507 thoughts on “Breast Cancer – why me?”

1. Rosanna there is much to ponder here following reading this blog. Why are rates of cancer, complicated diseases and illness sprouting up, and some are multi symptomatic, requiring several specialists’ input. Some where along the way humanity needs to ask these questions or, the alternative is to continue to play ignorant and, the body continues to break down for not listening or taking heed of the signals.

   It was a great reminder to read about the body being a ‘delicate system’, and our choices lead to the breakdown or not. Some where along the way, if we don’t do something about this and take responsibility for our own health, it will be taken care of by something else.

2. When we get sick we have a choice to ask the ‘Why me’ question from feeling a victim of circumstances or from an open curiosity about what is being reflected in how we have been living our life. When we do it from the latter position then we have the opportunity to make changes that can have an ongoing benefit and support us on our journey through treatment. Thus we can play an active role rather than looking to the medical profession to fix us whilst not being willing to recognise the impact of or adjust how we have been living.

   1. Helen, this is the case for the majority of humans, playing the ‘victim / why me’ mentality. And by the way I used to part of this mentality too, so I’m not scot free either.

      I’ve changed my life around and even though it is without perfection, I ponder on the reflections offered in the illness or disease state my body has gone into. I don’t always get it right, but I have to say, I perform ‘post mortems’ on my self and dissect what is going on for my body. It’s a bit like, ‘Sherlock Holmes’ getting to the root cause of the crime caused to my body.

      Sometimes we don’t see the joy in illnesses or diseases the body has to offer. It is often presenting more than it is, are we open to the messages or do we remain closed down and ignorant…

3. When we try to stop whatever is inconveniencing us without asking why that is happening in the first place, we are missing an opportunity to learn so that we won’t have to recreate the same experience again.

4. “it wasn’t until I came across Universal Medicine and the presentations by Serge Benhayon that things started to really fall into place and that I could get a far wider understanding.” The presentations by Serge Benhayon offer a deeper understanding of the cause and effect of any illness and disease.

5. Humanity used to live in such disconnected way from the body, that illness is in most cases the only way to start listening to it and going beyond the function mode. Thus, even though having an illness is not a desirable thing to happen in our life, it can be the beginning of an ongoing deepening that can bring many realisations into our life.

6. I find illness provides us with a great moment for reflection – where we can deeply examine every part of our life and which bits work and which bits are not working and what led us to this point, then after that our next steps are towards a truly healthy way of living.

7. This is such a great article, it is so supportive to encourage a connection to and respect for the body. I’m starting to see more clearly the correlations between what goes on in my day and how I either respond or react (like take it on, feel emotional, etc), and how this affects my health, energy levels, sleep, sense of feeling clear, and so on. The body is such a finely tuned instrument, it shows disturbances immediately, whether these are from the way I move, exercise, sleep or eat, or more subtle things like thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. It also shows really clearly what is supportive for the body. Our relationship with our body is truly powerful in establishing and maintaining good health and overall wellbeing.

8. Whenever we have an illness or disease it is time to stop, and a great opportunity to take stock and ask ourselves if we have been supporting ourselves through our choices or if we have been exhausting ourselves by the choices we have been making, if we are honest with ourselves we know the answers and also what choices we need to change to help support ourselves better.

9. When we are diagnosed with a condition it is something to deeply appreciate; a stop moment to reflect on life and the choices we are making on a daily basis.

10. The statistics here are truly frightening and to consider that we’re now in a position where we’re managing this (just about), and without the wonders of modern medicine we would be in dire straits. But we need to look beyond this and as suggested there get underneath our choices and how they impact on us and affect us, and see that we have a very active part to play in our own healing and in taking that active part to our medical practitioners we can really support ourselves and our bodies in addressing our illnesses.

    1. Monica your words “without the wonders of modern medicine we would be in dire straits” are a real wake up call, without modern medicine we would be dying as a species. We don’t realise just how much our own daily choices are contributing to our health issues.

11. Rosanna, thank you for sharing this, the statistics are quite frankly horrifying, however our disregarding way of living has become our normal, there are few role models to be inspired by that show how living with deep self care and self nurturing can be our normal. Thank you for this line:

    “Yet I’ve come to feel how it is not just food or drink that causes a reaction in my body and takes it away from a balanced state, it could just as easily be pushing myself too hard in exercise, or a cross word, or the thoughts of ‘too much to do’ or even seeing or hearing something which we can sometimes take on – and then still feel it with us well after the event.”

    That was key for me to read today and to ponder on the awareness of what a balanced state feels like, because we can run the body under stress for so long we may even lose touch with it’s true, rested, settled and balanced state.

12. As we deepen the relationship with the body we have a choice to notice its communication, or not. Where I had once brushed off a runny nose for no apparent reason or a tension in my muscles – again for no apparent reason, I am now considering what I have done just before these two communications. What I have done and what is happening around me. There is the seen and the unseen but felt and both clearly have an impact on the physical body.

    1. Yes our bodies are constantly communicating and it is our choice to ignore or be responsive.

13. How often is the question “why me?” which lends itself to the way of thinking that illness happens as a punishment. Yet logically it makes sense that illness is the body’s way of communicating with us, of clearing something out, of letting us know it is struggling or breaking down in some way. Like any well oiled machine, it is worth considering user error before we blame the machine itself and consider how empowered we then are to be the change we want to see in our health outcomes.

14. Certain illnesses can be unexplained for us just because we are not aware of the vast array of things that can cause illness and disease. Currently accepted are genetics, food, contagious diseases and maybe infections but also our choices, our way of living and how we see ourselves, our ideals and believes we live by can be causing illnesses and diseases. When that is understood the ‘why me?’ will be more clear.

15. “There is always a cause and an effect relationship to any one activity, whether that’s a thought, something that is said or indeed the things we do” – so true, nothing is accidental and everything leaves a trail.

16. There is so much to learn from being in the world, from being a part of it, because how you respond or react and what this creates in the body thereafter is clear, or eventually clear, to see and feel. And so our bodies really are the markers of all truth, they show us exactly what is going on even if we do not want to see this for ourselves or in the beginning, eventually the messages become so vibrantly clear that it is impossible not to listen.

17. We are not taught to listen to or honour our body for the sometimes subtle (or not so subtle) ways it can inform us of what’s going on with us. We brush off symptoms with ease and put up with things and then are surprised when a more serious illness comes along. Learning to love and care for my body is one of the greatest contributions to my health I have ever done, and this began in my late fifties. It’s never too late to start caring for and loving ourselves.

18. A cancer diagnosis is often a shock which leaves people floundering for reasons why, we want to know why it has happened to us, and we want to blame something rather than taking responsibility, yet when we actually stop and find there is nothing outside of ourselves to blame, we have to start looking at ourselves and what choices we have made.

