurts and beliefs.

     1. Observing the things that get to us, and seeing them as opportunities to let go of what we’re holding onto, frees us of these disturbances. It’s when we allow ourselves to stay agitated by what we’re feeling, or choose not to feel it at all, that keeps the old momentums going.

216. I love the cycle of life that you are describing here Bernadette, which is that in our younger years we are preparing for our older years and in our older years we are preparing for passing over and reincarnation and being young again. This struck me as having a very beautiful order and rhythm to this, an order than can only be described as having the hand of God in it.

     1. Great point Elizabeth. The truth of reincarnation is reflected to us in every aspect of life. If we all accepted this truth the world would operate in a completely different way.

217. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” I’m also becoming more deeply aware that every moment is a moment of responsibility to the reflection I offer back to everyone, everything and the heavens. “How do I choose to live this?” – This is a truly important question.

218. Beautifully expressed and very true Bernadette ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ Knowing this brings a responsibility and a way of living that is joyful and loving and reflects to humanity there is a different way to live.

219. Bernadette, I love this, ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ It reminds me to appreciate myself, others and my life, rather than take things for granted, I can feel how there is so much to appreciate and if I’m feeling my lovely self then I do appreciate myself and others and the life that I have, if i’m feeling disconnected then issues can seem huge and take over and appreciation goes out the window. So staying present and connected with myself consistently feels key here.

220. One of the greatest dangers in getting old I suspect is to become disillusioned with life, and thus there is a tendency to want to check out before your time is due. My advice, breath every breath like it is your first.

221. We often see a link between ageing and asking more questions. We think it’s about us ageing or our bodies giving up that brings us to ask what is going on. Is it this though or is it because life merely slows down and in that slow down you are able to see and feel more. It’s not new but just something that has always been there but you have been able to distract yourself from the fact that it’s there. If for some reason, no matter the age if you life slows down do we all not get a sense of more questions being asked of us? I know when it happened to me in my late 20’s I thought at times I was going crazy with what was going on in my head. I feel ageing while a part of life isn’t something new you are presented with, it’s the fact that we slow down to allow what has always been there a voice. Don’t wait to age to listen to what your body is talking and that way when there is something that goes on we aren’t shocked.

222. Aging with grace is certainly one of the unforeseen side benefits of taking responsibility for ones life, and for choosing to connect to ones innermost being

223. Your words remind me Bernadette, of how when I was younger I’d have homework to do but to avoid this fact, I’d bury my head in the sand and watch football instead. Then at the end the match the homework was still there, and I felt in myself even further stressed out. Talk about a game. For what I get today reading your words is how whether we accept life’s gifts today or tomorrow, next week or next year they wait just the same for us to say yes. And if you see how many gifts we continue to receive, our pile of ‘homework’ can tend to build up. So there is no end to these cycles of learning but we can make them much more pleasant when we say yes to growing.

224. What you share here is essentially a crucial understanding of the fact that our past is actually lived in the present and nothing truly is left behind until we truly make adjustments and changes to the quality of the patterns and choices that make up every way of how we live each day.

225. As I get older my body is ageing but I am getting younger and more vital on the inside and feel more beautiful every day and so much wiser. When I look in the mirror I see this inner beauty and sometimes I am surprised that I have an older women’s body. ageing is a very interesting experience, because the only thing that gets older is your physical body.

226. It’s so true Bernadette, ‘Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually’.

227. What you have expressed here Bernadette is very powerful, inspirational and wise, thank you;
     “When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation. Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving”.
     And what a joy it is to be a forever evolving student.

228. Considering each day as a preparation for all that follows has changed my relationship with responsibility completely. I would have loved to have been open to this wisdom from a young age, and see that the way I live today not only changes my life day by day, but will support that possibility for others and for my next time.

229. Aging is a process of surrendering and embracing our inner quality and lived wisdom to be shared with all equally, and the more we bring appreciation to this aspect within the more we understand the responsibility to reflect this until our last breath.

230. The steps we walk now are governed by the steps we have walked in the past. If we do not like where we stand, we can at any stage change the way we move so as to leave a loving footprint we can return to in the future. That is, in every moment there lives within us the opportunity to stop and assess the quality of energy with which we move, the sum total of our behaviours that form the patterns that create the momentums we live by. Through the astute observation of these, we have all that we need to lovingly re-imprint the way we move so that what has once been our way and not worked, now becomes The Way of Us All and thus guides us safely forth.

     1. So beautifully expressed here Liane of wisdom coming from your Livingness.

231. ‘ Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity, and my body thanks me with more contentment and appreciation.’ This is beautiful, I love the word ‘contentment’ as this gives us such a solid foundation in our everyday live, a kind of endless completion.

232. It frightens me how disregarding I was to myself for many, many years and although we can’t turn back the clock at least I now can move forward knowing that the way I live now will directly effect the way I am in coming years, something I conveniently overlooked in the past.

233. It is so true that joy, vitality and harmony are qualities of being that come from our connection to ourselves and the care that we take with our bodies.

234. There is so much wisdom in your blog Bernadette. To live our future is something beautiful. There is a terrible recklessness to abandoning our health for alcohol and drugs, emotional drama, bitterness, hurt, frustration and anger and if we would really be aware of how we carry all of our choices in our body with us, always, we might choose a more loving path.

235. ‘Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.’ There’s such depth in the meaning of this sentence, Bernadette. Not simply the consequences of our actions coming around to greet us at a later date, but also a much broader understanding of the meaning of life.

236. This is a great blog Bernadette! It is packed with gold and this is just one of the pieces of gold . . . “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.” . . . knowing this there is never a moment to waste.

237. On the grander scheme of things the fact that “Everything eventually catches up with us” is in fact a blessing. We can learn so much from the consequences of our actions.

     1. Yes, I agree, Samantha and once we see ‘everything eventually catches up with us’ as a blessing we are much more willing to be open to the learning on offer.

238. It is so true, every moment is a gift from heaven, in order to appreciate that and live with purpose we also have to appreciate “Being able to observe life and not absorb everything around me, from the news on TV or the difficulties that others are experiencing, enables me to be compassionate and understanding, without having to have solutions.” We see some atrocities in this world – man to man, so honing this skill is vital. No less love, no less care, no less action – but not taking it on in our bodies.

     1. Easy to observe the atrocities going on in life on the TV, as they do not affect us directly in our homes.
        But when there are troubles within the close family, it can be harder for one to observe, be compassionate and understanding if one is not truly living consistently in connection to themselves & with their own stillness.
        When we do not connect to ourselves then we do not feel others truly.

        1. I have noticed that although troubles abroad feel a long way away, when you look at the issues behind the troubles there are similarities everywhere. From inside our homes to the most remote areas.

        2. Yes very true Lucy.

239. Ageing is not a death sentence. In that I mean it is not a place you arrive at where you are now no longer loving, joyful, vital and enthusiastic. It can be an experience of being more of yourself, and of being the immensely wise being you are, and have actually always been, should you be willing to.

240. The older I get the more willing I am to see that what may have worked for me in the past may not be what is needed for the future and that if I bury anything it will resurface at some stage in my life for me to look at again. “Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.”… this is so true and the more I recognise this the more I am willing to make the choice to be love and not about any ideal or belief or need that may try to creep in and cloud my awareness.

241. ‘I did not fully understand how my emotions impacted on every aspect of my health…’
     This is not well known or taught in society, yet people are starting to cotton on to the fact that we are whole beings and that everything has an impact on everything. Meaning, our thoughts, movements, breath and how we express all impacts the body and life.

242. And again… Another truism that is actually redolent of truth… That for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction… Or consequence.

243. Getting older is a gradual thing that most don’t notice too much. If we all live in the moment, each day gently merges into the next. There is no need for any of us to feel unwanted with so much need in the world and volunteers are so valued. Thank you Bernadette.

244. I have been doing a lot of research around life span and aged care, and the serious burden this creates on our national health service – but what if we began to see that the life style choices of our youth become the quality of life we experience in our elder years.

     1. Yes Rebecca – young people should take a walk through an aged care home to see the results of lives lived with or without regard. This is not a shock value thing, more a reality check to know that our choices have consequences and our body is the marker of all we have chosen.

        1. I agree Rachael – the wealth of lived experience our elderly have to share with us is unmeasurable in their ability to show us what not to do in many cases – the final parts of many peoples lives is the time that they came to realise that a life lived without true, deep and meaningful relationships and love is not really a life fully lived. If we do not pass down these leanings and this wisdom, then we doom the next generation to follow the same paths and make the same mistakes

245. Reflecting back as you age, you have become aware of how you’ve lived your younger life, how the body now carries all that has been lived and that in your younger years “I did not fully understand how my emotions impacted on every aspect of my health – psychological, emotional, physiological and mental.” This reflection and understanding is possible with age but it is also available to the very young and old now with so many amazing examples of people making the Livingness a way of life – one where responsibility for self is understood as fundamental for a harmonious body and harmonious society.

246. ha ha I had to laugh when I just came across your blog again and read: “In our elder years there is a lot of letting go – letting go of employment or a business, a home which is too big” – here I am approaching 60 and I my husband and I have just built and moved into a ginormous house and I recently started my second large business on top of many other projects and commitments. I have no plans to ever stop working or down size – in fact I find I have more energy and commitment to life than ever before. The one thing I am letting go of is the ideas of how things might be, what I should or shouldn’t do and all these imposed ideals and beliefs – they have nothing to do with the truth I know and now live in my body.

     1. Well said Nicola, to appreciate that you are feeling more energetic as you age is a testament to the livingness, and your
        Commitment to life, work, projects and community is a beautiful example of how an elder can choose to live also.

     2. It is very purposeful to say you won’t give up on work as you age Nicola.. very inspiring role model of an elder.

        Letting go of employment & a big house etc is only an excuse to not commit to life and therefore live in comfort….as has been my observation.

247. We may age physically, but that does not mean that we need age in our beingness.

248. So often I have heard others use the, getting old saying when it comes to their physical bodies and their ailments. It seems very convenient to blame older age and not our lifestyle choices and lack of self care so that we don’t have to be responsible. How much longer can we use this form of denial?

249. Learning the first steps of self love and self care I have discovered what an immense support such simple steps can be – that builds for ourselves our own foundation and steadiness in a world that is anything but.. and equally to not do so is to be willingly setting ourselves up for failure, struggle, even illness. and it is therefore worth exploring why we would so deliberately sabotage ourselves in this way.

250. Beautifully said Bernadette. Now aged 36 I can absolutely feel that my past is always with me. I used to think I had left my partying ways and hangovers in the past (seeing as I haven’t consumed alcohol for almost 5 years now), however, lately I have been able to feel that the damage I did then is still in the cells of my body, in fact the pattern of behaviour that led me to make the choice to drink alcohol is still present in my body. Your final paragraph reminds me that although my body will forever know the abuse I inflicted on it my soul is untouched and I can choose to live from soul in each moment.

251. As we get older we need not have less energy, in fact we can have more energy as we may be far less drained by emotions. Our body may have limitations but that need not affect our energy levels.

252. If we all could adopt the truth that we are actually ultimately responsible for everything that happens to us (both physically and otherwise) we could save a lot of time wasted blaming other people and ‘chance’ or ‘accidents’ (both of which do not truly exist) and get on with making the choices that would help us return to the love that we are made of.

253. It’s apparent that in many times in our life we get a chance to observe as we feel what our choices have been, and set a precedent for how we will move forward. This process could be embraced and would bring much to Our personal evolution and will confirm the love we have with others, which are bonds beyond physicality and lifetimes.

254. Bernadette, your blog speaks volumes of wisdom, so many statements to consider and ponder on.. I particularly love…”Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving…” Having self love as the top subject in the twilight years ensures a return in the next life with Love embodied for sure.

255. We become a well read, handed and batted old road atlas as we age, this was something old people all had in their cars before Satnavs. Our bodies are the road map of our life and our journeys to get somewhere or be something. Getting old is not about being in the slow lane because we are worn out, we are just still looking and forgot our glasses.

256. Bernadette so often we live trying to create a better future, yet as you say – and what I’ve learned from Serge – if we instead focus on the quality of each moment then the future is taken care of “I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” It’s simple yet deeply profound.

257. That is so true at that our bodies and faces express everything that we have lived and chosen up to that point. Sometimes we don’t want to look or see what it is that we are presenting but usually it gets to a point where we are forced to see it and not avoid it any longer. The choice then is are we going to make a different one?

258. ‘I did not have a great awareness about my own responsibility for my health and wellbeing. I did not fully understand how my emotions impacted on every aspect of my health – psychological, emotional, physiological and mental.’ How wonderful and how empowering it is to be able to take responsibility now and welcome it without any self recrimination.

259. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” A question that once we have awareness to, comes with huge responsibility.

260. My body certainly carries the scars of how I have lived and when I have my life over again I hope I remember that I don’t have to go through all that again to get to the point of where I am now. The so called accidents, injuries and illnesses were so avoidable had my choices been more gentle, true and loving.

     1. The question then is whether we would have the same awareness without the accidents, injuries and illnesses?

        1. This is a classic chicken and egg scenario as we do learn from our mistakes but we wouldn’t need the mistakes to learn from if we had learnt to live without mistakes.

261. ‘When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation.’
     …and this is extraordinarily powerful.

262. I agree, my face tells me so much; maybe I should look into a mirror more often and listen to the stories that unfold.

263. Hear! hear! As are so many others.

264. Letting go is so vital, and any blame that we might attribute to anyone holds us back. Thank you for this lovely blog Bernadette. I can feel the wisdom of the elder, it is so wise and supportive.

265. ‘Have we been living with beliefs that are restricting us as we age?’ A great question Bernadette, beliefs I have harboured are certainly flying out the window as I realise new depths and the greater purpose I can bring in my life. Thank you Serge Benhayon for breaking the binds of the concepts that we resign to, and that hold us back from living life in full.

266. You bring all to the table that needs to be shared: ”We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.

     Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.”
     It is our choice. Now, today and everyday.

267. Moments that build and expand us create most beautiful past that can only support us.

268. The quality of our every choice establishes the quality of our future, which relies on the quality of our past choices and can be a bit of a ‘chicken and egg’ conundrum as in what comes first. I have learnt to ask, “what comes first, the choice or the quality?” and always my body and soul remind me that quality comes first and then the nature of the choice naturally unfolds. When we make the foundation of our every choice about honesty, integrity, respect and love, we empower ourselves to alter the very fabric of our future and our past and establish a cycle of evolutionary growth and expansion that I certainly had never dreamed was possible.

269. Could it be as we get older, with what we have seen and experienced through our choices, we now know what is no longer needed in our life? No regrets, but I have spent a considerable amount of time in this life not listening to my body. I have found it is never too late to listen to my body and prepare for the next life simply by learning to love myself again!

270. For a long time I attempted to maintain a speed (fuelled almost entirely by nervous energy) to stay ahead of my past catching up with me. This was obviously unsustainable as I got older and slowed down and the wave of previous choices picked up speed simply because of its accumulating size. I have come to understand that in turning to face my past choices and their consequences, there is an opportunity to arrest the accumulation and to settle the wave by making responsible, respectful, loving choices now.

271. Using the word addiction to old patterns is so apt! They can be so abusive, destructive and yet their familiarity gives comfort in being predictable. What horrors we choose when given the choice to live in harmony.

272. We spend much of our lives trying to deny that all the assault and insults we inflict upon our body and being will inevitably be reflected to us, more obviously so in later years – it is interesting to register that level of denial and drive to delay the onset of the truth that we know is being reflected back to us – and ask ourselves why we choose it.

273. “As I age, I am made so aware of how I lived my younger life and how my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived – the drive, the anxiousness, the overworked body.” what you are sharing here is deeply profound and alone should change the very way we parent, educate and live life. Knowing each choice stays with us in our bodies and either builds us or destroys us.

274. Thank God for all of the Universal Medicine modalities and tools that are readily available to all in Humanity to identify the patterns of behaviour that no longer serve us and equally heal and arrest the energy that was never us to begin with.

275. “Gardening and chores have to be managed according to one’s strength”
     Knowing our limitations is a great learning, however what I have come to see is that it is only through a lived sense of self appreciation, understanding and acceptance for who we are and what we bring that this knowing is possible.

276. Thanks Bernadette for sharing your wisdom as an more elderly woman ,it all makes a lot of sense .Learning to come back to being ourselves loving and honouring and letting go all part of the process , so well said.

277. Living our future now is a very powerful choice, one that is worth understanding to the fullest. To appreciate that the quality I approach everything with from with-in me and my connection to my entire being without a picture of what the outcome should look like, means I am then open to walking and working with the divine. This chosen path brings the wisdom and support I need and can expand bringing to me all that is required – hence living my future now.

278. Our past is our present and our future if we do not deal with it and let go of the hurts that we carry. The more we let go the more we can be in the present moment and enjoy being our true selves.

279. This blog is a very powerful blog for us to live each moment as though we are from Heaven; which gives importance to how we are in each moment.
     The beauty of life is cyclical in nature, so therefore giving us the opportunity to heal from our past choices and live in our authority, deepening our love for ourselves and others – “like enrolling in the school of the Future,” beautifully described here by Bernadette.

