Before I came to any of the Universal Medicine courses, I slept around and had sex quite regularly, without much consideration for myself. I felt that having sex was just a normal, socially acceptable thing to do. Settling for sex was a way of getting some kind of attention, even if it wasn’t more than “wham bam thank you man”! What I was searching for was love and a loving relationship – but what I settled for was sex.
And it wasn’t even good sex I settled for. All it was is this: “Here I am, let’s get it over and done with because at least I have your attention for a little bit because I know – sooner or later – you will be gone and I will be on my own again”.
Because of my past experiences with being sexually abused and never really dealing with that issue, I never really felt safe and supported by a partner, even if some were doing their best at the time to support me.
More often than not, I would not want to have sex, but I went through with it regardless because it was better than feeling alone or being rejected and because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
I would do so much to not be rejected. I would give up me, and lay myself down so that I would be ‘loved’.
What is crazy is that none of that felt right to me. I knew it didn’t feel right at the time but I did it anyway. I didn’t ever get the ‘love’ I was searching for.
- I didn’t know there was a difference between having Sex and Making Love.
- I didn’t know that I would feel better within myself if I chose to love and care for myself first.
- I didn’t realise that giving my body over to someone else to use for sex was hurting me deeply.
- I was not aware that there was another way.
What I have learned from Universal Medicine, presentations by Serge Benhayon and from other Esoteric practitioners, is that there is no need to search for love or attention from outside and that I can be the One who loves me and cares for me tenderly.
I have been building this love for myself over the last 3 years and at first it was quite strange and foreign. This fact reveals how unloving I really was with myself. I was not aware of how sacred and precious I am.
Now that I love me, there is no way I would just hand my body over to be used for sex; there is no way I would now settle for sex when searching for love. From the role models that I have now, I can see what a true ‘gentleman’ looks and behaves like, and I can see what a loving relationship can be like and all I can say is it is far from what I have ever experienced. It brings me so much joy in seeing that there is indeed another way – a truly loving way. I have not yet experienced this other way, but I am aware that it exists and that is awesome.
My choices to cherish me, and to not settle for sex, have been inspired by the Esoteric Women’s Group and presentations from Natalie Benhayon and Serge Benhayon of Universal Medicine.
By Rosie Bason, Mullumbimby, Australia
473 Comments
I think it’s important to not settle for less, but at the same time because we as women have started so far away from our sacredness, men do not know how to be, or women – because we have become so hard and demanding, and almost of not trying to out do them. I feel in many relationships it’s important to not come home and say thats it, I’m not having sex anymore, this is demanding and coming from our needs, and not tell a partner you need to do this, this is how you should be with me, again this is coming from our needs, and gentleness and love can only come from how we live. But to teach a partner again, and you know what it may be a women learning from a man, what it is to make love again. Sex can be okay, it’s not wrong, it can be a learning step if both partners are treating each other with respect and compliant with all that’s happening, to making love. This is not something that can happen over night, this is something i feel we have to learn to understand, live and respect. But obviously not just sleeping with someone who treats us like crap, because no one will learn grow or evolve from this.
It is important to not make rules or regulations or demand things be a certain way because we want to control things to suit our own pictures and ideals and beliefs. I am in a new relationship and there is so much to learn and there is no right or wrong but a lot of openess, understanding and room for trial and error.
When you grow up not being cherished and adored for who you are and don’t have role models around who deeply love and care for themselves- then settling for any form of attention over love becomes the norm. What we see reflected in society about what loving relationships are is often based on needs and emotions. There is this idea that someone will romantically bring you the love you have been missing and so we go out looking for anything that resembles this quality instead of recognising that firstly we are love and it’s about expressing this out and knowing that our expression of love is what determines the quality of love in our relationships.
And reading this makes me just want to love myself up more and more and then share that with everyone.
And herein is why Universal Medicine and Esoteric Women’s Health are so, so important. Without them we’d have neither the understanding that there is another way nor the means to implement the changes we need to live another way.
Teenagers and young people need to have access to true lived wisdom like this. In a time when some children are experimenting having sex in primary school, sharing what is behind that need and the consequences of that on our bodies and having a loving relationship with themselves first needs to be shared.
It could be said to be a cliché , even a truism, but it still Remains And always will be a fundamental truth that humanity must understand and within that understanding in connection the foundation for our true evolution will be found
I have had a time in my life where I slept around and I didn’t realise either that, giving my body over to someone to have sex, was deeply hurting my body.. although my body was very clear in its signals, lots of migraines after those days of alcohol and having sex ( there was always alcohol involved) and lots of vaginal candida infections. It was loud and clear but I did not want to listen and make the necessary, more loving choices in my life back then. So much has changed in my life when I did start and made these self loving choices, no more migraines, or candida infections and no more having sex but honouring my body in what I feel and make love from this forever evolving relationship with myself and from there with my partner.
