When I was 15, I had anorexia. It was a year of big changes. From the security of living in a middle class family in Hong Kong, I was sent to an all-girls’ boarding school in Scotland. I had to leave my friends and a boy whom I fancied then, and suddenly found myself in a very cold country, with people speaking in an accent that was difficult to understand. At school there was only one other Asian student: I jumped 3 grades and had to study subjects which were totally foreign and I shared a room with two other girls who seemed to get along fine, but found me strange. At 15, that was a lot to take.
I felt rejected and abandoned, and very unsupported.
I wanted to disappear and remain invisible, so I hid myself in the library most of the time and studied to keep up with the good student identity I had built up for myself in Hong Kong. I felt very lonely.
I didn’t feel cared for, but did not feel I had any say in the matter, and so chose to just go along with the decision that was made for me. None of this felt okay, yet no part of me was aware I could talk about it, or even say no. What was not expressed verbally though, I expressed through controlling my body – I stopped eating.
I would only eat two things and in miniscule amounts – ketchup flavored chips and lemon meringue pie. But of course, that would be too obvious and I would get into trouble at school, so I would pretend to eat my meals and cut up everything on the plate and pick at it. Every morsel of food I put into my mouth felt like I was committing a crime.
Everything that did not feel right and I could not accept was not expressed, and it was my own body that I rejected to punish the world for treating me this way, although I thought it was freedom at the time. I was rebelling as a teenager from feeling the impossibility of being allowed to make true choices.
But I did choose, and I chose to withhold my communication; I chose to accept that children had no say in expressing how they felt to their parents in the culture that I grew up in, and when I did not take the responsibility to express myself, I also chose to punish myself as a consequence.
This pattern was carried on into adulthood: whenever I felt something was wrong in the world and it felt too overwhelming to express, I would reject the world by first rejecting myself.
How crazy is this?
If the outside world did not confirm me, it was as though I didn’t exist…. mostly, it didn’t. And when I didn’t get a confirmation from the world that matched the knowing within myself, I rejected life, and lived by constantly protecting myself from feeling hurt that no one saw me for who I truly am.
It was not until meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I began to understand how truly precious I am, and that I do matter. In fact, everything begins with the love that I take responsibility for by first giving it to myself. This was a concept that is virtually unknown in the Chinese culture of filial piety and in the Christian religion that I grew up in. What I learned also is the responsibility of expression, from acknowledging what has been felt to be true within the body, and taking the further responsibility of expressing this truth outwardly, not in reaction, but with the love that has been built in the body from caring and nurturing myself.
Knowing myself to be a delicate, precious being, I am re-learning to live deeply this preciousness again. I am allowing the vulnerability of my body to be expressed and accepting it, along with the past and present choices I have made. I am choosing to let down the protection of perfection and/or rejection. I am allowing my body to again make its own choices, to be okay with making mistakes, as that is how I will learn to take responsibility. Most of all, I am deeply appreciating that for most of my life I have lived life honouring a deep inner knowing, and now, as always, it is amazing to deepen this relationship with my body further.
Although my weight has remained at about the same as when I had anorexia, what I feel in my body now is the steady warmth of preciousness, power in delicateness, consistency of joy and the solidness of self-worth I have never felt before – despite the fact that my body image does not fit into the normal standard that the world may be comfortable with.
It is important to appreciate how far I have come from having constant debilitating and depressive thoughts, to feeling deeply supported through this beautiful vehicle of expression. I am so honoured and humbled to express the greatest gift (love), through my greatest friend (the body) in the world.
Inspired daily by the wisdom of the body and the true relationship I am building, the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine in commitment to self-love, self-care and self-nurturing.
By Adele Leung, Creative Director/Fashion Stylist, Hong Kong
Further Reading:
Healthy body healthy mind
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Supporting children to express how they are feeling and to take responsibility for choices in life is the foundation of parenting – both for ourselves and for children.
‘But I did choose, and I chose to withhold my communication; I chose to accept that children had no say in expressing how they felt to their parents in the culture that I grew up in, and when I did not take the responsibility to express myself, I also chose to punish myself as a consequence.’
Adele, thank you for writing so freely about your experience with Anorexia and why it was triggered.
Many of us are suppressed when we are young from expressing how we feel. In the UK it is the culture of children should be seen but not heard and so often we retreat into our minds and disconnect to our bodies, which can lead to a rejection of ourselves so that we feel we do not belong in the world. By retreating into our minds is it possible this is the long downward slope into dementia later in life?