280. Yes absolutely Kylie, the physical repercussions in my experience were a marker that something was not right, or more so something was dis-harmonious, which was equally alarming me of the energy in my body.
     Our past returns to us to heal, Adam Warburton so eloquently stated earlier. In my experience, the past did return to me for me to learn, reflect, evolve, become aware of, clear the energy of, heal the hurt, but more so take responsibility for my part and feel the energy that was in my body to heal.

281. Sometimes I can feel a patten of how I still judge myself. The engrained pattern can run so deep we can return to repeat it even though we understand it and attempt to stop it. It needs stopping from the inside of us not as a ‘must do’ or ‘need to do’ but a deep ‘ not want to do’ anymore. When we continue a pattern, we are still getting something from it, which may simply be a relief or a comfort. It’s uncomfortable to recognize it, but great to expose it.

282. ‘When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.’ Bernadette, this is such a beautiful sentence and is certainly not age defined. Each one of us has this potential when we value ourselves and what we bring to the world.

283. “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.” This is a wonderful way to look at life and places great value on deepening our love for ourselves.

284. The truth shared in the title of this article is something we can either choose to ignore as we accumulate more in our filing cabinet of consequences to revisit later, or we can acknowledge the impact of our choices and start to unravel the results of the wayward ones.

285. Being an observer of life, has in my experience also made me more compassionate and understanding. The very nature of life is that there is drama occurring but I now see how draining and tiresome it is to get caught in such an outplay and that we can support one another better when we don’t join in the hullaballoo.

286. Hello Bernadette and I agree, “It seems to me that in our early years we are preparing for our elder years”. We could simplify this right down and so in every moment we are preparing always for the next. After all and as this blog is saying all our choices are with us no matter what the time and date is. So being aware of our past not by thought but by feeling and then allowing that feeling to sink in, with that awareness appreciate what is there in your next step and so on. We can do this at any point knowing where ever we are everything is always with us. So as we age we do say “the past catches up with you” but it was there all the time, we only lived in a way that made it seem that you were able to cheat what you had chosen before. Life is busy and so when it becomes less busy why do we feel different, what changes our mood or how we are? This blog and comments support us to see what we are trying to run from that you can never truly ran from, if we want to live or have something different to what we are living now, then live that now and don’t wait until we are forced to change it. If you have your eye on the retirement age then bring it back to your next step. As we are saying everything you are and everything you do is with you in every moment and so it supports to be present in everything and not letting ourselves live for any other moment by the present.

287. When we are young our bodies are flexible and recover quickly from disregarding behaviour or stress but when we are older we get to see eventually the effect of our behaviours and choices because our body is less flexible and more loud in its messages. As well there can be a lot of choices been piling up leading to a big clearing like illness and disease in our older days. As you say, it may look like we get away with it but we will have to feel the effects of our choices eventually.

288. What you have written here is a celebration of living no matter what your past choices. Taking responsibility for them all, letting go of what has not worked, and choosing something that truly supports you and brings freshness and aliveness to your elder years. That is a beautiful thing for those around you to feel and be inspired by.

289. When we truly appreciate that life is cyclical in nature and not lineal as we are lead to believe, we innately know that it is inevitable that we will return to our past choices, we can never walk away from them. Every day of our lives we are given the opportunity to make different choices and every choice has a multi-dimensional impact that we pay little heed to, until the moment they all come home to roost. Choosing to honestly see the connection between choice and consequence is the beginning of the long journey home to truly appreciating and taking full responsibility for the power of every thought we have and have ever had, every single movement, expression and decision, in fact every single breath. Everything has a consequence, everything goes out and comes back to us, engulfing everything in its trajectory as it does so with varying results depending on the quality it was issued in; everything matters all the time.

290. Bernadette, I love this deeply inspiring article, ‘We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.’ What you are sharing feels so simple, I am aware that I can stay in old patterns that feel familiar that I know are not true and not who I am now. The more I appreciate myself and move in a way that is gentle and with myself the more I am able to let go of all that is not me – the lack of self worth and self doubt and I am then able to embrace and live the real, true, loving, gentle me.

291. “Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity, and my body thanks me with more contentment and appreciation.” This is a beautiful way to live and the earlier in life that we do it the better it is for us all.

292. Life would become so completely different if we become aware that it is just one life, of birth and death and birth…, of growing from young to old and that how we are now is because how we have lived before. That means that how I live now will have its effect on how my life will be next, will it be this life or all my next lives. That gives a complete new perspective to my perception of how I thought life was about, that how I am now is because of all that I have experienced in this life from the outside but never considered my own role in this as that what I now understand is the most important in this.

293. “I now appreciate how taking responsibility for healing from old emotional patterns is life changing.” I reckon, hand on my heart, if it were not for Universal Medicine and its presentations and practitioners (and for me for making the changes), I would be seriously heading for major illness due to emotional patterns. I was so so so hard on myself, driven, frustrated and anxious and I was not really aware (or chose not to be aware) of how debilitating that is on the body. How much wear and tear emotional patterns have on our body.

     1. I am aware of the emotional patterns in my life not all of them but a few and have also made many changes thanks to Universal Medicine. I have found emotions to be very addictive is this the same for you? Thank you Sarah I appreciate what you have shared.

        1. Yep. We talk about addictions such as sugar, drugs, alcohol but not enough do we talk about how we are addicted to emotions as well. And digging a little deeper, that if we keep ourselves in emotional states, it actually stops us from living the true, harmonious and powerful people that we truly are.

294. “When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation.” Honouring what is communicated to us from bodies is the greatest wisdom we can listen to and the most vital support we can give ourselves at any age.

295. It’s interesting that we take our choices more seriously when there is a visible or physical repercussion; regardless of the fact that the way we feel is equally loud, if not louder.

296. There is another aspect of aging, and that comes from the appreciation and deeper relationship from our bodies as it is only until then that we understand that it is all about an alignment to what is already in our bodies for us to live now.

297. It is such an important point you make Bernie regarding letting go of the beliefs that are behind the things that no longer serve us.

298. “As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies.” Wow, this really gets us to look at how we are living in each moment, our every movement and the quality of our movement.

     1. Sure Amita, we are actually presented with a given and that is that we have to take responsibility for how we conduct our lives and to not let it be at the mercy of how we are told by our societies how to live it.

        1. Absolutely Nico, and the lived consistency of this responsibility offers a sound sense of self empowerment and confirmation.

299. Recently I have been really appreciating the small acts that have a increasingly supportive impact on my life. Identifying the ripple effects that truely transform every area of our life.

300. Seeing life and death as a continuous cycle from life time to life time, we begin to see and realise that there is no escaping our current or past actions. Everything we live and have lived is with us in our bodies, which carries forth into the next moment. Taking full responsibility for how we are in this moment we are taking care of our future.

301. ‘As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived…’ Yes true, and beyond that, even in the well-preserved (whether genetically blessed or surgically enhanced) we can read the level of light present in an individual – the level of love they have lived with (or not).

302. This is such a inspirational blog Bernie, thank you.

303. “Have we been living with beliefs that are restricting us as we age?”
     I love how you have described the process of letting go in our older years and how important it is to let go of old ideals and beliefs that no longer serve us, Serge Benhayon has taught us that we have a responsibility to evolve weather we are 3, 17, 55, or 98 – returning together regardless of age.

     1. This is so true lucindag. There is no time limit and definitely no age discrimination when it comes to bringing out the best for all the world to see!

304. Letting go of being the problem solver and of petty resentments or jealousies allows for a feeling of being settled within oneself, spacious … and thus open to what ever is before us … it is akin to de-cluttering the mind, and a lovely way to live.

305. It’s true, what we have chosen in the past comes back round to meet us no matter what it is, be it love or not love. Every moment offers us an opportunity to grow from this. It may not be with the same person or situation but we are given everything always, no matter where we are, to grow and learn.

306. “As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies.” This is so very true, and something that I am personally feeling more acutely these days, learning to accept what my past choices have been and learning to love my body even though it is now showing the signs of a lot of past abuse.

307. I love this line: ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ If we approach life with that openness and wonder, life would respond back to us with that same wonder in our lives.

308. Ageing in the body is like a marker of how we have lived, it lets nothing go by, hidden by clothes or makeup, but clocks all.

309. ‘Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.’ We will always walk in the body of our choices, whether it is obviously apparent to us or not.

310. It felt a little scary to read all those things that one must let go of in old age. Then there is the question does it need to be this way? A great question. Can this be answered without fear and a need to hold on? Can it come from a place inside which knows who we are, appreciates how much more we are than this physical body, but in a way which cherishes it and the changes it naturally goes through, embracing every stage of ageing as a celebration of living and not dying?

     1. …….a celebration of living and returning!

     2. Thank you for adding ‘how much more we are than this physical body’ Simon Voysey. Accepting the changes, cherishing the body through these changes, from a centre of love and understanding can become the new normal if we allow that.

     3. Gorgeous SImon. Yes these questions scared me too but I could also feel that the process of letting go asks us to embrace the temporary nature of our incarnations and the way that the quality of every choice we make reverberates long after our bodies have passed over.

311. Wow Bernadette, this blog is a great example of wisdom from an elder. One who has seen and experienced life from many angles and its like you show they are actually all the same unless you choose to see the Universal truth. I am sitting here feeling out of sorts so what you share about what every moment means is beautiful medicine for me. Thank you.

312. Our past is always with us until such a time as we heal it and let it go. No matter what age we are we can always choose to change and bring more love, care and tenderness to ourselves.

313. Knowing that our past choices will catch up with us asks us to consider the choices we are going to make, it highlights the responsibility we have with everything we do. So what then is the basis for making ‘good’ choices, choices that bring forth a true good that does not catch up with us because of an irresponsible neglect but much more foster a quality we can build and rely on? We need to know a place or quality within we can trust to be of love, truth, harmony…, ‘values’ or principles that guarantee consequences that are of the same quality, ie living esoterically – to be impulsed by the principles of the inner-heart.

314. A whole new approach to ageing that starts young. I know I wish I had afforded my body more respect and care a while ago… but ‘never too late’ and my body is loving the attention I am giving it now. This is not indulgent pandering but a collaborative listening relationship that is supporting and teaching me endlessly.

     1. Absolutely Matilda, the benefit of hindsight would be wonderful. But since we are not really ‘dying’ but just passing over before coming back to do it all again, there will be the opportunity to treat ourselves with the respect and care we have developed in these latter years of life. When I look at the younger generations who are applying these understandings from their youth I am reminded that one day that’ll be me again… so my choices now are crucial to ensuring that’s what I naturally do when the time comes around again.

     2. ‘This is not indulgent pandering but a collaborative listening relationship that is supporting and teaching me endlessly.’ Can you please explain more this sounds amazing?

        1. Thank you for asking. For a long time I thought (and am still affected by this conditioning) that to have a relationship with myself was indulgent and ‘selfish’… I have now come to understand that it is actually an important responsibility and that to take care of myself is part of this, not only so that I do not add burden but also because it is from my relationship with myself that I can access the great wisdom of my body. That is where the listening comes in… bringing greater awareness to my body’s signalling and communication. Does that make sense?

315. Our past does indeed catch up with us, as does any issue that we have buried and haven’t resolved. I have experienced this recently with an issue that I thought I had dealt with. It has come up big time and I can see how it has affected my behaviour my whole life. It’s not comfortable and it would be easy to bury it again, but it’s worth embracing it and feeling it in order to work through it and let it go. I can feel my resistance but ultimately I have no choice if I want to heal.

316. This blog conveys a wise reflection of what ageing can be about, if we but choose it. Thanks Bernadette for sharing how you are moving into and through this process of being in a ageing body. My favourite line is this: Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.Oh yes, Sign me up for the School of the Future (which means how I am living NOW.) I love this.

     1. Learning to love is the great lesson, one which ever expands outwards and as it becomes less self orientated, naturally the fear and attachment to our bodies dissappears.

317. “Do I blame God for my misadventures or suffering”? Unfortunately my misadventures left me very scared both physically and mentally. I remember the point in my life when I said ‘enough is enough’ and asked God for help. This must have been 27 years ago just before I met my wife. I have always taken full accountability for my lot in life – the ups and downs and the good and bad! Thank God I asked for help. It was not until I connected with Serge Benhayon that my true relationship with God was founded. My misadventures and suffering are now part of what is shown to me so I can heal.

     1. Thank you Greg for sharing the power of asking for help from God, this is inspiring, to get ourselves out of the way and trust.

318. ‘It is so easy and so irresponsible to look around for someone or a situation to blame for one’s stress or suffering.’ We are very good at de-flecting instead of re-flecting the truth.

319. Recently I gained a real appreciation for how our actions today support ourselves for the future. Not everything is the power of now but rather the consistent choice.

320. Taking a look at my life, I can feel that there were a lot of situations I had put my body through where I was overriding my first impulse. I could not stand beer or tea the first time I tried them but I eventually learnt to override this feeling through what I felt was group pressure. The deeper I feel into this situation about it being group pressure, the more I can feel that this was just a term I used as a cop-out. I can now feel how sad I was for not being met as a child and how if I make a choice to be with that, the feeling is still there. Thank you Bernadette for sharing your blog, which has allowed me to open up to this level of healing. Also thank God and Serge Benhayon for The Way of The Livingness, which has opened the door for me to choose a true way to heal myself.

321. Our past certainly does come back to us, so therefore the more truly loving our choices are the more this quality returns.

322. Our past catches up with us every day, actually our past can never leave us in the sense of being left behind, it also doesn’t speed up to catch up with us in a relative future; our past is with us in every moment, ie we get reflected our past choices constantly. Only when we are not listening and responding accordingly to re-harmonize and balance the disharmonious, unloving choices we create a build up of disharmony that cannot but one day call us to be accountable. That is when we say the past catches up with us.

323. To live with the awareness and understanding that every moment we live is a gift from heaven to me is key to a joyful and harmonious life.

324. Very true, our past does catch up with us. Our future is determined by the choices we make now.

325. . I like how you say “ As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies” This is so true our body doesn’t lie and when you look into someone’s eyes you can see the physical and emotional pain they are holding in their bodies. When we choose to let go of our hurts our physical body reflect this as it does when we claim and reflect all of who we truly are.

326. We need to value our elderly and deeply appreciate what wisdom they can share. It does not matter what they have experienced of how frail they may be, our elderly could great benefit this. I know I have sometimes avoided seeing older people and sometimes judged them because of their frailty and age and the obvious way they have lived that their bodies are now reflecting. I do not do this so much now as I can see that within all elderly and in fact everyone is an equally beautiful soul that has so much to share regardless of age.

327. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” The more I truly choose to live life and not hide from it the more I’m asked to be responsible all my movements – nothing is separate from this truth. Having the understanding that being incredibly gentle and loving towards myself is absolutely essential is the foundation for responsible choices.

328. Changing the quality in which we live is what I have found reimprints all that I have lived up until that point. This changes all of my interactions, all my movements, and my thoughts. Therefore, allowing me to be different moving forward. This is what we are offered in every moment and this is what I would call a gift from heaven, a big one.

329. I love how we can look at our choices in 2 ways – 1 beating ourselves up for our past mistakes or 2 seeing that: ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’. So we can have no regrets rather an opportunity in each and every moment.

     1. No regrets James, regret does not belong in heaven. There is no room for it!

        1. Its interesting Bernadette, no regrets indeed. The problem with regrets is not only do they keep us in the past but they also lace our future and stop us from doing things because of the what if or just in case that happens again. We are here to learn and so naturally will make mistakes the key is not hang onto them.

        2. Well said James. And holding onto regret also acts as a basis for us to approach life with apprehension – a very destructive emotion to carry around with us, keeping us cautious, contracted, unable to give our all. This was one of the greatest revelations (of the many many!) that has been given to us by Serge Benhayon, and enabled me to let go of my apprehensive approach to life.

        3. I fully agree Lyndy, apprehension is a real killer it is like walking on eggs shells waiting for the what if, and then making everything make or at least least look like the what if just to prove it to yourself. The problem is it means you stop being open to the abundance of love that we are and so what ever happens it is not going to be truly and deeply loving – even if that is what is on offer. The more we treat each moment and situation with fresh eyes the more we will see everything in front of us.

330. Its like the ultimate form of clothing or fashion accessory. We spend our lives choosing how we live and then we are stuck with wearing it (our appearance and physical health as we get older).

     1. Great analogy with the clothes we wear simonwilliams8, we are stuck with our choices until we are prepared to deal with them with understanding.

331. Great reminder that what goes around, comes around – and there is no escape, whether we believe it or not. We do live the past now unless we choose to not bring around with us what doesn’t serve us any longer.

332. “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.” – and we never stop learning. How humble that is. How many older people think that’s it, I’m done, nothing else to learn. Everyday there is something to learn even when we are in a situation we know well, there is always something.

     1. It completely blows retirement out of the water. It also takes away the end goal of trying to get somewhere or achieve something as there are always greater depths of love we can go to – so effectively it takes time out of the equation and simply says be you all now for the rest is taken care of no matter what it looks like.