19. I love reading this article. When we are willing to be honest it becomes very obvious just how much we disregard the messages our body very clearly announces. We can use a whole range of excuses, but as much as we do so, deep down we know that we are disregarding what we innately know. The reality is, the more we disregard these truths, the more we move our bodies towards illness and disease.

20. ‘Why me’ is a common response I am sure for many people when faced with a cancer diagnosis, especially if they can’t blame it on genetics, the microwave etc, blogs like these are deeply inspiring as they show there is a way to truly heal the underlying causes that allowed this dis-ease or dis-harmony in the body in the first place.

21. “…all these ailments can provide us with a way of understanding ourselves and bring an understanding of the relationship we have between the choices we make on a day to day basis and their effect.” – This turns our typical victim mentality of disease on its head and asks us all to consider how actually illness and disease is a blessing provided for our body to guide us towards a more loving and supportive way of living and evolving.

22. If we are open to truly exploring why we develop any medical issue then we can deepen our communication with the body with often surprisingly healing results, not necessarily eradicating a disease but healing the underlying causes and living in a more self-loving way. This is so contrary to the way most people are currently dealing with e.g. a diagnosis of cancer with all the fear and trepidation that surrounds it. With over 80% of life-threatening diseases in Western countries being attributable to lifestyle choices and thus preventable (WHO) it is important that people have the opportunity to read blogs like this so that ‘Why me?’ is not asked from a position of victimhood but from wanting to understand how someone has got to that particular point in their life and the potential changes they can make to support their healing.

23. We can never play the game of victim no matter how hard or irresponsible we try. It is simple… we abuse our body we get ill in one way or another.

24. The long term ignorance to our body’s message has a big impact on our health. But as I’ve learnt that when making those self-caring steps the body can heal and spring back very quickly even if it does show marks of the rocky road it was made to go down previously.

25. It’s like we have seen the statistics, but we would never think that we would end up being the numbers ourselves. I agree – “Why me?” when paused with no blame but as a sincere enquiry is such a powerful way forward.

26. Being obese more than doubles our chance to get cancer, which is a lot when we consider how many of us are getting cancer and even just being overweight increases that chance by 30% and the population is putting on more and more weight.

27. Thank you Rosanna, there is much to take in from your blog, with cancer continually increasing, we have to start asking why we got cancer, in fact why do we get any disease, all of which offer us a stop moment to truly seek within ourselves for the answer, as we often know why, it is taking the time to stop and ponder that brings us to the understanding that maybe some of our choices have not been true for us.

28. That’s true – “Why me?” can lead to a thorough and truthful investigation into what is truly happening in our lives and what are we actually choosing and contributing that leads to a particular illness, and from there we can initiate a real and long lasting change. The trick is not to get caught in feeling a victim, or in any self-criticism, but to openly look at our lives and what changes need to be made.

    1. Yes, especially if we consider there may be a reason for ‘why me’ – not just pure chance.

29. We might prefer to pretend that there is no cause to whatever it is we are witnessing or experiencing but that is not how it truly is, no matter how hard we try to wriggle out of our responsibility.

30. The more emotive we get about illness and disease the less clarity we have to understand why it occurred.

31. The statistics you note here Rosanna really made me stop … with cancer itself where worldwide the vast majority of countries have increased rates, such that it affects 25% of us and most shockingly that 9 out of 10 do not have a genetic history of it but also with the fact that women are 3 times more likely to die of heart disease – this blows so much out of the water and asks us to indeed consider why me, but even if we don’t have health conditions now we can ask wider why us and consider how we’re all living so that we are impacted by so much illness and disease. And that starts simply with our own bodies, listening and observing and learning to honour what they show us, our bodies are indeed our greatest guides.

32. The messages from our body aren’t always obvious, but they are there, and once there is a choice to listen to the body, those messages become very obvious.

33. I’m pretty sure cancer doesn’t occur because people are good or bad, and so we need to delve a little deeper to understand it. As we know it is on the increase perhaps it is worth reflecting on the patterns of change we see in people’s lives. It has been suggested by Serge Benhayon that breast cancer is a lack of nurturing in women which if you consider how the roles of women have changed markedly as women compete with men in work and sometimes play, it makes a lot of sense that this correlation could occur.

34. ‘Staggering statistics’ should be the name of this blog, it is hard to believe that this is not the daily hot topic in the newspapers and the main conversation at all dinner parties. Is there a part of us that is asking the question “Why me?” but doesn’t really want to know the answer? When these very scary times are presented in our lives we tend to just want someone to help us, but what this blog offers are the concepts that although we must always seek the proper Medical treatment and advice, we will get so much more out of our recovery and healing if we choose to help ourselves and adjust all areas of our life that do not fit any more.

35. It is so true that if we stay in the arrogance of our comfort in denial of what the body is showing us, we have to live with the consequences of our choices as our body play out its aversion to them. Considering the impact of our choices, we hold a huge responsibility as to the state of own health and well being… based on how we choose to move through life in awareness or not, it is then up to us as to whether we become a statistic, or reflect to others that we have the ability to indeed buck the trends.

36. Yes, the ‘why me?’ question should probably more accurately be the ‘why not me?’ question as most of us live in long-term disregard of one kind or the other.

37. “It was the long-term way I ignored my body’s little signals that lead to such a huge breakdown; but large or small, I’ve found that by noting them and making the changes the body is asking for, we can be shown another way to live.” When we take this responsibility for the consequences of our choices then the ‘Why me’ is no longer looking for someone or something else to blame.

38. Cancer is definitely on the increase, and the more we openly talk about it the easier it is to have a conversation without being frightened of the word cancer, and the more we talk about it the greater our understanding of what cancer is, what it might mean for us, and how we might change the choices we make.

39. “I don’t always choose what my body is advising, but I then have to live with the consequences while my body’s reaction to that choice plays out. ” It’s a very good thing that our bodies ultimately keep us honest and in check. However seemingly wayward we are or have been, the body has a way of correcting, discarding and therefore healing. Amazing and wonderful… and reflective of the fact there is so much more to us than we generally care to think.

40. “Why me?”, a short and simple but interesting question. It would be important how we ask it as well, what our motivation is. Motivation can be a harsh word but just meaning if the “why me” comes from not understanding what is going on for yourself and looking for a solution or fix then you could say this is a motivation to get better in some way. While if we look at the world today most I see have profound experiences when they become seriously unwell. It maybe too far to say these experiences are a blessing but many voice this afterwards. Why wait or why do we wait for the “why me” and why aren’t we active in knowing why. I mean why me now, why when everything is before me do I make choices or override feelings that I know from experience support me? There is something greater, not greater in power but greater in momentum at play here. If we choose to smoke, which we can and we smoke a packet a day for 6 months it almost becomes just a part of life. Yet we know that is a serious risk to your health but because it so ingrained you could be a why me at the report phase if it ever comes to you. At that point of why me in this example you would have to look at your choice to smoke and really from the statistics you could really just stay with that part. But why do some have lung cancer and others not, why do some get it early and others have it that don’t even smoke? So, like the article is saying there is another significant factor at play and the ‘how we are’ or the ‘quality we are’ comes into play.

