When the media articles about Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine came out in 2012, they suggested that anyone involved with Universal Medicine was being told to eat a certain ‘extreme’ diet. I knew from personal experience that nothing could have been further from the truth. The kinds of diets I’d been following in my life and subjected my body to – which many would accept as ‘normal’ – were in fact the truly extreme ones and were far from what my body really needed.
MY VEGETARIAN DIET
When I first met Serge Benhayon, my body had been begging me to eat meat for the last 18 months. I had been refusing to give into this clear message as I had made the choice to be a vegetarian. As a result I was exhausted, malnourished, and overweight.
I had been eating a vegetarian diet for several years prior to this. I had never considered asking my body how it felt about this decision. On reflection, this would have been the natural thing to do.
All other animals know what and how much to eat. Yet somehow we seem to have lost this natural ability from the human psyche and have made our minds king. My decision to be a vegetarian came from what my mind wanted and my reaction to how animals were farmed for meat.
I felt quite healthy on the vegetarian diet until I became pregnant: then the objections from my body grew louder and louder. Instead of listening to my body I clung with white knuckles to my principles. My ‘clever’ mind tried to find ways around what my body was clearly telling me. I ate excessive amounts of dairy and eggs in the hope that these would substitute for meat. My wellbeing continued to deteriorate, especially as I was breast-feeding. This continued until my son was a year old.
WHAT MY BODY KNEW
That was when I had my first healing session with Serge Benhayon. He never once mentioned diet or what I should eat. Yet at the end of the session I drove straight to the take-away to get a chicken satay stick. Surprisingly, I did not feel guilty.
I simply knew that this was what my body needed and I could not keep abusing it. What good was my peaceful protest against animal cruelty if it ended up destroying the protestor?
My body was right. It did need meat at that stage of my life and my energy and wellbeing improved markedly. This was a turning point in my life. I realised how much my body knew and how harmful and inflexible life run by ideals and beliefs could be.
THE QUESTION OF GLUTEN
My next big lesson about listening to my body came in the form of gluten. Over several years I had heard Serge Benhayon present about the energy of gluten and its effects on the body.
He never once said we should stop eating gluten. He simply presented listening to and respecting the wisdom of your own body.
So, with the free will to make my own choices (and feel the effects), I continued to eat gluten. However there did come a time when I knew that gluten was not sitting so well in my body. I really didn’t want this to be true. I couldn’t imagine life without bakery treats. So I played the game of adjusting my eating just enough to reduce symptoms and made excuses to myself for why my stomach wasn’t feeling so good. This continued for sometime until D (donut)-day.
DONUT DAY
I was grocery shopping one night and just inside the entrance to the supermarket was a table full of half-priced six-packs of iced donuts. Who could say “No” to that? I certainly couldn’t! So I took them home and ate not one or two but four donuts! I will never forget how I felt. For the next three days it felt like I had had cement poured into my stomach. Now, knowing the word gluten comes from the Latin meaning ‘glue’ makes a lot of sense! I could barely eat and my stomach was very, very uncomfortable.
I have not eaten gluten since that day and have never regretted it. I instantly started to drop the weight I had struggled to lose and returned to my natural size. I am free from the lure of bakery treats. I had had a big lesson to listen to and respect my body. It can only take so much before it says “No” quite loudly.
Today, I do not eat a prescribed diet (certainly nothing like an ‘extreme’ diet!) and what I eat is always changing. To others my diet may look extreme and as though I am ‘missing out’. From my experience, what I used to accept as normal was extreme and harmful to my wellbeing. Considering that over two-thirds of Australia’s population are overweight or obese, it may be time to start questioning the ‘norm’.
I now feel what my body needs to nourish and support it. I already knew first-hand how loudly my body could speak and the harm caused by ignoring it before I met Serge Benhayon.
What he has continually shared is to keep feeling what is right for ME.
No prescription, no rules, no letting myself be led by any ideas, needs, experts or diets, because…
There is no greater expert on what’s best for me than me.
Inspired by the work of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.
By Fiona Lotherington, Technical Officer, Registered Nurse, Lismore, Australia
593 Comments
“He simply presented listening to and respecting the wisdom of your own body. ” – This has always been my experience of Serge Benhayon too, helping people to be more aware of their own body and how things feel for them.
This is my experience of what Serge Benhayon shared too, ‘listening to and respecting the wisdom of your own body’, and honouring what your own body is asking for, this will be different for each of us.