Nutritious, nurturing and nourishing of our Soul-full essences as you have shared Adele, brings a simple but profound change to the way of living for all those who choose to appreciate the wa we live when reconnected to our Soul. Without the True steps and movements that take place on the path of return it is as if we are annexing our self from our Soul by feeding our bodies a lot of old tripe and this we are consistently fed from our spirit as we are not taught this level of wisdom, for the spirit, when given free reign will never divulge the True wisdom that our Soul-full connective-ness can bring.
Adele, this is really interesting and makes me realise that this is something that I too have done and I am sure many others do too; ‘whenever I felt something was wrong in the world and it felt too overwhelming to express, I would reject the world by first rejecting myself.’
It’s not possible to say ‘yes’ to ourselves and ‘no’ to the world.
I agree Rebecca I was rejected by my family so then felt there was something wrong with me so spent years rejecting myself. Thank heavens I met Serge Benhayon and Universal medicine and with support came to the understanding that there is nothing wrong with me. We are sold a lie that keeps us small and in the smallness we do not ask the questions that release us from the lies we are saturated with.
‘In fact, everything begins with the love that I take responsibility for by first giving it to myself.’ I would say that this is not part of most cultures as a conscious way of thinking and being… but it really needs to be!
Absolutely Rachel, the lies we are fed by culture, family, religion and politically hold us in a conscious way of being that is never about True Love and nurturing our bodies essences.
Appreciation of who we are, and, how we are now is gorgeous and confirming to bring into our lives on a regular basis, ‘It is important to appreciate how far I have come from having constant debilitating and depressive thoughts, to feeling deeply supported through this beautiful vehicle of expression.’
‘…and taking the further responsibility of expressing this truth outwardly, not in reaction, but with the love that has been built in the body from caring and nurturing myself.’ I absolutely love this learning process that I am in about how the care and nurturing I build in my body supports me in expressing this truth outwardly. It’s a beautiful upward spiral of support: the more care and nurturing I build in my body, the more I take responsibility for expressing the truth and the more I express the truth the more I care for and nurture my body.
This is a big one, that I can also relate with, yet at some level as you say we chose this, ‘I chose to withhold my communication; I chose to accept that children had no say in expressing how they felt to their parents in the culture that I grew up in, and when I did not take the responsibility to express myself, I also chose to punish myself as a consequence.’
We say we love, but have we lived it? Have we prepared our bodies deeply in care to allow this love to come through? It brings expression to another level when it’s said as a whole body testimonial.
Learning to appreciate the natural beauty and love that we are tips the scales to reveal our true worth.
Truly it does. It tips the whole world back to simple truth.
The core hurt is from separating with ourselves and not meeting ourselves. This then separates us with the world and our life becomes a big separation from the place of divinity our relationship with our soul.
It is deeply alarming that a disconnection with ourselves is a huge normal in the world and we walk around like zombies for most of our lives wondering what is wrong. But not for long, we are all feeling the body much more than before and thus we have the opportunity to connect back to ourselves if we so choose.
Our unique preciousness warmth and joy within us innately is deeply beautiful to feel and it is through Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that the truth and understanding of what is really going on for us all is offered to us to heal and make changes with in that really does bring us back to accepting and knowing the love and preciousness we are and loving ourselves absolutely.
The appreciation to Serge Benhayon is in our Livingness of all that we have understood in his teachings as a reflection to everyone around us.
Yes, I agree Adele, by living who we truly are in full, and reflecting our Livingness to the world we make a difference; and so we let everyone know we all matter, ‘It was not until meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I began to understand how truly precious I am, and that I do matter.’
When we punish ourselves it is such a clear sign that we have lost that loving connection with ourselves and yet the path to reconnection is always there and awaiting our return. Thank you Adele for your inspiring reflection of that return.
Thank you Adele for our world is richer with your expression. For we are loving beings not evil beings, hence we need to life a different way of life than we are currently living and have accepted as our one and only reality. The world and we have never meant to be disharmonious, but our choice to separate a long time ago, has caused the distraction. But also that can be resurrected, back to our love..
Dear Danna the path of return is a stupendous package of joy, this is irrefutable by our body when we are committed to walk through the moments of discomfort in recorrection. And thus we are here to support each other in these times.