        1. Beautiful words here James, yes let’s ‘blow retirement out of the water.’ It is such a lighter way to live when there is no goal to get to, only a deeper level of love to be surrendered to. Time is no longer a bullying concept.

        2. It is amazing what happens when we let go of time. Iknow for me I have always used time as a pressure to get things done, leaving them to the last minute and essentially living ‘by the nick of time’. But the quality I ended up doing things in was not pretty. Yet when I just do what needs to be done it is like time does not exist and everything, well the whole universe, is on my side. Letting go of time takes away the struggle with life.

333. When I was younger I was so aware that my past (lives) was catching up with me, and it almost felt like a relief to be able to stop and face whatever was needing to be looked at, and there was a lot. It has taken a while but finally I have come to know that my past is always with me until such time I choose to heal what needs healing and only then can I move on in my life.

334. ‘Have we been living with beliefs that are restricting us as we age?’ I experience how much support there is available to truly let go of these beliefs which we have been holding onto for security and safety. Our body starts to be our partner once we open up to what it has to say. And life starts to be less complex and narrow but spacious and joyful.

335. It’s true Bernadette that: “Our past catches up with us, eventually”. The choices we have made show on our faces and are reflected to us by our state of health and they are mirrored in events that sometimes happen very fast to wake us up out of our momentum. If we are willing to be honest and accept what is happening without laying blame we can then see what it is we need to let go of that is hindering us from fully being who we are.

336. Re-visiting this blog I am aware that the past can be ‘just a moment to two ago’, a moment that has just passed and in reflection checking in, in regard to how we were in that moment and what does that mean for the moment we are living now. Responsibility for every choice we make in how we live is with us constantly – do we want to know this and are we truly feeling the past with us in every present moment?

337. The journey of letting go as we age is a releasing of patterns that we may have done for decades, it feels very freeing to do this and all part of the loving healing learning process until one day we do not need to stay in this body but move on to the next stage of our evolution. It all boils down to our choices to embrace and listen to the body’s wisdom.

338. ‘As we age, there is nowhere to hide.’ This is so true Bernadette and each choice we make throughout our lives counts. I love what you share about listening to your body and learning to love yourself and it reminds me of the many people I know who having chosen this for themselves are now shining brightly from the inside out regardless of their age or number of wrinkles on their face.

     1. So true Jane – there isn’t an age limit to start shinning again from the inside, we did it naturally when we where little.

339. I do remember the sense of immortality when I was young (which I reckon now was simply a ruse to not take responsibility for the consequences of my choices); now this lack of responsibility comes in the form of moments of dismissal of what my body is sharing with me. I am glad my past catches up with me, otherwise I know I would artfully avoid learning and that is a cycle in humanity that is too common.

340. “Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually”. What a joy, and at times a challenge, it is to heal the consequences of our past unwise choices and to appreciate the healing, learning and loving connection to ourselves that follows.

341. It sure does and to feel this can seem devastating but the healing is very powerful when we let go and move on. The saying ” I feel like a heavyweight has been lifted” describes this feeling to a T!

342. There is no where to hide, every choice shows us if we have been true to ourselves, loving to ourselves, connected to ourselves or not.

343. Being gentle to myself and feeling the body support me back from its natural stillness is the support I have been seeking from another all my life, but actually it is already there within. This is the support we can give back to ourselves every moment of our lives. And yet there is no perfection in this, as to return to our stillness sometimes it takes a bit of re-correction and that has to be appreciated as well.

     1. I love to read the words ‘no perfection’ Adele, which bernadetteglass also mentioned above, it takes out the try hard attitude and the ideals or expectations of how we think we need to be. Appreciating our willingness and openness to change, to making different choices, not indulging in regret, will affect the quality of our recovery.

344. Taking responsibility for healing old emotional patterns – this is a golden line in this blog and is quintessential to the work of Universal Medicine.

345. I found it a surprise and was shocked when I first felt my strength go in my upper body as I aged. It made me realize that I always just expected my body to function to its previous levels without paying heed to the natural limits that the body communicates.

346. What a wise sharing “I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” The more open I am the more I feel connected and held. And the more connected I am the more I do become aware of our true state of being – which is timeless.

347. There is a joy and freedom in ageing that comes with surrendering to one’s true essence.

348. This line today was perfect for me to read – ‘We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.’
     There’s a beautiful surrender in accepting that and in knowing that this is a choice we can always make.

349. ‘…or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.’ I love this line. We have choices. I’m giving myself the opportunity to discover that old patterns are not bigger than me.

350. Thank God for Serge Benhayon for I was over loaded with a “pious” spiritual beliefs. Is it any wonder so many are check out when it comes to the truth about God when you look the variety and amount of devout groups that I can now feel are of the mark when it comes to the true love. The love of God will unify humanity.

351. ‘Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.’ Yes Bernie the law of karma and reincarnation is just, true and loving. We are held in the love of God.

352. Beautiful Bernadette opening us up to the possibility that we have been living with beliefs that are restricting us as we age? There really is a different way as you clearly share thank you.

353. Bernadette, I love what you have shared here: “It is so easy and so irresponsible to look around for someone or a situation to blame for one’s stress or suffering.”…this is a classic situation and when we are hurting, it feels like the thing to do (to point the finger), but in reality, it is about simply taking responsibility for what is happening and when we do this, it is like the hurt is so much more bearable and so much less intense.

354. Thank you Bernie I loved reading your article, I can relate to this sentence as an on going process for me of “Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity, and my body thanks me with more contentment and appreciation.”

355. ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. ‘ What a beautiful basis from which to live our lives.

     1. Thank you for pointing this out Jane. I did overlook this line in a way… Thereby it is so beautiful! Yes ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven’ and so it as an offer to evolve back to where we are coming from and going back to. And the question is: what do I do with the offers from heaven? Do I take them openhearted or do I put so called ‘problems’ in the way?

356. ‘We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns’ – Well said Bernadette, you’ve unusually used ‘choose’ and ‘addicted’ in the same sentence, 2 things that many people believe do not correspond because an addiction is out of our control, however if everything is a choice as you’ve shared then is it not our decision to repeat a pattern or behaviour every time we do it, and thus only our responsibility to change it?

     1. So true Susie, one of my worst addictions was my ability to get emotional. Emotions are the worst form of addiction. I am a slow learner but I am taking more and more accountability for my choices and my emotional patterns that have kept me on the emotional tread-mill.

357. “Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.” This is a truth that we need to share with our young ones! I know in my arrogance, when I was younger I may not have been open to this as I could not even possibly imagine I would get to middle age and beyond and what that would be like, but even so to have those words expressed are very powerful and they would definitely have left a seed of thought.

358. We all know our past will catch up with us but that does not stop us hoping we can ‘get away’ with it. The truth is we cannot get away from it, being irresponsible for the way we are living is simple delaying the inevitable truth.

359. Indeed Bernadette so much to let go of that we have lived which does not reflect who we truly are.

360. I loved reading your blog Bernadette. I felt I was on your walk on the beach, discarding old ways and letting that fresh breeze clear my thoughts. Thank you.

361. I find the subject of ageing fascinating and have worked in this area for a while now. What I see is of most importance is how we view ourselves, we can either choose to believe we have less capability as we get older or we can keep active and strong in our will to be involved in life. That makes a huge difference to how we age and how much we get out of life, contributing also to others along the way.

     1. I agree Stephen, how we view ourselves and our part in life is key. When we appreciate ourselves and let go of judgement, there is much richness to enjoy.

362. My days of living just for the weekend have changed enormously. I am so glad I have this chance to reevaluate how i live so clearly.

363. Yes Bernie, it is easy to remember those many late nights out partying (in the days before ‘partying’ became a verb!) and the feeling of waking up the next morning feeling wasted. We were so disconnected from the truth of life. I can remember staying on at a party, hoping to find something magical, trying to initiate that revealing conversation that might be had, look for the holy grail! But it was all glitter and empty words. How frontage are we that the truth of life has awakened in us again through the presentations of Serge Benhayon ad Universal Medicine – the treasure of Heaven is within , as Jesus said so many years ago. And it is available for all if only we will choose it.

     1. My commitment to God is unconditional; and it is my association to my divine essence that I struggle to hold onto all the time. So true Lindy, “the treasures of heaven” are definitely part of everyone when we make the choice to reconnect to our inner-most or divine essence. To me this is the start of my journey back to connecting with my soul and thus with God.

364. ‘I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.’ – Beautifully said Bernadette, to me it reflects that we are all ageless in essence and that age is not a restriction if we are open to fully live what is here and now.

365. “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.” I love this line – the future is always right at our finger tips, if we but choose to live it.

366. ‘Does it have to be this way? Have we been living with beliefs that are restricting us as we age?’ A great question. Who said that getting old means we have to go into decline? What about indeed appreciating the wisdom and experience an elder has to bring to the table and indeed appreciating this within yourself as you age? This perspective alone changes everything..

367. “When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.” – Beautifully said Bernadette, this appreciation lays a strong foundation from which to truly support to our communities and re-writes the purpose of retirement.

368. My mother is an inspiration to me she is working into late 60s and soon to be 70s, she earns more now than she has at any other point in her career and takes really good care of herself. The more people live with vitality the more the images of old age will shift to mean something entirely different to the pictures we are sold – you’re lucky being on an endless holiday with no meaning or purpose to your life. There is so much lived wisdom that can be shared if we are all willing to listen to our elders.

369. It is true that how we live shows up in our body in later years: if we have lived by pushing our bodies hard in work and in exercise, it shows up in arthritis and aching joints, and for women, lifting heavy weights with shopping and general housework, or shifting large packages at work can lead to pelvic floor weakness and muscle degeration later in life that requires surgery to fix and a lifetime of being unable to lift anything heavier than half a kilo.

370. “It seems to me that in our early years we are preparing for our elder years, and in our elder years we are preparing for death and our next life.” – to have this understanding from a young age would no doubt change how we live throughout our entire lives. The position of ‘you’re only young once’ or ‘you only live once’ would be replaced with a knowing that everything is a cycle.

371. I love the juxtaposition of the reason for the young lady’s walk on the beach with your own Bernadette. Walking in nature – in total harmony with one’s self first – must make a difference to the overall harmony of the planet. Walking to clear an ill-effect must correspondingly mean something would need to be cleared first by or in nature until that harmony can be restored, creating unnecessary work that could have otherwise been avoided.

372. If you look at life as being a cycle, and not a linear progression of development, then you realise it is not so much that your past catches up with you, as it returns to you, or more accurately, you are forced by the spherical nature of life to revisit the momentum of your ways.

     1. Yes Adam, life as a cycle is the bigger picture, and I am finding that sometimes the repercussions of a checked out moment can come very swiftly now, to be addressed immediately.

373. This is how I thought life was, all it was, “reminded me of times past when, as a young woman, I went out to get drunk or escape from the stress I was feeling, or sometimes to party for the sake of it.” Obviously I was a young man but I remember thinking ‘is this all there is’. I would wake the next day or whenever it was and wonder why I did what I did, there would be a knowing it wasn’t it. Yet I would choose the same again a few days later or depending maybe the next week. I remember looking at people as they aged and what they would say, most would live with regret. I remember visiting people when they were really sick and again the regret I would see. What are we doing to ourselves in all these choices that leads us to regret? I have found the more we live full, who we truly are the more the regret doesn’t chase you. It’s not that it fixes things but what the truth brings is allowing you to feel everything you can in the moment. If we keep walking through moments to ‘do’ and not feel then this builds a momentum of the same. So when we get to a point and look back and don’t like the view then at that point wherever that is it’s important to make a change.

374. Our choices are based on our level of self awareness and our connection to the truth of who we are. The more I understand myself the more I understand the impact of every choice. Understanding this truth is the source of true liberation and responsibility, without needing to be perfect!

375. Our choices are based on our level of self awareness and our connection to the truth of who we are. The more I understand myself the more I understand the impact of every choice. Understanding this truth is the source of true liberation and responsibility, without needing to be perfect!

376. And thank goodness it does… I fear that if it didn’t we would try and get away with ever more self-abuse.

377. ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ – Bernadette, this statement made me stop in my tracks. In all it’s simplicity it delivers a huge message. Thank you.

378. It can be uncomfortable to feel life catching up with us, but it does, if we do not heal or change how we approach certain areas of it, they come back to reflect to us once again where we can be with love and not self.

379. I am realising more and more that there is so much value in letting go. If we were able to let go completely then we would be left with everything we ever wanted.

380. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” This is beautiful, it sure is. A gift from heaven and when we appreciate this we understand the importance of our choices. It is true the teachings of Serge Benhayon, have I truly started to understand our choices and quality of our movements define our every moment now and the future.

381. There is a consequence to every action this is the Law of Karma. It is a very good law as it deems us responsible for every choice we make.

382. I agree Susan, many elderly people have a wealth of experience and wisdom to share. Young people do too when they are given the opportunity to express their feelings and to look deeper into what is really going on. We all know what feels true.

383. ‘Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.’ I could read this line and freak out, or I could start to pave a new past by living my future. Sounds a bit weird, but it’s basically what you’ve shared with us Bernadette. Yes, I’ve made choices in the past that I have not been so great and have already had to deal with, but as I continue to live, I make new choices, choices that will support me later, choices that will catch up with me, but this time in all the right ways.

384. I have found that understanding that as we grow old we are setting ourselves up for our next life hugely liberating. This is a whole different way of looking at growing old. This is the ending of one cycle and preparing for the next cycle.

385. “Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.” Those words would have had me shudder once but now I know anything from my past that repeats itself I am here to clear and evolve.

386. The shape of bodies in our elder years does tell a tale. It is so interesting that on the whole, as a race, we have not yet discovered that he were and tear and ill health of our body depends entirely on the way we have and do treat it, and live our lives. If we were to live simply and sleep well, that would be a brilliant start. And then if we are to clock our emotional reactions, feel them and come back to our true selves this would lessen the amount of build up of inflammation in our bodies – inflammation being the first step towards the more serious diseases. Very simple work to do, and yet not always easy since we have been living in an ‘ill’ way for so so long.

387. “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future”. This is quite profound, as the love we choose today opens the doorway for the love we can experience and share in the future. Each moment and choice creates the foundations for our next steps in this life or the next.

388. I was also not aware as a younger person what my emotions were doing to me. I knew some of them didn’t feel good but some seemed like a momentary ‘up’ in my life. I didn’t really look beyond that moment and certainly didn’t consider that I had the ability to choose whether I went into an emotion or not.

     1. This is such an empowering awareness to have and to develop Fiona, that we have the ability to choose whether we will go into emotions or not. As a young person my life was lived in the now without the understanding that the ‘now’ creates the future. Now when I choose to observe and respond instead of going into reaction or emotion I know that I am supporting my health and well-being. This feels like true strength.

389. “Do I blame God for my misadventures or suffering?”
     It is an easy way out to blame God, because he does not defend himself, but it does not truly serve us to push the responsibility on him or anyone else for that matter, as it ultimately lies on us, whether we like it or not.

390. I often look back on my life in my twenties and thirties and feel a bit bemused by it all. My priorities were the activities planned for the weekend and my week was built around supporting myself so I could afford the drinks, drugs and club entry needed to make the weekend as ‘fun’ as possible. Needless to say, I’ve redefined my definition of fun. Now it is about the relationships I have built and am building and not wanting to compromise who I am in order to numb my own discomfort. I am learning instead to embrace my discomfort and appreciate the fact that I have a lot more fun and am a lot more fun than I ever was when I was living only for the weekend.

391. “my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived – the drive, the anxiousness, the overworked body” – this is a very sobering sentence to read at the age of 19, where it can feel all too easy to get away with anxiousness, with drive and push and lack of self-care – that working on these things and looking after myself more can be left for another day, like when I am less busy. What would we look like if we aged and had lived an entire life of love for ourselves and others, and that this is what our bodies arrived in every cell?

392. ‘When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.’ – Thank you Bernadette, this is beautiful and makes much sense.

393. As an elder I concur and I also appreciate how much wisdom can come from younger people.

394. In the past I have attended many gentle exercise classes that have, through the use of light weights and controlled gentle breathing, brought so much vitality to my day.

395. Heaven is a gift that is becoming more of a daily choice for me. I feel very blessed to be held in the appreciation of the love that is there for all equally. So I choose heaven! Thank you Jane and Bernadette.

396. It strikes me that every one of the commentators here do have an amazing awareness of the choices we make, and their consequences. For children to be brought up with this sense of responsibility will be very empowering for them, and for their school mates.

397. Thank God for Serge Benhayon for I was over loaded with “pious” spiritual beliefs. Is it any wonder so many check out when it comes to the truth about God when you look at the variety and amount of devout groups that I can now feel are off the mark when it comes to the true love from God that will unify humanity?

398. So beautiful to read your words Bernadette – life is a precise and precious reflection of how we have lived and learning to live life in a different way allows us to feel our power. As you relate ‘ I am made so aware of how I lived my younger life and how my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived – the drive, the anxiousness, the overworked body’ and connecting to this I can let go of all the old patterns that have held me back living in the past. Now is an amazing time that is supporting us to live in the present without expectations of the future, as we allow the future to come towards us.

