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
559 Comments
I feel that Serge Benhayon offers a ‘what if’ scenario and then leaves it up to everyone to discover for themselves what foods they can eat and what they cannot. I have never heard any rules on the subject of food. I have lost count of the times when I have told people that I do not drink alcohol they wish they didn’t drink either but admit they needed alcohol to feel better about themselves. I used to drink alcohol like a fish so there is no judgement on my part I just know that my body can no longer tolerate it and I feel more vital within myself for not drinking.
I can so relate to your ‘diet’ journey Fiona, as mine was very similar. I had removed wheat, sugar, dairy and alcohol from my diet five years before I met Serge Benhayon, for health reasons, but was still a vegetarian. But it wasn’t until I removed the gluten and began eating fish six months after my body began to whisper ‘fish’ over and over again, that my health really began to improve. Never thought I’d eat lamb or chicken, but there I was, a year later, eating both and feeling way more vital and alive than I had ever felt in my life. So, there is definitely no doubt in my mind, that every single thing I put into my body impacts on every aspect of my life.
And are not our digestive system all set to a different tune so for each of us we have to find our own brand of healthy living that serves our bodies as we cannot fit everyone under the one blanket rule. As you have so simply shared Fiona feel for yourself what works for your body and don’t be guided by any hard and fast rules.
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.
It is rather crazy that we often treat our body as the enemy when it doesn’t function the way we expect it to, instead of treating it as the best and wisest friend we have. Just imagine how our life and our health would be if we were raised to know this super important fact from day one.
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.
I was always busy with food in terms of diets not in terms of looking after my body and thus not giving my body a say. There was a right way to eat and there was a wrong way to eat and what ‘right or wrong’ meant changes according to what diet I was following at the time. Now there is no diet, there is just feeling into what my body shares with me and learning to listen by experimenting what kind of food it needs to feel nourished. The ‘right and wrong’ thing can still play out but that’s when I let my mind rule over my body and that’s definitely no way to go anymore.
For about six years I did not eat meat and chose instead to stick with vegetables and the occasional fish, not so much to save the animals lives but because I had read somewhere that it was healthier to live this way. As a result, I ended up carrying extra weight which I could not shift no matter what I tried. When I gave up gluten and dairy and reintroduced some meat products my weight slowly started to come off, and I dropped three dress sizes. It was not about choosing this way to live as a diet but more feeling what my body did and did not want to eat – this is key!
I know my diet still leaves a lot to be desired at times but if I think about it, eating to Order for our own bodies requirements couldn’t be further from extreme if what we feel is true. I ate some stuff on Christmas Day that was sugar free, dairy free, gluten free and all the rest but it still didn’t make me feel too good as I probably ate too much of it and my body didn’t need it in the first place.
“There is no greater expert on what’s best for me than me.” I experience it all the time that either I or another knows more about something where anything can be lost very quickly from ‘something you know’ to a ‘you should know this also’. The lesson is, as Serge Benhayon lives, if it works for you then let it be for you. It’s respectful and decent to confirm and be the expert of continually developing what you feel then to otherwise impose on another.
” 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. ‘
This is the biggest learning about any diet, in that the body knows what it needs, so as to be in homeostasis.
I love the lighthearted way you express about food choices. You remind me that there is no right and wrong food, only food that supports the body and food that does not. This is different for everyone as no two bodies are the same,
What I have come to realise over the years is that my body does not need all the food I was giving it. It can feel very bloated and ill if I overeat. I will have persistent runny nose issues if I do not listen when my body wants to take something out of my diet, and among other messages, if I eat foods that do not agree I feel more tired and less energised and have a tendency to sleep in longer, with the result being less vitality. Is it worth it I ask myself?
It’s such a simple sentence isn’t it… To keep feeling what is actually right for us to do at any time… And yet within it, like a drop of water reflecting the world, there is so much depth and so much to connect to.
It’s such a simple sentence isn’t it… To keep feeling what is actually right for us to do at any time… And yet within it, like a drop of water reflecting the world, there is so much depth.
… to what my body really needs AND what my body really enjoys. Overeating of even the best foods is not among those.
