by Anna Karam, Goonellabah, Australia
I am a 35 year old woman. I am also a loving wife, mother of three gorgeous children, owner of a successful small business (successful by definition here being a joy to work in) and casual checkout operator at my local supermarket. I’m sorry, did I forget to mention here that I am also amazing! It’s true – I love my life, I love myself, my family (in this I include many) and I love people. But life for me hasn’t always been like this. In fact, up until a few years ago I had suffered from Bulimia Nervosa, a psychological disease which began in my early teens.
For those of you who don’t know, Bulimia is medically defined as an characterised by binge eating and purging, or consuming a large amount of food in a short amount of time followed by an attempt to rid oneself of the food consumed (purging), typically by vomiting, taking a laxative or diuretic and/or excessive exercise. But for me this definition doesn’t give a true understanding of the absolute physical and mental torture and self abuse that make up this disease.
In my experience Bulimia has always been one of those ills that people don’t really want to speak of. Not unless it is happening with themselves or someone close to them. It is one of those taboo subjects you simply don’t touch! It even has medical professionals baffled. I feel this has contributed to why so many young men and women (including myself) are able to hide this disease so easily from the outside world, whilst secretly living behind closed doors with so much pain and torment.
For me Bulimia looked like this. I would wake in the morning and the first thing I would think about was food, how much was I going to eat today, how much exercise would I need to do to counter this, and would I find myself bingeing and having to take a trip to the toilet to bring up all the food I had so fervently shoved down in an attempt to numb myself out or sabotage when I was actually feeling good.The latter would happen more often than not. I would then go to bed feeling ashamed, my body hurt, and my mind was already in the torment of what tomorrow would bring.
At times when I was living with others, I would find this difficult, to hide the bingeing, the empty wrappers, the cereal boxes that went down so quickly, the ice-cream that never lasted. I figured out which foods were easier to bring up so as to be not so hard on my throat, cause swelling around the glands in my neck, or dilate my pupils, whatever was needed to not get found out, it was all highly orchestrated. Learning how to bring food up quietly became an art. Aside from all the physical damage, there was the constant shame and guilt that was inescapable, and deeper than this was the enormous sadness in the knowing that it was I who was doing this to myself. This disease was nothing short of a prison. A self imposed isolation that at its very core was an inability for me to accept the world as it is, and to accept me in all my light, my truth, my glory and to not be afraid to show this.
When I was 31 I was introduced to Universal Medicine. I listened to Serge Benhayon speak about self love, honesty, responsibility and choices. Each of these words resonated so deeply with me, and so I made the choice to explore this for myself. I also started attending presentations on Women’s Health by Natalie Benhayon, which inspired me in so many ways to connect more deeply with myself as a woman first and foremost.
I feel it is important to say here that I didn’t start attending these presentations and making different choices in an attempt to heal the bulimia. This was something I had long given up to be even possible for me after having previously sought out pretty much every modality on offer from East to West. I started making these choices and changing how I was with myself because everything I was hearing simply made sense. Why wasn’t I tender with myself? Why didn’t I listen to and honour the feelings I had? What was it about me that chose to abuse myself or to allow abuse from another?
What was presented to me was that change had to start within ourselves, that we cannot wait for others or expect others to make the changes, but that this needs to come from every individual in their own time and at their own pace. I never once felt judged or pushed to hurry up and get it right. In fact Serge Benhayon was the first practitioner to know about my condition before I even opened my mouth to share it, and in this there was already a healing for me and an opportunity to be more open and honest with myself.
What happened from here is nothing short of amazing. Through simply choosing to be more in tune with my body, to tend to myself with a greater level of care and love, and to take more responsibility for my choices I have turned my whole life around. At first (and considering the pattern I was in) I found this difficult, it was new for me to love myself, and something I had always felt I couldn’t express to others. I had long associated self love with selfishness , vanity, or being ‘up yourself’ as my school friends used to say. And yet gradually this started to change, it became more easy , in fact I discovered that it is actually very natural to love and care for me. From the way I choose to brush my hair, wash myself, in how to dress, the foods I choose and how I prepare them, the way I walk, how I hold my body, it is there in everything – the opportunity to conduct myself gently and lovingly and to appreciate who I truly am.
