Today I stand here as a beauty-full woman. I look at myself and am blown away with who I see before me: a strong, confident, powerful and truly beautiful woman.
Not something I pictured for myself when I was a teenager. Riddled with insecurities and self-doubt, all I had to go by was how I looked on the outside.
Did I fit the picture of beauty everyone was looking for? Often not. But worse, I didn’t fit my own picture.
I felt miserable on the inside. Lost and unsure of who I was. There was a time I would look in the mirror and all I saw was pain and confusion. And often, an ugliness that I didn’t know the source of… who was that looking at me?
Today, I glow and radiate an inner confidence and inner strength of knowing exactly who I am – a truly beautiful woman. And more than that, I live the loveliness of that every day.
Recently I read an article that said only 4% of women feel they are beautiful… how truly sad. How is it that this kind of miserable statistic can exist when we are all truly beautiful… what happens?
You only have to look into the face of a child to know we are all truly divine and precious. How then is it possible for some of us to be able to look into a mirror and see nothing but ugliness and criticism?
So what changed for me?
Thanks to the work of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon I heard about the simple yet sometimes not so easy steps to self-care and self-love – both very foreign concepts to me at the time – however, they made sense, so I was willing to give them a try.
What I learned was I was being driven by a world telling me how to be, look, act and think. Thanks to being more self-loving and caring I was given the space to feel for myself what was true for me or not. So today I stand free of most of those impositions and as a result no longer feel ugly from living what is not me.
Today I stand as me… in the beauty and joy of that… and now show a different way, not ashamed or afraid to say I am truly beautiful.
As I have been inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to love and care for myself and claim my own beauty, today I inspire others to also claim their beauty as they too will inspire another… and so on it goes, ‘til one day we all know how truly amazing and truly beautiful we are!
By Caroline Raphael, Goonellabah, NSW
766 Comments
It is truly sad to hear that only 4% of women feel beautiful…what have we done to women? I wonder what the statistic would look like to men (if they were honest). This is dire-straits but to hear your story and feel the truth and inspiration radiate outward is an inspiration, and will be an inspiration to many. This is a fantastic testament to your commitment and the support from Universal Medicine, awesome.
I agree Phil, 4%, when looked at from the point of view of how many beautiful women I see on a daily basis, shows there is something wrong. But this blog offers a simple and practical way of rebuilding a sense of beauty within your self.
It is amazing to see and feel how powerful and beautiful you are Caroline and having seen a process of how much you have changed it is very honouring for all of us women to have you as a true role model, something that this world defiantly needs. Universal Medicine supports all women and men to come back to their true beauty and gentle ways by simply listening to their bodies and honouring themselves deeply.
And it does it in a way that supports consistency…consistently taking care of yourself to grow that beauty from the inside, rather than covering the gaps and hoping they will stick.
ONLY 4% OF ALL WOMEN SEE THEMSELVES AS BEAUTIFUL. This is utterly disgraceful and when I relate it to girls in my school I might even put the figure at less. At school it is an absolute sin to think positively about yourself, just incase it offends another, and due to the glamorisation of self-abuse, to be in the ‘popular’ crowd you must first learn to hate every inch of your body. Girls and women need to be shown how it is OKAY to feel beautiful, and that their body is something to look after and cherish, not hate. Thank you Caroline for doing this.
To make feeling good about yourself a sin, is a crime of the first order… schools need to be places of nurture and appreciation, not actively encouraging abuse. It needs to be okay to feel beautiful and to say ‘I am beautiful’.
Wow Susie, I didn’t realise it was so negative at school and that it is a sin to think positively about yourself – I find it an inspiration to read comments such as these from a positive young woman such as yourself, the work presented by Universal Medicine and articles like the one Caroline has written, shining a light in the darkness. Keep shining and showing the way!
Thank you for telling us about the situation in schools and the fact that feeling good about oneself is a sin. Having been brought up a catholic as a girl I remember being puzzled by the number of sins we were supposed to not fall into and showing and feeling our beauty was one of those. Crazy.
Beauty-full blog Caroline, I love how you say “Today, I glow and radiate an inner confidence and inner strength of knowing exactly who I am’. That is exactly how I feel today because until Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon came into my life I was just as lost and unsure of myself as you were. The statistic that only 4% of women feel they are beautiful is quite shocking really but with more blogs like yours, more women (and men) will be inspired to claim their own beauty.
Drop dead gorgeous Caroline, both your blog and your picture. I really resinated with what you said about seeing myself as ugly because of everything that I am doing and investing in what is not me – and that when that is less or no longer part of my life, that ugliness isn’t there, because I know I am living who I am and there are no regrets. And your closing sentence, about us all inspiring others to be themselves and see the beauty that is there, is the most beautiful ripple affect.
That statistic proves that the way the world currently ‘encourages’ women to be beautiful not only doesn’t work but has the complete opposite affect. It has been presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that we are already everything on the inside. It is inspiring to read how you have claimed your own self-worth and beauty, it shows me and all others that focusing on that natural beauty has an impact on our feelings towards ourself that is opposite to the mainstream ideas. I feel that 4% has the potential to rise with more truly inspirational women in the world and should I choose to I can support that rise.