399. This is a great example to understand how what goes round, comes round Bernadette. We most definitely get what we have lived, and are going around in circles until we understand this. It can be so glaringly obvious that we don’t always want to see it, or take responsibility for it, therefore it is easier to blame others. But when we accept this, we learn to stop those unhelpful patterns, and see our way forward for the next life.

400. I was just thinking how the past can be as close as a week day or even one minute ago. The choices we made yesterday will have an impact on how we are today. My choices right now will impact on how I am in the next hour. We can make new loving choices in every moment that will ripple forward.

401. I love that so many of the comments here have prompted me to consider the impact of taking care of ourselves from a young age. It is actually a totally natural way to be for a child; something that gets taught out of us as we grow older (‘toughen up’, ‘push through the pain in training’…). This doesn’t make any sense and our current health stats are proof that whatever we are doing is not working. How bad does it get before we choose to consider change?

402. ‘It is so easy and so irresponsible to look around for someone or a situation to blame for one’s stress or suffering.’ What I love about what Universal Medicine has taught me is that I am responsible for every little thing that happens to me. I find this hugely empowering and I can no longer indulge in feeling like a victim of life and in feeling small. To teach our children this is hugely important because if we don’t we will continue to go no where, without taking responsibility for our choices or being aware of how they impact everyone around us.

403. I used to party so I felt included, to not miss out on the crazy adventures that I was hearing about the next day. Yes I came back with some stories, but more often than not had a hangover, and was feeling a little ashamed at some silly thing I had done the previous night. It had everything to do with my desire to fit in and be cool, and nothing whatsoever to do with building relationships or developing myself for what was to come.

404. The fact that the body carries the quality of how we have lived thus far and its consequences has to be appreciated as another service it does for us in this life. It gives us to our the last breath the possibility to learn that nothing that we do is consequence-free.

405. When we consider our past we have a choice, to give up and say it’s too late or to accept our choices and start to live differently.

     1. And the choice that we make in this moment will reflect our future.

406. I was with a group of people recently who mostly looked tired and worn, some had already been diagnosed with chronic illnesses. All younger than me, but assumed I was a younger woman. The main difference between us was simply self care, I had taken responsibility for my own health and followed The Way of the Livingness, they had not and didn’t know how to. They, unknowingly, were trapped in a pattern of living that harmed them and could lead to a downward spiral, unless the cycle was cut. We can reflect to others another way of being through the quality of own livingness.

407. Your words Bernadette show me that in the end, what is left in life is not what you did but the joy that you felt. Why is it that we wait till we perceive ourselves to be nearing the end of the road, to consider that this may be so? And what would our world be like if we stopped settling for the cheap rewards of an act we think was the right think to do and chose instead to make every step full of fun and our Love?

408. So often my body reminds me of all the poor choices I made throughout my life; we are indeed the sum of our choices and the body is the marker. Listening and communicating with our bodies is the key;
     “In fact, listening to my body is one of the very best things that I can do to keep me steady. When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom”.

409. We most definitely need more public conversation and dialogue between the generations Bernadette. We seem to consider the future of our bodies and well-being so little when we are young – blinkering ourselves to how we may be, how we will indeed ‘age’… in 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years time, based upon the quality we are living in today. The true voice of our elders deserves to be heard – for it has the power to awaken us out of our slumber of ignorance and irresponsibility by virtue of the wisdom gained from experience, and the compassion with which it can be shared.

     1. Nicely put Victoria. I agree. It’s how this wisdom is imparted that will decide whether it is heard or ignored. We’ve all experienced adults telling us when we’re younger to trust them and to do what they say because they have more experience, but this doesn’t foster trust because no one likes to be told what to do when they can’t feel what’s being said is true for them and often the way we are told is coming more from an authorative voice rather than a supportive one that is delivering wisdom and a suggestion to consider the impact of the choices being made.

410. Beautiful Bernadette. I love this “As we age, there is nowhere to hide.” What if we accepted this from young? That all of our choices, our behaviours, our emotionality, our self-destructive and self-nurturing ways are having a constant impact – upon ourselves, and also by ripple effect, upon all?

     1. There is nowhere to hide from my previous choices as I grow older. I appreciate this as a constant inspiration to take care now and it inspires me to be very respectful of how I support and talk to my children about taking care of themselves.

411. I agree Elizabeth, it is so worthwhile to declutter in every way.
     Many older people do this well with regard to homes and possessions and this is a lovely metaphor for simplifying our lives and living with grace, space and making more room for love.

412. I wonder how far we get wiser with age is mainly because we experience or much more choose ‘the healing and liberation from old patterns of thought and behaviour’. This allows space, detachment, reflection, understanding and finding a different approach to life; definitely a constructive and enriching way to deal with the past and being open for the present and future to not be haunted by the past.

413. A very powerful reminder of the importance of living responsibly in each and every moment as our present becomes our past which in turn becomes our future.

     1. How often do we really consider that ‘our present becomes our past’ if we truly accepted that our lives were a direct result of all our choices would we continue to live the way we are living?

414. So many of us do not consider the future of our health, body, well being….almost given up we trudge through emotions of excitement, stress and fatigue…I have felt like that…I now know deeply that my life is worth living and I live it more fully than I have ever done, and I now live aware of what I am building in the foundation of who I live…”…I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” Beautiful tender words, with purpose and a lived quality that is inspirational.

     1. I have done this Samantha, when I was younger I could feel how disregarding drinking alcohol and smoking etc was and many times my body reflected this feeling completed trashed, but I would tell myself that I am young and this is what young people do!!!!!! Crazy there was not one once of self-love or self-worth for myself and this same pattern and cycle of behaviour is happening with our younger generation now which is why talking about how we live truly affects our live, health and future is really important. This was never spoken of when I was younger, I never had anything different reflected to me.

415. If this statement you make Bernadette was truly understood… “my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived – the drive, the anxiousness, the overworked body”, we would be far more likely to make different choices as we go about life. Understanding choices and consequences is something we probably associate with parenting young children, but not from the fact our bodies ‘wear’ the WAY we do everything we do. Our education system ought to be centred around this basic fact of life…

416. I agree Bernadette we can choose to stay in our dysfunctional patterns or we can choose a new way forward which supports us to evolve. It is that simple.

417. I remember doing exactly what the young woman you mention does. I would go out partying all night and then balance it up with a gym workout the next day. I believed that I was living a ‘balanced’ life. I now understand that this way of life can never be balanced, as I was simply pushing my body more and more.

418. As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies. Even having been amazingly fit and strong as a young person, you can still end up diabetic, arthritic or ill in your elder years. This is so true Bernadette, and even elite athletes at the so called peak of good health can get cancer or other diseases, so that model of optimum health is flawed and proves, there is much more to living a vital and harmonious life than that.

419. Remaining open is definitely key to responding to Life, to expressing the Love that we are and to holding each other in absolute equalness.

420. When we truly honour and nurture our bodies – at any age – this is when true joy, vitality and harmony flows from our inner being and within our lives… it is so very inspiring to live this way.

421. Some great ideas are raised for our consideration – we need not wait until old age or elder years to take more responsibility, take stock of our choices and let go of what no longer serves us…imagine the life we will live if we are to re-discover such truth from young?

422. “As I age, I am made so aware of how I lived my younger life and how my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived – the drive, the anxiousness, the overworked body.” Yes, there is no hiding how we have lived, how we have treated our bodies. And the truth is we were aware on some level that the choices we were making in the past weren’t ok for our bodies but we chose to override, deny and ignore it, and arrogantly continued whatever our mind wanted to do at the expense of our bodies. How important is it to encourage our young to honour their bodies, to listen and to trust their bodies innate wisdom.

423. When I clocked in my body that anything I do in the present moment will have and does have an impact of how I feel in the next moment I began to take a deeper level of responsibility for the choices that I was making knowing that we can never escape what it is that we have already lived.

424. I love this line: Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it? – A very simple reminder that it is completely up to us.

425. Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it? A question to be asked at every moment possible Bernadette.

426. ‘…Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies. …’ – This is so true – it shows that our actions are very public and that we can’t really have a behind closed doors life. The fact is we are a walking reflection of our choices. So what an opportunity we have to choose lovingly and have that shown on our face and bodies.

427. This article inspires me to consider my body with a respect and reverence that is not in anyway to do with an attachment to youthfulness or beauty but to do with responsibility and wanting to be in the best possible condition to work, serve, be in relationships, love, enjoy and be purposeful for as long as possible. So, more plans to listen carefully to my body’s communication and respond respectfully.

     1. I feel that you have defined true beauty here Matilda.

428. When we are young, we can live with a certain invincible attitude, feeling that we can act in any way we wish and from there going on all night/all week binges, taking drugs and taking very little if any care of the body which when we are young has a far greater capacity to bounce back from abuse. However, as time passes and we grow older the body cannot rebalance as quickly and eventually the consequences will catch up – the ‘work hard/play hard’ attitude or have fun while your young is short sighted at best. What if we lived with our whole life in consideration, living from young knowing that one day you will not be young and therefore making choices that will support you in the present and when you are older. I know I want to work well into my old age, I know I want to be healthy and happy and as physically capable as possible when I get old and I am willing to live in a way now that will help that be a reality as best as possible.

429. As I treat my body with more care and tenderness, the more I feel its sensitivities to the energetic play of life.

430. Everything we have ever done in the past is with us in this present moment, so heal the present and the past and the future are taken care of. No need to go back, and no need to look forwards.
     Of course, how we have treated our physical body and the thoughts we have allowed into our head do affect how we are going to be in the future, but it is never too late to begin to make loving changes because let’s face it, we have a very l-o-n-g future ahead of us.

431. The trick that I am observing lately is how the past choices I have made are very quick to rise as a way to continue to live. The reaction in my body is fast and seemingly seamless. But it is not a response to life. It is this that I am refining, taking stock first of the beauty, steadiness and love that lives within me and secondly with this steadiness seeing and feeling what is going on around me, taking the time and care to respond in the same steadiness. This takes a commitment I never before had considered. That how I respond or react affects everyone.

432. As I read this blog I realise, we don’t need to wait until we are old to reflect on our life or choices.

433. Yes our past always catches up with us but what is totally beautiful and a real blessing – is that when we start to listen to our bodies, heal and lovingly support ourselves then our bodies do respond quite quickly. Our bodies are always bringing us to a harmony in some way or another and when we work with that and not against it -the outcomes are amazing. I am always blown away today with just how awesome my body feels after self caring for a short 9 years compared to the many many years of damage I did to myself.

434. I would say our past is always with us…and so is our future. In fact we do not go anywhere just expand (or not) where we are right now. We are love by nature and the question is how much do we express and live this love. On my way through live I get the image of a linear development, we are babies, kids, teenagers, adults, elderly’s and die ‘at the end’ – but what if that’s not true? When I reconnect to the truth that our life goes on, just in another way then I possibly start to discover that life is spherical, not linear. Then I see the wisdom in children and have to treat them equally and with honor. Have to ask them to take responsibility – because they know! In every age I can claim back my responsibility and so my authority about life. Only that we can unfold more and more with every lifetime and so of course become more aware of the wisdom which is there for all of us by aging.

435. I love and appreciate this beautiful sharing Bernadette very much and agree with it all “listening to my body is one of the very best things that I can do to keep me steady. When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation. Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving”

     1. So beautifully said – ‘the school of the future’ – I love it. And very true.

436. Bernadette I used to party very hard and push my body to extreme lengths in work and “play” yet I felt lost in the the process, I was running away from myself (well trying to) and that past would catch up with me, be it the next day or the next week. When I started to ask why is my life like this there was then a long period of catch up being played, one that meant I got to feel the abuse I’d put into my body. What then was amazing was that I found the more I cared for myself the bigger the effect on my body and my past that was loving supported my present and future.

437. In our early years we prepare for our elder years, and in our elder years we are preparing for next life….. and that is why a lot of letting go is required, letting go of all the things we don’t need, clutter and material stuff along with all those ideals and beliefs…. If we have this understanding, ‘letting go’, clearing out and creating space makes sense.

438. ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven’. To live with this awareness changes everything – perfect for me to take into my day!

439. “When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.” If we lived with this awareness everyday, we would look at ageing very differently, and appreciate that as ‘elders’ we have so much to offer our younger generations. But also that we do not have to give up on ourselves, because there are always other ways to approach things whatever they may be, even if it means accepting that we simply need a bit of extra support in some areas of our lives.

440. Serge Benhayon is the first person I met who has made it plainly clear that what you do to your body will be with you for life.

441. It’s inspiring that as an older member of the community you still feel empowered to contribute and support through projects, volunteering and getting involved just as much as any other time in your life – if not more now you appreciate everything you can bring to these things.

442. Bernadette, thank you for this very inspiring article, I love this, ‘We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.’ I can feel how I have been choosing to hold onto old ways of being and thinking that no longer work and how awful this feels in my body and so it is great to be reminded that I can choose to let go of these old patterns and to make different choices and to return to who I truly am.

443. As I feel into my body I feel the timeless-ness of it. As I experience more of life I am naturally slowing down to be present with all I do. Conscious presence as is taught in The Way of The Livingness is a key to aging grace-fully. My whole being is telling me I will be gainfully employed until my last breath. My body is as strong as it ever was and this is because of the natural strength I had from growing up on a farm lifting 1000s of bags of wheat each year.
     Playing games of any description has not fitted my livingness ever since I have felt how disconnected I needed to be to go into that much over exertion in my body. The level of emotional energy I need to compete in sport is no longer any part of me. Emotions are one of the greatest forms of ‘addiction’.
     My loving choices will also look after my eyesight and hearing so that life can be lived as presented by Serge Benhayon as a Livingness until my last breath.
     Addictions especially my addiction to being emotional, was like the worst drug in my life. I was an adrenalin junky just waiting for the next opportunity for the high I would get from being emotional. The worst part was I had no idea I was addicted.
     The most difficult emotion to expose was enthusiasm. To me rage, anger, frustration, bitterness, sadness and grief fit alongside enthusiasm, feeling happy or feeling excitement, because none of these have a relationship with God. This does not mean to say that these emotions are now thrown out the window rather that I now have a relationship with them so when I feel anger or enthusiasm, etc. I know where it is coming from and do not get caught in any need for it to be right or wrong, just a simple understanding that does not carry an need for adrenaline.
     My garden is a picture and most people say they would love one the same. So life is how we choose to live and The Livingness has brought so much to all those who are willing to listen. Thank you Bernadette for a great blog that has taken me to a deeper level of healing! By the way I am nearly in my 64 year.

     1. I love what you have said about developing a relationship with emotions Greg, no need to have them be right or wrong, just a simple understanding. This feels very loving and accepting of our human condition –loving our imperfections and appreciating our willingness to look deeper and to live our lives for everyone.

444. “When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation.” So true Bernadette and a great reminder of the simplicity of listening to our body and allowing the answers to unfold. I know I can override my body and go into my head if I need an answer, and all that happens is my mind complicates the simplicity and the truth of the wisdom at hand.. I am learning that if I allow space the answer will come,if I stay connected with my body and have no need. If we learnt from young that true wisdom comes from the body and is our true intelligence, we would not do half the crazy things we do and have a lot more respect and love for our body.

445. I enjoyed reading your blog Bernadette. You describe so clearly how all our past choices never get left behind but stay as imprints in our bodies and will show up in one way or another.

446. ‘And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.’ I like this Bernadette.

447. To come to the understanding that “my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived” was the biggest and most welcome wakeup call I had ever had. And it follows on from this revelation that therefore my body and the quality of my life is solely my responsibility, and as my past is inevitably going to catch up with me, I know that the more self responsibility I take, the more wonderful this past will be.

448. Listening to our bodies and honouring what they say through life will always lead to a far healthier body in older life, its possibly the most important thing of all to prepare us for our later years.

449. Things in our life like hurts and unresolved issues are like snow drifts on mountains tops. Our life is the skier that is always aware of the inevitable avalanche that will happen but continues to hope they reach the bottom before it happens. And then cycle repeats. When the avalanche does occur we are shocked, why us! We try to our run our undealt-with past, but there is no place to hide.

450. In truth our past never leaves us in the first place, it’s a total illusion that we ever leave any-thing behind.

451. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” Bernadette, I absolutely love this, it’s an awesome invitation to be open to enjoy every moment with you in your life and see every moment as holding great potential, and of what, you don’t need to know.

452. Yes, it is so humbling to realise that the consequences of all our choices are represented in our body, from our shape, size, aliments, wrinkles on our face, moods, habits and behaviours… its all there to be seen and felt, and thats the key… to live life with connection to our body, so one can feel the consequences of the choices made, and this then offers opportunity to make different choices when the same things / situations are presented.

453. ‘When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives’ – so true and such a beautiful reminder, thank you. It’s through this support that we can offer each other then we expand our lives, rather than allowing them to contract.