As a teenager I also reacted to animal welfare issues and became a vegetarian and then a vegan. Although the food was considered healthy I feel it had a very negative effect on my digestive system to the point that even years after eating meat again my digestive system was still not normal. I agree with your line “I realised how much my body knew and how harmful and inflexible life run by ideals and beliefs could be.” This is exactly what I experienced because I also was prompted by my body to change how I was eating and also include meat yet my ideals and beliefs were placed first to the detriment of my body.
When you eat exactly what your body needs there is no guilt or other negative consequences, the trouble is we choose most of the time from our heads, or for the last rather than what we actually need on that day and at that moment.
‘From my experience, what I used to accept as normal was extreme and harmful to my wellbeing. ‘ Checking the norms is a healthy choice we can do and this can only be done by testing how they feel in our body.
No matter what angle I look at it it seems the norm is to abuse yourself and even boast about it. You can abuse yourself being “healthy” or abuse yourself by being “unhealthy”. It’s like a linear sliding scale of abuse and we can go extreme at both ends or try and balance it by “everything in moderation”. What a load of rubbish that whole mindset is – it is all abuse and we as a society championing it to the enth degree- it really is quite ridiculous.
Thanks for your comment Suzanne, I hadn’t considered the boasting part but it’s true, we drink huge amounts of alcohol and boast, and gorge ourselves on food to the point of not being able to move for hours because of the discomfort and we boast about that too. We actually see achieving extremes as good, much like a 10km marathon. We are very unaware of self abuse in society, it’s easy to point out obvious extremes like violence as abuse, or self harm like cutting, but we do not have a general awareness in terms of self abuse. Many of the things we do to ourselves that harm the body we would not do to a child because we know it’s abuse and hold children, but not ourselves, preciously.
And it’s not just food that our body can be given a say on but all areas of life. Recently my back went out and as I lay in bed (thats about all I could do!) I connected with my body and then and there made the choice to quit my job and go full time over to the other job I am working. My back went out as a result of not caring for myself and running ragged, I could only do this for so long before my body said STOP! in the form of back pain. The moment I resigned the back pain started to go whereby the next day I was asking “Where’s my back pain?”
Leigh I agree, the body has a say in everything that throws us out of balance. I recently had a cold and needed bed rest, what was obvious over those few days of enforced rest was how much I had been pushing myself and as a result placing my body under unnecessary pressure. Whatever our illness or message from the body is it’s an opportunity to change and come back to harmony with the body.
It is ludicrous really, that we are so unwilling to let go of our accepted ‘norm‘ in terms of our relationship with food and diet, or to even consider that something is amiss, even though this ‘norm’ is slowly but surely making us sick and essentially killing us. It certainly calls to question what it is we call ‘intelligence’, or is it that we are simply willing to be ignorant of how our bodies are reflecting the quality of life we are choosing to live? Is our ‘norm’ really supporting us to live with the utmost vitality and realise our true potential?
Yes, Fiona, it is a natural thing to do, to ask our body how it feels when we eat or have eaten something or in your case follow a strict vegetarian diet. The body is much wiser than our mind ever will be and I agree there is no one who knows better what and how to eat (and prepare our food) than we do for ourselves.
“There is no greater expert on what’s best for me than me.” When it comes to food only we know what is actually right for us to eat and not eat according to what is going on for us and how we are feeling generally in ourselves. If we can be honest about the fact that food has a much greater effect than it’s taste, our approach to food almost needs to be scientific in meeting what our body specifically requires that day.
We are our expert when it comes to our bodies – if we care to listen to it that is. The messages are there continually communicating to us tirelessly on our behalf. For some reason, we have this belief that the body is doing things against us and yet, that could not be any further from the truth.
Yes our bodies are like a wise best friend, continually there for us, communicating to us, but leaving it up to us if we honour or ignore that wisdom.
I feel so much more vital since listening to my body and not imposing my beliefs on it e.g. that I should avoid meat or continuing to eat gluten for 20+ years because I could not get my head around how I was going to manage without e.g. taking sandwiches to work etc. I do not feel deprived without the items I no longer choose to consume because my body feels so much better for not having to deal with the consequences of trying to digest things that do not agree with it.
I still find myself in trouble with eating the wrong foods on occasions when I listen to my head over my body as sometimes when I let my mind run the show it can convince me of just about anything at the total expense of my body.