‘What he has continually shared is to keep feeling what is right for ME’ We might think we know what is right for us but our body soon let’s us know if this was a true choice or not. This is when we have a choice to either listen to our bodies and honour them, turning towards greater health or we stubbornly ignore what they are saying because our desire outweighs the wisdom that is being shown to us..
” There is no greater expert on what’s best for me than me. ” This truth is so important in every aspect of ones life , not alone in ones diet.
Our body talks to us in simple terms a simple example is when we are thirsty , it means are we on the way to getting dehydrated and therefore require hydration to maintain balance in the body.
Yes, with some parts of me (our body) being smarter than other parts of me.
I can so relate to this too Fiona. “To others my diet may look extreme and as though I am ‘missing out” with regular urgings to just have a little, it won’t hurt you. But as far as I am concerned the only things I am ‘missing out’ on include, a sore stomach, a blocked or runny nose, endless exhaustion and a very heavy and sluggish feeling in my body. These bodily symptoms I am over the moon about missing out on, and so is my very wise and very precious body.
I can safely say that eating a clean diet has catapulted my awareness. Food has a massive impact on the way I feel and think. I can feel when I’ve eaten something that dulls me, or can even put me in a food coma which results in my not being able to think straight or make informed decisions. It invites doubt and lethargy and also emotional drama, all of which is not necessary. I’m not perfect and I will often give in to eating something I know won’t do me any favours, but I’m forever experimenting and observing the different effects.
I love this line ‘What good was my peaceful protest against animal cruelty if it ended up destroying the protestor?’ choosing to listen and honour the body is never about destroying but rather the opposite, building a body of love.
Gee we sure can be stubborn and hold onto the beliefs that our mind tells us are right all the while our body is telling us otherwise.
I was a committed vegetarian for 25 years on moral grounds and yet I ate copious amounts of cheese and eggs with no thought for the welfare of the animals producing these products. The reason I say this is not to compare the merits of one diet over another, but to point out the hypocrisy of the mind. There i was being an idealistic vegetarian due to my outrage over the way animals were farmed and yet I could turn a blind eye to the farming of egg and dairy products. This to me exposes the mind in that it is only serving itself, in that we will impose an ideal of belief onto our body without once thinking that the body might have something to say on the matter. I began to listen and start eating some meat again when after first having been 3 stone heavier than my natural weight, I then became extremely thin. Every cell in my body was calling for meat so in the end I drove myself over to my favourite cafe and had a divine lamb curry. The whole of my body relaxed and was able to let go of the tension I’d put myself under by hanging on to an ideal which was totally contra to what my body was asking for.
My body is amazing in how it shows me what it does and doesn’t want and the more I listen the more it shares not just with food but with posture, how I walk and stand, how I pick up things, doing everyday tasks, even how I think the body communicates to me how experiencing any part of life feels to it. For example I got a major reaction to pink grapefruit within 30 seconds this morning, or whenever I express a judgement about someone my head gets fuzzy and tingles, whenever I roll my shoulders in my thoughts become heavier and more negative. My body is constantly communicating.
If humans are as smart as we claim we are then why is it we cannot get our food right? It seems crazy that we can have food issues yet be able to build machines that can go to the moon!
The very fact that we can be malnourished and overweight seems contradictory, and proves to me that we need to consider firstly what food nourishes us, not ever be driven by calorie counting or ideals about the right food. The more trust we have in our own bodily responses to the food we eat, the more we can recognise that the advise that is out there is not it, and is not needed to live in health. It all comes down to our own personal relationships with eating food that feels light and fills us up.
It’s so important to empower people to listen to their own body because not only is there a lot of misinformation about foods and beverages, there is also a lot of information telling us what to eat, and what’s considered a healthy diet, etc. But what works for my body and another’s body will be completely different, and it’s also something that’s regularly changing. I’m noticing for myself that my body wants cooked vegetables and not raw salads right now in the winter cold weather. My body gives me little signs about what’s working and what’s not so it’s a constant adjustment. It’s a joy by being in partnership with the intelligence and wisdom of my body and life for me is much simpler this way.
We definitely eat too much from what our taste-buds would like and not enough from feeling what nutrition our bodies need. The difference in how we feel after we eat is massive, after eating what my body needs I feel very looked after, whereas when I eat from what I fancy taste-wise I feel dull and heavy.