Hi Caroline. I loved reading your article. I can feel your true beauty shining through. Claiming it baby. Gorgeous.
So beautiful Caroline that you are ‘not ashamed or afraid to say I am truly beautiful’, this is gorgeous and truly inspiring. I also loved reading,’ Today I stand here as a beauty-full woman. I look at myself and am blown away with who I see before me: a strong, confident, powerful and truly beautiful woman’ I too feel this, how amazing to see and feel this after so many years of self-doubt and self loathing.
Inspiringly beautiful blog, Caroline – and it offered me a wonderful reflection. I too always relied on the reflection in the mirror but was only relying on the superficial reflection of my clothes, body shape and how my hair looked!
I was brought up to judge how a woman looked from the ‘outside’ and this is a very confusing and self defeating. The way we look is not who we are, and as the years have passed by I have come to realise that we all hold that beauty within. As you say, as we unfold we can offer our reflection as a way of inspiration to others to connect to their own inner beauty.
Caroline you look amazing! and what a joy to read a women claiming her beauty,
This is such an important subject one that as women of the world we need to be honest and get real, only 4% of women feel they are beautiful this is crazy and something that needs to change. We are all born beautiful and divine (and we know it) but somewhere along the line our perception changes and it is now very rare to find a person man or women in their full glory accepting themselves. I love Caroline how the love and respect you have for yourself shines forth for all to see and with that inspires all to see that they too are beautiful.
‘Only 4% of women feel they are beautiful this is crazy and something that needs to change’ – Correct Samantha; that statistic is shocking and definitely needs to change.
Dear Caroline, I very much identify as I’m sure many women will of feeling totally miserable in the inside and lost. When I felt this miserable and looked in the mirror all i saw was ugly, ugly, ugly. Like you I also found Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon and re-discovered how to truly take care of myself and love myself again. The difference in how I feel today is exactly how you began this blog:
“Today I stand here as a beautiful woman. I look at myself and am blown away with who I see before me: a strong, confident, powerful and truly beautiful woman.” I Love how claimed this feels!
Thank you for sharing your beautiful self.
I had never remotely thought of myself as a beautiful woman, quite the reverse and avoided mirrors as I was always self-critical and looking for what was wrong and wishing to be different. Attending presentations from Universal Medicine I gradually introduced myself to self-care and self-nurturing. At first saying “I am a beautiful woman” didn’t feel true and made me feel embarrassed as I was still looking at the outside of me. Now I feel myself from the inside and now I know I too am a beautiful woman. I am inspired by so many other beautiful women.
Thank you for sharing Caroline! Especially that gorgeous photo of you – so beauty-full.
It has been said the beauty is only skin deep, could these be the 96% that feel they are enough? The real true beauty of a person will always be the amazingness that is under that skin. You can close your eyes and not see but you cant close your heart and not feel. We all need to feel our real beauty and the world will see what true beauty is.
‘You can close your eyes and not see, but you can’t close your heart and not feel’ – Profound Steve; love it.
Thank you for sharing this blog Caroline. I can so relate to your story because mine is the same. I used to look in the mirror as a teenager in such confusion and self loathing which I didn’t understand and came to the conclusion that I must be ugly. I am far from this. Even though it didn’t make sense at the time it was the only answer I had to the swirl of negative emotions. I am thankful to say that now when I look in the mirror I do so in the appreciation of the beautiful, tender and gentle woman that I am and all the amazingness of what I have to offer.
And inspire me you do Caroline! What a beautiful celebration of you! It’s sad to hear that only 4% of women feel that they are beautiful, this reflects just how much we are dominated by the external pressures of what we should look like. I tend to think also that perhaps there are a few more women out there who do consider themselves beautiful but because they don’t want to offend their peers and be thought bad of they hold back from expressing it. We’re just not raised in this society to appreciate and honour ourselves. A sad fact – but it’s super gorgeous to read about beautiful women like yourself claiming it.
Only 4%. That just stopped me right there – its a crazy statistic, showing a crazy way that we are living… something has to change, and its wonderful to see you leading the way Caroline.
Hi Simon,
Yes that statistic – only 4 % of women see themselves as beautiful also stopped me in my tracks – and hence was the motivation for my article. How have we allowed that to occur? The article was my way of saying no more, this has to stop. By not being afraid to claim our beauty we will show others they too can do the same. Holding back thinking it is shameful, prideful or arrogant to claim our beauty and our strengths are all beliefs we have been feed and it is clearly not working, the statistics are evidence of that.
WOAH that’s an astounding statistic – it’s absolutely insane, ONLY 4 PERCENT of women see themselves as beautiful… even when there are SO many products out there that apparently should make us beautiful.
Caroline what you write many people including myself can relate to. What incredible changes you’ve made that are now a normal part of your life but like you’ve also said very few people in the world are living what you have shown to be so natural. To think that 96% of women feel ugly shows that we have things very back to front. I am sure the statistic for men would be similar. By showing us it’s from saying no to conforming to all the world expects us to be and instead by living your true way that you feel inside means it’s something that everyone of us can do. No degree needed just Love.
Spot on David, No degree needed just love.
It is very inspiring to feel the authority, power and authenticity with which you write , Caroline. A true reflection of the truly beautiful woman you are.