454. ‘Have we been living with beliefs that are restricting us as we age?’ – this is an awesome point to raise, Bernadette. There are a lot of pre-conceived ideas around how things change as we age, in terms of our health, how we are perceived (or not seen at all), what we can and can’t do. At work I am talking with elderly people every day and the thing that I am most aware of is how their lives have shrunk in on them. It’s as though they have let go of so much, even themselves, that the most important question in their day is what time the nurse is coming, even though they are not going out anywhere. Remaining connected with ourselves and plugged into life is a sure way to stay ‘young at heart’ and vital.

455. What you have expressed here Bernadette is such a beautiful lesson for us all, supportive and inspirational as we enjoy being part of the school of the future;
     “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.”

456. When we live life as though we will never die, we live recklessly and with no consideration of the consequences – however growing older and dying is an inevitable part of life, as is the fact that our choices catch up with us, either taking their toll or supporting us gracefully into old age.

457. The point where you said that our youth prepares us for our later years, really hit home for me. Although obvious it is never in your immediate awareness when we are doing late nights, checking out or indulging in our vices. Yet all those factors contribute to the quality of the future we will live.

458. Serge Benhayon was the first person that I meet that called out the way that it really is. How we are beings that reincarnate and that every choice we make comes with that being – Law of Cause and Affect. When I first heard it to me it makes complete and utter sense and that having this awareness really does make you stop and consider how responsible are you really living. What quality is it that I am making my decisions in and how to I carry them out. This is something that needs to be taught in schools and in every home.

     1. I agree Natalie that every single child should be taught the Law of Cause and Affect from a very early age; that for every choice there is a consequence, and the responsibility of that choice is theirs and theirs alone.

459. How we have lived, everything we have done and continue to do is right there in a body. As we make the choice to live in connection with our body and truly honour it in all of our movements, then do our bodies respond and clear our past actions, otherwise they stay buried there in the body.

460. “As we age, there is nowhere to hide.” Our bodies are the biggest and best advert for the way we live, what ever that way may be. What has been incredible to witness is that by really paying attention to what I eat and drink and changing my sleep pattern to an early to bed, early to rise rhythm, I look and feel a thousand times healthier at 51 than I did at 21!

461. I really appreciate your lived wisdom shared here Bernadette, you’ve highlighted a way of living as we grow older that need not be dominated by disease and illness but by living life and allowing all to unfold and letting go of all we have held on to.

462. I do so agree Bernadette – there is nothing on earth like true harmony and joy to bring vitality and health to the body and o f course to all around us.

463. “It seems to me that in our early years we are preparing for our elder years, and in our elder years we are preparing for death and our next life.” – one continuous cycle of birth and death and birth as part of evolution.

464. Love this claiming statement Bernadette “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving”. And it’s never to late to begin to self-love and appreciate what we bring. As we age we are living our future now in preparation for our next cycle and it’s a fact it’s our choice and ours alone in how we prepare for that next cycle.

465. When we conveniently think of the past as gone and forgotten, and the future as something ahead of us do we ever really appreciate and feel the responsibility that in this moment we are living both?

466. “When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.” You offer the reader much in this line. We have the experience and the worthiness, but it is the honouring (and appreciation) that brings the vitality and purpose. It is the missing ingredient that many of us do not bring into our lives. I will honour myself more today, thank you. Even as I typed that I would do that, I could feel the way I was sitting was not honouring of myself, and I shifted. It is that simple yet so powerful.

     1. That is a beautiful example you provided here Sarah, just adjusting our posture is powerful when it is done to honour the body.

467. I agree, listening to my body, also was a fundamental shift in my experience of life, so many messages and signs to appreciate and work with. I had not considered it, until it was shared with me in my 30’s and now I share it with my children, as they grow up…awesome to practice body awareness together. Life feels different when we are not just run by our head but in more harmony with our bodies, mind and soul. Always more to learn and observe but amazing to make it part of life.

468. As a young woman I never considered that the way I unloaded a container full of horse feed, or worked like a man on the boats in the yard or lifted things that were way too heavy would affect me later. I look back now and just see that the way in which I used my body was so abusive.

469. We are not taught or encouraged to take responsibility for our choices from very young, nor are we shown a truly loving way to be in the world living harmoniously with one another – until The Way of The Livingness presented by Universal Medicine. When we live this responsible, loving and harmonious way, those same choices will show in a body that is vital, healthy and joyful – no matter what our age.

470. It is so true how our past catches up with us in the form our body takes as we age… and yet how much focus is encouraged in society to stay looking young, having botox to hide the wrinkles etc. This is a very obvious way of denial and choosing to not see the results of our past choices – we are not wanting to take responsibility for how we have lived, which flows over into our healthcare system where people want a quick fix rather than take responsibility for their health and the choices they have made.

471. “Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity, and my body thanks me with more contentment and appreciation.” Ahhh so so true, spaciousness and simplicity such wonderful qualities, I have noticed that being a problem solver and feeling responsible for others choices have been for me, ways of avoiding them, the very things that bring us contentment and appreciation.

472. Honouring ourselves, our wisdom, skills, experience and also our innate qualities is the key to connecting to our purpose. Then that purpose may continually grow in depth and breadth as we age, never ceasing life after life after life.

     1. Absolutely Jeanette, well said, to deepen our purpose through deepening the connection to ourselves & our innate qualities.

473. ‘I am experiencing first hand the healing and liberation from old patterns of thought and behaviour…’ this is awesome. No more excuses and no more indulging in the comfort of old patterns of behaviour from the past…. I sometimes get caught out, but like you, with the awareness that going into old patterns holds us back from moving on, we can then begin to make choices to move forward in life until the day we pass over…. and beyond 😉

474. “As I age, I am made so aware of how I lived my younger life and how my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived – the drive, the anxiousness, the overworked body.” I love this sentence, something we all need to know and grow up with.

475. Whether old or young our potential of how we can be and the quality of life we can live is always there with us. It never leaves us as it is age-less. It is in fact our soul, our innermost core of who we truly are.

     1. Joshua thank you for bringing in the soul, my body can feel old or fragile sometimes, my soul never does!

476. It’s probably fair to say that we take our health for granted when young and believe we have gotten away with our choices until they gradually catch up with us. How supportive it is to realise this and make different choices as we age that truly allow joy and vitality.

477. Great feedback to hear such honesty from men and women.

478. How beautifully you put in practice to take responsibility. It can be done with joy and without resentment, even when these steps are taken at a later time in life, as there is no end to life.

479. Living the future today is a great way to look at life, “the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” – doing this brings a consistency to life that keeps on keeping on

480. Beautifully expressed. Thank you for sharing.

481. There is so much to consider in this blog, and I like the approach that ‘…the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.’ Openness to me means letting go of past hurts, so there is no blame, no judgment, only feeling what is there right now. Moving with tenderness, releasing all tension in my body – it is surprising how much is there, and each time we let go of a layer, we find a deeper one – it is an ongoing process for all of us.

482. It’s just as well our past does catch up with us as otherwise, we would keep doing what we have always done and none the wiser, except that our bodies would start falling apart as a result of what we would then attract to stop us.

483. This is beautiful Bernadette and very reflective calling for an honesty and responsibility for our lives and our choices, I love it! Every moment is a gift from heaven and it is our choices that do indeed come back to us.

484. Our past will always catch up with us as you say and it is not always comfortable when it does.

485. ‘When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation.’ This is gold Bernadette and the key to understanding life itself. Our bodies hold the key to unlock the truth of who we are! Learn this in life and experience true harmony and joy – our natural way of being. The next step is offering this quality to the world.

486. I remember in my teens and my twenties making decisions to do things that I knew were not good for me with the attitude that being old was so far away. I knew there would be consequences but I was willing to leave that for later. What an absolute avoidance!

487. Oh Bernadette this is simply glorious and the gloriousness is simply you.

488. I relate very well with alcohol and other substances and activities to distract and numb the stress and unhappiness with which I lived. Although entering my ‘elder years’ I feel I would have continued numbing myself if I had not encountered Serge Benhayon and the Ageless Wisdom. Now there is more fulfillment in my life with the future being ever more expansive.

489. “Our Past Catches Up With Us, Eventually” – yes, because if we lived life as one-circular-life over the many lives that we have lived when it comes to things like reincarnation, then we realise that in the circular loop, there is no past, because it is also our present and future too. We cannot escape the past no more than we can escape our present or future, for they are all one of the same. Dealing with our present, deals with our past to affect our future.

490. Bernadette, great article, there is so much wisdom in here. This stands out for me today ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ I can feel how it is such a waste and irresponsible to live in emotions and to not choose to live lovingly, thank you for writing this article.

491. Every moment is a gift from heaven – and it is up to us how we choose to live those moments.The beautiful thing is it does not matter what age we are as the gifts from heaven keep coming if we are open to receiving them.

     1. Beautiful Anne, a gorgeous reminder for us all.

492. Our pictures of how life should be really do plunge us into life restricted and reactive – “I am experiencing first hand the healing and liberation from old patterns of thought and behaviour”, exposing those pictures and thus the reactions, behaviours and hurts is immensely healing and freeing.

493. “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.” What a refreshing and inspirational way to approach getting older Bernadette. As a woman in her mid fifties, having chosen to take more care of myself now than I ever have done in the past, I am finding that my inner beauty is shining out more than ever and that ageing gracefully is something that can be celebrated rather than dreaded.

494. What strikes me about reading this blog is that age is utterly irrelevant. These are the feelings and movements of a sixty-eight year old. Yet they are utterly relevant to me (45) and are also utterly relevant to conversations that I have with my children (10, 9 & 7). Which to me just proves the point that it is all one life and that there is no ageing/timeline. Embracing this has brought an amazing equality to my relationships with my children and actually with everyone.

     1. I felt the same Otto. Age is irrelevant I guess the only thing it brings us is a body that isn’t as strong as in our youth and therefore less able to tolerate abuse.

     2. I agree Otto. As you say there is no age/timeline. I often speak with young children and the depth of their wisdom is profound, it’s as if they just know. And as we get older in years we often lose the natural ability to express ourselves without inhibition.

495. We shouldn’t live life worrying that our past will catch up with us, but instead live in a way where we maintain the quality of our choices and expression so that our past catching up would be joyfully confirming rather than confronting.

496. As I return to this blog I feel a lovely sense that our elder years are far from a time to ‘retire’ but can be such an opportunity to share our wisdom with humanity. It seems vitally important to have a real purpose right until the end of our lives and whilst we may choose to retire from work, we never retire from life.

     1. I agree Richard – there is so much to be shared and learned from others life experiences.

497. If we can begin to see that there is no past, that everything is with us at all times, then we would be inspired to take a far greater responsibility for the choices that we are making. This is the amazing gift that Universal Medicine has given me and that deep understanding and subsequent humility has enriched my life. Thank you.

     1. Absolutely Otto, Universal Medicine has presented responsibility in a whole different light. Every single action we do we are accountable for knowing that it doesn’t just affect us, but affects all of humanity.

498. Yes, Bernadette, by fully embracing the here and now and all that is there for us to connect to, the past no longer dominates our lives and gets cleared as we walk in the divine quality of our essence.

499. As we age the truth about the way we have lived starts to be revealed. When we are young we think we can ‘get away with it’ and as we age we start to be more honest about our choices. for most of us it is not until we start to get medical wake up calls that we really start to make changes. Why is it that we allow this cycle to keep perpetuating?

500. “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.” Love this, self-love is the school of the future!

     1. This is what I am learning jacmcfadden, self love was a curious idea to begin with, but now I am beginning to feel how the self love grows to embrace others and takes out the judgement or need to control.

501. Indeed, our past does catch up with us and when it does it can be hard to face, because it is a powerful reflection of our choices in how we have been with ourselves and how we have treated our bodies, that is either abused or honoured them. But that reflection can offer us so much in the way of making different choices if we are open to being truly honest with ourselves.

502. As I read the section of this blog titled appreciation I felt something within that was asking me to re-connect more with nature. It’s so simple how we can inspire another when we express what is true for ourselves.

503. Your wisdom of a life lived shared here in a blog can support many people to not make the same choices as you did and many do when they were young and instead be responsible and thus loving towards ourselves so also this gets reflected at the end of our lives. Thank you.

504. It is powerful to experience the potential offered to expand rather than atrophy in elder years. Not the false images of older women striding forth in mainstream women’s magazines, but the deeper beauty and glow resonating in the expression of women who claim elder status quietly yet joyfully.

     1. Your words so beautifully capture the dignity and grace that comes when we truly connect within and let go of the need to be anything other than who we truly are. Thank you Kehinde.

505. As the body is the marker of how we live, we get to see and feel first hand what 20, 30, 40 years of the same behaviour does. I’m not sure many people make that connection when it seems so obvious, either accepting it as just what normally happens in old age, or that they have been ‘unlucky’ which of course misses the point entirely.

506. I always have liked the phrase that you can run away from your problems, but you can’t run away from your feet. We can never lose the things we have buried within us. Think of the wasted space we have filled with unwanted stuff. We do have limited storage, so that is why we have sheds, lofts, lockups, drawers and closets or any place out of sight. The present is the best time to clear our past. Then we have all that space to fill it with our self.

     1. That’s great Steve, clear out the old clutter to make ‘space to fill it it with ourself.’

507. As we get older if we live with the regret of what we used to be able do or what we failed to do then this is a burden on our present. I am inspired by the teachings and presentations of Serge Benhayon and am today living with a willingness to share my energy and experience with others and have more vitality and wisdom than I ever had before. I feel as though I am a ripening acorn on the tree of life preparing to drop to the earth with all the lessons learned in this life to be ready for my rebirth in the cycle of life.

508. It is so true that we have nowhere to hide as we age, as our bodies reveal our every choice over our lifetime… our body truly is the marker of truth. In our minds we ‘think’ we can get away with so much, but in reality, our bodies expose everything in time.

     1. This is so true Paula, but I do not think until very recently that I have met many people who would say that, or even put two and two together, and if they do know deep down they are not voicing it. Maybe we need to have more conversations of what it means to be reckless in our younger years and that every moment counts and will contribute either in a negative or positive way on the body.

509. If we embrace the possibility that we all reincarnate and return each life to re-learn the lessons we need to see, then surely our view of life today would be painted a very different way. If each incident and situation that occurs is perfectly placed in our path by God, for us to heal our hurts, how can we ever sit and complain and forget to appreciate? For truly this world and our place in it is a divine masterpiece. Thank you Bernadette helping me re-see this simplicity this morning.

     1. ‘If each incident and situation that occurs is perfectly placed in our path by God, for us to heal our hurts, how can we ever sit and complain and forget to appreciate?’ Wise words Joseph. Thank you.

        1. I know we often see situations as a challenge or an obstacle to overcome rather than a opportunity to truly heal. We are being given soo many opportunities to return back to the love that we are that it is uncomprehensible. I recently had a quick look back at my life and have been given soo much support yet most of the time blamed God and others for their lack of support – talk about being blind to God and love!!

        2. James the capacity to look back on our lives with clear eyes and see truth is a sign we have moved on and truly healed. And when we see others still trapped in the energy of blame and resentment we are more likely to understand, not judge them.

        3. It is impossible to judge another when we ourselves have made unloving choices. I also find that the more I live life as a flow of energy the more everything makes sense. It is the quality of energy we choose which will ultimately govern our choices whether it be Love or not love and then once that choice is made the rest is but a myriad of flavours under the same umbrella. It is hard to accept at first but takes away the personalisation of the way we see others and their choices.

510. It is often only at the ending of our lives that we have the clarity and hindsight to look back and see that in actual fact, not the parties, the success, the money or the drive to be good make us happy and fulfilled. For me, I look forward to being able to look back on a life of purpose and love and connections with people that are deep and meaningful and life long

     1. What a great point you make here Rebecca, how do we want to look back on our lives at the end?

511. The wisdom of reflection that is on offer particularly in the elder years, can bring a closure to many patterns and beliefs. I love this reflection… “my emotions impacted on every aspect of my health – psychological, emotional, physiological and mental. I now appreciate how taking responsibility for healing from old emotional patterns is life changing…”

512. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” This is just a great reminder, everyone is a gift and we have a choice in how we live. To making loving moments is the starting point to self care and self love.

513. I notice with a lot of men who play sports that once they get too old to be competitive they stop all exercise. Which means there is a gap in where we are linking exercise and wellbeing for many people. The education and support to see that purposeful movement of the body is vital to maintain health and age well. As Bernadette states, the way we live is written all over our bodies.

514. It’s so important to let go of the things that hold us back. It is so simple and just a matter of choice.

515. A very beautiful and deep reflection on life Bernadette and I just love this gentle but very powerful reminder “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?

516. Our body marks every choice we make. We can either put it into distress or love it so it trusts us and the relationship we have with it is deeply nurturing.

517. Thankyou Bernadette, it’s a powerful wake up call to take much more precious care of myself and my body because there is not only short term effects, but the realities of my long term wellbeing to consider.

518. Letting go allows for space, space not for but of the future, an openness for what comes next whilst holding onto the past occupies space causing stagnation while we cannot avoid moving forward anyway (like aging).

519. Bernadette I feel the wisdom your speak wash and refresh me and I feel that I am walking on the beach with you. What an inspiring walk and talk to start my day! Our past does catch up with us, but the process of addressing irresponsibility is now one I take lightly rather than making it a punishment or burden. Everyday there is something to learn, undo, deepen or re-imprint or expand into. I’m enjoying the wonder and simplicity of living and learning.

