No periods… a message from my body

Six years ago the doctor asked me if I wanted anti-depressants and suggested I saw a psychotherapist for eating disorders. I’d had some big life changes and reacted with a huge amount of emotional turmoil and stress. I lost about 12kg and went down to 42kg within a few months. My periods stopped and I had no energy or enthusiasm for anything in life. 

I thought I didn’t have an eating disorder because I wasn’t obsessed with my weight or my body – I just didn’t care, about myself or anything else. I shut myself down as a woman, to myself and the world, and gave up. 

In the last 6 years my life has changed massively. While a few things have changed on the outside, they are nothing compared to the inner re-vamp that has been – and is still – taking place on the inside. I have energy for life and I actually want to be here and I’m finally starting to love being a woman. 

Not that I wanted to be a man, more that I just didn’t want to be here at all in the first place and secondly, I didn’t want to feel and connect to the delicacy and power of how it feels to be myself, as a woman. 

Slowly, and with the support of esoteric practitioners, I began to see and feel that I wasn’t broken, and – amazingly – there was nothing to fix. I was just hurt, and I got the support I needed and the tools to start to deal with those hurts and to start taking care of myself. 

I got to see that I had been addicted to getting it right, and, underneath a perfectly calm-looking facade, addicted to stress: the drama, the rush, the working things out, the needing to ask 20 people the same thing… just to be sure it was the ‘right’ decision, and that nothing could possibly go wrong. 

Having designated myself as Head Girl of Nailing Life at an early age and made it a sort of secret life ambition, I had this fixation with getting somewhere, being better, and thinking I had to work hard to get there. I even tried to make the Ageless Wisdom teachings into rules and found that it didn’t work. To my disappointment, and exasperation, there was no dogma to follow, no rule book to abide by, no one telling me what to do… and no perfection to be recognised for. Instead, I started to find that the more I let go, the easier life became and the easier I am on myself. I can be in life as an active and responsible participant but without having to think about it, because there is no right and wrong. Just infinite moments of choices to be continuously made that are either loving and truthful, or not, and then naturally results and consequences of those choices. 

I made some changes to my life and started looking after myself; going to bed early, eating nourishing foods and not being controlling about food, generally letting go of that which did not belong in and around me and opening up to people more so I could let people in. 

But my body wasn’t just going to give me a period in exchange for a couple of early nights. It is asking me to make some fundamental and consistent changes to my life: like pay attention to the quality I move in not just once a day while making my bed, but 24/7… and to enjoy and bathe in how deliciously light and expansive it feels to move in and with that connection. 

I joined an online programme to look more closely at my period cycle, and discovered that even though I don’t have my periods, my body is still going through a cycle. Makes so much sense – just because we don’t see the Moon every night it doesn’t mean it’s not there and like its gravitational dance with Earth is not causing tide to ebb and flow. I had known that we’re always connected to cycles, but had chosen not to pay attention to it, or to practically apply it, and so it remained as knowledge in my head and nothing more. 

Following advice from my medical practitioner, I’m now applying bio identical hormonal creams to give my body the support that it needs and I can feel that there is a rhythm with that. My body is trying to ovulate. There are changes to my breasts, how connected I am to my body to be able to actually have a sense of my ovaries, differences in cervical mucus… Once I started to pay attention to it, I saw that my body is always communicating something to me and it’s up to me to listen or not. 

I learned that there are times of the cycle where we are naturally inclined to go more inwards, and other times where the focus is on outward expression of that depth. And I noticed a pattern: that often, when I felt the pull to go inwards, I would counteract it by making life and work complicated and stressful, when in fact, it needn’t be at all. 

Through charting how my body is feeling at the end of every day, I felt more aware of how I’m feeling at different times of the day, not just at the end when I was charting. To me this has been a revelation: it wasn’t something I had to put on my to do list or set an alarm to do, it just started happening without me even thinking about it. I experienced that it wasn’t that hard to connect to my body, just a choice to be made from moment to moment to remember to stay in the flow of that connection and not get distracted or lost in whatever I am doing. I’ve begun to see much more than ever before how much I have wanted to not feel things and not deal with situations, conveniently checking out into the perceived safety of my head whenever things got a little bit too intense. 

Paying more attention to the quality of how I am moving meant that I started to notice the quality of everything else: my thoughts, the space around me, energies coming through me and other people. In a really simple way… not good or bad, just… what does it feel like? 

I don’t have my periods back, but the whole experience is so enriching and supporting me to build a loving relationship with myself where I trust myself and what I can feel, and have my own back. I am loving learning to let go more and more and learning to live from how I feel in my body: do I feel a quality of space and lightness in my body and a steadiness and a consistency that I can trust, or am I in some kind of drama, delay or dilemma? When I stay with the steady consistency, I feel in the flow of life. Standing in the full flow of the stream of life and trying to build a wall, or even trying to send it back the other way is no longer quite the appealing game it used to be.

There is much more of an ease and a gentleness with how I move and am with myself now. I no longer resent my body for reflecting back to me something that I don’t want to see and patterns that I don’t want to let go of and change. I am discovering that being a woman is absolutely delicious and that this ease, grace and beauty in how I move is not something I have to try to make or be. It is already there, within me, and is now beginning to unfold, unfurl and truly blossom. 