Thank you Caroline for sharing your gorgeousness with us and reflecting to all women, that they are also as beauty-full and strong inside and out.
A beautiful blog written by a beautiful woman. Thank you Caroline for claiming your beauty and sharing this for all to see.
Beautiful, gorgeous Caroline, it is so true. You are an amazingly gorgeous woman and extremely inspiring. I can identify with how you felt as a teenager, as I only saw those things in myself too and thanks to Universal Medicine, Serge Benhayon and Natalie Benhayon those hinderances are long gone. How sad it is that so few women have connected with our real beauty. Thank you deeply for truly claiming and sharing all your true self and for encouraging all women to seek their beauty that resides within, a fragile and powerful beauty not governed by society’s external values. How glorious to see and feel a true woman standing in her glory and firing up the world with love.
Simply gorgeous, Caroline! Your power and beauty sings off the page. I can also express my story is similar as I was plagued by self doubt and criticism as a teenager and young woman. Also through the support of Universal Medicine by learning to self-care, self-love and self nurture I know and feel my inner beauty. This radiates to the outside.
Thank you Caroline,you truly are an inspiration to me.
Dear Carloline, you are a beautiful woman and you have deeply inspired me to connect to and to live as the beautiful woman I am. As you say it is not always easy, but the truth of my beauty is always ever present, there for me to claim, to live and to shine. You have helped me to know and feel this.
Caroline….So inspiring and your picture is so beautiful. You can feel your beauty inside and out. Thank you so much for sharing. I can relate to feeling what you felt as a teenager and feel I am claiming Me back each step I take these days and it feels so refreshing.
I look forward to the day we are all living this way and this love and confidence.
Those external pressures of how to be and look come at you from every angle…men and women alike. The thought that I might consider my own beauty as a man was a very foreign concept…but it’s there inside, patiently waiting. You are a testimony to those that have stood in the face of that external pressure and chosen to reconnect to that inner beauty… you are radiant.
Very true Joel, for Caroline to stand in the face of all the external pressure and reconnected to her inner beauty means that she has built her self worth – something that us women often override. It is by far the most important factor for women to build a foundation on self-worth in all factors in life.
Beautiful Caroline! Absolutely! You are such an inspiration. I can definitely relate to the ‘simple yet sometimes not so easy steps’! In fact, self love still seems like a foreign concept to me sometimes, but the process of ‘self care’ has allowed me to feel my self worth again. Just simple things, like feeling when I am tired and taking myself to bed early, or learning how to say no when I truly don’t feel to do something, are small steps but can amount to something really powerful.
Very true Linda, simple steps that amount to big shifts over time. Self love is simple, respond to how we truly feel and stop denying the truth of our real feelings. When we do our emotions lose their power and life becomes effortless. Caroline’s beauty is a real example of true self care and incredibly healing for all women.
Caroline thank you for sharing such a simple truth. The teachings of Universal Medicine are the way for each of us to reconnect to what is true; an undeniable amazing beauty that has nothing to do with how the world has determined what is required to be beautiful.
Inspiration in the truest sense. Thank-you beautiful Caroline. I feel my own radiance ‘light up’ reading your words and seeing you.
So beautifully expressed Caroline.
I too have gained so much from Universal Medicine being in my life.
For the first 40 plus years of my life I struggled – it felt like there was always something missing. It was a bit like the acne that I’d had on my face and neck for decades – I could cover it up with make-up but underneath I knew it was there and it just wouldn’t go away no matter how many lotions and potions I used, diets, naturopaths or skin specialists I saw. So I could have all of the trappings – the nice clothes, the holidays, the fine dining, the coffee with friends – but still there was this persistent yearning to fill this gap.
Like you I attended Universal Medicine events where Serge Benhayon presented ways that I could nurture myself from the inside out – such simple practical steps. I also had Sacred Esoteric Healing sessions. And I have gone from strength to strength. All along the gap, the yearning was I was missing ME, being who I naturally am, not the Alison I thought everyone wanted me to be.
Life is so simple now, so much joy from being me and my connection with those around me. And the acne went within a few months of me starting to make these changes – after decades of acne that was a MIRACLE!
Thanks, Alison. Yes I too had all of the outer trappings for many years, but nothing could ease the pain of the emptiness I felt inside. Thank heavens for Universal Medicine who have shown us the way back to true joy, which starts by accepting and loving ourselves.
Awesome Alison, beautifully put, we often feel that there is something missing, and so often it is us, and this feeling drives us to eat, surf the internet, watch movies, go to bed late etc, trying to fill the void that can’t be filled by anything other than ourselves.
Hi Caroline, I can remember when I first heard the words self-care and self-love, at a presentation with Serge Benhayon and feeling that these words did not apply to me. The words felt very foreign and I had no idea what they meant in practical terms. It has been a gradual process of unfolding and allowing myself to feel that my beauty is not just about how I look, but it is about how I feel about myself, an acceptance of who I am and not holding anything back, this is my real beauty.
So true Alison, I too was baffled by the terms self care and self love. It has been an ongoing process of trial, error and amazing discovery. What is truly remarkable is that the more I have connected with the truly delicate, fragile and beautiful qualities within me, the more I am enjoying and celebrating them in other women too. It is such a joy to feel Caroline celebrating herself as the gorgeous beautiful woman she is. This is true inspiration.