I was just thinking of how common candida infections can be, I remember from my time practising as a Medical Herbalist and now it just occurs to me, that it is part of this lack of self love, this sleeping around and in that spreading the infection and not taking any responsibility for it. And that same lack of self love can still exist in a couple who don’t sleep around. Both men and women can have it but often it is just the women who have the painful symptoms. I used to get it too, so I speak from experience, and like you haven’t had it for years. Got to love that!
“forever evolving relationship with myself” Annelies I love the truth of these words, our relationship with ourself is forever evolving, as is our relationship with life.
We are Life and Life is Us which is another way of saying we are God and God is Us.
I’m sure this is a very common story and one that may only be getting worse. Sexting and what young girls are posting on social media is shocking and disturbing. We need to look at why this is happening in our society. I know when I was younger, whilst my choices felt completely wrong, I knew no other way. It wasn’t until I had role models in my life that I began to cherish myself more and no longer turn a blind eye to the way I was abusing myself. This is a gorgeous blog Rosie.
Thanks Nikki, we are all role models all the time and the young women that I meet in my work and in the community are so in need of true role models unlike the ones on youtube that are half naked and in chains, I mean what is it with that? When you were young you knew no other way, as did I and I still think this is the case for most young women today.
I also learned in the last years that I am precious and worth to be treated like that – firstly from me! To settle for less makes me less, even I can not BE less just be treated like… And so, to claim back my love for me is coming back to who I truly am. I did not consciously chose to leave me, but now I do to come back!
Just absolutely gorgeous to read. The key to not selling our bodies out is in simply loving and cherishing ourselves. The truest truths are always so simple.
It is gorgeous that through these presentations you have come to realise how sacred and precious you are and now love yourself tenderly in a way you deserve. This is the foundation of any relationship even before the physical comes into play.
“I was not aware of how sacred and precious I am.” Beautiful Rosie and with that awareness true love is the only choice.
Having ‘quality’ love and intimacy in our lives seems to be a rare commodity for many people I meet.
The very fact that most people can’t hold an embracing gaze to a stranger highlights our disconnection from others we come across in everyday life.
How different life is when one realises, “that there is no need to search for love or attention from outside and that I can be the One who loves me and cares for me tenderly.”
When we start to truly love ourselves, behaviours we might of done in the past seem to drop away because we don’t even consider them anymore – we don’t even allow the thought to come in. I have found this quiet amazing – the more we honour ourselves, the more our actions reflect this naturally so. It shows how we can also get into a downward spiral of a lack of self worth very easily and continue to make ill choices – but to start to say no and appreciate that we always have a choice to be more loving is a great healing on the body.
So beautifully and honestly expressed Rosie. When we begin to truly nurture and lovingly build the relationship with ourselves we can naturally say no to what is not love.
Your honesty and openness melts me Rosie. I especially love the way you explain that although you have not experienced a truly loving partner relationship this lifetime you can see that this is possible through the reflection of others. This really is a wonderful thing. For me simply knowing that real love is actually possible makes it feel absolutely awful to even think about settling for less. This is a huge blessing that I am very thankful for.
What I have found interesting is also all the subtleties that can exist within that as you go through a process of learning to be more loving with yourself- there are more layers to peel back and different things to let go of and through this something you think is okay one week may change as you change and this is an ongoing process.
That is very true, it is an ongoing process. No hilltop to reach and that is it. No plateaux but a forever expanding and being open to what is next as we change and let go of what we no longer are anymore.
What love is, and the love being reflected around the world and in relationship is so removed from what the truth is. Love in the relationships I have been in have been about loving the other so much they will love you back in the same way – there was no element of ‘being’ that love and loving self in that way in my life. I am now aware of the difference and it is amazing and all need for any type of acknowledgement, recognition or affection from outside of myself is disappearing. I am now able to be a reflection of what love truly is in the world for others now. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine has brought through this awareness and continue to live what this truly means. It has been very powerful observing this for the first time in my life and finally be clearer about the choices that are available to us all. Thank you Rosie for sharing and the beautiful and true reflection you now bring to those around you of what love is.
Powerful message to us all Rosie. This totally rocks, and shows us that love is found within each one of us – and that when it is lived by you – it is the goldmine you have and it can only get better if you then meet someone who equally loves her or himself and share the magic all in one! Incredible and empowering message. We know that love making exist and that sex is definitely not the only way!