41. I read this recently ‘ The tiny Samoan islands have among the highest rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in the world’ (1) And why? ‘Unhealthy, imported foods flooded supermarkets and Samoans developed a taste for cheap fast food. And as these countries’ economies modernized, more and more Samoans started working desk jobs. Cars and buses replaced walking’. In other words Samoans who ‘used to — and still do — grow their own food. Their traditional diet consisted of mostly taro, breadfruit, coconut, bananas and seafood — very healthy stuff’ abandoned their way and chose an imported, imposed and ‘easier?’ way to their cost. This is an example of irresponsibility on a global scale, and how toxic western life-styles infects and destroys previously simple and healthy communities.

    (1) Daily Mail http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/04/07/473371279/is-samoa-s-obesity-epidemic-a-harbinger-for-other-developing-nations

42. It is irresponsible to report what is happening in the world (ill-health statistics) and latest medical cures without asking the fundamental question ‘why is the world full of predominantly sick, not a healthy people?’ How did this come about? We have a beautiful god given glorious planet and inhabitants who over consume, are dependent on stimulants of all kinds, eat foods detrimental to true health and live exhausting lives. We get sick because we choose the path of ill-health, not well-being. There is a clear choice and the responsibility is global, not just down to individuals. Give people information that supports and inspires them to take more care of themselves, not less.

43. Knowing that we can do something about our own state of health is so empowering. Making new lifestyle choices and changes will result in different outcomes. If we make no changes then we get the ‘same old’, hence perhaps the reoccurrence of many secondaries of cancer?

44. Taking responsibility for our own health makes so much sense. Listening to my body and honouring what it tells me, something I never did before attending Universal Medicine presentations. Yet nowadays this seems so obvious. So obvious, yet we are not taught this as a matter of course when growing up. Then understanding that our body is always trying to heal, and a major diagnosis will show a major level of disregard. Time to stop, listen and feel what our remarkable body is saying to us.

45. How bewildering and disempowering to think of illness and disease is the result of punishment for being bad or luck.
    What a huge contrast it is to understand as stated here that we feel everything and every choice action and even thought has an impact, and what we are faced with in our illness and disease is a reflection of how we have been living. And our body is flagging it for us to see, plus it is also helping us clear the impact like a runny nose helps us clear the excess phlegm.
    It is just a start of a loving conversation to help us be more aware and responsible in our lives.

46. A close relative of mine has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was interesting to hear such news as the person was not at all emotional and delivered it with saying that it was a chance to look at how she had been living and make a few changes in life. It was quite remarkable.

47. I am amazed by the fact that genetics play only a small role in the extent of breast cancer in Australia. I know of so many women who are very worried about the prevalence of breast cancer in their family of origin, yet they don’t realise that how they live as women seems to be emerging as the biggest factor in breast cancer. We really need research on this, to show people the link, although it make common sense, some people need to see the study results in order to believe this could be the case.

48. Why me? is often coming from a place of victimhood but to, instead, allow a self responsibility space and track back how we have been living and how factors could have contributed to our present situation puts the power back into our own hands and the chances of recovery, or at least of healing, grow incrementally; at least this is my experience, and observation, to date.

49. A great piece of research Rosanna. I can understand why we ask the question “why me” but it brings us to look honestly at the way we have been living and making changes now. With an open mind and a willingness to do our part in self nurturing of our body it is given the best chance of making a new start!

50. I guess it’s not a pleasant question to ask, why me? Why cancer? But with an approach that is not self bashing and is open, then we may find there are many more things to life and illness than we previously considered.

    1. Great point Harry, the question can be asked either in the lament or in the call for truth.

51. The fact that the majority of women who develop breast cancer do not have a family history of the condition blows the whole commonly held myth about it being genetic. So if it is not genetic there must be something else going on and it could well be lifestyle choices. Are we ready to consider this at least as a possibility and really start to investigate this idea further?

52. It seems prostate cancer kills more men than breast cancer kills women but the men tend to be much older than the women, hence the different levels of attention.

53. Love how you pose the ‘Why Me’ question as an opportunity to explore how we have been living up to that point that has led to our body breaking down into dis-ease. We are offered often multiple Stop moments and it is our choice if we continue to see ourselves as victims or are inspired to start making different choices to support our bodies lovingly. With the ever increasing statistics of disease worldwide it is clear that we need to have a different approach and by starting to take responsibility for how we are living day to day we will feel more empowered than waiting for the next bout of ill-health to strike us and our increasingly over burdened health systems.

54. A key point here is that illness of any sort, and in particular something as serious as cancer, provides the opportunity to STOP. They have a pretty impressive way of doing that to people’s lives. But the next question is where do we go from there? Are we looking for someone to repair us so we can carry on the same path, with the same behaviours that led us to the stop in the first place and will inevitably lead us back there again. Or is it an opportunity to review how we are living and make some different choices? Choices that will lead us to a different conclusion….

55. It does surprise me that ‘9 out of 10 women who get breast cancer do NOT have a family history of the disease.’ It goes to show that there is more at play than our genetics. We cannot blame our genes for this statistic.

    1. That is true, there might be several different diseases, some genetic, some environmental or perhaps there are multiple pathways for the one disease.

56. ‘And 9 out of 10 women who get breast cancer do NOT have a family history of the disease.’ Does this then mean we should all go and get our breasts removed so they, ( our breasts) can’t get it? I don’t think so. Time to wake up to the responsibility we have to look after ourselves as women, to not only look after our breasts but every part of us and to really consider what this means, to basically get more honest and be willing to make changes and release the hold of the convenient belief that ‘if I am going to get it I will get it anyway’ which keeps us on the path towards, rather than away from, cancer and keeps us feeling powerless when in truth we are far from it.

57. The answer to the question ‘why me?’ is that we all do know deep down that our daily lifestyle choices are directly responsible for the quality of our life, our health and our wellbeing. So the answer to ‘why me?’ is an uncomfortable one, it is – ‘because that is how I have chosen to live’.

58. Many of us eat the right foods, go to bed at a reasonable hour and get regular exercise too – yet Cancer happens to us despite these facts. We sit there thinking that it is unfair, that we did everything we were asked to do -but is this really true? As you brilliantly offer Rosanna what if there is a part of life we have ignored? What if this energetic quality we choose is a big barometer of true health? If this is the case just how is it that I live right now?