Hi Alison, I agree totally with your comment and in particular that it is not about how you look, but it is about how you feel about yourself, an acceptance of who you truly are and not holding any of yourself back, this is for sure real beauty.
So true Jacqueline, it is an acceptance of who you truly are. Inspirational blog Caroline, one that should be in women’s magazines.
Very true Alison.
Wow you certainly are an amazing gorgeous women! I too have had a very similar relationship with myself and my reflection… for 7 years I didn’t own a mirror! One way to avoid seeing how I was living! Now like you I like what I see and actually are super gorgeous inside and out.
That’s interesting, not owning a mirror…
I have always had the feeling that my misery and pain was not about me being a horrible person…but about being an amazing being who was masquerading as a pitiful one.
Universal Medicine confirms this left and right.
It is very painful NOT to be living the whole lovely truth of who we are!
We no longer have to miss out on Caroline’s loving radiance, nor anyone else’s beauty who is re-claiming themselves!
I love what you have expressed here, Jo, that it is not about judging ourselves but simply looking at what has got in the way of us being our naturally lovely selves and reclaiming the beauty back.
This sentence really stood out for me Jo and my feeling is that what you wrote applies to the majority of humanity: “I have always had the feeling that my misery and pain was not about me being a horrible person…. but about being an amazing being who was masquerading as a pitiful one”.
Well said Jo. It is very painful when we don’t live the whole of the truth of who we are and we go around masquerading as something else. Then we end up loathing ourself for it and feeling more and more ugly and more and more insecure. The answer is not to chase ways of changing the masquerade, but to start taking steps in our life to reclaim ourself.
Jo, it makes me realise that most times I have liked the reflection of me in the mirror – the outside – but the inside what a different matter as I was full of doubt, guilt and fear making myself small and even hiding. This is all going, thanks to the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Yes, Maryline this is similar for me too, what a contrast I have been living between the external image I presented of myself and the reality of the internal self critique. This is gradually changing for me too as my internal critique gets quieter and I feel my beauty as the reality within.
Wow – not owning a mirror is in its own way an awesome reflection (pun intended!) – I love mirrors now – because I find when I feel beautiful I can see it in the way my reflection smiles back at me.
A beautiful and inspiring post from a beautiful lady. Caroline, you are living proof of what is possible through self care and self love…an inspiration for others to break through those barriers that hold so many back from realising and appreciating their true beauty and potential.
Hear hear Rod, I’m certainly inspired by Caroline and her blog!
Absolutely brilliant – I love how you have presented the fact that the reason we do not like what we see in the mirror is because we are not living our true selves; the ‘solution’ or change that needs to occur then is not centred around changing our looks to fit an ideal, but stopping what is ‘not us’ and living with self-care and self-love, to get back to the real us – as that is truly already beautiful
Yes Jessica, As I come back to myself this is and has been a revelation for me too.
I understand that my self loathing and feelings of shame were around knowing I was not representing who I am, not living my truth, not expressing what I am here to express and share. Even in my most lost times I’ve always known the truth deep inside; that I am beauty and love and I can be a precious benefit to humanity if only I will stand up and choose to listen to my heart and be ME.
This is very powerfully expressed Jo and it is clear that you are well on your way to claiming you and standing up and showing the world you, and an inspiration you are.
Jessica I agree, what an amazing blog. I love how you have expressed it’s not changing our looks to fit an ideal but getting back to the real us. As i read your comment and Caroline’s blog I just feel, yeah, I can breathe, I can be me and it’s going to be an amazing, fun journey back to feeling who I truly am and letting every one see beauty I have been hiding away inside.
I agree, what Caroline has presented makes a lot of sense – why would we feel incomplete if there wasn’t something we where holding back – the truth of who we are as women.
Exactly Jessica we do not like what we see in the mirror because we are not living our true self. We have got caught up in so many ideals and beliefs that we have forgotten to live our true self. With the loving presentations from Serge Benhayon, we have learnt to find our true selves and have been able to begin to live in truth.
Yes Jessica, thanks for reminding me that is about stopping what is “not us” and getting back to me. Great to hear once again.
Jessica I love your powerful command. I agree it is this centre around changing our looks to fit an ideal what holds us back from being ourselves. It is so crazy that most of us get lost in this kind of “game”. It is very inspiring that people like you are now showing the world that there is an other way to be truly beautiful.
Yes, Caroline, I completely agree. Our job is to simply be our glorious selves without holding back, so that others can recognise that same quality in themselves. Thanks for letting us share in the celebration of how totally gorgeous you are.
Very simply written Janet, ‘Our job is to simply be our glorious selves without holding back,’ beautiful!
Interesting I just realised today that all the self loathing and criticism I had for myself when I was looking from the outside in at myself was simply the fact that I knew at that point I was not living the beautiful woman I felt was the true me and joyfully expressing who I am in the world. All the self loathing and criticism was just a distraction that took me away from me recognising I knew the truth all along. I am beautiful and am worthy of this reflection coming back at me.
Thank you for your awesome and timely blog Caroline.