This is a wonderful example of how we can indeed change out internal environment at any point, and become aligned to love, from the inside – and not needing it (or rather the substitute for it), from outside: “Although my weight has remained at about the same as when I had anorexia, what I feel in my body now is the steady warmth of preciousness, power in delicateness, consistency of joy and the solidness of self-worth I have never felt before”
It takes a while for the physical to change but how we feel is the most important at any given moment.
Thank you for the insight into what was going on for you when you had anorexia. It is clear from reading this that food is far from the main problem, it’s just the tool of choice to rebel and have some form of control in a world where you feel unheard or unable to express.
Understanding it is just a tool, we get to also see that we all have our own tools we bring out to deal with our hurts (in this case feeling unheard or unable to express), and that we have no right to judge and every right to deal with those hurts.
When we feel we are not met, the choice although almost unknown is to meet ourselves. Now that I have tried this and have chosen it consistently for myself from meeting Serge Benhayon, I could meet others for this to ripple out.
A fifteen year old knows what is true for them, children of all ages knows what is true for them To give a child space to express and allow them to be with no imposition whatsoever is a beautiful gift but also a loving gift for oneself.
My son is 15 this year. He knows what is suitable for himself. He is given the opportunity to express himself and the space to choose. More often than not, he will choose according to what is true by being honest to himself and not sabotage this relationship when this space is offered.
I wonder if the term “eating disorder” actually covers much more than just anorexia and bulimia. I think it’s time we included a wider spectrum of behaviours, for example what about over-eating? or eating the wrong foods? Or any behaviour that does not treat food as a nourishment?
There is nothing wrong with us when we eat disorderly. Let’s face it, every person in the world at some point in their lives have eaten disorderly,so we are in this all together. The question is never about food, but about our movement, the collective and personal choice of it.
‘yet no part of me was aware I could talk about it, or even say no.’ The effect that the culture we grow up in has on us is much greater than most of us are aware of, of course we are the one that make the choice to not express but without having a true role model that’s not easy. You are now a role model yourself, Adele living in he freedom of loving your body and making choices in honour of your body.
The immense grace that heaven offered to me felt in my body is something that is not possible to be kept for myself. It only wants to be shared and shared continuously.
Developing a more compassionate and tender relationship with ourselves can allow us to let go of the control we think is helping us with the overwhelm in life.
Yes – it is all about energy. For with is our greatest gift of the world — to actually see energy first and then the human existence.
Wow Adele, what you’ve shared here is huge. So many women have been through similar experiences as you and your transformation is deeply inspiring. I love the way you are appreciating the gorgeous and powerful woman you are and listening to your body with love and care. You are leading the way through your commitment to life and to inspiring us and showing us that there is another way.
The turn-around that you have made is pretty amazing, Adele. How many 15 year olds who have had anorexia, grow up into a woman without the angst, past trauma and the lack of worth that you describe, whilst also breaking the Chinese and Christian culture of filial piety… and not only break it, but live whole, full with a deep self honouring and worth? Changing the relationships, we have with ourselves is key.
Dear Rachel that relationship we strongly build with ourselves inspire the same level of relationships with everyone around us. Momentarily we see the breaking down of these relationships, but we also see the alignment, but either way, we are okay and we keep deepening with commitment.
I am pretty sure, that your body feels totally different now, although it has the same weight, as before. That is a great proof, that we feel energy first, before we mislike a shape of body or any other features. It is always the energy first that we register and sense as true or abusive.
Dear Stephanie that is true. When I know the intimacy I feel within me how my looks are become so much less controlling than they used to be.
I understood even deeper: The moment we don´t want to truly feel what the outside and its behaviours and falsity does with us, we have to go against the body, as this is the wisdom holder to feel everything. It is in sabotaging and controlling with food or going into professionalism and coolness. Both is a way to perfectly disconnect from what we are actually feeling with all our sensitivity.
Yes Stefanie, we avoid the pain, the hurt and so choose whatever it suits to numb and comfort what we feel. Yet no matter how hard and uncomfortable it was or can be there is always a way to heal the hurt so that it doesn’t have an impact in our lives today such as Adele so beautifully has and shared.
I am also continuing to learn: when feeling lovelessness I want to not be here and check out, so the commitment is to feel, acknowledge, accept and return to an intimacy with my body.