59. What are our lifestyles contributing to our health, this is so common a way of being for so many today, is it any wonder it leads to health problems… ‘recognise the downward spiral that in this instance pulled me towards illness…. Do too much…. get tired…. too tired to bother eating well… no energy to look after self…. push on through to get it all done… body totally exhausted… running on stress and nervous energy… ‘ Then, after years of living like this, we ask ‘why me?’.

60. So much money is poured into finding the cure for cancer or the cure for whatever disease but how about looking at where it came from in the first place and what we can do in our own lives to minimise the possibility of contracting whatever it is. Beginning to see our bodies as the magical miracles they are and treating them as such with the preciousness, love and tenderness they are longing for can make a huge difference. Something I am continually reminding myself when falling back on old patterns of disregard and indulgence.

61. “I now know from experience that my body can tell me loud and clear if something feels supportive, nourishing or loving for it – and, when it does not. I don’t always choose what my body is advising, but I then have to live with the consequences while my body’s reaction to that choice plays out” So true Rosanna. We ignore our body’s signals at our peril – and then wonder why we get a major illness – as if it came out of the blue.

62. There are so many situations that happen in a single day, but so often we seem confused or distracted why they occured. We wait until we face the possibility that we will join the cancer stats to stop, and start to see there is a deeper conversation going on, we pretend we never heard. It’s the language of our body speaking to us every day, it is the voice of God in life’s events that occur along the way, it is the things that happen that reflect great lessons and messages we are here to learn. So apart from anything else, opening our eyes to this reality makes life a truly rich tapestry. And if we choose to listen and learn, there is so much wisdom to be heard. Thank you Rosanna for sharing your experience with the world.

63. When we ask the question ‘Why me?’ If we are totally honest with ourselves we are aware that the choices we have made may have some influence and cause for the result. We can become our own diagnostic physician in our own research lab, our body, and our body is like litmus paper in revealing whether the way we are living is healing or harming.

64. I know that ‘why me’ question so well. A shrug of the shoulders, a quizzical glance perhaps into the past but I don’t really want to know the answer 9 times out of 10. That would require me to take responsibility for my actions, for my way of living, for everything that I allow. That is why me in any situation and far from being a negative, its a deeply profound source of learning if we are but brave enough to remove the veil and see clearly.

65. Mmm what a good blog, so much in here that resonated with me. I can feel the familiarity of ‘why me’, the tendency to ignore the small signals till we get the bigger signals. The statistics for breast cancer don’t even consider the many many women living with cysts as a ‘normal’ part of monthly cycles. For me I see that my cysts were telling me something was not right and I felt absolutely compelled to change anything in my life that I would have had the diagnosis been cancer. So as much as we have ‘why me?’ We should also have ‘why wait?’

66. “Why Me?” We have all had a “Why me?” moment, even if it’s not a major disease or cancer, we can crash our car and ask this question, have a miscarriage, have a divorce, lose our job. The question is, are we really asking a question, do we want to know what our part in any given situation actually is? Or do we want someone to tell us that it was just unlucky or not our fault or it happens to the best of us?
    Responsibility is key here and it seems like humanity’s biggest fear is not cancer/illness or an incident, but in fact anyone indicating that we may have a role to play in why something happened at all.

67. Staggering statistics and it is only when I step back and look at it that I can see Rosanna that this should not be normal. We are not by design made for illness, it comes to us through how we live, is not fate, chance or luck but a response to the behaviours we play out. And this has occurred because we have made it normal to eat foods that harm us, drink alcohol, take drugs, talk unkindly to one another,not express our true thoughts and feelings, allow stress to run us and exhaustion to overwhelm us, override our tiredness to stay up to the accepted hour, follow the crowd and accept life happening to us not shaping what works for us. I love what Universal Medicine presents as it turns all this on its head and shows we don’t have to be complicit in the crazy normal but can create a new normal that will actually leave our health, lives and bodies in balance and not so susceptible to illness and disease.

68. This is a fabulous template for living a healthy life and all it requires is for us to be willing and committed to listening to the messages our body is sending us. It has wisdom beyond our understanding.

69. I also find through all I learn from Universal Medicine that when illness or disease does arise that there is an opportunity to stop and look at what my body is asking of me because I have not listened previously so there is always the choice to deepen in my relationship with myself and how I am living and reassess my choices.

70. These statistics need to be taken seriously as they show something about our lives is not working. We can keep blaming everything outside of ourselves and do one study on this or that but in the end the one common denominator in everything is ourselves and our body. After being diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago I was faced with looking at me and my choices. After treatment and looking inwards it has been changing how I live day to day and feel about myself that has made a difference to my health and well being. When we are faced with these statistics though we do have to wait until illness strikes the changes can be made NOW.

71. I was shocked to read these statistics.
    How come I can read these inconceivable statistics on this blog and not in main stream media?

72. That question of ‘Why me?’ is always asked and does not in truth get answered by Conventional Medicine. Esoteric Medicine answers that question. For “And 9 out of 10 women who get breast cancer do NOT have a family history of the disease.” it is a blessing Esoteric Medicine provides this amazing support.
    As stated “As it is such a prevalent question, it is a question we could in fact pose in response to any disease; from flu to thyroid conditions to stroke, diabetes, HIV… all these ailments can provide us with a way of understanding ourselves and bring an understanding of the relationship we have between the choices we make on a day to day basis and their effect – instantly or cumulatively over time – on our health and wellbeing.”

73. I have only just recently allowed myself to connect to the essence of who I am as a woman. As a result I have only just clocked how disconnected and hard I have been living. This was disease and illness in the waiting and making. As women it is so important that we are supported to maintain that loving sweetness we have as little girls, to cherish it and to nurture ourselves in the delicacy that we are. This is not a weakness but in fact is empowering to do so. When we claim the delicacy and admit to our fragility we are real and can express truth in any given situation.

74. Wow Rosanna, those statistics on world health are sobering, however they do not surprise me when I consider the way I used to live (very much like your description of yourself, and yes, my thryoid was showing signs of ill health). My health is way beyond what I experienced when I was much younger as a result of the choices I have made since understanding that true health comes from our daily choices and thoughts.

75. Disease and illness is seen as a a failing – something to be ashamed of, a shock, a defeat, a negative in our lives. What Universal Medicine has shown me is that this is not always the case – that illness and disease offer our bodies a huge release and clearing that is very healing.
    And the more we start to live in a way that allows our bodies to be our guide, sometimes this allows more stuff to come up and clear. But what a great experience to allow the body to let go of things that come up. I have experienced that when I take deeper care of myself, I can end up getting a cold because it actually helps me clear my sinuses. Or I might feel tired or sore in my body as a way of asking me to rest deeply.