520. What a science we are. It is a fascinating exploration to honestly look at oneself and those close to us, as every- BODY has a story to tell which can reveal so much about how we have lived, the quality of choices we have or have not made throughout our lives. Observing life in this way without any judgment offers an opportunity to re-connect to a truer way of being and living.

521. Is the past just about our wayward spirit drifting into the extreme separation from the truth of who it really is to only stop and realise that where it has ventured is not it and so we start our return to truth, love, purpose and the future that has been waiting for us all the time.

522. On the outside some people appear to be getting away with all sorts of choices. The body is very resilient like that, but because everything is energy we are being affected by every single one of our choices whether we can ‘physically’ see it or not.

523. If we consider that we are going in circles and come around again and again until we have learned one thing and can move on to the next, it does make sense to embrace this moment in full and give it our all. And as you say we do not have to worry about the past as it will catch up with us eventually and we do not have to worry about the future either because it is coming towards us, inevitably.

524. We can never get too cranky with our bodies when we get ill or otherwise dis-abled for it’s the choices we have made that have lead us to that place.

525. It’s so true that our past catches up with us when we haven’t been responsible for our choices along the way. Head in the sand just doesn’t cut it and as you share our physical and psychological well-being are the living proof of this.

526. What you present is so true Bernadette – in all its aspects and particularly is terms of our past catching up with us. How we live today will be written in the body tomorrow. If we live a lifetime of ill choices, we’ll be dealing with them in coming years or, if we manage to think we ‘get away with it’ this lifetime, rest assured those same choices will catch up with us in the next.

527. Thank you for sharing your elder wisdom Bernadette. We cannot change the past, yet we can live each moment with loving awareness and purpose as we pave the way of our future. It is never too late to start ti make more honouring choices.

528. A blog rich with much wisdom. How key it is to reflect on our choices, to appreciate ourselves deeply and to accept all that has been, all that we choose and to let go of all that no longer serves us and others.

529. ‘As I age, I am made so aware of how I lived my younger life and how my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived’ …. I couldn’t agree more, Bernadette. Lately, I been made aware that the ‘how’ is so much more important than the ‘what’. It’s not what I do, but how I do it. The how determines the quality of my every movement in every moment, how much love and grace I bring to myself, all those around me and all those who come after me. The quality in which we live offers the greatest ‘potion’ I know for becoming ‘ageless’.

530. “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.” Great approach. Living with an openness to learn from our past is what makes the present a moment for change and brings the future forward.

531. The Universal Medicine Student Body are redefining how to age. I have never seen such a group of vital, healthy and joyous elders that are super inspiring making growing old a process to embrace.

532. I love looking at people, myself included and seeing the lines on our faces and realising that they are markers of how I have lived in the past. They tell a story and one you can’t really change without botox or plastic surgery!

533. We live in cycles, the quality we choose to live in one cycle will affect the next cycle. Young people often have an attitude that they can party on during their teenage years and then in their 20’s start to be more responsible. What they do not realise is there will be consequences to the choices that will spill into this next cycle.

534. You got me thinking about the word ‘retirement’ Bernadette, which when I think about it really means withdrawal from life. Many people wait till retirement to ‘live’, to get out and do what they have always wanted to do, but then often die once they get there. I wonder if this is because in withdrawing, it would mean the sense of purpose may be lost as service and ‘usefulness’ has been relinquished.

535. It’s interesting that we sometimes have to wait for the long term effects of our choices to develop before we listen when in actual fact our bodies are communicating it to us constantly.

536. Time is the true marker of truth… what we see over time is the outplay of our choices. We can convince ourselves they work for the short term but rarely do we fool ourselves in the long term

537. “Even having been amazingly fit and strong as a young person, you can still end up diabetic, arthritic or ill in your elder years”.

     This is very true and has become more and more logical and obvious to me over the years. It isn’t so much what we do, but the quality in which we do what we do. The quality in which we do things depends on how we are with ourselves while working, cleaning, seeing friends etc. If that quality is quite dismissive and unrespectful to our own being (our Soul) and our own body – due to the choices that we make – it can’t be surprising that we’re ending up with illness and disease.

     To be with our body in everything that we do is the best prevention and the most lovely thing to choose.

538. Letting go of the mechanics of the body, surrendering any resistance and embracing the elder wisdom is the most beautiful journey.

539. I love that Bernadette, the body offers such simple wisdom, it can be our steady and trusted teacher.

540. It’s true – the past always catches up with us eventually. As much as we would like to bury it forever it always surfaces, often when we least expect it. To fully embrace ourselves as whole human beings we cannot hide any aspect of ourselves, and the more we embrace dealing with any unresolved issues the more whole we will become.

541. It is obvious to see when a person grows older with acceptance they are much more settled within themselves.

542. As you have shared Bernadette, our bodies indicate how we have lived, and we often look back on certain choices and think “whyy??” thanks for sharing that it doesn’t have to be this way and that we can make wise choices from early on in life, who says that you need to try it all before knowing or to get it out of your system..

543. This is such a superb blog, that challenges the limitations of our beliefs and ideals of how it will be when we are old, elderly. It is how we live in each moment that brings the future to us, depending on the choices we make now, what ideals and beliefs govern us will determine our quality in the future- yes the body may have it’s limitations, but they only become limitations if we do not communicate with the body, and know that we can still be vital and have purpose – that is limitless…

544. Living in the very moment – is ageless

     1. Yes so true Karoline, and in that space we connect beyond all construct of time.

545. “Every moment is a gift from heaven.” The gift of choice and space to make each movement an expression of love from our bodies is absolute magic. Thank you Bernadette.

546. The familiar friend of our past patterns – ahh I know that hanging on so very well. But the call to be spacious and simple is starting to be louder and more irresistible than anything else.

547. Bernadette thank you for sharing the impact of our every moment daily choices have on our old age years and that by changing our choices at any moment can truly change this pathway to a stage in life that can be really enjoyed as you clearly do and in preparation for the next life. Your walk on the beach feels such a delight.

548. ‘What I felt was that it is all about how we live with ourselves, how respectful we are of our movements and how we love and appreciate ourselves and others and everything’ – so true, Bernadette. Thank you, I love how you have written this, your expression is so full of love and grace.

549. It’s interesting how we think we can get away with things, that we can abuse our bodies and if there are not obvious signs afterwards, we assume we’ve ‘got away’ with it. There are consequences for every choice we make, whether we can see or feel them or not. Our bodies remember everything and always present us with the truth, which can be confronting, but that’s sometimes what it takes for us to stop and listen.

550. Thank you for sharing your experience as a volunteer at the hospital Mary. The men and women have such wisdom with those simple declarations.

551. As I continue to learn, the beauty of letting go and the lightness it generates…allows for the space of appreciation and inner-contentment.

552. When we see ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven’ somehow everything falls into place as we let go of blame and begin to take responsibility for both past and present actions, letting go of judgement. Ageing is an amazing process when we fully engage with it and realise that life does have consequences. If we accept this gracefully then we can work with our body to clear out some of the past as we age and approach our final years in this present cycle of life. Seeing life as just part of a greater cycle that is ongoing and infinite makes sense of everything that has puzzled me and held me back from fully embracing the process of ageing and death.

553. I love the way that you describe growing older in the sense that although we may have to let go of numerous things that we used to be able to do there are many things that we can do that are enriching and serving to the community. It is simply a period of adapting and appreciating ourselves for what we can do and what we can offer.

554. You make a very interesting observation and point here Bernadette that not only does our body show the physical things we have done in our life but also shows the ideals and beliefs we hold high. For me this is proof that everything is energy and that this energy effects our bodies and our health.

555. When we understand that life is a cycle repeating many many times it reveals the endlessness of our existence and the value in every choice, there is no last breath in truth.

556. I am coming to see that appreciation is the key to being able to live the future now. The more we appreciate the more we are able to embrace the present moment.

557. Bernadette, this feels so true, ‘As I age, I am made so aware of how I lived my younger life and how my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived – the drive, the anxiousness, the overworked body.’ When we are young it is easy to think that we are getting away with living in disregard and abusing our bodies, but it does all catch up with us and show in our bodies in later life. How amazing it would be to live a life of responsibility from young, treating our bodies with love and respect, our elder years would then be very different.

558. I used to think I was pretty healthy, eating plenty of fruit and veg, doing my weekly yoga class..but at the same time I was living with near constant anxiety and in the drive of over-doing it and perfection. These were patterns I considered normal without ever considering how they might be influencing my health. They were buried under a mountain of distraction and activity so I barely noticed they existed. Connecting to a more simpler way of living has supported me to start to let go of these distractions and activities and deal with the underlying tension and anxiety – coming back to true health and vitality.

559. This is brilliant understanding of ageing Bernadette. The letting go is a gorgeous process of discarding what and how we have lived that we can feel has not been so great. We are learning now to accept the greater responsibility so that in the next lifetime, we can return with that awareness and hold it from childhood instead of having to go through the whole process again and again. There is a lot for us to do in the sixties and seventies preparing for the next lifetime.

560. ‘I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness’ – This is an interesting way to look at the future Bernadette. Often our relationship with the future is security based; we make plans, think about what’s ahead and structure our life trying to ensure that whatever happens in the future will be okay, and we will be secure in our jobs, relationships, body and so forth. I like your alternative – the best preparation is to live each moment to the highest quality and the future is guaranteed to match that.

561. Not only am I experiencing my past choices catching up with me now but it is sobering to realize how my diminished responsibility has harmed others by engaging or maintaining their illusions and contributed to the disharmonious world we have today.

562. We think we leave the past behind. But we don’t – ever. Whatever we put into the pot we carry with us forever. And if the choices are unloving, life gives us chances to redress the harm and bring it into balance. This aspect of karma I can now see is actually one of the most loving gifts ever. So what choices do we make as we live each day? Is it Love or is it anything but that? This is our choice, and a choice we get every single moment.

563. ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ We can get so wrapped up with life that very often we miss the confirming or supportive messages sent from heaven, those messages sent to support us to evolve. I know I have lived most of my life thinking it was about me and my own little world but I am beginning to feel within my body that there is so much more to life than making it about me.

564. Yes indeed, Bernadette, every moment is a gift from heaven when we have let go of the past and are simply present and connected to the beauty that resides within us and all around us.

565. When I used to drink my body would feel absolutely trashed the next day and I knew how I lived was not truly supporting me yet in my arrogance I would say to myself I would ‘sort myself out later when I was a bit older and have ‘fun’ now’. However, taking care and loving ourselves deeply to the core is something that should never be ‘put off’ whatever age we are. Also the choices we make determines how our lives will be hence when I did used to get trashed the disregard reflected back to me through many aspects of my life which were not pleasant

566. This blog meets you and holds you, inspiring you to surrender to the grace and beauty that we can experience when we are simply with ourselves and not fighting the flow but being open to receive the beauty of every moment.

     1. Being open to Life enables a deep settlement within our bodies, a willingness to understand, commit and to respond to all that comes to us.

        1. Beautifully expressed Deborah

567. An inspiring and powerful reminder Bernadette – the quality of every moment is determined by our choices to live from love and reflect heaven on earth or not.
     “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?”

568. “I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” Imagine if we held and lived this wisdom when young how this would transform our elder years into one joy rather than the lonely, miserable state many find us in?

569. ‘Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity, and my body thanks me with more contentment and appreciation.’ I love this Bernadette as I love your whole blog. Life is all about living your own love and our body is very clear in letting us know when and where we are not love but also supports us in letting go the moment we choose to do so. Having contentment and appreciation in your body gives you vitality, joy and is the sign of living in true harmony with yourself and life. Thank you Bernadette for shining your light on becoming older.

570. What a beautiful appreciation of life Bernadette and an inspiration to live it fully in every moment. “What I felt was that it is all about how we live with ourselves, how respectful we are of our movements and how we love and appreciate ourselves and others and everything.”A beautiful reflection for all ages espcially on ageing with vitality and love.

571. Thank you Bernadette. Your blog has made me stop and re-consider – how am I living now that will affect my elder years? How with myself am I, how much do I take care of my body, how do I relate to myself now that will affect how I feel in later life? Every choice counts, every choice adds up to the whole – and so every choice can be a gift to re-imprint past choices and patterns.

572. As we grow older we tend to be more aware of the past and worry a lot more about the future and forget about the present, yet it is the present that determines how we are going to be as we move into our elderly years.

573. I used to fear ageing but not any more. With quality in the way we live and in everything we do, ageing can be a joyful and productive experience with ever expanding self-awareness and love – an opportunity right until our last breath.

574. Having acted irresponsibly for much of my life it is only in recent years that I have started listening to the wisdom of my body and to change patterns of living and also my tendency for beating myself up for any mistakes that was totally draining. Choosing to be more self loving allows for appreciation and confirmation of what is required at any moment so that there is no need to remain stuck in the past but simply an allowing and embracing of whatever unfolds.

575. I have more vitality in my body now at the age of nearly 61 than I did when I was 40. At the end of the day after work I no longer collapse into bed exhausted. I know this is because of the teachings of the Way of The Livingness, that I have made choices that are honouring of myself, and no longer push my body to get things done or get stressful about things I can’t control.

576. “It is so easy and so irresponsible to look around for someone or a situation to blame for one’s stress or suffering.” There comes a point in our lives though when we realise that the common factor that keeps on appearing in all our woes is us! While blaming others brings a short term relief, it is just an attempt to avoid our responsibility and will always catch up with us. Facing up to the fact that we are the one’s responsible for the stress and pain we feel takes a great deal of courage, but when we do empowers us to truly change our present day choices that are setting the foundation of health for our latter years.

577. It is true Bernadette our past choices do catch up with us, and in fact never actually go anywhere as everything we do, think and say is registered within the make up of our bodies – it registers every single movement we make, and the quality of those movements.

578. Absolutely – our every choice is forever with us and equally we can transform our entire life by our choices based on Love.

579. “I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” This is great wisdom and the earlier one learns to practice this the better and even better is if a child is brought-up with this approach to life from birth.

580. I certainly hope I won’t make the same bad choices that I made with total disregard to my body when I was young next time around, so when I get to this age next time I will totally be still on my toes. I totally love the fact that with self-love there is no need to retire and we can just carry on doing what we do and be in service. I have seen retirement kill people as they no longer felt useful.

581. Bernadette I used to live in a constant drive to run from my past, doing everything to bury and cover it over. What if there was another way to life? Well I didn’t think there was until meeting Serge Benhayon at which point I started to actually look at all the hurts I’d been running from and live life differently. There are still some more to deal with but the change in being at ease with myself in the present rather than running from the past and dreaming of the future is life changing.

582. Do we all not have skeletons in our closets? Be the first to throw the stone, the one that has never sinned comes to mind. It is never too late to bring back into the light the things we have hidden. We can now fix the abuse we have done to our body with replacement bits, and we can heal our past hurts. We just need to stop talking and listen to what our bodies have never stopped telling us; we just stopped listening.

583. ‘the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.’ Succinctly and simply expressed Bernadette. The very many books and programmes on planning or preparing for your future or ‘retirement’ rarely offer the wisdom offered here.

584. Today in particular, it seems that the choices we make are reflected back to us almost instantaneously. It is almost like what I call ‘Instant Karma’ – for example you trip over your own shoelaces as you walk out of the shop where you just shop-lifted. There is very little we can seem to get away with at this moment in time. And though this can be very confronting to experience, in so many ways it is a blessing for it gives us an opportunity to stop in our tracks, to really look at the choices we have made and question if there is not another way. As much as I may squirm and dislike it at times, it is really the best thing ever as it calls us to more and more responsibility and hence allows us to truly grow and live with integrity.

585. Bernadette your wonderful blog is a very good reminder. It is always good to be aware which choice we are making – as “Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually.” We have to deal with it if we want it or not – that is the beauty about free will.

586. This is beautiful, it reminds me of how precious each moment is, how we can be our own best friend or our own worst enemy. Age is such a funny thing; I often wonder if we approached the end as the beginning that things would work out quite differently for us in the next life.

587. There is something to consider in this as a younger person, what we do now impacts on us at a later time, we can either build a foundation of care for ourselves or we can let ourselves go wild in youth and feel it in our bodies as we get older. What I have always questioned is, how much fun is there really in going wild and partying hard, or is it that really just a way to fit in and look like we were having fun.

588. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” This is such a real question and one very worth stopping for to consider the answer. A question I asked myself the other day was if I knew this was the last moment is this the quality I would want to leave ‘what ever it is’ in?

589. Living in connection to our body offers eternal wisdom everyday – wisdom that comes from the reflection on past learning and choices and wisdom direct from our inner heart that is constant and ever expanding.

590. Theres such a richness of wisdom and understanding in your blog Bernadette. …”my body now carries all that I have lived, and how I have lived …” Its like the past, the present and future is with us, with the body all the time and this governs or influences the next choice we make.

591. Our body absolutely is the sum of our choices; hence why some find ageing more difficult to accept than others – it is the difficulty in accepting the choices we have made in life that become more apparent in the body over time.

