A Martyr at Work: perfection serves no purpose

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been in competition with myself: do more, be more, do better, be better.  

Be the best you can be.  

What’s wrong with that one might ask? 

While it felt good for a while and I got a lot of recognition for it – being the reliable one who could always do anything I was asked to do and to a high quality, I’ve come to realise that it’s just not it. It is like a beast that is always hungry for more, no matter how many times a day I feed it, it keeps coming to the feeding station. It has got to a point where it is becoming not worth the trade-off of sacrificing my body and my connection to something I know is much bigger and far grander than the physical me and something that is in truth my greatest ‘craving’. For what? Just to get something done, tick things off a list and feel safe.  

What is this ‘safety’ that does anything but keep us ‘safe’? I have a PhD in learning that perfection is a hefty wall of protection that is very easy to hide behind. When we make everything that we do ‘perfect’ (whatever that looks like) and get attached to the picture perfect, we leave no gaps for anyone to offer their observations and even to criticise or disagree with us. And by doing that we build artificial borders around us with “no entry” signs and we cut ourselves off even more from people: people whose reflections we need and who also need our reflection to evolve and grow.  We simply cannot be or do without others. 

Yet, this is how most of the world lives. So many of us are lost in work, shopping, netflix, gossip, other people’s lives, complaining… it’s a long list. Waiting for the high of the next fleeting holiday to get us through to the next 6 months, or cup of tea and piece of cake, or task to tick off a list to get us through the day.. all are the same drug of reward, just different flavours.  

I might convince myself that I am reflecting some kind of superwoman to my team and the office with my can-do work ethic, but if I am driven and my body is hard, for being in drive is not our body’s natural modus operandi and it puts the body in a state of hardness much like when we are standing out in the freezing cold with inadequate clothing, and if I’m exhausted and silently resentful, they can still feel it. There is nothing that cannot be felt by another, there is only a choice to feel what’s going on under the physicality or not. And no matter how long I might believe I am staying under the radar – which includes my thoughts and the inner state of my body – no one is inspired by a lie, no matter how artfully and beautifully I might dress it up.  

I reached a crunch point the other day where I got to feel the drive and hardness of how I’d been working and pushing my body. When I overload myself with work and tasks and leave no space for these things let alone anything else, my body feels compressed and I feel joyless and disconnected. I feel out of sync and rhythm with myself, and irritated. There is a feeling of far greater density in my body with no space left for God to work alongside me while I’m doing what I’m doing, and no matter how hard I might try I can’t feel the depth of the magnificence of what we are all intrinsically connected to. Life feels very one dimensional and there is nothing to write about, or say. Rather than stop and allow myself to feel all of that, so that I can offer myself an opportunity to change the unpleasant state, often I will want to bury myself further into the numbness by working more, eating more … finding anything I can to distract myself.  No wonder the saying: we are our own worst enemy. 

But yesterday was different.  

I just allowed myself to accept where I was at and how I felt in my body, to feel how this cuts me off from that deeper knowing of myself and connecting with others, and to move differently. To pay attention to every single movement and bring focus to making it gentle. This super simple process instantly made me feel lighter and more inspired by what’s possible, and mostly that I wasn’t a bad person for having lost myself in overdrive. 

What I also got to feel was that as we refine our choices for how we are and how we move, the choices that aren’t aligned to that same gentle, tender and delicate quality really stand out and feel so much worse than what we  might have previously considered to be abusive.  

And there again is another choice: to react and judge the choice as ‘bad’, or to see it as an opportunity to learn and come out the other end much wiser and to treasure ourselves more. This is precisely how we continuously raise our standards in relationships with others across the board for what is and what is not allowed so that ultimately one day we all treat ourselves and our bodies as the sacred temples that they truly are. 

“Women must rekindle their own rhythms within society and not let society demand of them what is not natural to their body.”

Serge Benhayon, Esoteric Teachings & Revelations,  p526 

By B, UK  

For further inspiration.. 

Choosing function or true focus: how does this support us as we go about our day? The profoundness of self-care at all times.

What happens when we connect to our qualities and commit to making them our foundation for how we live in every moment of our day?

To have or to not have a period?

“We don’t need to bleed” read a bold statement in a recently published article in British press.  

Apparently, women are opting to take a pill that stops them having periods. 

Why are women increasingly giving up on periods?  

Ask many women about their experiences of periods and they will tell you that they are painful, uncomfortable and a downright nuisance.  