When I saw your photo It was for me …
“Wow, what a sexy gorgeous woman!” …
Inspirational too 🙂
Yes, so true, this is living proof of the truth of Serge Benhayon’s presentations.
I agree Suzanne, it puts a whole new spin on our self-criticism.
Thanks Suzanne, that is a great insight into how we distract ourselves from feeling that we know deep inside. I know inside that I am truly beautiful but if I indeed not live it I feel so loathing of myself yet that is not really ‘solving’ the issue! As the issue was that I stopped feeling myself as beautiful.
Thank you very much for this truly beauty-full blog Caroline. I can absolutely relate to what you describe: the insecurities and ugliness in the teenage years and now the re-blossoming of the beauty-full woman that I am. What I have realised in the last few years is that true beauty comes from within. As I have let go more and more of what is not truly me i.e. all the ideals and beliefs I took on during my life, I re-dis-covered my own beauty.
I had a very similar experience when I first met Serge Benhayon and heard about “the simple yet sometimes not so easy steps to self-care and self-love – both very foreign concepts to me at the time – however, they made sense, so I was willing to give them a try.” And boy, was it worth trying. By simple and small steps I re-discovered who I truly am and now I feel very content and confident in my body. Not always and in perfection but most of the time and forever developing. And by just being me I inspire others to try the same. How awesome is that?
Truly awesome Katrin. To be able to feel truly content with and confident in your body is awesome. We are so bombarded today with ideals about what a woman should be that we could spend our entire lives chasing an ideal and never being content with our natural beauty, which lies within every woman (and man). It is so amazing to see and hear women standing up and claiming their own natural and innate beauty, and abandoning all those beliefs and ideals about what we are ‘supposed’ to be.
Hi Rowena,
It’s true that we could live an entire life living up to someone else’s idealistic views. I’ve tried that – but nothing makes me feel more beautiful or more loving than when I appreciate who I am and what I bring.
And that it is so much deeper than the shape of my body or how flawless my skin is. Taking these aesthetic values away and seeing myself from the inside out, allows me to claim myself as a woman. I am loving exploring this.
As awesome as it gets Katrin, I sometimes see adverts about beauty products and how they can make my skin smoother, ageless and turns me into some sort of ‘femme fatale’. And I smile and ignore them. Because I am me, and for me, that’s about as beautiful as it gets. This isn’t a static beauty either, it will grow as I deepen my relationship with myself. Love it!
Beautifully said Catherine, a beauty that grows as you deepen your relationship with your self. Its true, our beauty is always growing and deepening, as we focus on connecting to ourselves, we discover more hidden gems within and claiming and allowing the world to see them serves us all. We have so much to learn about how beautiful we truly are.
I love what you say here Catherine. I used to be a beauty product fanatic, now I have very few items as there is no cream in the world or beauty product that can make me beautiful that’s now just absurd. I categorically know have felt and have seen that true beauty comes only from the inside out when we allow ourselves to be exactly who we are.
I was recently walking through the cosmetic section of a department store and laughed to myself as I saw all the expensive face creams and products that in the past I spent a fortune on. I realised I no longer felt the need to buy the latest cream as I can feel that our beauty comes from within and the more I connect the more I can feel just how beauty-full I am.
I totally agree Fiona, true beauty does really come from within. I have spent years changing everything I could about me on the outside, looking for love, happiness, contentment, the list goes on. I now realise, with the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, that true beauty really DOES come from within. Taking time out for me and making a few simple loving choices really does support me in my connection to my beauty-full self, and the more I connect to me the more this is reflected in my relationships with others too. Its magic!
Yes that is true – as I do more and more accept my beauty as I am, and that this beauty is my inner feeling for myself that I can so easy be me. I noticed I am smiling at myself when I look in the mirror. I have stopped to look for what is not so good with me, coming from a critical point of view, into seeing myself with a very playful light approach, and I always find a smile for myself, because I love what I see – exactly that feeling being with my inner connection, and that is so beautiful and has to be smiled back.
A truly beautiful blog Caroline! I love your description of yourself as a teenager ‘Riddled with insecurities and self-doubt’. You could be describing what many of us experienced. Your words conjured up the phrase – ‘riddled with bullets’ – and made me see even more clearly how insecurity and self-doubt puts bullet holes in our psyche and keeps us small so that the gorgeousness and beauty that we naturally are does not have an opportunity to show itself, and grow itself. Why would we shoot ourselves in the foot like that?
The photo of you in all your beauty is living proof that you have thrown off the impositions of the way of thinking that is so prevalent in our society. It is appalling to hear that only 4% of women feel that they are beautiful. Imagine the opportunity for that to change as more of us as women re-connect with the precious beauty that we each hold within. Thank you for your shining blog Caroline.
Yes I agree Lyndy. It is appalling that only 4% of women feel they are beautiful. it has become the norm for women to not feel good about themselves, unless it is related to what we do. Being able to turn this around, one by one as Caroline has done, is the inspiration we need.
I agree Shevon, it is a very sad statistic and one that shows us just how lost we have become. Caroline has changed the game, she has shown us all that we are all entitled to feel this way about ourselves. The real joy is that this is not something that she touts at the expense of other women, but a quality she shares with everyone. Caroline has shown us that when we truly reconnect to our beauty within, it shines out on the world and blesses everyone who meets her. Caroline is a true living example of the real healing qualities we hold as women and how we bless the world when we truly express them.