76. The figures at the beginning of this blog are shocking, so now facing this and the increase in so many ill conditions it is necessary for us all to consider the points raised so we do not reach the stage of saying ‘why me?’. We don’t not need to wait for a disease or illness to occur to make much needed changes in our lives. This doesn’t mean illness will be definitely prevented but if there is a diagnosis it can be approached in a much more self responsive way.

77. Great article Rosanna, the truth is that often it takes a “Why Me” moment before we are even prepared to look at how we are living and how living in this way is slowly killing us. What you have managed here Rosanna is to give us a road map out of the land of “Why me” and illness and disease and back to the natural connection with our body, that if adhered to, brings us back to a vitality that promotes the health and well being that we all long for.

78. Sounds so simple but approaching illness with this type of self reflection does not seem to be the first point of call, instead we want to side step our part. This article offers a direct approach and calls for our personal responsibility in the health epidemic that is currently a global phenomenon.

79. The ‘Breast Cancer – Why me?’ is certainly becoming an increasingly common question, and it is a great opportunity offered to look much deeper and be more aware of our choices and how our bodies are really feeling and what they are telling us… which if we are willing to be honest, is well before the onset of an illness or disease diagnosis.

80. Yes Sally, it would make a huge difference wouldn’t it! I wish the statistics Rosanna has given were more widely publicised – not to try and bully people into changing their lives but to wake them up from a complacency that seems to exist everywhere. It’s obvious health systems can’t cope with what is going on so why are most people turning a blind eye? Surely this is something the media could be focusing on more in a consistent, truthful and dedicated way, rather than its current devotion to the sensationalism and mistruths that seem to currently widely exist.

81. Rosanna,
    There is so much in your article to empower any one who is ready to look at life, how it is lived and how and why we react to things. Be that food, situations, people and even our thoughts. Our own personal health guide (our body) can and does continually offer us the answers we are all looking for.

82. It is true what you say Sandra, a stop is often the only trigger to deeper contemplation. We are blessed to know that lovingly caring for ourselves can help prevent illness and disease. We also learn from inspiring blogs like Rosanna’s that when serious illness and disease occur, it can be a gateway to true health, but only if, going forward, we make different choices about how to be in life. Illness and disease is often a blessiing in disguise, if we see the gift before us.

83. Putting back our responsibility factor is absolutely vital, but when we do not understand what illness and disease truly are, it is hard not to see them as punishment or a failure, and we are still seeing body as something separate from us that has gone out of order.

84. Laying a foundation of self-awareness and self worth are the essential steps that Universal Medicine present to everyone, and this brings a profound and deep realization of the way life works and unfolds.

85. Very beautiful Rosanna. You have turned the often victim energy in the words ‘why me’, into a very responsible question that can support us to understand why things happen in our lives as they do, and what they are revealing to us about our choices and how we are living. I thank you for this. It is certainly something I am still working with every day.

    1. Absolutely Anna, as I evolve there is always ‘something I am still working with every day.’

       1. I love your humility Greg Barnes 888

       2. Hear, hear Anna and Gregbarnes888,
          me too.😊

86. The other day I walked past a couple of people, vociferously shouting out and calling for donations for Cancer research. It made me realise that we really don’t bring the same level of dedication to the discussion about what could possibly underly cancer. It feels like that’s because what this would do is show us the true illness and disease that Tolerance is. Your description here is perfect Rosanna, and shows so clearly how many ‘small things’ actually affect us when we ‘turn the blind eye’. Given the astounding figures you mention isn’t it high time we considered that there is more going on than we are currently prepared to see?

87. Even with the statistics ever climbing we carry on as if it isn’t happening all around us until it hits home, why do we wait till it’s on our doorstep before we change? Where in us and where from is such an arrogance that ‘it won’t happen to me’ coming from? We know cancer and all diseases are not something we prefer to get and it is a life changer, so then why the ignorance of our steps towards it (our choices)?

    1. Great questions Leigh.

    2. I definitely agree with you Leigh- why do we choose to stay in ignorance or denial that cancer could affect any one of us, and take steps to prevent it? Is it possible that this means taking responsibility and being very honest about our daily choices and whether they are truly supportive?

88. Why me is a great question to ask ourselves once the shock of the diagnosis has calmed down. In my experience, normally when we get to this stage, (sick) we need a lot of support to start to unravel this question in order to dig deep, because to face ourselves and our past choices can be very challenging. What was truly supportive for me was the combination of western medicine and esoteric medicine, which provided a complete package of support for not only my body, but also for clearing all the intense emotions that came up, and how to support and care for myself was an essential part of my healing and recovery.

    1. Beautifully said Jacqmcfadden04, true support is so needed when we find ourselves sick. Not condescending, you will be alright support, but that which holds us as we begin to explore our life and see and feel with honesty how the way we have lived has got us to where we find ourselves. You are a beautiful example of a person who has had such loving support, that you have chosen to now be that support for others. This is what changes the world.

       1. Thank you Leigh Strack, and one by one we can change this world.

89. “I now know from experience that my body can tell me loud and clear if something feels supportive, nourishing or loving for it – and, when it does not”.
    I do not always choose what my body is telling me, often loud and clear; however I am more aware and feel more deeply the consequences if I go against the bodies messages.
    Thank you Rosanna for sharing your experiences and wisdom.

90. Dear Rosanna,
    This is a very powerful sharing. Simply stating the facts of our general health world wide. And introducing that we don’t have to become another statistic, that our choices can and do make a difference in our health and wellbeing. For my self personally I am just now exploring that when I hold myself with absolute adoration and love it is so very easy to live in full support of what my body needs. Yet the moment something happens and I let go of my love of me that it is at these moments where I make choices that hurt myself and subsequently others. I am in humble amazement at the power of love.

91. ‘Our body is continually noting everything, and when we don’t pay attention it easily gets loaded, setting off on its way from harmony to dis-ease to illness’. When you consider life like this and that all our choices accumulate and are illustrated back to us at a later date – ignorance is definitely not bliss when it comes to our bodies!

92. Overriding the body seems the mantra for so many women. Ignoring what we are feeling and ploughing through in order to get things done. Sharing the importance of nurturing the body is a huge stop moment. We can no longer mask the obvious link between lack of self care and disease.

93. Thank you Rosanna, I was rather surprised by the statistics that you shared here. There is definitely a lot here for us to look at. Our bodies are talking, we just need to listen.

94. This is such a great article Rosanna, apart from the staggering statistics, there is a true message of how it doesn’t need to be this way. That’s the message that needs to get out to everyone.

95. On re-reading your blog Rosanna I picked up on the following ” seeing or hearing something which we can sometimes take on – and then still feel it with us well after the event”. This shows that even when we do not actively contribute to an activity the mere fact of being a witness has repercussions on our health. For example people arguing and raising their voice take me back to a time when I was surrounded by discord. My body is instantly imbalanced and very uncomfortable.