It is a sad but true fact that we have as a society forgotten how to truly live, guided by a sure-fire instrument that purely has our best interest at heart, in order for us to live the full potential of who we are. Our relationship with our bodies are paramount, if we are to maximize our time here on earth, as it is through our bodies that we can constantly attune ourselves to the evolution that is forever on offer.
Carola I love your comment… what if our bodies are key to maximising our potential?
Choosing to listen to my body and feel what is true for me to eat has been a gradual process – I knew 30 years ago that gluten did not agree with me but ignored this for the next 20 years as it seemed too complicated to eliminate it. Once I made the decision I felt better straightaway and this gave me the confidence to listen to what my body was communicating about other foods that I ate. I am constantly refining my diet and can still be stubborn about eating something that is not truly supportive but I can no longer fool myself that it is a healthy option and as I deepen my willingness it will naturally disappear.
I spent literally years researching the perfect diet to manage my 3pm energy disaster each day. I would eat raw carrots and celery for breakfast in the hope that I would balance my blood sugar to last to the end of the day. Now I’ve eliminated gluten and dairy, my body is very clear about what it can and can’t eat, and that is my guide.
I totally agree Fiona ‘it may be time to start questioning the ‘norm’ ‘ and I guess we can leave the ‘maybe’ out of this statement, it definitely is time to consider our norm as how we now are bombarded with all kind of foods where ever we are and go is not going to make us more healthy and statistics shows we getting sicker and sicker. Misusing food in the way it is done stops us from feeling the misery we are in but there is only one way out and that is becoming aware of what our body is actually communicating with us and start to be honest about the state we are in.
What a great blog Fiona! So well expressed and shared of how to live listening to your body. I really appreciate my own choices to listen and not continually override symptoms of fatigue, moodiness to just keep having that thing that I just loved the taste of but my body shouted clearly that I could no longer abuse myself in this way. I can also really relate to this sentence ‘ I really didn’t want this to be true. I couldn’t imagine life without bakery treats. ‘ it is a real choice of will in the end and who wins your body or your taste buds! Some take longer than others to go!
Fiona I loved reading this blog – I feel I have done many extreme diets and when I look back now they were so unloving to my body. It is so true how the body signals to us continuously but we continue to ignore it till it is so loud we have no choice but to listen. This choice and the responsibility that comes along with it is within us all.
Fiona, your story is my story in so many ways. I too was the very “exhausted, malnourished, and overweight” vegetarian who for many months ignored the call of my body to eat fish. I fought it so hard until one day I opened a big tin of salmon and stood at the bench shovelling it down until it was finished; I felt like someone who had been lost in the desert and had stumbled upon an oasis of water. I did go into a little guilt afterwards but there was a part of me that knew that this decision was the most true and self loving decision I could have made at that moment, and this was confirmed by my body thanking me in a myriad of ways.
Through the teachings of Serge Benhayon I have also learned to develop a true relationship with food, it is constantly being fine-tuned in order to support me where I am in my own evolution.
Food….we love to eat it but we do suffer for most of the choices we make. My food choices come back to two things, my connection with me and whether I am expressing me in full or not (not that they are actually separate). I can eat very good quality food, very health but be eating in a way that fills an emptiness or eating for a need – this is not good for me, which is interesting to ponder on.
“My body was right.” It is like paying attention to the wisdom of our best friend.
It’s amazing and deeply exposing of our societies in general, that the choice to not consume gluten, for example, can be seen as ‘extreme’… when choices such as regular consumption of alcohol (a poison), and high amounts of sugar and caffeine are considered ‘normal’.
Seems that there is a lot of ‘bucking’ going on around listening to the symptoms of our bodies, and what we truly need. We have normalised behaviours here that are actually to our detriment (and well documented as such).
Thank-you Fiona for setting the record straight on Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine’s presentations relating to food and diet.
Never once have I ever heard Serge Benhayon tell people what to eat, and always I have heard him refer to the simple principles you’ve so beautifully outlined here, i.e. honour what our bodies truly need, and be willing to listen and respond when we recognise things aren’t working for us.