Without even trying, one day I woke up and the bulimia was no longer a part of my life. It had stopped. I had stopped. And if anyone was there throughout that period they would not believe seeing where I am today. I have come to see myself for the precious woman that I am and my life is becoming truly amazing from this.
What have I learnt from all this? I have learnt how important it is to self love, to honour my feelings, to listen to my body, to hold myself in the deepest regard, and from here consider all others in that same light. I have learnt how important it is to accept things as they are, but that this acceptance doesn’t mean giving up on oneself, or on people. I have learnt to trust in myself and from here I am beginning to trust once again in others. And with the support of my incredible husband, I have learnt to make light of situations, to have fun and not take things so seriously as I had always done.
Yes, I have healed Bulimia, and it has been through my own choices, but I could not have done this without the enormous love and support of Universal Medicine and the presentations delivered by Serge and Natalie Benhayon that have been nothing short of amazing and continue to inspire me each time I attend. I have turned around an existence that saw me struggling from day to day to living a life that is truly joy-full – in my home, my work, and my body. And the beauty is that I can feel there is so much more. I am discovering that there is simply no end to where self love can take us. It’s only the beginning and what a truly powerful beginning for me it has been. Endless thanks to Universal Medicine for how it has supported me to truly change my life, and for the countless others I have witnessed do the same.
Read more:
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
Linda, to come to an understanding that the choices I thought I was making and I made some pretty bad ones, were not actually me. To come to this understanding changes everything because there can be no regret of what I did, no self bashing, self recrimination etc., because it wasn’t me making those choices. I aligned to an energy that fed me the negative choice. Which I now understand isn’t coming from Heaven because Heaven would not do this to anyone.
I think these are really great questions to stop and ask of ourselves
‘Why wasn’t I tender with myself? Why didn’t I listen to and honour the feelings I had? What was it about me that chose to abuse myself or to allow abuse from another?”
We don’t stop to ask these types of questions though, we plough on regardless. Well I know I did, I knew I was in an abusive relationship, but I just kept going because what other choice was there? Now humanity has been given a choice: we can stop and give ourselves the opportunity to ask simple self care questions and we have been given the answers. Now it is up to us to look at our lives to see if we want to bring more self care and self respect to the way we are with ourselves, or continue to allow ourselves to be the proverbial door mat so that other people can walk all over us. I can say it’s not my fault, I’m the victim, etc., but actually it has been exposed for all of us to feel and understand that behind all of us pulling the strings is a master manipulator, our spirits.
I saw the title and was instantly drawn to read this blog but have stopped after the first paragraph. Not because I don’t doubt that it offers a wealth of wisdom but because certain topics have always ‘excited’ and stimulated me. To be more specific they have taken me away from my grounded connection with myself and ‘drawn me in’. Eating disorders and drug addiction are two examples, I have read a lot about both and whenever I do I feel myself relishing the detail, especially the obscure and disturbing aspects of these conditions. So I made a choice not to go there this time as I recognised a long held pattern of me leaving my body by getting caught up in what for me is the stimulation of a story.
Again this is another testament to Universal Medicine and if we look at the world and see that as a race of human-beings, we are riddled with illness and disease, you would think that more and more people would be curious to understand for themselves how Universal Medicine can support Western Medicine. I have never heard that UM is a replacement but rather a partnership. And as we get sicker as a society, surely we need all the help and support we can get.
Anna wow thats incredible, good for you for turning it around.
The support offered by Serge Benhayon, Natalie and Universal Medicine is way beyond amazing.
Anna, this totally resonated, ‘change had to start within ourselves, that we cannot wait for others or expects others to make the changes, but that this needs to come from every individual in their own time and at their own pace’. It is from our own, a ha moments, do we realise that something within us needs to change. And somewhere out there is probably someone going through the same thing, you once experienced.
It’s the tapping into loving oneself first, can true healing begins. Loving oneself isn’t selfish, it is nurturing and supportive for a life time of living a true life.