‘I felt rejected and abandoned, and very unsupported.’ Although I did not want to admit this to anyone at the time, not even myself, this is how I felt when I was at the all girls boarding school that my parents had sent me to. I also became very picky about what I ate and lost a lot of weight. AT other times in my life I have felt very similar and actually eaten more to console myself and put on a lot of weight. Disordered eating. To a much lesser degree this is with me still but I am feeling much more connected to myself now and enjoy the feeling of the loveliness that is who I am and appreciate the way that I am bringing more quality into my life in the way I am living. The weight fluctuations are there but they are minimal and I know that there will be a time when they are a thing of the past.
I know when I hide and blame I am not living my full Truth. I have allowed someone else to control my life (school, society, people). But if I take my power back and look at my own life, Express what is felt (usually what does not make sense) without blame, a strength comes back into me and my body let’s go of the protective armour it builds with over or under eating.
As children and teenagers, if we haven’t been met and honoured for who we are, it can be easy to turn against ourselves and feel a deep lack of self worth. Learning to reconnect to the fact that we can give ourselves what we are seeking others to give us, is empowering and precious.
This is the greatest gift to empower ourselves with by the grace of the divine and the body, for us to share it with everyone.
It makes so much sense Adele that when we are not confirmed in life we can contract within ourselves not even nourishing the body and becoming invisible.
Appreciating how far we have come/travelled/evolved is always a good moment
It builds on how far we have come and taking stock and appreciation is an absolute necessary in life. It is good medicine.
Self worth has to be a basic building block in our foundation because if it is not there our foundation is shaky.
Actually, if we would not have self worth issues, we would have no problems in this world as everything stems from not feeling enough and in effect treating another in the same manner.
Self worth is the core hurt we as women carry but something we can park aside with its full acknowledgement while we express in our fullness and authority, that intimacy and connection we have with ourselves.
Beautifully shared Adele, I too am getting to know my body as my best friend, appreciating that it has been with me supporting me all my life even though I have abused it so often, when its natural way is to express the love that lies within.
My weight in the last couple of years has been the lightest since I was young and at times I found myself trying to overfeed myself to increase it. The only thing that happened was my body fighting back in the form of nausea and stomach pains, so I stopped and began the process of finally accepting this was the weight it was comfortable with. But even though I have accepted my weight and now love my body and its shape, there are many around me who are struggling to do so, making comments quite often. Funnily enough some years ago when I was quite overweight no one said anything.
Sometimes it takes a horrible degree of difficulty for us to understand we have to change. Actually that’s pretty much the history of humanity – but we needn’t let that be the case for us – we have the power to choose Love before getting dragged back to truth by our body.
Humanity is not separate from us. What we choose, the sole purpose is to reflect back to humanity they are equally the same and have the choice to choose this. We all deserve to know there is another way.
It is really interesting this pattern of how we get hurt by the world and when we don’t deal with this we often then harm ourselves in some way- whether that be an eating disorder, conflicts with others, holding back our expression, using alcohol and drugs, overeating etc.
I truly love looking at hurts. I feel it is the greatest gift we are given hurts and the opportunity to deal with them, to rediscover a greater love within me.
It is the greatest gift to express the love from the body, and sometimes if not all the time, how amazingly simple the expression is.
There are many help centres for people with anorexia, but often it doesn’t seem to work or takes many years for them to recover. With the full understanding of what is presented here and in other blogs and the understating of what healing is through Universal Medicine Therapies a lot more people can be truly supported to come back to self love.
Our years as a young person are so important to get the simple basics in a way that is true, but as you have shared Adele, it is never to late to bring a rhythm that is self-nurturing and self-loving as our foundation, so we simply have to be open to re-connecting to our essence. Once connected our body shares a wisdom that is remarkable in the ways that it continues to share how simple life can be without all the have to and must. Then being connected to our divine essence allows our body to feel what ever we are doing and that can be the simple things in life like walking and eating, so we remain in that connection while doing any task.
Beautifully shared Adele. There is no greater gift in this world that living the love we are, as it is through this quality that the light of God shines through us here on earth, reflecting to all the truth of who we are.
Hear, hear Carola and it is through our body that we are able to reflect God’s love to humanity. God’s love and light is never imposing and it is always up to us whether we choose to reflect His light or not. How deeply loving is that?
“If the outside world did not confirm me, it was as though I didn’t exist…. mostly, it didn’t. And when I didn’t get a confirmation from the world that matched the knowing within myself, I rejected life,”
Wow this is a huge learning, rejecting life for yourself because the world rejected that which is you.
But I rejected my divinity and connection with soul first and foremost for all of this to play out.