    1. Yes, it is an interesting point – I have also found that I have to work to recalibrate myself after I have heard or seen something that isn’t harmonious. What I have found to be particularly disturbing for my well being is when I am in reaction to others for whatever reason. It can take some time to realign back to love and is an excellent way to bring me to a halt, even though it doesn’t feel great at the time.

96. There are some great points raised throughout this blog and not just in regards to Breast Cancer, but in generally how we are in the relationship with ourself and the level of regard for our bodies we live by. I have learnt and am still learning that ultimately any of my choices lead to the state of my health and well being. Caring for and nurturing my body is the only way, which before I heard any of Serge Benhayon’s presentations, is the complete opposite to how I used to live. Thank you Rosanna.

97. The world is indeed a very concerning state of ill health and since our bodies are quite loud in letting us know when we are not supporting them in the way they want, then this state clearly reflects a world where people are just not listening to what they are being shown. The world would be in a very different way if we saw each illness as an amazing opportunity to really stop and look at our choices and the way we are living and then choose another way.

98. I absolutely love reading your blog Rosanna. The statistics on Breast cancer are very interesting, as well as learning about all the diseases that impact a woman’s health, and how self care has assisted you to restore harmony back into your body. “Why me?” is such an important question to start with, as it opens up the path to retrace back to certain points where we have overridden how we have felt, and then it’s an opportunity to learn something about ourselves.

    In reading literature review, the risk factors for breast cancer have been divided up into modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors. Non-modifiable risk factors such as family history and reproductive factors, and modifiable such as alcohol consumption, smoking, obesity, post menopausal weight gain. What i have wondered with modifiable risk factors, is that it could include the factor of a woman’s relationship she has with herself, which includes self worth or self loathing, as these factors would have impact on the lifestyle choices a woman makes towards herself. They are modifiable, as introducing self care and self love would be a great start to addressing the “why me?’ question.

99. We all have the ability to listen to what our body is telling us. ‘I don’t always choose what my body is advising, but I then have to live with the consequences while my body’s reaction to that choice plays out’. Ouch Rosanna, I can totally relate to what you are saying here….

    1. Yes Suse what you have shared is felt by many. The body soon shows us the effects of the choices we make whether they be long or short term. Bianca has again reminded us of the responsibility we have as humans to honour the body that we can often take for granted.

100. Serge Benhayon presents the truth that the way we live and treat ourselves is reflected back to us in our health or illness that we experience. When I first heard this it was so obvious and I knew I knew it, but realised that I had chosen to over-ride the simple truth. When we take responsibility to nurture ourselves as we would a young baby with love and tender care, we can feel the difference.

     1. absolutley Mary. I can relate to the I knew I knew it too.

101. ‘As it is such a prevalent question, it is a question we could in fact pose in response to any disease; from flu to thyroid conditions to stroke, diabetes, HIV… all these ailments can provide us with a way of understanding ourselves and bring an understanding of the relationship we have between the choices we make on a day to day basis and their effect – instantly or cumulatively over time – on our health and wellbeing.’ It is important to ask the question and look for what has lead to the illness or disease we are facing without any judgement on ourselves. To observe the choices we have made and to make other choices to honour our body and to be proacitve to clear out and heal what is needed.

102. Thank you Rosanna, outstanding research that clearly shows breast cancer is most assuredly out of control. The same can be said for prostate cancer in men. When we stop making the choice to evolve back to the love we come from by listening to our body, then we set about bringing illness and disease to show that there is a different way!

103. “Along with the huge advances in medicine, we are able to support ourselves back towards health and wellbeing and show there is a way to start bucking the trends of those staggering statistics.” Yes, self responsibility is key in us all moving forward to a healthier way of living. Working in a hospital I see many people who want the health care system to ‘fix’ them, make them ‘better’ so they can go home and continue the life they were living – no matter what the quality of that life may be – without truly taking a look at ‘why me?” where so much can be learnt about ourselves, and so much more joy and vitality can return to our lives.

104. Not that I would wish it on anybody but Illness and disease can have a beautiful way of teaching us how to care for ourselves more deeply.

105. Our body is so patient with us as we ignore its messages time after time, but it also gets to a point when it says – no more! STOP! It is at that moment we have a choice, one that will keep us in the ill patterns that have created the stop, eg the injury, the illness or the disease, or one that will support us to finally listen to and act on the messages that we have been ignoring, and in so doing allow the healing that is waiting to unfold. Our body is incredibly wise, so are we being wise when we are ignoring it? Our body will eventually answer that question, very loudly and very clearly!

106. I appreciate your very sensible approach to the question most if not everyone will have: “Why…?” For some people it may not be more than an expression of incomprehension and consternation, for others it is the wish to really understand, to be able to relate to their situation so that they can make the necessary changes – in both cases it is a stop and opportunity for reflection that obviously is very needed. The body never lies and asks us to live up to the honesty it presents to us. It is only a matter of time / delay before we will answer the call.

107. ‘Staggering statistics’ is a very apt description so why do we, world wide, continue to pour billions of dollars into research and pharmacology? It seems apparent to me that we could get very different answers if the questions used as the basis of research followed the logic you have presented Rosanna. But most importantly, imagine the opportunities to support people to invest in their own health and well being!

108. Our body is continually letting us know the current state of play in all our systems, we are so used to overriding these messages, and yet relentlessly, tirelessly, and lovingly we will still get the message after message, all we have to do is to actually stop and listen.

109. I agree looking at lifestyle choices and the way we live definetly needs to studied more in relation to why the statistics continue to grow /escalate of both female and male cancers.

110. Awesome article Rosanna. I’m AMAZED at the statistics. Frightening. Absolutely frightening. Starting these conversations is only the beginning. I just can’t believe how long it’s taking us all to stop, and take stock of what’s really going on in our own bodies, and all around us. This is what the government should be focussing on, creating more awareness around choice and what power of choice means. Wishful thinking for now I know, but in the meantime, it’s up to all of us that choose to take responsibility of our own lives, to carry on with it, and be examples of another way.

111. Shifting the ‘why me?’ question to the ‘why did I get this disease?’ is a great point because it forces oneself to look at how do we live, what choices may have contributed to it, to study how we relate with our body and with the rest of people. Great wisdom comes from this.

112. Although I can imagine it can be very distressing to be diagnosed with any illness especially cancer, asking the question ‘Why me?’ and being open to why can actually lead to vast changes in our lives, as Rosanna describes, in her example.

     I was amazed to read the statistic that: ‘9 out of 10 women who get breast cancer do NOT have a family history of the disease.’ and that there has been a 89% increase over the last 40 years of incidences of women with breast cancer in the UK. This completely debases the belief that breast cancer is genetic and makes me ask the question – ‘What are we missing here if there is such a high increase in incidences of one type of cancer over the last 40 years?’ We’re meant to be advancing, but these stats say something is not right. Thank you Rosanna for bringing this topic to light.

