by Deborah Savran, United States
When I was a very young child my father owned a bookstore. Being in a literature-focussed family I was used to having and reading many picture books on my shelves. Of all the stories, none compared to that of Pinocchio. I wanted to read this book every day and night, and over years I drew and painted a plethora of Pinocchio-themed art, and even named my two favorite dolls Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket! I never lost my connection to this story. One of the lessons in it – that our body’s messages are never in truth ‘curse’, but instead can be blessings that help us return to truth – is something that I have finally come to understand.
Earlier this year I heard Serge Benhayon, founder of Universal Medicine, mention the story of Pinocchio and I started to feel that for me it was a story full of whole truths, and this brought me to tears. Of course! How much sense it made that as a young child I had so strongly aligned to this story – a story that talked about returning and choosing to be who we truly are; a story about taking responsibility and about how our choices transform our lives and those around us; about a person whose body would give him a big message via his nose growing when he was not being honest…
The truth held in this story and its significance in my early life is just one more amazing insight that I have come to understand since becoming connected with Universal Medicine and its healing modalities based on the Ancient Wisdom. In this I can feel my own life coming full circle.
Let me share how this all came about. Twelve years ago I was diagnosed with fibroids – big ones that were stopping me from becoming pregnant. This was quite an issue for me since at the time I held the notion and belief that “if I don’t have children, what is my life worth?”. I was at University studying naturopathic medicine, and so from that paradigm I set out to get rid of these ‘horrible’ growths – trying everything from acupuncture, herbs and homeopathy to clairvoyant energy healing, psychotherapy and a macrobiotic diet. My overall health declined significantly and I was left every day feeling nauseous, anaemic, exhausted and terrified that I had cancer. All the natural therapies just focussed on ‘shrinking the fibroids’ and ‘fixing’ me. While I would sometimes get some momentary relief from feeling unwell, nothing I tried resulted in shrinking the fibroids. More importantly, my practice did nothing to help me connect to:
- Why I had them,
- Why I was so scared,
- Why I was so exhausted,
- Who I truly was, or
- How to truly heal myself.
After about 18 months of this, I decided to have surgery to remove the fibroids in the hope that afterwards I would have a better chance of becoming pregnant. The surgery went well and I subsequently became pregnant easily, and today have two beautiful children. After my children were born I stopped thinking about the fibroids (although I knew I still had some very small ones), and since I only associated them with infertility, I felt that I had left ‘all of that’ behind me.
Later when I came across the healing work with Universal Medicine, I began to understand my body and healing differently. For years before coming into contact with Universal Medicine I had been practicing a form of abdominal massage and regularly massaged my own abdomen. Not long after, I began to read some of the notes on the subject of women’s health as presented by Universal Medicine, and as I read and digested these notes that made so much sense – and were transforming my understanding of women’s health – I could feel (and for the first time in ten years) a large fibroid on my uterus. At first I was so angry and afraid that this problem had ‘reared its ugly head again’, so to speak. Right away I made an appointment with my doctor. She examined me, ordered blood tests for estrogens and an ultrasound to evaluate the fibroids – another thing I hadn’t done in a decade. My doctor confirmed that they had grown but she felt that, based on my estrogen levels, my age, and the fact that I did not have any physically debilitating symptoms from the fibroids, that I did not need any treatment. She recommended a plan of ongoing, yearly follow-ups. As I left her office I felt this old response of anger, resentment and fear at having fibroids again. But then I stopped and had the feeling of ‘stillness’ or calm within and I felt my body ‘giving’ me a message – I reflected on my fibroid situation, feeling it truly as being a blessing (not a curse) allowing me a chance and opportunity to truly heal my fibroids this time and not just shrink them, or fix them. No longer was I willing to ignore my body’s messages, but instead I was going to truly listen and respond to what I felt I had to take important note of…
This was a painful process.
I began to get a sense of, and feel actually within my body, all the unloving ways I had lived my life as a woman. With some honest reflection I could see clearly that my life had many events and experiences which I had just accepted as being ‘normal’, ‘no big deal’ as ‘part of growing up’, or ‘what you do in relationships’ – but were actually very abusive. Like when I was 12 and a strange man on a bus sat next to me and rubbed my leg, or when I was in high school and boys pressured me into going further sexually than I wanted to, or even simply how I had tolerated disrespectful language and advances from men in bars and on the streets innumerable times. Even more painful was the self-realisation that I had consented to this abuse upon my own body through compromising myself as a woman in accepting or complying with certain behaviours or demands that were in truth causing a massive imbalance in my body, and its wellbeing. I had allowed this pattern of disregard to continue on countless occasions throughout my life.
To understand why this was and how it had arisen in my life, I sought support by participating in the Esoteric Women’s Presentations, and also through sessions with a Universal Medicine practitioner, Mary-Louise Myers. She introduced me to the possibility that, in addition to the obvious physical issue (of a fibroid), that there may be other and perhaps related (and deeper) issues regarding the attitudes I held myself in, such as self-loathing and / or lack of self-worth to also consider. At first this was very challenging for me to accept, though I wanted to see if this could indeed be the case and so began observing my thoughts and how it felt to be (me) in my body, every day. Some of what I noticed was that I carried a lot of ‘guarding’ or ‘self-protection’, nervous energy and also a hardening in my body, and that my thoughts were often self-deprecating and / or self-doubting. As I continued to have more healing sessions and more fully and consistently integrate what I was learning about being gentle and loving towards myself, as opposed to always being self-critical and sabotaging, I began to feel this ‘stillness’ and amazing loveliness within me. I also noticed that I rarely felt nervous or the need to guard or harden myself up, but instead was able to choose to actually be gentle in my body. I noted that the thoughts which arose when I was gentle with myself were self-loving and not self-abusive ones as in the past. And it is through my daily choices to have a love for myself (self-love) that this experience continues to deepen today.
My choices today honour and are guided by what I feel within me, to have self-regard and love – and to allow that exquisite beauty of the natural and true woman that I am.
While I am no longer a little girl, that quality of ‘me-ness’ which I can remember from when I was the Pinocchio-loving child has now returned for me.
For me, having fibroids has actually helped me to return to this quality of connection with myself. Their message was and is to be lovingly truthful to myself, to take full responsibility for whatever arises in my life, and to keep listening and responding to my body’s ever-truthful messages.
Today the healing continues. I care for myself by not ignoring the fact that I have fibroids, but instead by following my doctor’s recommendations for on-going check-ups and monitoring. In addition to that, whenever the fibroids ‘make their presence known’ through the pressure I feel in my abdomen, I now choose to feel this as the greatest blessing and reminder, not as a curse like before. I see this message from my body just like a ‘Pinocchio nose’ – reminding me to return to myself, to my stillness, to my expression as a true woman – to be love. Yes, I used to have those strings just like Pinocchio, but now they no longer hold me down or make me fret or frown… and instead I feel free without them!
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