Until very recently, I was one of the women giving up periods. I didn’t take any medication to stop them physically occurring in the body but my giving up was to have no understanding of the point of all this period stuff. I quietly believed that periods were an expensive biological occurrence costing me a balanced emotional outlook, sanity, comfort, ease, productivity around that time of the month and more. The list was long. I also thought it was par for the course to experience these things and so I suffered quietly through.  

I literally had no clue about what was happening during my menstrual cycle. I didn’t know what time of the month my periods occurred. If someone had asked me what a period was then, I wouldn’t have been able to say much. Up until a year or so ago, I would be at the doctors and not even be able to say where I was in my cycle. Not because I had forgotten, or didn’t have it recorded somewhere, but because I didn’t even know what that meant. What was a cycle? There was just your period every month, for about a week or so, and then there wasn’t.  

The article mentioned highlights the mental health impact of our relationship with our periods too. I used to feel awful, and quite recently I experienced the frustration of the PMS stage in an extreme way again. The tension was unbelievable. The emotional storm before my period was another disturbance and agony that I accepted as ‘normal’ for years. It would leave me feeling desolate and disconnected and it was never a case of one week of PMT or PMS, and the rest were golden weeks. I learnt that everything was connected and everything affects everything else. The discomfort and tension I was feeling before the bleeding phase was significantly impacting my work, my relationships, my sense of self-worth, my confidence.  

Writing about this now, I understand that the empty, lost feeling that I had was partly from feeling like I was walking around in nothing but an empty shell. I didn’t relate to this physical body that I was in and found it difficult to see – and feel – where I fitted into everything. Connecting to my cycle has been a great way to help feel myself again.  

So how have things changed? 

Inspired is exactly the word I would now use to describe the relationship that I have with my cycle and myself, through making the conscious choice to understand and connect to my cycle. Would I opt to no longer have periods now? Absolutely not. I hold them very dear to me, but if, and when, they go, they go. The beauty is that I will still know that my body is working intimately in cycles. We all live in cycles and the period cycle is just one of many that women experience. 

What I love about my periods now is that I have far greater understanding of my cycles and the different phases in a way where I can work together with my cycle and use it as an incredible support, rather than the former nemesis. I am getting more and more of a feeling for the grand support that the hormones estrogen and progesterone provide when I allow them to do their incredible and delicately designed jobs. I would never have discovered this had I not listened to the signals from my body. I now have the choice to sit back and allow estrogen and progesterone to do their jobs which requires me to be more sensitive to what I need in the moment in terms of rest, expression, food and drink etc.   

I now know when I am ovulating and it generally feels great. I notice how naturally confident I am, how I am more outgoing, enjoy working with or generally connecting with people, and I feel hugely inspired at this time in my cycle. It can often feel like the beginning of something new and I feel very inspired by who I am with an increased appetite for getting more involved and committed in life. And I just want to be around people, which isn’t always my experience at other times in the month.  

I now notice that a few days into my period, once the pain and discomfort have gone, then I have a similar feeling of get up and go, and connect to a purpose to get things up and running or finish things off so that I can have a fresh start with the next thing on the horizon. I feel more expressive and not just in how much I talk and say but also in the way I walk, in my footsteps and all my movements. Somehow, I have this feeling that there is more of me than what I can see, if that makes sense (?). 

Being aware of the different phases of my cycle helps me to look after myself more. I know that the more sensitive and aware I am of each part of the cycle then the more I can benefit from my body going through its processes of clearing and preparing for the next phases. I had an experience recently where I learned that if I am lost in anxiety, stress or struggle then I can completely miss feeling the inspiration that I described above, which is kind of sad to have that missed beautiful opportunity. 

My relationship with my cycle is just that. It’s a relationship I have with something and someone. Mostly with me. My body can be my best friend and adviser at every step, or I can opt not to see it or treat it that way. It requires me to be sensitive and aware, something I don’t always choose. It requires me to be honest. It asks that I trust the relationship, to commit to it and always appreciate what it offers. It asks for new and often unfamiliar levels of self-honouring and care to be chartered, which can at times feel uncomfortable. It asks me to be aware of how I may have been making things much harder for myself and my penchant for a struggle – a knowing not always easy to accept.  

Observing how my body is feeling has brought a deeper level of understanding: rather than the pain of periods disturbing and wreaking havoc on my life. I can now see that it was more that the way I was living my life was wreaking havoc on the natural blessing that periods afford me. Until this understanding, I was trying to ignore if not fight against the healing and clearing out that my period gifted me every month. Some things just can’t be ignored or fought. 

My cycle can be my compass anytime I am willing to listen. This exploration has changed my life. To have felt lost and desolate, and resentful of my body, to now feel an inner confidence and be inspired by my body, is something I truly appreciate.