113. I can feel how I don’t always want to take responsibility for my choices and subsequent consequences in my body.- choosing at times to act ignorant. However, as you and Serge Benhayon share, “we feel everything” and all that is required is that I listen to my body and am honest.

114. “Why me?” indeed. I too thought it was bad luck when breast cancer appeared in my family. Through Universal Medicine I have learnt that my health is the direct result of my choices, not that of chance. This knowledge is a true gift, as it gives me the opportunity to get in touch with my body, respond to it in a caring and loving way and thus avoid adding my body to the statistics.

115. Thanks Rosanna. Reading this reminded me that when I was a youngster people used to refer to the “C” word – they didn’t actually say Cancer. This suggests it is MUCH more common now as it has become “normal” and spoken about all the time. That should make us question what is really going on with illness and disease – as you have shown this is through the roof and this is happening at a time when we have the most fantastic medical profession and all sorts of advances in treatment. So instead of constantly raising money to fight these diseases and what our bodies are telling us, why don’t we give some attention to what is really going on and what is it about the way we are living that our wise bodies have to shout louder and louder before we listen?

116. Rosanna for me the key thing to really feel was that I was eating and exercising from an ingrained set of beliefs rather than from what my body was telling me it needed. I would eat mountains of salad even though it caused a lot of bloating and I would drink a lot of juice even though again it caused bloating. The reason that I kept doing these things was because my belief that they were good for me was so ingrained, that it over rode what my body was loudly yelling! Similarly I was so convinced that strong, punishing exercise was good for me that I continued to do it even though it hurt my legs to walk up the stairs to my home. I now take my lead from my body and consult it prior to eating, exercising or indeed doing anything and through doing that have reached a wonderful level of real wellness.

117. I have also heard Serge Benhayon share that “we feel everything” and as you say “Our body is continually noting everything, and when we don’t pay attention it easily gets loaded, setting off on its way from harmony to dis-ease to illness.” It has been a miraculous change in my life to observe that I have found more contentment, courage and awareness through honouring what I feel rather than doing what I had for years, which was to deny these ‘feelings’. I also feel much more well in myself, I feel more healthy now than I have ever done in my adult life.

118. Rosanna this is a great topic to discuss and it can help not only with diseases in our body but our everyday feeling of well being and joyfulness – learning to connect to our body and being able to observe what our body is telling us is so important to be in this world.

119. To have the opportunity to feel self-responsibility in everything in our lives is what Universal Medicine presents; to be accountable for our actions and our expression can seem like too big a picture to grasp, but if we start by simply building a connection with ourselves, breath by breath, then the causal nature of everything we do slowly becomes apparent, and a foundation of truth and recognition is able to be built.

120. “but I then have to live with the consequences while my body’s reaction to that choice plays out.”…so true. And so tiring! I get so tired when I overeat and my body has to process the after-math and excess.

121. Rosanna, asking the Why Me? question is certainly worthwhile if we are prepared to be open to the answers. I loved re reading this blog and the sentence struck me. ‘Our body is continually noting everything, and when we don’t pay attention it easily gets loaded, setting off on its way from harmony to dis-ease to illness.’ Developing our awareness and responsibility seems so basic and simple, and yet with such a huge increase in illness and disease, we are not getting the message. We have as a society to truly tackle this reality and you have clearly shown us the way here; developing our relationship with our body and making choices to support it. Why ever would we resist this?

122. When I am in the supermarket and I hear people talk with each other most of the conversations are going on about illness and disease either of themselves, friends or family. It is always in terms of bad luck or ‘I have no idea where this (the illness) is coming from’. The ‘why me, she he or them’ is a big one. We know we have a choice to be responsible for our own body, just like we take care for our car and not in a ‘it is my fault’ way. Why would we not give it a try to look after our self in a caring and nurturing way, we are worth it. And as you have pointed out Rosanna we could at least explore it because the way we live now is definitely not leading us to a healthy harmonious way of living.

123. The question ‘Why me?’ has inspired so much research in Western Medicine over many, many years – and still the results of that research has not decreased statistics. The statistics have actually increased. This has provided amazing opportunities for us to start to seek elsewhere and that ‘elsewhere’ is going within, going deeper and exploring – how am I choosing to live my life which brings about conflict in the body to the degree that physical symptoms are experienced, illness and disease are growing? It is all there for us to go deeper and to connect back to what the body is telling us. Thanks Rosanna for bringing open and thought provoking discussion.

     1. I love this, rather than looking outside of ourselves all the time or looking for an answer to the question; “why me?” surely it is about time that we start look in at ourselves and what choices we are making

124. Thank you Rosanna for an eye-opening blog, when we read statistics like the ones you have posted it makes sense to stop and ask ourselves what is going on here. We are meant to be living healthier and more aware lifestyles than previous generations and yet cancer is on the increase and there are far more complicated illnesses and diseases. I know that I was running my body into the ground, pushing it and making demands on it without really stopping to listen to all its signs such as back ache tension and anxiousness. I saw back ache as an annoyance rather than a message that something in my life was not right. Now when I get back ache (which is very infrequently now) I stop and look at how I have been living that has made it start to ache and make and then make the necessary changes.

125. The statistics re incidence of cancer for woman and heart disease being the number one killer for woman is staggering.
     This really reminds me of how important is it to take responsibility for our own health.
     I love the awareness you made and share re how to avoid disease:-
     ” the link between how I feel… and the choices I make… and how well I feel, was one that I was inspired to experiment with and still continue to explore.”

126. If we take a snapshot of women today, the overwhelming incidence of illness and disease is not really surprising. The “why me” can be answered. But it takes a very deep honesty to answer and is not an easy pill to put in your mouth, let alone swallow. When most of society is acting in the same drive and disregard for the body, it can be challenging to see there is something wrong. But deep down, everybody can feel what their body has been telling them. Working long days, not stopping for lunch, stress and emotional drama at work, home late, a few glasses of wine in the evening, maybe a hard gym session somewhere in the week, late nights, oversleeping at weekends, checking out with tv and food….how does the body feel about all this? If you don’t listen to those little signals from the body, the body will take drastic action to get your attention. So best listen up before the body has to go as far as cancer!

127. ‘So the ‘Why me?’ is a welcomed inroad into exploring what choices in life we can make to instigate our own positive changes and bring back an awareness to our day to day choices.’
     This powerful sentence is so very rich with responsibility Rosanna. To change our ways we must own up to the fact we have been choosing unloving choices and know there is another way to be living. I am at this point and thank you for the further inspiration on this reclaiming path.