592. I loved reading your blog Bernadette for your elder inspiration and reflection as the honesty is so needed as a reminder to all the younger generation. I remembered when I was younger and wished to have true models to inspire me with their lived wisdom. Every choice that we have made, every situation where we have tested it out and have realized how it has impacted us cannot be held back, for there are so many others who may be looking out for this reflection. We have so much to share, so enormously much, and our lives and our choices are lived for the reflection to everyone, we do not own our lives, but through our living, this life is shared for all.

593. Beautifully presented Bernadette. I agree the best way to prepare for our elderly year and our next life I to take responsibility in this life by living and expressing lovingly all of who we are in this life and letting go of the pictures ideals and beliefs we have held passing over free of as much baggage as we can.

594. Such a great blog. Leading the way in showing humanity how to approach elder years, and therefore the foundations we must lay in our young age.

595. I love how you say Bernadette that the best way to prepare for the future is to take care of the way in which you’re living in the present. So rather than trying to control the future to fit what you want it to look like you are choosing the one thing you have control over and that is the quality of the way in which you live.

596. The mentality of younger people is geared around ‘get away with it while you can’. In other words, do all the crazy stuff now before you get too old. Forgetting the fact that the body which endures that craziness and irresponsibility is the body we age with and take into our elder years. Great blog Bernadette – a wake up call for the young ones… like me!

     1. Rachael when I was a young child I wanted to be like my grandmother when I got old. Then later as a young woman old age was for other people. Something disconnected here!

597. ‘Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving. A school of the future, sounds very needed in a world where it feels like education is going backwards as we focus more and more on the end results whilst the children get more and more lost along the way. So simple, start with loving ourselves – sounds easy but it’s something we are not very good at.

598. ” Every moment is a gift from heaven” In reflection and quite contemplation we allow these moments to be felt when we are in tune with out bodies, accepting and appreciating these gifts as
     ” love letters from God” SB

599. This is great, it is in every year of our life that we should not worry about our past. We can only live what we feel now and have learned in those past experiences. It is a continuous cycle.

600. This is so true it is our choices and what we have lived that determines how we are, including how we look and our health … ‘As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies. Even having been amazingly fit and strong as a young person, you can still end up diabetic, arthritic or ill in your elder years.’ Is there more to look at here as even the fittest athletes get cancer so it is not about how ‘physically’ fit we are that depends on our health, well-being and vitality. For me Sacred Esoteric Healing is the only modality I know that truly gets to the root of the matter so it is no longer stored in the body.

     1. Remember the time before smartphones with apps and satnavs; it was only 15 years ago! We had printed maps in books. The A to Z books was well read, and dog-eared pages were our bible to not getting lost. Are our body’s not the A to Z of how we have lived? Sacred Esoteric Healing is the only map we need to find those places we have forgotten how to get to within ourselves!

     2. Exactly Vicky it is my experience too that the Esoteric Healing modalities offer the body the opportunity to truly heal. They are most definitely heaven sent.

601. Thank you for this reflective blog Bernadette. We have so invested in this life and ‘believed’ in it in a way that has not seen why we are really here, that our bodies become a casualty of such ignorance . . . and then we reach our late 60s fault-lines are starting to show up in our bodies as a result of this unaware way of living. As you say much of this can be turned around through our awareness of how to begin to live lovingly. To choose to live so that we can bring the truth of the elder to our communities is a very powerful and worthwhile thing.

     1. Lyndy we might not be jumping up and down in our cots in the early morning, but we can wake up feeling clear, or fragile, or purposeful, and the fault lines are just that. In fact the fault lines can appear well before our 60’s I feel, but it is easier to ignore them.

        1. Very true and very wise. It is a lot easier to ignore pains and aches when we are younger, however they are there regardless of our willingness to open up to them. I remember feeling completely exhausted on my way home from work one day. Usually I would brace myself and say things like “come on Viktoria, you’re tougher than this” or “You’re making this up”, however that day I decided to surrender and truly feel how exhausted my body was. Surprisingly, that felt amazing, it was like my body was thanking me for acknowledging what it was going through.

     2. It is not only when we reach our late 60’s that our bodies start to show how we have lived our lives. Our bodies throughout our life are a reflection of how we are living daily.

602. Without appreciation and therefore consistently embodying more of who you are – life becomes like a fitted glove of comfort ticking boxes and seemingly achieving the next thing. True success is living harmoniously in your body.

603. It is so needed for us all to hear about how it is possible to age with vitality, joy, integrity, responsibility and not to feel that we are over the hill and it’s down hill all the way to the inevitable, disease-ridden death which seems to be the experience of the majority.

     1. Yes Lucy and I feel truly blessed to have so many gorgeous elder women in my life who sparkle that I know this is absolutely possible.

604. It truly is amazing, once we choose to embrace it, to realise that we have a living reflection of truth with us 24/7, designed specifically to hold us, the light of our Soul. Our bodies are constantly dedicated in every moment to reflect the truth of how we are living, as it reflects the quality of energy that we choose to pass through it. Through this truth the wisdom of love is known and our Soul can be embodied. It is so true that – ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven.’ And we are in fact forever supported to choose to live our Divinity in this world with each other, as we are in truth all sparks of the great heavenly light. We only suffer in the pain of our choices when we resist surrendering to living the light that we are.

605. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” Do we acknowledge that each moment is an opportunity to leave a footprint of heaven?

606. Great blog. It is more beneficial to our overall being if we spend our elder years, or any years for that matter, not so much in regret of our past but in reflection.

     1. So true Adam regret contracts and reflection expands awareness.

607. Hello Bernadette and this is spoken and written with a real tangible wisdom, you can see clearly. I love what you are saying and at any point we can be more aware of our movements, our thoughts and our overall expression. How do we want things to be, do we follow a train of thought that has only lead us to a heavy misery or do we change how we are and stand in each moment, knowing how you are actually brings the next moment to you. You can see the set up in life, do what you want and think that this will never have to balance or look around you and see that everything lives balanced and we are no different. At some point everything we do, everything we think or express has a balance. We only then need to choose what we would like to face again, more of the same or something else. Life isn’t about living it’s about a quality of living that then supports you in your next step, however big or small that is.

608. Whatever choices we have made are with us here in our body now, no way to avoid that or run away, and there is no need to have regret but there is an opportunity to be more aware and take more responsibility that with the choices that we are making now.

609. I love this example of not giving up on yourself simply because ‘old age’ has occurred, and how instead you have made the choice to honour yourself with all that you can still bring and offer to society, to people, and just to life in general.

610. “Letting go of being a problem solver”…this is a pure gem this action. I observe how many people,myself included, automtically go into problem solving when quite often, it is not needed. A timely reminder to continue to let go of this one. As a few days ago a friend expressed that she wanted to buy an item which she was trying hard to find. I jumped in with all these other solutions, wanting to problem solve, and these solutions were not on the right path at all. It was a lesson to sit and wait and listen more to what is being presented without jumping in to fix it.

611. “When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.”There is so much for us all to share with others simply by way of reflection, it is the appreciation and valuing of who we are that allows us to embrace our elder years with purpose and understanding of where we are going and how we need to support each other in our evolution.

612. I am learning through Serge Benhayon’s exquisite presentations on the subject of Time, that time is a gift from The Universe/God that allows us to see the quality of the movements we make and therefore is able to give us a visible representation of whether these movements were made in accordance with the love that we are or, whether they have been made in opposition to this. If it is the latter, we may not feel the ill effects of this immediately but after years of living in an unloving momentum, our body will show us through various signs of illness and disease and the way that it ages, the exactly quality of our choices. How we look and feel today is the sum total of how we have lived in the past and how we live today will also determine how we look and feel in the future.

613. There is a whole new way of approaching life and ageing with what you have shared here Bernadette. So much of life is geared towards living in the moment and not taking any responsibility for what the implications are from the choices. Such as found in the attitude to ‘live it big now’ as it were as you only have one life… but is this true? If there is only one life then it is the perfect excuse to not be responsible with our present choices.

614. Thank you, Bernadette for sharing your wisdom with us, we should never ever look for the future or the past – but simply be in the moment, than the rest will take care of itself.

615. I feel so much love and respect in this blog Bernadette.
     There is so much here that nourishes me like.

     I know once again what it feels like when you describe walking on the beach with such lightness, knowing you are part of everything. I have also discovered the magic is that “…it is all about how we live with ourselves’.

     Thanks to Serge Benhayon I know how this lightness and Love feels, not by a distant memory of being a ‘light’ four-year-old on a beach but by a current re-claimed way of being true to myself.

     This is without perfection and a work in progress but the beauty of coming back more and more to the loving truth is so great even in glimpses that I will never trade it in for less ever again and I will continue to work on living with myself in a way that brings me into more awareness and response-ability until we all get Home.

     1. I appreciate your comment that it is not about perfection Jo Elmer, and that we are works in progress, and this approach for me is very beautiful to cherish.

616. ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ We are made of the ‘stuff’ of Heaven and under the governance of its Laws so eventually we must realign to the love that we are. What a beautiful process of realising who we are and taking responsibility for our grandness!

617. When we are young, our bodies don’t give so much away and I remember bouncing back from drinking and eating in a way that would just about kill me if I did it now. And as we age, how we feel and look is a bit like how a car ages. If we drive it hard, it’s not going to last and will need repairs, break down, rust, etc. If we drive it with care, maintain it, keep it clean, etc, then it will serve us well. Our face and body will show the signs of how well we have and are looking after ourselves as we age.

618. I agree Bernadette, there may certainly be a lot to let go of in our elder years, but there is also plenty to appreciate as well, such as the wisdom of our elder energy, which when truly connected to, can be a support and inspiration to others who are willing to listen.

619. My feeling is that it is the PRESENT will catch up with us, because what we do in the present can be a direct result of holding onto the past. So to ensure we carry our vitality and joyfulness into our elder years it is our moment to moment choices that we need to consider, whatever age we are.

620. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” It feels like an invitation to embrace and appreciate every decade and age we live through which then keeps taking care of the next year we age. No worry needed just a consistent focus on our quality. Thank you Bernadette – beautiful 🙂

621. Yes Bernadette, we can often think of letting go as sad part of ‘becoming old that we must face. You reframe it beautifully here so we can see its an integral part of the art of life. The more we make letting go our way, the more we see our past and unresolved issues follow us around whichever beach we walk, unless we choose presence, wonder, simplicity and clarity. If we choose this, we will understand as you say ‘every moment is a gift from heaven’.

622. ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ This is a great reminder that it is up to us to have the life that we choose. Yo remind us too that anything that we think we can get away with only comes round to look us in the face later on. There is a consequence to all our actions.

623. So true Bernadette, it sounds very much like life in your sixties includes a substantial stocktake of the decades before… illustrated most keenly by the state of the body, our psychological wellbeing and the degree of wealth we have accumulated within. This is a far more useful use of this time in one’s life as I see it, rather than retiring from the active workforce, taking up hobbies or interests to fill the days and allowing the body to deteriorate towards death. There is little if any appeal in that to me. Thanks for the inspiration for how else it can be.

624. The past is determined by what we have lived before. We are responsible for it all.

625. “Letting go of being a problem solver, or feeling responsible for others’ choices, allows for me spaciousness and simplicity, and my body thanks me with more contentment and appreciation.” When we let go of these ideals and beliefs, so much falls away – there is no more imposition on our bodies, and there is so much more space for us to be in the simplicity of being ourselves.

626. “And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” Wise words Bernadette… there is so much joy, beauty and inspiration living this way.

627. How perfectly timely Bernadette… your wise words have been very inspiring to read this morning. It is so true that we have a choice in every moment as to how we live – it really is quite simple.

628. This is the best advertisement for ageing, ever.

629. “And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.” I am finding that too Bernadette, it may be the best superannuation scheme ever!
     Lovely blog.

630. ‘ I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness….’ – A huge learning here – we seem to live in the future out of a fear or need to get somewhere, but what if we were to live each moment in full – how healing is that! To not have any regrets because everything is delivered when it is needed. We have a responsibility now more than ever to show it is possible to be in the world fully committed, present and open – and living in awareness and openness in each moment is an amazing reflection for others.

631. It’s incredibly empowering for me to know that even if I make a bad or unloving choice, there is always an immediate choice after to change…to choose a more (self) loving option. We still must live with the responsibility of our bad choices, but we can still choose love. It’s never too late.

632. Such a joy to read Bernadette. From your blog I can feel there is a huge beauty in ageing.

633. Thank you Bernadette, for your deeply insightful blog. . . . “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.” . . . I am in the process of moving and letting go of all the things that no longer serve me so this is a timely read in more ways than one.

634. Beautiful words of wisdom Bernadette, there is no escaping our choice of movements. It’s wise we appreciate the divine beings we are the best we can.

635. Such a beautiful blog Bernadette, so many pearls of wisdom here. And speaking from a true elder. We enrol into the school of the future, to observe life, not absorb life which brings great understanding and compassion.
     There’s so much here that one can reflect on. Taking responsibility for our choices as our past does catch up with us eventually…

636. Dear Bernadette,
     It is so about choice. I know that at times it doesn’t feel this, but it is true. Many years ago, I had a moment where I choose to stay very present with my body, instead of going into a possible contentious conversation with someone I would see shortly. The difference in how that conversation happened was so profound that I clocked the power of choosing my body and being with it. However it was not until a few years after this experience and attending Universal Medicine courses that I learnt just how powerful and true it is that we have choice.

637. This is beautiful Bernadette. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” I love your utter appreciation and love of every moment.

638. “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.” – said with such wisdom – thank you Bernadette.

639. Knowing that everything comes back to us has felt very supportive in the moments where I have taken responsibility for what is coming back around to me. It feels freeing to let go of an emotion when I understand that what is before me from another I have also at some point chosen to express to others. It stops it from becoming personal and I provide myself space to ask why I would of chosen to express that which is coming back to me in the first place. When I understand this I understand the other person more and there is less judgement towards both of us, this makes way for that feeling of freedom and lightness.

640. Almost regardless of where we are at, if we live harmoniously we can make the best of what our body offers us and by not burdening it any further, some of the issues of ageing can even be slowed down substantially.

641. It’s true that we age as we have lived and its interesting how there is no escape from anything we have chosen.

642. This blog reminds me of school reunions, where you can really feel the different paths each person had been walking on since you last saw them. In this you can see the impact our everyday choice have on our entire wellbeing.

643. Life today is getting more and more hectic for most and at a time that asks us to stop and deeply consider what is going on around us. The world is not in a great place and many use distractions to avoid feeling this but the more we do this, the more chaotic the world gets- it is a reflection of the choices that we each live.

644. I love what you are sharing here Bernadette, it is such an important topic. It is so important to understand that our body is not given to us to use and abuse but to be treated with respect and care so it can carry us through life enabling us to do the things we need to do or more so are here to do.

645. I completely agree it has been huge learning for me to let go and to start to observe more, absorb less and not feel such a need to solve things. However, we can do this at any age. For example Natalie Benhayon in her early 20s was already a role model of what it is to be an elder.

646. Interesting as I approach my 60th year I find myself feeling younger and more free than at any time of my life and joyfully working extremely long hours 7 days a week. I felt much more of an old lady in my teens.

     1. Ageing backwards, how inspiring!

        1. Yes indeed and after 23 years of marriage I feel more like a young girl on her honeymoon with my super gorgeous sexy husband than I did when I married him!

647. Bernadette I have recently started working in palliative care. I am observing and learning much. Two things that I have observed is how we don’t seem to equate our choices of a lifetime to the predicament we find ourselves in at the end of our life. It is much deeper than eating well and exercising. It’s the quality in how we care for everything about ourselves, our relationships, how we communicate and express or how we may choose not to pay much attention to this at all. But as you say everything does catch up eventually. The other thing that I have been observing is how we don’t want to let go of anything. Our hurts, emotions, regrets, our worries about others. This is not easy stuff to do when faced with your own mortality. However, these two things are intimately connected. The more we care for and nurture everything in our life, including ourselves the less likely we are to hang onto the stuff that no longer serves and supports us.

     1. As you have said Jennifer, ‘It is much deeper than eating well and exercising. It’s the quality in how we care for everything about ourselves…’ The Everything is EVERYTHING, leaving no room for regrets and old history.

648. Hi Bernadette, a blog of much wisdom. A very recent situation I had clearly demonstrated old patterns of mine that are very destructive. A painful but revealing lesson

649. I really liked reading this, thank you. Especially this line – “and whatever ways we are able to connect with people to bring our authority, love and understanding. When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.” Particularly the ‘bring our authority’ bit as I feel that part is really lacking in our lives, I know it is from mine. And it is the honouring that allows the authority to come through. I could feel the authority in your words.

650. Thanks Bernadette, a great reminder to get on with living the life I feel is there as a potential.

651. Absolutely beautifully claimed for every man and woman on the planet Bernadette! This is what we all need to hear from very young; “we can choose to keep working and being of service in many capacities, as volunteers in our communities, as teachers, writers, carers and whatever ways we are able to connect with people to bring our authority, love and understanding. When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.”