By B, UK 

For further inspiration.. 

What do stress and stillness have to do with my menstrual cycle? 

Esoteric Women’s Health

Being truly ourselves and allowing the joy to flow again.. 

A Frozen Shoulder: Thawing my Resistance to my Inner Quality

Three days ago, I woke up with a frozen shoulder; I was unable to sleep the prior night or get out of bed. This has happened before, but this time, with the help of my amazing practitioner, Jenny Ellis, I really listened to the message being offered up. I came to understand the message along with fixing the actual physical pain. And this is what I discovered…

How Breast Cancer Led Me To A New Way Of Living

I stood in front of the mirror and was drawn to my eyes… they were shining and so full of light that I stayed there for quite some time, mesmerised by the beauty they radiated and promised. The sheer sweetness and delicacy in my face reminded me of the beautiful little girl inside me – a sweet, moment… a soul-full moment… I was alive because I had discovered a new way of living.

4 years ago when I looked in the same mirror, my eyes reflected a dullness, a tiredness, sadness, struggle, a giving up and an ache, a longing to know that there had to be more to life than my painful existence. I tended to avoid looking deeply into my eyes because truth never hides when sought and the truth was painful – my eyes spoke volumes.

Jacqueline in the Bahamas aged 44

So what happened in the short space of 4 years? I changed… I changed my life, or it could be said that life changed me, and I was more than ready.

The diagnosis of breast cancer in July 2011 was a life changing event for me in a magnificent way, mainly because it was the catalyst of letting go of an old way of living (from my head) and beginning to live from my body – a whole new experience. From the intelligence of my body I knew which choices would truly support and that is why they were so successful and brought a new quality to my life.

What Were The Choices I Made?

My very first decision was to put myself first in my life.

My second decision was to give myself all the support my body and I needed.

My third decision was to combine medical treatment with complementary treatments in the form of Scared Esoteric Healing and Esoteric Chakra Puncture, modalities presented by Serge Benhayon of Universal Medicine.

From these three decisions, all other choices I made naturally unfolded… I made changes to my diet, sleep, exercise… but mainly I slowed down and in this slower pace it was clear to see what mattered and what didn’t. It was heaven to take all the rest and sleep my body needed at any time of the day… for as long as I needed.

It took me to develop breast cancer to break this life-long pattern of putting all others before myself, so ingrained and unconscious this habit had become. By doing so, by cutting this old energy of self-abuse, I was saying “No More!” to a lifestyle that led to my breast cancer and I was saying yes to a new way of living that was truly self-supporting. Without realizing this then, I was actually building a new foundation for my life that would not only greatly support me during treatment, but how I was going to move forward, that is, how I was going to live after treatment ended.

My second decision was born from the first and was very powerful because I turned my old pattern of being unable to receive or ask for support on its head to: “I need all the support that is available to guide me through a land I had never travelled before – breast cancer”.

My third decision was born from the second.  I just knew that the combination of both medicines (conventional and Esoteric Medicine) would provide all the support my body needed, addressing all the parts of me that desperately needed attention – the whole me and not just my right breast. This proved to be a very wise decision.

And in that very wise decision came a new insight, which was;

I had a significant part to play in my own recovery.

All of a sudden, there was me, there was my medical treatment and esoteric medicine; so much support for me. This feeling of so much support, something I had never had before, somehow comforted me on many levels, so much so that there was no way I could feel powerless, or feel like a victim, or go into ‘fight’ mode as is expected as soon as you get cancer. When I allowed the support I could let go of the struggle of having to do things on my own!

To Fight or To Surrender?

Had I not met Serge Benhayon and had his loving support, I too feel I would have taken on the fight, making it impossible to surrender – making it impossible to accept what I had created.

But as it was, not one bone in my body said, “I have to fight this cancer”. My whole life had been a battle and I was so done with the struggle, I had no fight left in me to either fight life or my breast cancer. The moment I gave up the ‘fight’ was the moment I could surrender, was the moment I allowed grace to enter… and this was the moment I could have all the support I could handle.

Now I have come to understand why I always felt a lack of support in my life was simply because I was not ready to take responsibility for my life or my choices. When I did take responsibility so much support was there for me, and having adequate support in place was crucial for me as it took away so much of my fear which initially had overwhelmed me, as fear had kept me in resistance to treatment.

The belief that we have to fight cancer, is a great distraction from truly seeing what learning is being offered to us by the cancer in our body, and what life style changes it is asking us to make.

For instance I have come to understand from what Serge Benhayon presents, that the breasts are the nurturing centres of the body, therefore my breast cancer was showing me the deep lack of self-nurturing I had for myself. I had no clue how to self-nurture, nor self-nourish, having always taken care of others first. I had to re-learn how to truly self-care and self-nurture, which flowed naturally when I started listening to my body and what it was communicating to me.