I agree Lyndy, insecurity is deadly, in that it completely distorts our view not only of ourself but of others, and can twist compliments or smile remarks into insults. The shocking statistic of 4%, just confirms the reality most women live, and Caroline’s shining example that there is another way is very much needed.
This is so true Lyndy, ‘insecurity and self-doubt puts bullet holes in our psyche and keeps us small so that the gorgeousness and beauty that we naturally are does not have an opportunity to show itself, and grow itself.’ I kept myself small for many years riddled with self-doubt, and am now letting go of this self-doubt and realising that it is not true and that I am a beautiful woman.
So true Mary that we do have a say in all of this and I find 4% is actually higher than what I expected. It is such a sad state to be in when only 4% of women think they are beautiful. As Caroline has beautifully shared it is our connection within that shines out the natural beauty that we are.
Hello, I just came across this blog and realise I feel exactly the same in that I now know what an absolutely beautiful, gorgeous and amazing woman I am and yet I used to see myself in quite the opposite way.
I too acknowledge that the transformation was enabled through all that has so lovingly been presented to me by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, as well as my own choice to receive that love and deal with all my stuff!
I love your comments Ariana and Nicola. Growing up I felt and believed that I was ugly and I tried hard in my teens and twenties to look and be beautiful – including developing personas that I knew people would like. Now in my mid thirties and with the ever loving and stupendous support I have received from Universal Medicine, I now know myself to be a gorgeous and beautiful woman who has a lot of joy and fun and laughter about life to share. What I have also discovered is that because I didn’t let that Joy out and accepted that it was wrong to show as a child that this was the deepest sadness and lead to the ugly feelings – as I was keeping who I naturally was on the inside in. Keeping in and trying to hide who we are only eats us up and stops us knowing how absolutely gorgeous we are.
That is so true Shevon and I can attest to this also – having the playful, joyful beauty that I used to share when I was younger then growing older feeling the sense that I was not like others. Shutting down and then becoming serious to fit into what was around me, to study and learn skills all became so serious that by my early 20’s I had dramatically stopped expressing this beautiful Woman that I am. I have started to allow myself to let this out more and I still can feel the reservation as I don’t want other people to feel uncomfortable by my Amazing beauty – But know I love feeling this in me and I can’t actually try and hold it back any longer even if I tried to. Watch out world!
Yeah Nicola, Ariana, Shevon and Natalie! I can hardly believe that you were able to hide your amazing beauty and joyfulness. But the sad thing is: we are able and we do so. It is so easy to criticize our selfs and others… we have done that for ages and sadly again we are quite good at it. We have to train to appreciate, to claim it back as our normal. Let’s support and celebrate each other in our beauty.
Shevon, I can relate to this – developing personas to be liked. My early recollections of my own self is of not ever seeing or feeling me at all. I would look in the mirror and not connect to the image on the other side. I took on personas to connect to something. A mass of comparison meant I always felt less than others around me and small. Now I see, feel and adore the woman I’ve become. It took time, commitment and patience to be where I am today. Thank you to Serge Benhayon and the Universal Medicine Practitioners.
So true Shevon. I have mistaken the emotions I’ve felt in being hurt by something as who I was. Because these emotions were and felt ugly, I thought I was too. Now I can feel them as just emotions and not who I truly I am, I am able to feel how beautiful and sweet I really am.
Shevon you have stirred me to ask myself why did I loose myself and not think I was enough? I felt growing up I wasn’t smart enough so using my looks and attracting attention by the clothes and jewellery were a smoke screen so people would not find out I wasn’t intelligent! What a burden that has been to always be in protection so I wouldn’t be caught out, dinner parties and social occasions would have me strategising, pre preparing topics and events I could talk about.
Thank goodness that’s gone but at a deeper level I feel self acceptance and appreciation of my essence, the unique expression I bring and share openly is my beauty.
Shevon, I married into a culture different to mine and very quickly I was confirmed in my being ‘ugly’ and different from the other women. I already suffered from shyness and a total lack of self-esteem so being compared to women who had a very different style of dressing was devastating. I literally withered away, made myself as small as possible. Now in my senior years I am rediscovering me, and that in fact, I was always beautiful but the deep hurt I carried blinded me to it.
It is so profound what you have written here Patricia. Beauty is defined by many things, including culture. There really is no universal definition of beauty and we all find different people attractive on different levels. But the one unifying point is whether the person allows their beauty to shine from the inside out, if one does that then no matter the culture or perception of what is beautiful there can be no denying the beauty. Truly beautiful 🙂
It is so beautiful to hear women simply claiming their beauty having lived with such a poor self image and lack of worth and with nothing other than the support to re-turn to ourselves and see that our beauty lies first within and once nurtured and cherished, overflows to the external. I am so often struck by just how beautiful our eyes are when we allow one another to truly look into them, it never ceases to amaze me and once I have connected to someone in this way, all I see is their beauty.
Lovely line here Rowena; ‘and see that our beauty lies first within and once nurtured and cherished, overflows to the external’. Through self care and self nurture, I have found the beautiful and tender woman I am, and that feels amazing.