     1. When the elders among us live their wisdom and the innate joy that naturally flows from expressing this, we all, as a society, get blessed. A true elder is, by their lived way, able to inspire those in their community and becomes a living reflection of the wisdom of God that flows through us all. This helps us to arise out of the crushing mindset that we are only here to tick boxes as we crawl through life on a straight trajectory, ageing as we go until we are no longer any use to the love-less system we have put in place. Rather than fade away into insignificance, a true elder is able to embrace all that life offers and keeps offering at every age and stage and show us that not only does every moment matter but also that when every breath is made in sync with the love that we are and the Universal harmony we belong to, there is no such thing as a straight line existence, nor death for that matter, only an ever expanding series of cycles that move us closer to God and to each other with each breath we draw into our lungs.

        1. With the quality we choose; there is “only an ever expanding series of cycles that move us closer to God and to each other with each breath we draw into our lungs.”

652. There is a lot I have to learn – by listening to how I feel.

     1. Yes, it is really quite simple. Funny how we can complicate things by analysing our thoughts over and over in our minds, which never gets us anywhere, sometimes just back where we started! The reality is, all we have to do is let go of the whirling cogs of our mind, and feel what our body is telling us. Sometimes we may not want to feel what our body is telling us, but ignore it at our peril because as Bernadette so rightly points out, everything we do, say and think catches up with us eventually… everything.

653. What an inspiring blog from the angle of a lived life and an elder wisdom that supports us all to consider our choices.

654. ‘And I have found that the best way to prepare for the future is to live each day, each moment, gently, with awareness and openness.’ Wise words Bernadette. There is so much worry and concern about preparing for our ‘old age’ but really it is as simple as living each day of our lives to the full, as each day creates the next. Taking loving responsibility for ourselves brings joy at any age.

655. Every aspect of life reminds us that in each moment we have an impact on the next. Even in our gung-ho youth when we push like the young woman mentioned in this blog, we witness that our big nights out tend to result in us being out of sorts the next day, and if we have a restful resourcing period we feel recharged the next day. The culture of ‘live now pay later’ is insidiously encouraged and humanity is hugely suffering as a result. It is a wonderful reminder provided here of the responsibility we have in this regard, especially when we are offered the longer view that “in our early years we are preparing for our elder years, and in our elder years we are preparing for death and our next life”. Coupled with the simplicity of “when I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation”. Profound and so very simple.

656. Bernadette, this is so true, ‘As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies’, I work with children and with elderly people and have been feeling how important it is to connect the two, for the children to see that their choices will result in how they are as elders, whether they get illness and disease or choose to live healthy, loving lifestyles and have healthy years as an elder.

657. Wow Bernadette. What an amazing blog that bring responsibility to the forefront of our lives. How could one resist choosing to live joy and vitality each day after reading this blog and comparing the understanding of the option of holding onto old restrictive patterns and beliefs. It is super refreshing and very natural to read your experience, zest for life and dedication from a 68 year old woman. (Who does not look or feel that age in my opinion)

658. It is my choice which energy I choose to focus on, which energy I choose to guide me: future or past. I can hang on to old hurts and create a ideal of life or I can choose to take responsibility and take every experience in life as an offer to learn and to evolve. This leads to a flow of life and the future can unfold for me. It is anyway guaranteed – it is clear where we are all going to: back to God and our divine being. So I can resist and fight this way which is in front of me or embrace it. But I have to go with it anyway.

659. I love it Bernadette, so very true, “We can choose to stay addicted to our old patterns, holding onto the past like it is a familiar friend, or we can live our future now, returning to who we are.” If we stay carrying our old choices and hurts then they laden us down and inevitably will return as we will re-create them. Whereas when we walk free unencumbered by the past we can simply be ourselves.

660. A beautiful blog Bernadette bringing us back to the simplicity of stopping and listening to the body, where our true answers are to be found, rather than trying to work it all out with ‘fix it’ solutions that don’t last.
     “When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation”.

661. “It is so easy and so irresponsible to look around for someone or a situation to blame for one’s stress or suffering.” So true Bernadette. Waking up to and taking responsibility for myself and my situation was a big call when I came to Universal Medicine presentations – and it gets even more fine tuned the longer I deepen with myself. Everything we do affects everyone else, even if we don’t realise it.

662. “For example, we can choose to keep working and being of service in many capacities, as volunteers in our communities, as teachers, writers, carers and whatever ways we are able to connect with people to bring our authority, love and understanding. When we honour our experience and worthiness there is much vitality and purpose to bring to others in our lives.” In the UK the experience of the older generation is all too often overlooked by society, I know many older women and men who offer their services within schools or as volunteers in many different aspects of life and I see how this brings them immense purpose and understanding of the qualities & experience that they can bring to others – it feeds us back.

663. This is a gem of a sentence, Bernadette – “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.” The quality with which we live and treat our bodies today is the greatest surety of the future.

664. At times I can definitely feel the consequences of my past and recently I had a CT scan which showed scarring on my liver and its nine years since I stopped drinking. So the body does carry the past but we certainly don’t have to live in the past and can continue to heal as we go forth.

665. Bernadette its so powerful to read “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” as it raises the way we approach everything in life and our relationship with ourselves. It’s also fascinating to see our cycle of living in different stages of life but as you share and as I have come to also understand its about the quality we live in each moment that is key as that transcends lives.

666. Beautifully expressed with the claimed wisdom and grace of your elder energy Bernadette. I will come back to this blog again and again.

667. There is something very beautiful about the fact that we cannot get away with things hence why the past catches up with us. It keeps us honest and it helps to keep us evolving should we choose to learn from our past.

668. So true Bernadette, we cannot escape the consequences of how we have treated our bodies when we are young and we are all far too comfortable with the belief growing old is a process of loosing our abilities rather than a consequence of our lifestyle. I too never appreciated that my emotional indulgences were just as harmful as the drugs, alcohol and partying and that it was these trends that were taking me steadily towards diabetes, tooth decay and deteriorating eyesight. However we can bring about miraculous changes to these conditions when we truly sit up and begin to listen to and take immense care of the bodies we live in and our purpose in life. Growing older does not automatically mean a poorer quality of health, it can be a time of huge resolution, a deepening of joy and self awareness and an amazing time to share our wisdom with people in as many ways possible. Growing old is not a shutting down process, it can be if we choose to be so, a time of incredible evolution and expansion.

     1. I agree Rowena, ‘Growing old is not a shutting down process, it can be if we choose to be so, a time of incredible evolution and expansion.’ Beautiful thank you.

669. Very pertinent contribution in regards to how we age and how that process reflects our former choices, all of them. And I agree, the past does catch up with us and it is the ultimate responsibility, there is in truth no way out.

670. Thank you Bernadette, for sharing your wisdom with us. Everything you have written makes so much sense to how we live and approach our elderly years. The approach you describe feels lighter and more joyful than the current expectation of what it means to age.

671. “Learning to love myself has been a great lesson; it’s like enrolling in the school of the future, and the beauty is that we never stop evolving.” It is Bernadette the future brought to us now. The more I am loving with myself the more this is reflected in everything I do and how I am with everyone. It is one of the many great lessons I have had through Serge Benhayon, and getting to know my body and how it really woks is another. The teachings we are receiving now are also the teachings of the future I know from my own body and my own experiences that this is the true way forward.

672. “Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?” This is such a great question and one that the younger one recognises and ponders this the less the past catches up with one and instead flow with the present coming from the future.

673. Thank you Bernadette for the truth of your sharing. Having reached an age where I now have a 7 at the start of it there is nowhere to hide. It is all about the body and this has proven to be true . My body responds to loving tenderness remarkably well and shows me also where in the past I have totally ignored what it was telling me to my detriment. I am especially grateful for the teachings of Serge Benhayon and The Way of The Livingness, plus the Esoteric Women’s Health presentations that have opened up my eyes and my life so much for the better!

674. Absolutely Loved Reading this! It does seem that getting older we do have a sense of letting go. What you have shared about contributing to our communities is how it should be from day 1 – with our authority, love and care. We spend so long in jobs, relationships, activities not doing this – perhaps lifetimes.

675. I have also found the advantages of aging​ as you have Bernadette. We have been there, done that and have the T-shirt. We have fought the battles, won and lost but have not really gained anything from the outcomes. Life is simpler, we do not have to prove or be anything to anyone. But, it is not a time to rest on our laurels for as you said the most important job is still at hand, to get ready for our next curtain, it is our responsibility.

676. Thank you for the reminder that there is a responsibility in the way we live now, as this will effect our future. When we choose to truly connect and in the moment of true responsibility we are bringing our future to us, otherwise if we get caught in the indulgence we will experience the past that has not been loving.

677. What a blessing to read your blog Bernadette, thank you. …”It seems to me that in our early years we are preparing for our elder years, and in our elder years we are preparing for death and our next life…” This reminds me so much that life is about cycles…

678. “It seems to me that in our early years we are preparing for our elder years, and in our elder years we are preparing for death and our next life.” A true Elder understanding of the real cycles of our lives and our return to who we truly are – thank you, Bernadette.

     1. Yes I agree Coleen, I love this line, such true wise words by my beautiful friend and mother in law. I’m blessed to have her in my life, and my son’s life.

679. I really enjoyed reading this blog. The wisdom that comes with life experience is gold. To hear that we cannot escape the choices we have made that we so arrogantly think we can get away with in our youth is truly supportive.

680. Choosing to listen to the wisdom of the body is so supportive and allows us to live the future. Although our past will be reflected in how we age it does not have to dominate our later years if we appreciate where we are at now and what is the next thing to do.

681. True – there always will be consequences for everything. And thanks to Serge Benhayon, I am finally accepting that life is about taking responsibility.

682. When our present is driven by the past we cannot but pay the price in the future. When our present is inspired by the future, we make a double gift to ourselves: the present and the future coming to us. Love this blog.

683. This is lovely Bernadette, I too thought I could get away with living irresponsibly when I was younger but everything comes back to us to reflect how we have lived. Our faces are an instant picture of what emotions we have held on to, and our illnesses in the body show us the corrections when we are open to understanding that. And then we learn to move forwards.

     1. Thank you gillrandall for your understanding that we are not expecting perfect health as we grow older, there will be the corrections, and illness can bring much healing and wisdom when we are prepared to look deeper.

684. Bernadette, I love this reminder that no matter what I think I’m getting away with, in fact I’m not getting away with anything at all, and as you say ‘As we age, there is nowhere to hide’, and that is so true, in youth we have more time or so we think, but the body is more immediate as we age. It also clarifies something in how we as a society operate, our obsession with youth and the irresponsibility of it, and in fact each stage in life is to be lived in a way that allows the next one to unfold so what we lay down in our youth comes back to us in our old age. Wouldn’t it be so much kinder to ourselves and our bodies if we actually honoured them throughout our lives.

685. This article is a point of inspiration about taking responsibility and embracing each moment; it takes us out of victimhood into empowerment… a way forward for humanity.

686. This blog is an intelligent reminder to walk my future, create what I deserve and do not hold back what it holds.

687. “When I allow my body to communicate, it has such simple wisdom, and it knows what to do in any situation.” this blog is brilliant – the sentence above alone gave me space to feel my body and be open to receiving its messages.

     1. I love the ripple effect as I read your comment Leonne I felt a tension go in my body as I brought more awareness to what I am feeling, something I hadn’t responded to from the blog.

688. Loving and investing in ourselves is one of the greatest and most rewarding gifts we can offer ourselves. Each choice and movement we make with this as our foundation paves the way for the next in a quality that embraces not only ourselves but all we meet.

689. Today while in a pharmacy I tried on a pair of glasses, the lowest prescription ones and realised how much better I could read small writing as without them my eyes have started to strain and my eyes don’t see as sharply as they have. I’ve always prided myself on my eyesight, I would say I have perfect eyesight, but today I felt a fear grip me like oh my what else is going to start to change as I get older. Bernadette your blog written with so much love and understanding of how we need to let go of beliefs and ideals and even pictures of how we see ourselves living or growing and developing has helped me put this in perspective. Thank you for your wisdom on this subject.

     1. Thank you for mentioning the fear word Aimee. Is it possible that there is an underlying fear or anxiousness about growing older? I remember being dismayed with some grey hairs appearing or wrinkles, but that was so superficial. If we are living a full and purposeful life we will wear ourselves out in the best way.

690. We as a society have certainly been programmed into believing that as we age ‘it’s all downhill from here’, as the saying goes. But what if we’ve got it all wrong, and like you have discovered Bernadette, that the way we age is simply a result of the way we have lived, and that by living in a more self loving way our latter years can be so very different from what has come to be considered normal. So with the knowing that “our past catches up with us, eventually”, and we start making some different life style choices to ensure that our past is full of love, vitality and joy, then that is the life that will be catching up with us!

691. ‘As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived’, absolutely, I couldn’t agree more. I have already seen changes in my body, particularly my face, which has become so much more gentle, open and loving since I have chosen to live in a way that is much more honouring of the tender woman that I am.

     1. I agree. We can look gorgeous and beautiful at any age and even if we had a very involving past.

692. “As we age, there is nowhere to hide. Our faces and our bodies are the indicators of how we have lived, what we have eaten, what our thought patterns and emotional patterns have been, and how we have treated our bodies.” – In so many ways our body is the marker of truth, a reflection of our past choices. This can be a blessing or not, depending on how we have treated ourselves and all those around us.

     1. Yes Henrietta, what a different way to approach our long term heath and wellbeing, making us 100% responsible for the quality of our movements and choices in the here and now.

693. Where to start …. I LOVED all that you share here, Bernadette, thank you for the grace with which you have shared your wisdom and lived experience. It has come at such a perfect time as I have been feeling a heaviness in my body from all the ‘stuff’ I’ve been taking on from those around me, a sluggishness from my squashing the natural ‘lightness’ that flows through my being. When I allow myself to feel ‘lesser’, others will treat me so, yet, it’s for me to recognise that I have enabled this cycle by choosing to make other’s more important than myself in the first place.

     1. Great awareness Alison, I have done that too, made myself less important, not truly caring for my body and ignoring my soul’s wisdom. The beautiful thing is that it is never too late to begin to live another far more nurturing way.

694. Hello Bernadette, and thank you for this deeply reflective blog! Ageing is a process, and though I am only in my forties, I too have found that certain changes have already happened for me that I have actually found myself embracing. Simple things like getting my first pair of multifocal glasses to support me with reading was first something I was trying to delay doing, but it got to the point where it was no longer supportive and when I finally embraced it I have had so much fun with this! Our current society is very focused on youth and looking young and there is very little celebration and respect of the wisdom that many elders can bring. This can make it hard to see ageing as a positive thing. However, the more we have of true role models that embrace ageing and enjoy it too, despite its hurdles, the more people will feel inspired by this and it may, just maybe, allow them to reflect on their current way of living and make some changes for the future of us all.

     1. I love how when you embraced the changes to your eyesight Henrietta, it became a fun process to buy the multifocals. I feel that it is the same with ageing, we can feel sorry or frustrated with the changes, or embrace them with more understanding and acceptance, and find what is there to be appreciated each day, and not forgetting to appreciate ourselves!

        1. Thank you Bernadette – this is spot on, I am in a process of learning about appreciation all over again – appreciation of self on all levels, and appreciation of all those around us and the beauty that is in our lives undeniably so!

695. Our reactions to the world, whilst irresponsible (as they contribute to the way the world is), are understandable. The world is simply not configured in many ways to support us. That being said, as the writer of this blog so astutely observes, it is too easy to blame the world around us for the way we hold ourselves. The fact is there will always be corruption, stressful events, and life circumstances designed to throw us out of rhythm, and so, the only true power you have is in whether you react or respond to the world. That is our choice and our choice alone, and in that is the true key to mastering life, albeit a choice that is not always easy, but none-the-less is a choice all the same, and one that cannot be taken away from us by anyone but ourselves.

     1. Absolutely well said Adam, so true. I love your words of wisdom.

     2. React or respond. That’s it, that’s the key. React and it’s over, respond and it can be a game changer.

696. Beautiful blog Bernadette, full of wisdom and appreciation. ‘Every moment is a gift from heaven. How do we choose to live it?’ Great question, fully inspiring and a beautiful reminder for me to appreciate every moment is a gift from heaven. When we choose to live this, life is full of joy and with this deep appreciation we are able to bring so much to our every day, reflecting a quality to humanity that is simply heavenly.

697. Thank you Bernadette Curtin for sharing that there is a responsibility in the way we live and that our past does catch up with us when we are driven by ideals and beliefs of the way we “think” we need to live. Like yourself, I am now feeling the effects of these behaviours in my later years and have realised the importance of letting go and living with a deeper level of appreciation, this has led to more harmony in my life.

698. Whatever choice we make, our past will catch up with us, eventually. This is so true Bernadette, and we don’t necessarily like it when it does. But it’s a great stop moment and an opportunity to either go with it, dive deeply into the learning and accept it for what it is or, not take responsibility and try to blame the world, or others for our apparent misfortune. The first alternative is way more loving and enjoyable and easier to boot.

Comments are closed.