Life Is About Quality

Having surrendered and accepted my part in creating breast cancer my life took on a new quality. My quality of life changed because I was choosing to allow support, self-support, self-nurture, self-nourishment, which began a new relationship and reconnection with my body. Ah my body…

Truth never hides when sought, and truth can be painful. The painful truth for me was that I had given up on myself, then used many distractions not to feel this – not to feel how deeply disconnected and checked-out I was with my body. But, as I discovered: honouring myself reconnected me with my body and brought me back to truth and truth brought me back to myself and my sweetness…

Jacqueline aged 50 living with the sweetness of who she is

The beautiful, sweet little girl I had always been inside began to trust – trust herself, trust in people, trust in life, trust that her purpose in life was just to be herself, and with this knowing, she could let go of how serious, small and constricted her life had become, (her old way of living) and open to the grandness that life is, that she is, that we all are… This is such a sweet moment, a soul-full moment because I am alive; you just have to look into my eyes…

Jacqueline aged 50 radiant and loving life 4 years after being diagnosed with breast cancer

I am a Soul. We are all souls on this earth finding our way back home; self-love is the key.

‘True Power is in honouring who you truly are’.
Serge Benhayon.

I am forever grateful and deeply inspired by ‘The Way of the Livingness’, the loving reflection of Serge Benhayon, all the Benhayon family, and all the Universal Medicine practitioners who reflect this new way of living. A heart-full thank you to you all for all the loving support I have received in finding and living truth again.

By Jacqueline McFadden, The Netherlands

More groundbreaking articles by Jacqueline McFadden
 Breast Cancer – Prevention Has to be Better than a Cure  
“My life had been my own creation… including my breast cancer……”

Preventing Breast Cancer – Changing How We Feel About Our Bodies
“It is NOT normal to intensely reject, and loathe our bodies. It is a billion, trillion, zillion times away from normal…”

You may also Enjoy reading:

Read Fiona McGovern’s deeply inspiring account of how she found herself in My Right Breast – Finding Me Beneath the Cancer  “I have found the reflection of how to be a woman! It was with me all along, waiting for me to reconnect to her…I have met me.”

Fiona’s writing continue in My Marriage of Conventional Medicine and Esoteric Medicine
“People say cancer is a fight. I don’t feel it is.  The battle for me was before, when I lived from ideals and beliefs, now I have reconnected to me there is no fight or battle, just a beautiful return to truth.”

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Only to Find it Was Already Within Me!

by Sharon Gavioli, Registered Nurse, Birth Educator, Counsellor, Brisbane, Australia

All my life I have had a knowing that life was about people and loving people. Despite this, as a young girl I learned that love meant that I should be good and put others’ needs before my own. This meant working hard to please my parents and friends. Throughout this, I felt a frustration at how I felt I had to be and at times would step out of line, which left me feeling bad that I had let another down. Then I would brush myself off and get back in the game in the pursuit of this love.

In my teenage years, I directed my quest for love in pursuing boys, hoping that a relationship would bring me the elusive love that I hadn’t quite found as a girl. After a few false starts, I found the man whom I was sure was going to bring me the love. Within a year of marriage, I started to feel disappointed and again frustrated that the love wasn’t pouring forth in our relationship. I tried to express this, but in the end decided that maybe having a baby would definitely be a sure winner to finally find that true love that I so longed for.

Lessons on Healing and Truth from Pinocchio

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…  

Every Beautiful Woman

by Dr Lyndy Summerhaze, Crabbes Creek, NSW Australia

I had a dream a couple of weeks ago. I was window-shopping outside a jewellers / china shop. There were so many beautiful and colourful objects there, but when I looked at each individual item – there were actually none that I wanted. As I was leaving, I saw a life-size cardboard cut-out of a fashion model standing there – I didn’t want that either. So I walked away from it all, down the street.

As I was walking, in the dream, I remembered something Serge Benhayon, founder of Universal Medicine, had said to us some years ago whilst demonstrating a healing modality – the Energetic Facial Release. For those who may not be familiar with this healing technique, it is a release that can help deal with and clear emotions we hold within our face, such as sadness, frustration etc. It can rejuvenate the face to reveal a person’s natural radiant beauty, and can also have a profound healing effect on the whole body. What Serge said were words to the effect of – there is not one woman in the world who isn’t beautiful when connected to herself.

Reflections on Women’s Health

Sara Williams’ seminal text on the state of Women’s Health.

In this article practitioner Sara Williams explores the state of Women’s Health through personal experience interwoven with historical references. Her reflections reveal the limited ways in which we have previously viewed this important aspect of our lives and documents an Esoteric perspective which may just herald a turning of the tide, the beginning of a new chapter in Women’s Health internationally.

by Sara Williams – International Co-ordinator for the Esoteric Breast Massage – Healing Modality / UK

‘ADVANCEMENTS’ IN WOMEN’S HEALTH

Few would argue we have come a long way since the first female doctor of the modern era graduated from a medical school in 1849 (US). The concept of women’s health has come a long way in the last 50 years alone, as we witness more books published, more female voices on women’s health heard, more research conducted – with an expanded awareness in the field of Gynaecology and diseases such as breast and cervical cancers, less medicalisation, more humanising of women’s experience of medical care and more female medical professionals, including the first female dean of a major medical school in the US (albeit only in 2007).