Do I never experience period pain? Not at all. I can still experience painful periods, but now I know that there is more to understand and more care and awareness to be expressed and communicated in the way that I am living. Knowing that there is always an expanding relationship to be had with my cycle will always be my inspiration.  

With heartfelt thanks and appreciation for Natalie Benhayon and the Ourcycles App, Sara Harris at Follow your Flow, and Serge Benhayon and his family for their livingness and presentation of a much richer relationship with ourselves and life.  

By Simone G (London, UK) 

For further inspiration…  

The PMS ‘Power Pass’ .. an excuse to indulge, or to step up our responsibility and listen to our bodies? 

One woman’s experience of developing a relationship with her body and herself, starting with simple observation. 

Premenstrual Syndrome – Prozac or making new Choices?

Many a conversation amongst women has been about Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS). PMS is fairly common although exact statistics are hard to find as some symptoms of PMS are unreported. Women’s Health Concern (1) state that “One in three women suffers discomforting symptoms in the days before their period. For one in 20 the symptoms are bad enough to more seriously affect their lives.” Premenstrual Syndrome can have various symptoms (2) including irritability, tiredness, depression, mood swings, night sweats, bloating, anxiety, breast pain.

What does your Cervix Say?

Have you ever wanted your best friend on tap 24/7? What if you had a direct open phone line with truth, with yourself, on tap? An innate wisdom and sacredness that knows which choices to make, how to move, how to eat, how to sleep, how to breathe, how to walk, how to dress. A wisdom that knows how to respond all of the time, in any given situation, even in new situations that spring up unexpectedly – and, it was absolutely free of charge? Wouldn’t that be remarkable?

Well ladies, you do, we all do!

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.”

Getting Lost in Mothering

I wanted to be a mother from as early as I can remember.

This was not due to seeing my mum love being a mum, it was that I felt I would be good at it and that it would be great to be able to love something I created. Well, my childhood wish came true and I ended up being totally lost in mothering my seven children – yes you read correctly, it was the wish that kept on giving.

In being caught up in fulfilling my childhood belief that I would be a good mother, I lost my connection to the fact that I am a woman before I am anything else for anyone else.

Preventing Breast Cancer – Changing How We Feel About Our Bodies

Having lived through breast cancer I now truly know that ‘prevention is better than a cure’, and the way forward in terms of preventing breast cancer and indeed all illness and disease has to be; changing how we feel about our bodies and embracing, acknowledging and appreciating how very precious and tender yet powerful they truly are. Honesty is the first step. Having discovered for myself the powerful medicine honesty is, I can share from my own experience with breast cancer and say without any hesitation:

I created my own illness from the choices I made on a daily basis.

A powerful statement, powerful in its honesty, and which had a powerful, remarkable impact on my treatment and recovery. By all considerations I was a healthy woman, I did lots of yoga, and did not smoke, rarely drank and was not overweight. So how did I create my own illness?

My True Tenderness and Delicateness – a Fresh Look at True Gender Equality

My recent experience with a job via an employment agency revealed to me how many ideals and beliefs we as a society have around gender equality. It also revealed to me how much my ideals and beliefs about that have changed since attending courses and workshops held by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine in understanding what true gender equality really is.

The work I had to do in this particular job was stacking boxes and filling them full of brochures that were quite heavy. It also incorporated a lot of bending and lifting things from the ground.

I felt amazed that they hired a woman to do this job in the first place.

I just knew that if I had known that this was the job I would have said no thanks, my body is just not built for that!

I could feel how extremely tender and delicate my body was and is, and that lifting all these heavy boxes was so against what felt natural to my body.

Beauty Tip for Women: Ladies, Pull up a Chair!

All my life I have been the typical ‘no fuss’ woman who ‘put my face on in 5 minutes’! Then all this changed, I felt that standing up to do my morning beauty routine just wasn’t cutting it anymore, so I decided to pull up a chair, a simple act that led to a miracle!

Sharon Gavioli, May 2015

Unusual beauty tip you might say, but for me it has made a huge difference in how I feel about myself throughout the day.

The Princess and the Pea – with Socks On

Do you remember the story of the Princess and the Pea? It is the one where the princess can feel a pea under her mattress. More and more mattresses are piled on top of it but she can still feel the pea. Most of us do not have royal status but it is interesting to ponder on our own human sensitivity and how we often override what we feel.

For example, how often do we put up with uncomfortable clothing because it is fashionable, looks good or is a particular colour? This can apply to any outfit ­– dresses, trousers, coats, even underwear, shoes and socks.