It’s understandable to see how sex addition comes about, the desire to get a fix from a release, to have skin connection without there being an accountability of true connection. Sex can provide a fix from feeling wanted and or needed physically but what most are craving is intimacy and this is not a prerequisite to have sex. The emptiness from a lack of intimacy is still felt after the short fix, leaving one with a desire for more. Until a time that the intimacy that is being longed for from another starts to build in ones relationship with themselves, via building self love, healing our hurts and looking at where we are avoiding connecting and sharing who we really are with others.
There are so many layers that come up in relation to having sex versus making love. More often than not we haven’t explored the difference. The difference of having intercourse without any need for release, or to get to an end result in any way but to simply share in this activity as a loving expression of our connection together. There is a lot to consider here.
I have been someone who avoided intimate relationships unless I was drunk. Then in that state I would almost accept anything, I wouldn’t think about it the next day just move on. With each experience I got more and more protected. I was totally shut down to the idea of a relationship as I didn’t think I deserved that. It has only been through the support and reflection offered by Universal Medicine workshops and sessions that I have started to value and love myself as a woman. As I now enter a relationship learning about making love and being intimate with someone is like starting over again, it is such a different experience to what I had in the past. I love that the more I express and honour myself it also honours my partner and in this he is also able to learn to express himself.
Every single person on the planet needs to build this deeper relationship with themselves, to honour themselves, so that we all have a foundation of reconnection within which we can then build that body of love which we all need to evolve.
When we have a relationship with ourselves first as our own ‘the One’, then we learn to love ourselves fully and deeply and to understand what love truly is. This is then a great foundation from which to let another in and means we don’t settle for anything less by giving our power away to a so-called love from another or a level of intimacy that’s short of the real thing. The key is to know it for ourselves, within ourselves first.
We are constantly used to ‘settling for second best’… the thing is quite often we don’t know what to do with true beauty or relationships or connections when we have them, so it feels like it comes down to treasuring the connection with ourselves first, and seeing how this opens up our lives.
Treasuring the connection we have with ourselves is a great place to start Chris, and it makes me again see the importance of appreciation in our lives because it is a practise that I have started to apply and it is a game changer. When there is appreciation it is easy to treasure and take care first and foremost. It can then become a solid foundation on which we stand and live on.
Beautiful Rosie, it is so empowering to know the truth of love, and thus not being able to settle for less.
It sure is! I was at a workshop yesterday and talking about marriage, divorce and love in general and relationships, I came to realise just how many ideals and beliefs we have in this area of life. So many pictures that we are trying to live up to and so many contracts, expectations and impositions.
The difference between sex and making love – now wouldn’t it be great if this was taught in all schools in sex education. It’s so crazy that it’s not!
How I see it Marika, is that it is not common for women to discuss this, so why would the younger generation feel okay to be open and go where no one wants to. We have to start some where, and we have to let go of our own self judgment and just put everything out in the open to then realise that we are not alone.. and that many are having similar issues the only thing is, is no one is talking about them and therefore addressing them.
Only someone who knows the difference between having sex and making love could teach the lesson, which is why it’s not taught, most of us are having sex, even those of us who think that we’re making love because you can’t make love until you’ve started to be in a loving relationship with yourself and most of us aren’t, again, even though we may think that we are.
For any true relationship to work there needs to be self love for oneself first- ” I can be the One who loves me and cares for me tenderly. ‘ – I so agree. I have been working on this for a few years now and it definitely has made a difference to how I feel and interact with my husband. I am not expecting him to fulfil my emptiness.
It must feel great for him too Loretta, to not have you being needy or expecting him to fulfil your emptiness.
When there is no self loving support or self worth held for yourself, sex is how we fill that void trying to have some love to feel, trouble is, there can be no love in this needy interaction because in choosing to have sex and not make love or refrain, your saying, I need this to fill the void I won’t take the responsibility to fill with my own amazing love.
Yes, it is a sell out for sure. Settling for less.
Making love isn’t something that most of us are able to choose unless we have first made a lot of other self loving choices. The ability to make love is dependent on our ability to choose love for ourselves in our everyday lives, it’s not something that we can switch on on a Saturday night.
This is truly beautiful to read Rosie. What Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon present about the difference between making love and having sex is so important. So many (young) women give themselves to sex without knowing there is another way. Thank you for sharing this other way which starts with loving ourselves so deeply that we do not accept anything less.
What I realised recently is that the more we as women do not accept less, the more others will be inspired to do the same, one woman at a time, together we all make a difference.
I agree RB, our own choice to honour and cherish ourselves and our bodies with the tenderest of love from our own absolute stillness, is epic and truly powerful. Our own love, can move mountains.