True health can only come from our alignment. We are either aligned to an energetic source that undermines our health or we’re aligned to an energetic source that supports our health and what’s interesting and crucial to know is that many of the things that we think are healthy actually come from the energetic source that undermines our health. Buyer beware don’t get caught up in the external, go to the energetic root of all things because it is the energetic root of all things that will determine whether or not it’s truly supportive or not.
An inspiration to others suffering the misery of eating disorders that with self-love, true care and support it is possible to reconnect to the beauty of who you are.
Bulimia is often not noticed by others because those who suffer from it become very adept at hiding it from others, it is often not until they become ill and their physical body starts to break down that anyone else sees that there is a problem. No plaster or medicine will fix the problem, the wanting to change has to come from the individual themselves and Practitioners of Universal Medicine are great listeners.
This is nothing short of amazing because when you think of all the money that is spent on treatments for eating disorders and the long arduous journey of recovery, this proves that self-love is so powerful and underestimated.
I love that when we connect to our bodies and begin to have a deeper loving care of ourselves, being tender and honouring our feelings, connecting to our soul, then all sorts of behaviours that we have had previously begin to drop away and we can find that even serious disorders like Bulimia can be healed.
I agree Elaine, and there is no end to the deepening.
Elaine, that connection to our bodies is so essential, and it is in this connection, do we begin to develop a true relationship with ourselves. It is an intimate relationship with ourselves that we can reflect to others too, and it is possible for them to develop this relationship with themselves, if they so choose to do so.
I have at last discovered my connection to me and as you say it is through this connection that I am building a loving relationship with myself. I have always poo-pooed the concept of falling in love with oneself as being very narcistic. I fell for a lie, as it is the most glorious feeling in the world.
I agree Doug. If control of a vehicle has been lost then it is very wise to look at who exactly is behind the wheel.
This is a remarkable turnaround Anna by all accounts. This piece asks us to closely examine what it is we ingest both physically and energetically and why we seek to poison a vehicle of expression (our body) that can be otherwise used to express the divinity (love) that we are.
“What was presented to me was that change had to start within ourselves, that we cannot wait for others or expect others to make the changes, but that this needs to come from every individual in their own time and at their own pace.” And as you continue to say not feeling judged to ‘get on with it’ allows the unfolding to occur more naturally. When we are honest with ourselves and treat ourselves with understanding there is more space for healing to occur.
Thank you, Anna, for sharing your story. What I get from this is how what appears to be a problem is a physical manifestation of what’s been going on for us inside, and true healing is not in the removal of symptomatic behaviour/condition, but in bringing truth to the quality in which we are.
Linda what you have shared is an amazing wisdom about the power of love that many students of Universal Medicine are experiencing in their own lives, me included.
Anna what you have shared could revolutionise how psychology approaches the treatment of eating disorders. The eating disorder itself is already ten steps away from the true essence of the person, but the first few steps would have been not feeling self worth or being able to respond to ourselves with love and care, disregard and neglect and not honouring what we feel for example. The eating disorder is already a progression of these steps away from ourselves so it makes sense to me that the addressing of self care and self love within your life resulted in such a profound healing. An eating disorder just cannot exist in a foundation of self love. With respect to anyone who has or has had an eating disorder what I’ve shared may be simplistic and not encompass the many experiences and reasons why an eating disorder develops, but essentially self harm cannot exist where self love lives.
I just find these stories astounding, I know self love is powerful and it feels amazing to live, but that it has the ability to turn around conditions like bulimia that people can suffer with for decades is astounding – such a simple and super loving (pun intended) way to change your life around I super look forward to this information being more mainstream.
Self-love is re-instating the love that we all are which is the process of true healing because all of our ailments, conditions and illnesses stem from the fact that we’re not living the love that we are. It sounds simple and in many ways it is, the hard part is that we’re all caught up in momentums that keep us bound in ways of being that keep us self-harming and not self-loving. In my experience I have found the migration from self-harm to self-love to be a gradual one but I now feel that I am predominantly in the camp of self-love.