That is so Beautiful Rowena and so true, when we connect to each other through our eyes, we not only see but also feel the beauty in each other.
An amazing blog Caroline. You have blossomed and radiate joyfully. You show us all what is possible when we are open to change and make different choices.
It is great to hear what you have shared Nicola and it brings to the forth that we all as women and men have work to do in really appreciating our own true beauty and the beauty of each and every single one of us.
Yes I agree Amina, there is a lot of work to be done. We have spent many years hiding the true beauty of who we truly are and denying the appreciation of what we bring. Thanks to the loving reflection and inspiration of Serge Benhayon we have just started to scratch the surface and we are now on our way.
“The transformation is worth it. Dealing with our stuff and accepting the beauty we are is transformational.” Such a true and powerful statement, Ariana.
Indeed you are Nicola Lessing – it has been such a blessing to see you blossom. You are quite the inspiration!
Yes, there are a lot of very beautiful women and women who have become more and more beautiful who are students of the livingness.
Don’t forget the men as well. Beauty barometer is increasing daily.
Yes Christoph I am blown away by the beauty being claimed and expressed with so many of the Students of the Livingness. It can be felt and seen in the sparkle in their eyes. 🙂
I feel the same too Nicola
Yes indeed, and dealing with our stuff brings out the beuty what is kept behind, so very much worth it.
So beautiful Caroline! So true when you say about looking at children (or a baby) and truly feeling their joy and beauty. We are all that but lose our connection to that truth and the impact of that is devastating for humanity. Your sharing here is inspiring and reminds me to ever be aware of my true beauty and that of every single person until ‘one day we all know how truly beautiful and amazing we are!’ Thank you!
Well said, Bernadette. Loosing connection to our natural preciousness and joy is devastating for humanity, and we put so much effort into not feeling the pain of it, that we have as a result lost touch with ourselves completely. Re-connecting to and appreciating the beauty we have inside is key to finding our way back to the truth of who we are, and it is never too late to do this.
I love what you’ve written Janet- especially about it’s never too late to appreciate the beauty within us. Thank you
I totally love this too Bernadette and Janet. No matter how old or how far we have strayed from our essence as a child, it is still there to connect to and be lived in our adult body.
You are right Johanna08.smith, we are all equal in our essence and unique in our expression and it is never, ever too late to connect to our beauty inside. However, I used to think I was the exception, different to everyone else but since I have began to re-connect to something that was inside me all along, to use Caroline’s words I was “blown away” by MYSELF.
Thank you Janet. A great comment. It is indeed devastating for us all when we lose the connection to preciousness and joy, and then off we go into all sorts of things to avoid looking at the fact we walked away from the naturalness of the joy we truly are. As you say re-connecting to the beauty we hold inside is an amazing step for us all and it is never too late.
I know this feeling of inner joy so well, it has a magic ripple effect when someone can offer a heartfelt laughing – it is contagious and it needs no words to connect with other people in this level of communication. When we allow to hold our connection to our inner beauty and playfulness it does open doors everywhere.
Lovely comment Monika. It indeed is magic what happens if we are connected. Most people just love to be with the magic that lives in us, they are craving it. And if they resist, well then they are resisting their own beauty as well. It happens.
So true Janet. The disconnection from ourselves and from feeling our own beauty and preciousness has caused so much devastation to humanity. I know I was lost to how to feel this until I learned the simple but amazing techniques presented by Universal Medicine that connect us to our bodies our stillness and preciousness. Techniques that the world is crying out for.
I agree, Anne-Marie… the techniques simply teach us to be ourselves again, like when we were babies. Nothing we don’t already know 🙂
The world is crying out for these techniques and now with unimedliving.com there can be much more accessibility, I particularly love the voice section the little audio snippets are pure gold.
Janet/Bernadette. So easy to lose our way in life, and then wonder why this is happening.
If we sit back, and reflect on that question to ourselves, suddenly realising we have lost the love that is inside us, which is not serving us or humanity.
Once we know we will reconnect with our body, and come home to be love once again.
I love this too, Janet and Bernadette. We are all born with this beauty – it never goes away, but as we grow up we start to shut it down in order to cope with our lives. And eventually it becomes far too painful to even recognise that that beauty is still there within us. Your blog is inspirational Caroline, and so clear to see how you shine from knowing this true beauty comes from the inside. You are simply radiating with it.
Very true Sandra.
Yes Sandra we have to really start to ask the questions of what is really going on. How can it be that when we are born and in our first few years we have such a natural ability to love and accept ourselves exactly how we are. This is a truly beautiful quality of small children an unapologetic deep love and acceptance for themselves.
How do we then go from that to spend the rest of our lives looking for self love acceptance in the illusion that we will find it somewhere else other then what’s already within.
Just knowing that it is never too late to come back to our true selves, holding and understanding our preciousness is like a life insurance policy we did not know we had! We were born with the greatest insurance we could possible imagine ~ our own completeness. Isn’t it time we cashed it in and got on with celebrating every day the beauty we can feel and see here in Caroline?
I love this Bernadette….”We were born with the greatest insurance we could possible imagine ~ our own completeness” When we re-connect to this completeness, celebration and appreciation that we are all truly and equally beautiful becomes simple and part of everyday life.