Fiona’s initial insight into the dilemma on eating meat is a great vignette on What is happening so much in the world where the mind’s dictation essentially overrides continually the very clear and strident messages that our own bodies giving us
I can so relate to many things you discuss in this blog. When we get the Ah Ha moment “I simply knew that this was what my body needed and I could not keep abusing it” we have a choice and if we choose to honour our bodies we evolve and simply if we don’t we remain stagnant and cause harm.
I am so grateful to Universal Medicine for offering me the inspiration to learn to listen to and hear my body again. It speaks very clearly about what it does and doesn’t want to eat so I just follow what it asks – unless I don’t which usually involves me ending up feeling pretty awful, after which I take out the earplugs and start listening again.
There are days that I feel that I need something and do not rest until I feel nourished by that something my body needs. I often feel this when I have eaten a lot of fish for dinner, my body is than clearly asking for meal with meat. If I not find ‘it’ I start to feel like you shared: “As a result I was exhausted, malnourished, and overweight.” It is easy to feel bloated, full and not fully nourished when we do not eat that what we truly need.
There is indeed Fiona “no greater expert on what’s best for me than me.” A beautiful reminder of this very fact and also of the fact that the choice and responsibility is always ours.
When we can feel what is right for us to eat it is a true breakthrough… the thing is … getting to THAT point where we can actually feel again , because so much , as Fiona writes, is there to numb us.
True health comes from honouring what our body needs and not listening to what the mind wants. This sounds simple and in-truth it is, once we have renounced the hold of the food consciousness we have subscribed to for so long. For many of us it has been a very long time since we have let the wisdom of our body guide us. Instead we have handed the reins over to the human mind that has proved time and time again that when not impulsed by the love in our heart, has a tendency towards extremely reckless driving. No animal on Earth suffers from this affliction. It is purely a by-product of our so-called ‘human intelligence’.
Simple yes and makes so much sense.
What I find different about what Serge Benhayon offers compared to diets is that I’m not giving my power away. Instead of relying on an outer authority I have learned to listen to my body and when I make a choice it’s not because of willpower or because some told me so, it’s because of self love. When I feel my body not respond well to a food I don’t want to put myself through that discomfort again. When my body does well on certain foods it’s a really great moment of confirming my ability to nourish and support myself.
What he has continually shared is to keep feeling what is right for ME. – How could anyone disapprove of someone presenting that to support our heath and wellbeing is to listen to what foods support our bodies to be more of who we are. How could anyone protest against this?!! I am very thankful that Serge Benhayon presents all that he does.
The protest comes because we have been so conditioned by images, ideals and beliefs around food that when someone presents something that is so simple and so true it completely exposes the lie we have been fed and thus lived. Big ouch if we do not want to take responsibility for the way we have moved, if how we have moved has not been in and with the truth we in essence are.
This is a timely reminder of the days of the week where I would choose my treat for working so hard and not eating junk food each day. Car pooling to work with a colleague we would have our treat day once a fortnight at the local supermarket to reward ourselves for not eating junk food for the two weeks. Interesting the amount of food that was consumed on that day was far greater than was eaten before and I would come home and fall asleep on the couch within minutes always relating this feeling to the hard work in the day!
I absolutely love this article on Unimed Living http://www.unimedliving.com/diet-and-weight-loss/how-to-lose-weight/diet-solution/the-love-diet-eating-and-living-from-self-appreciation.html
Like you have Fiona, it really shows us a true perspective on what is healthy eating.
Feeling what to eat is the most amazing diet possible – because it is based on listening to the body. When I do this, truly do this, I feel a lightness in my body and I feel it all – but I can easily overeat, eat to dull myself and then it is my responsibility to gauge when and why this is happening. Like you say – Serge Benhayon has never ever told me what to eat, but he has allowed me to be aware of my body when I do eat and simply treat food as an ever changing experiment.
To try to fit the current eating trend or listen to what the recommendations are, would be confusing indeed as they are always changing and contradicting findings. For example they are now linking refined carbohydrates like flour and sugar to causing brain damage. The only true voice we have is from our body, after all it’s running the show and it knows what’s needed and is clear in letting us know.
“I realised how much my body knew and how harmful and inflexible life run by ideals and beliefs could be.” Absolute gold of a sentence. This is the responsibility we have – to listen to our body and let it be our guide.