It sure can Julie and I know that I have totally under estimated the power of my love.
Thanks for this great reminder that ‘I can be the One who loves me and cares for me tenderly’ and by so doing there is no place for any rejection by another. I don’t need to ‘lay myself down’ so that I can be ‘loved’ by someone other than me. Outsourcing love never works.
That is true, outsourcing love never works because you will always be searching for that which you cant find outside… but only comes from within.
I feel the hurt in your words Rosie when you so honestly share that you handed over your body for sex when you were really searching for love. I can so relate to this too as this was my experience for a number of years. But coming back to our sacredness and preciousness is so beautiful and something to be treasured, and I’m with you on that one when I say I no longer want to settle for less than love and am not prepared to ‘hand my body over’ to another as the difference between sex and making love is becoming clear to me and we are worth more than that. And that goes for the majority of men too, because the reality is that they are searching for love too and having sex is the only way they know how.
All women are sacred and precious and we all hold these qualities equally within. Unfortunately the harshness and hustle and bustle of modern day life does not encourage or support us to feed these qualities let alone recognise we all can freely connect to them at any time. This is why Esoteric Women’s Health, its presentations, magazines and groups are so awesome as they are all fully committed to reconnecting women back to their innate wisdom and sacredness which is their true power.
Thanks Rosie for your honest sharing which, obviously from the responses, many people can relate to. When I first heard about self love through Universal Medicine I found the whole notion very daunting. I had a hazy understanding about what self love meant but it barely scratched the surface of its true meaning. I then wanted to know how to ‘do’ self love as if there was a list of things I could tick off and then I had ‘it’ but again found that I was only vaguely on track. I now realise that it is all encompassing and that absolutely every moment is either self loving or is self abuse. One thing I am really appreciating is that the moments of self love are increasing and I no longer see self love as having a defined end point, but rather as something that just keeps growing over time.
Well said Helen, it does keep growing and changing over time as we develop more self love. There is no right or wrong and there is always a deeper level that we can go to when we are ready.
learning to nurture ourselves in every way, letting go of every form of abuse, is all part of laying that foundation of self-love and it is all essential.
All forms of abuse is important here Chris because if we leave any area out because it may hurt to much or we just don’t want to go there, we miss out in many ways because the whole is affected and therefore our foundation is not steady.
This sentence is so simple and clear and sums up exactly how I felt a few years ago “I didn’t know that I would feel better within myself if I chose to love and care for myself first.” A voice inside said “you know what there is another way” Through inspiration and observing true role models I am finding my way back to who I truly am, with love, grace and joy…and I commit to being understanding with myself and others because 10 years ago I had no idea that actually learning to truly care for myself would eventuate in me pondering how I feel about myself and being able to say “I Love You” , I do love myself and so I can love another, truly awesome.
Thanks for the honest blog Rosie, settling for anything less than love always ends up being short term and unpleasant
Rosie this is so profound it explains a lot about my life and relationships. I always had an immense respect, admiration and adoration for women when I finally did get a girlfriend there were all sorts of problems I did not expect because I thought I was committed to love. Looking back I can see that I had no love for myself so was not capable of loving another. This may seem off topic but it is the same lack of self worth causing us to settle for less.
Thank you Bernard, I don’t feel it is off topic at all. I think you nailed it. Our lack of self worth = we settle for less.
Build the self love and self worth and we don’t need love from someone else, but we are able to share our love together but never settle for less because we know we are worth love.
Thank you for sharing so freely Rosie, and I am sure many people could relate. Everybody wants true love so why would we settle for sex when clearly they are vastly different? From what you have shared when someone does not feel love and respect for themselves sex is better than being alone, such a fall from grace to reduce a potentially loving connection down to sex. People can handle a loving no and feel that it is true. I hope many people learn from what you have shared Rosie.
I also totally relate Rosie. To return to the understanding that the love we seek lies within us is life changing and an awareness we all deserve to reconnect to. With honest articles like yours Rosie, the world has a chance to share in this relearning. I have spent so many years dishonouring my body, seeking love from the outside and accepting supposed love and recognition in any form. How amazing I now feel, like yourself, to know I am precious and beautiful and do not need to compromise or seek love from the outside. I’m also loving how I keep finding pockets of it however stored in sneaky little places where even in my current relationship, I accept less just to gain some recognition or a bit of love. Thanks Rosie. 🙂
Yes Gina, it is great when we get super super honest and find all the sneaky little ways in which we still seek recognition. It is through this awareness and this honesty that we can start to make changes.
Saying that ‘love is within us’ is just another saying. Like anything it has to be felt to be known and then once felt it is known forever.