Your words Bianca are brimming with radiant love. Thank you.
It is truly beautiful when we come to fully understand and own the fact that we are already born “complete”. I can already feel the layers of expectations lift.
Cash it in Bernadette, love it ha ha. YES! such richness is the essence of our divine self and beauty, infinitely more than any amount of financial wealth accumulated.
This is great Bernadette and very cool. I love that – to cash in our own completeness and start celebrating our own beauty and sharing that with the world as Caroline has so beautifully done in her blog. Thank you both.
Awesome Bernadette. Let’s all cash in on this life insurance of completeness.
We are all beautiful 🙂 🙂
I love the symbolism you have used here Bernadette – cashing in the policy now sounds good to me, bringing all our beauty and amazingness to the life we are living now. Beautifully expressed Caroline – thank you.
Yes,
i can really relate to what you have both written Bernadette and Janet.
I look at what seems to be the increasing precious beauty of my own two daughters and I realise how I haven’t looked and seen that in myself.
I am just now truly reconnecting to my own lovely essence. Now I understand finally (Thank you Janet!) why I have cried so much over the years of healing with Universal Medicine. It has been the pain of not knowing who I am, being so lost and long separated from myself… that total disconnection from my self.
Thankfully, I am finally feeling worthy enough to allow myself to look and feel. It is only now, after many layers I have peeled back that I can start to appreciate who I am. I am delighted to say I am seeing my first rays of sunshine again and loving it… there are no words right now for the enormity of what that signifies for me!
And this is what the Work delivered by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have without a shadow of a doubt supported me to heal. I now know and feel that connection to my inner beauty and joy more and more and it is really leading to a beautiful and magical life.
A great point you made here Janet is that it is never to late for us to connect back to truth and who we really are. And we have incredible support all around us now, no going it alone, there are reflections of inner beauty everywhere we look, reminding us what preciousness we hold inside.
Indeed Bernadette what a beautiful world it will be when we all know and feel how truly beautiful and amazing we all are. Love will reign.
Beautifully expressed Bernadette, I recently saw my father die and being in his presence was like being with a newborn so even when we lived lost to the connection to our essence it remains steady within us. Beautiful and it is devastating to feel how we live not connected to something that is so tangible and real.
Totally agree, Bernadette. With the support of Universal Medicine I am learning every day to let go more and more of false ideas of what beauty is and more and more embrace the true loveliness of me. It feels delicious!
Bernadette, I’ve just seen an article about how women have been manipulated, especially in the last 100 years, to be beautiful in the way the current fashions dictated. As a result we have suffered from not being enough. Waist to small/big, bust to small/big, wrong hair, wrong face, too tall/small, the list seems endless. The article finished with, we are beginning to see that its not what the body looks like (great) but what it can do (doh). Its what the body FEELS like. Carolines body FEELS beautiful to her -and how it shows, isn’t she gorgeous! And as you quoted, ‘one day we will all know how amazing and beautiful we are’, because of the example we have been set by other beautiful women like Caroline.
To lose our connection is indeed devastating. I have just started to realize how devastating my being not in connection to others truly is. It ruins relationships, makes them superficial and from the head. And living from my head I can be a really ugly man towards others. Humbly I can assess myself being more connected than ever – and I appreciate that – but I also realised there is much work to be done to feel truly beautiful each day. Caroline’s blog presents a truly living inspiration for me to put 1 Billion % effort in that.
Yes Willem there is much work to be done for us ALL to reawaken our true beauty but the daily choices we make will support us all to unravel the old ways and embrace our connection more than ever before.
Beautiful and very honest Willem. It is devastating when we loose our connection. I find that the lessons learnt at these times are at the same time life changing and very necessary. The feeling of devastation reminds me that I have a choice and that my body will show me the truth even if I get tricked into following a false idea or belief about something.
Beautiful Bernadette. So true what is actually the difference between us now and when we were a baby? We have just grown but the beauty and joy is forever inside.
Absolutely Lieke, there is no difference. We may have grown up but INSIDE we are just as gorgeous, sensitive and loving as an adult as we were as a baby.
So beautifully expressed Bernadette. Thank you
Its so true what you say Bernadette. We do never truly lose that connection to ourselves, we just build layers and layers on top of it as we live our lives and get older, until one day we find that we’ve forgotten who we truly are and have turned into someone else! But it’s never too late to reconnect to that inner beauty, as Caroline has done, and boy, was that worth doing! Thankyou Caroline for sharing your true beauty with us all and showing us that we too can reunite with our own connection.
There is a responsibility in connecting with our joy and beauty for the next generation. We are each role models, when we accept and appreciate ourselves we show others this is possible.
Thank you Abby this is so true. We have a responsibility to know and claim our own beauty, not only for ourselves but for the next generations.
Yes Kathryn it is in claiming this now and writing about the joy, that the future generations can recognise the deep love we can all connect to.
Yes Bernadette, when Caroline wrote about claiming her beauty, it was so clear that her beauty is always there – it does not go away. It is the way that Caroline is choosing to live that is allowing her to claim it. It stops the notion that there is something to obtain to get beauty but that is so not true. It was there on the day we were born and will be with us until the day we die. We just have a choice whether or not to live it and claim it.