‘Considering that over two-thirds of Australia’s population are overweight or obese, it may be time to start questioning the ‘norm’.’ I live in the UK and although I don’t know the statistics I see an awful lot of overweight and obese people and I know for sure that the diabetes rates are soaring. This could all change if we took more responsibility for what we eat and how we eat. People say they can’t afford fresh vegetables and real meat and haven’t got the time to cook but if you do the maths it is actually cheaper to cook from scratch, it is a chance to be creative and allows us to transition from work to winding down before bed time. We can also get up a little earlier and do some cooking first thing, making enough for several meals and putting it in the freezer for later, when we really are pushed for time..
It would be so supportive for the education system to provide cooking lessons from an early age right through to high school so all the kids are equipped to cook a range of healthy and nutritious meals. What’s the point of having qualifications when we don’t have the education to look after our body with nutritious home cooked meals? I studied home economics in high school and it gave me great confidence in cooking, and I also had a very practical mother that was an excellent cook and showed me everything she knew. It’s very empowering having the ability to cook for oneself.
I can see how some people may view not eating gluten for example as missing out -but I can totally relate to wanting to miss out on feeling 3 days of cement being at the bottom of your stomach!!
It’s no stretch of understanding to consider people complaining about other people’s dietary choices that are in line with the body’s communications, are just furious with themselves they are not honouring their body in the same way – many may feel a lack of vitality eating whatever they desire, I know I do. Why else do people make it their business what other people choose to eat when that person is supporting their body and lifestyle to be healthier?
What has only ever been presented by Universal Medicine is to eat what’s right for you.. listen to your body, what it needs, not what you think it needs. This at first takes some discernment – we can be so used to following what we think we need, what we’ve always done. Listening and really honouring that is a total letting go of pictures, and allowing ourselves the space to feel everything about what, how and why we eat: are we eating because our body needs it, or because we’re not wanting to feel something, or just out of habit?
Yes the commitment to discerning why we choose to eat certain foods is the crucial point if we are to change patterns of eating that have not served us and finding other ways to address the issues we are trying to bury with food.
The only reason we have problems with our diet is because we are eating from our head and not our body. If we were truly listening to our body and honouring its messages we would not have any dietary issues whatsoever.
And to be able to listen to or body we may have to start experimenting by eating less of the foods that stop us from feeling what is actually going on…that is the extreme things like coffee and alcohol and give our bodies time to rid themselves of the toxins and/or stimulants that these substances have been feeding us with. This time period could be several months if we have been in the habit of taking these things regularly.
I am recognising how much I eat to try to numb what I am feeling. When I do this I feel smashed not just by the food but by the emotions I have taken on and not dealt with that lead to wanting a particular food.
This is a great point MW as it is more about our awareness of the quality in which we eat than it is about the specific foods we are eating. Hence why Universal Medicine presents the importance and value of developing an honouring relationship with our body, as it is our body, not anyone else or diet regime, that will always reflect and guide us to know the truth of the quality of our choices and if they support us to live with vitality and in connection to the lightness of our being.
Years ago I would follow diets, and one of the things they promote is red and green salad peppers as being uber healthy etc. Well, I always had a nauseous feeling come over me when preparing them and would eat them because someone had said they were good for me – now I listen to my body and would not go anywhere near a salad pepper if I was paid. The upshot of this story is that what works for one does not necessarily work for another and it is far more beneficial to listen to what works for us.
” Yet somehow we seem to have lost this natural ability from the human psyche and have made our minds king.”
This is very true and this can be easily seen in the food that is produced for example ” Junk food ” . Truly no one in their right mind would eat junk food.
The body does know what it needs and is capable of letting us know if we take the time to listen. The trouble is our ideals and beliefs get in the way and we override what we know to be true.
“D” day came and as you have shared Fiona, and I also will never go back to certain foods. Being a vegetarian for over 20 years my body was also craving meat! Dairy and eggs once again as you have explained never cut the mustard and I was excessively over weight. After reading what you have shared I simply thought of bread and what ‘It’ did to my body and I felt the bloated feeling you described.
My body is now more vital and can work longer hours, sleep deeper and my days are filled with a ‘Joy’ that is now my normal.
When we allow our minds to dictate to us what to give or not to give to our body, this is very often at the expense of our body and our wellbeing. Whereas when we listen to the body’s wisdom it will share with us what nourishment it requires on an ongoing basis.