Thanks for sharing so openly Adèle as I and I suppose many people can learn more about those disorders, the background of why we have those ill behaviors. This way people can go for true healing of the cause.
Appreciating the ever present friend we all have in our bodies and how we make an awesome team when we work together rather than sabotaging ourselves in a myriad of ways if we feel unsupported by life. The more I am building a relationship with my body and listening to all it communicates the steadier I feel with everything that is presented to me in my daily life.
When we don’t have that connection with our bodies, it’s like we don’t have an anchor or a solid foundation, so whenever anything comes up that might be tricky to deal with, we leave our bodies further behind because we don’t want to feel the undealt with angst and unsettlement. By starting to consistently choose to be in and with my body, i.e. staying awake and aware of what I’m feeling, I started to feel more settled and more at ease with myself and the world – a far easier way to be in life rather than constantly fighting and attempting to control stress.
Appreciation is missing in many of our lives, when we are void of self love and self appreciation we make choices that harm us. We need to know we always have the power within to ignite that self love that always resides within, however self abusive we can be.
Yes.. so true that we can only make choices that are self-abusive when we lack self-love and appreciation. Turning this around takes a little bit of time and the consistent choosing to appreciate the choices that we make that are self-loving. However basic and tiny these actions and choices might be to start with, as we appreciate them, they slowly build and become more solid. Self-love becomes a foundation that we can then make more choices from, instead of self-abuse. We can either confirm and consolidate who we are through our loving choices and appreciation of those, or degrade ourselves by choosing not to actively appreciate, and focus on the negative, which chips away at our self worth and self esteem.
I found anorexia difficult to understand until I began reading firsthand accounts like this. Now this disease and the energy behind it makes absolute sense to me. Thank you for sharing.
I know this one as well when I was younger I felt so not in control of my life so the one thing I could control was my food. And years on our younger generation (and older!) are still going through similar patterns and cycles that are so unnecessary. There is a lot to change …. a lot more to make in life truly about people, connection, self-love, self-care and self-worth.
A great reminder that young people absolutely need true support and love to guide them through what can be a very challenging time
I feel so blessed to have read your blog Adele. I have a much deeper understanding of what lies underneath anorexia. I find it particularly interesting that you have not necessarily changed how you look on the outside but the feeling and the relationship with yourself on the inside is completely different.
I understand Adele .. and i.e. there is consequence whether you honour yourself in the truth you know, or not. The simple result will be the quality of the originating choice.
Adele, I am sure many people will find this so helpful to read. The inspiration you bring that this debilitating condition can be moved out of from building a relationship with yourself, your preciousness and delicacy, and that it doesn’t have to be life consuming.. which it can feel.
I have been noticing very acutely how there is a strain of misogyny that runs through nearly if not all cultures. This feeling is not just in men but women too. It is fed by beliefs that women are the lesser species, that they can put up with more pain, more endurance, more work, less pay less rights than men. That they are the weaker sex. That they should subjugate themselves to men and the desires of men or stronger women. There is an equality and respect for equality that is touted but not truly felt or lived. Everyone is out for himself or herself. The bigger picture does not feature. and the woman in her preciousness and sacredness and her truly nurturing ways is ignored altogether. It is up to us as women to reconnect to this preciousness, sacredness and deep nurturing and live it in the world so that a new woman can be felt, recognised and lived. A new way of being can be born where harmony is restored and we all appreciate the glorious beings that we are, each and everyone.
Adele, it is so inspiring to hear of where you have come from and where you are now. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
When we realise our body is our best friend who always tells the truth we learn to listen and treat ourselves lovingly.
This is a big pattern for many, to not fully express ourselves, and obviously there are consequences of making this choice, ‘when I did not take the responsibility to express myself, I also chose to punish myself as a consequence.’
We human beings are somewhat crazy in that all we deeply desire is love yet at the same time we resist love and its holding quality. Since I have been clearing and healing my old hurts and issues, I have now more space in my body for love and grace to flow, and the more love flows the more I love just being me.
Adele, this is really interesting; ‘acknowledging what has been felt to be true within the body, and taking the further responsibility of expressing this truth outwardly, not in reaction, but with the love that has been built in the body from caring and nurturing myself.’ What you are sharing here helps me to understand why I used to find it harder to express what I was feeling and how what I would say would often come out in reaction, since I have been taking care of and honouring myself more I now find expressing what I want to say easier and more natural.