128. We feel everything. Indeed. More and more I am becoming aware that this is every moment. And that we have choice in that moment. The more I opt for supportive choices, I can be amazed how easily I can still feel and quickly override this feeling. Whether out of a habit, a deep ingrained pattern or discomfort. The lovely ánd clear message of the body is: it will show me the effects right now or soon after. Sometimes it takes a while to break through a lifetime pattern. Appreciation and patience are for me supportive antidote not to go into judgment or getting discouraged. The intention for and commitment to taking responsibility for my well being are already a wonderful new way of living.

129. These statistics are shocking and sad and getting worse not better. This is a hugely important topic and you are write it seems a natural response to ask ‘why me?’. As you have shared after asking ‘why me’ we then need to look at ‘the relationship we have between the choices we make on a day to day basis and their effect – instantly or cumulatively over time – on our health and wellbeing.’ As Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine present it is how we live and the quality in which we live that needs to be addressed regarding our well being.

130. Wow – I had no idea that 9 out of 10 women who get breast cancer do not have a family history of the disease. As women and as mothers, sisters, and friends – we really need to look at what is going on here as the numbers of those diagnosed continue to increase.

     1. It seems that we are accepting the change in statistics as just another part of life… and not asking the key question as to why it is happening. If we were prepared to look at the ‘why’ we might learn much about the way we currently choose to live that does not truly serve us?

        1. Is it possible we are not asking the key question because we are still owned by a consciousness that does not want to take responsibility for the choices made? Is it possible that we are comfortable with how things are? Should we ask too deeply we would have to make the choice to change and shake ourselves out of our comforts. This is a responsibility we shirk. My question is, how bad does it really have to get before we do start asking the right questions and before we put our hands up and say “Ok, I am ready now to look at how I have been living?”

131. A great article to read with some shocking statistics. It gives me the opportunity to reflect on how I used to say ‘why me?’, but now with a fuller understanding of my body and what ailments may develop I have the opportunity to ask ‘what is going on here?’. Sometimes the smaller messages are ignored but I am learning if I pay attention to these and take responsibility for my choices my body does not have to develop a worse condition.

132. So well said Rosanna. What if our health and wellbeing is not some mystery, pre-ordained fate or family trait but lies simply in the choices that we make in every moment of our lives? This is so worth considering, based our own bodies evidence.

     1. Very true Joseph, we need to go beyond what we currently know about health and wellbeing and be open to new possibilities. Our body has its own intelligence if only we were prepared to listen to it.

        1. The ‘why me?’ question is then answered – one simply wasn’t listening and adhering to the innate wisdom on offer from our body itself.

     2. It is easier to blame the genes or anyone else, than having a deep look at our own behaviours. If you once connected to the fact, that energy is everything, and that everything is because of energy, you can´t but look at what your body is telling you. It is the best compass in life you can have.

133. I love how you have asked, ‘Why me?’ and this response is brilliant – ‘all these ailments can provide us with a way of understanding ourselves and bring an understanding of the relationship we have between the choices we make on a day to day basis and their effect – instantly or cumulatively over time – on our health and wellbeing.’ Thank you for this powerful reminder that we ultimately have the responsibility for our health and well-being by the choices that we make on a daily basis.

134. This is an excellent article Rosanna, the statistics are truly horrifying. I too have learnt that listening to the smallest of messages from my body – you’re tired, go to bed – and honouring those messages is rewarding in vitality and a connection to myself that feeds me back. Rather than the downward spiral of neglect and abuse that I was very familiar with.

135. I like the question “why me” if it is being asked in a ‘responsible’ way not in a ‘victim to my circumstances’ way. This then calls us to have a good look at how we have been living and the choices we have been making that lead us to have an illness. Thus we can learn from our circumstances and change the way we are living that is not working for us and not just think we are a victim to the illness and wallow in self pity. It is always a choice.

     1. I agree, Mary- Louise, actually illnesses are a blessing from the body, to stop us from continuing what we are doing to our bodies. If the world would open up to read these facts, everything could change in the world.

136. The figures are indeed alarming. In this climate, it is a blessing to learn that a vital part of health and healing is self-care and personal responsibility in ones life and choices. It is indeed refreshing and empowering to learn about how we impact our own health rather than think it is all due to fate, or luck, or some influence from outside – all of which without understanding our part would make us feel alone, separate and powerless.

     1. Beautifully said Golnaz. I too feel the blessing of understanding life and our true way of being. There is great power in taking responsibility for the way we live and knowing that we can choose to actually live rather then thinking we are the recipients of misfortune. There is no growth there and no movement change our ways if they are not held accountable for body’s corrections.

        1. The unfairness of life simply dissipates when we take responsibility in this way. No longer are we left at what felt like the mercy of life nor are we victims. We are responsible for ourselves and our choices and our choices are what come back to us.

137. Some really great points in this blog not least the fact that I am responsible for my own well-being or lack of it since ultimately it all comes back to my choices. Thanks Rosanna.

138. Thank you Rosanna, I can really relate to what you have written here, to the ‘Why me?” questions that get asked when someone has an illness or disease. It is very inspiring to read what you have written about how we care for ourselves and the choices we make have a direct effect on our bodies and health, ‘the relationship we have between the choices we make on a day to day basis and their effect – instantly or cumulatively over time – on our health and wellbeing.’

139. Rosanna from reading this blog and the statistics I can hear the thousands of “why me?” echoing in my town and across the globe. To Quote Yoda “If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are … a different game you should play.” Meaning that living in the way that is acceptable to society is killing us. We don’t have to play the losing game. We Just have to let go of what is hurting us and encourage harmony.

     1. …..and it seems to me Bernard that the playing of this game that would seem to be acceptable to society is not only killing us, it’s killing society itself.

     2. What a great quote Bernard. When things are consistently not working, it shows that we need to have a deeper and a more fundamental look at everything and reassess our choices.

     3. Love the quote Bernard! What if this quote were pinned to billboards around the world in 10 feet high letters? Its syntax and gentle, but powerful, tone coupled with its undeniable truth might make many stop to reflect, well before they get to the illness that is forcing them to do so!

     4. Bernard, love the quote. It reminds me of being told a definition of madness is doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result. It’s really time to play a different game or otherwise as Rosanna shows so well here our bodies will stop us. Isn’t it great that we have an instant barometer of how we’ve been, now we just need as a society to honour it and live by it.

     5. Thank you Bernie, the master of Star Wars definitely got it right. How simple it is when we listen to our body. Then if we then choose love it changes the game. The game is then on an even playing field for our sixth sense aligns to the divine. This allows our divine body to make a choice of where and what to heal.

140. Rosanna – reading your blog again – this stood out like a sore thumb ‘we feel everything and that there is always a cause and an effect relationship to any one activity…’
     That is true to its core in every part of my life, and it is my choice to really take responsibility for my actions and how I live.
     If I get sick, I am not unlucky – there is something to be looked at. If I am vibrant and healthy, I am not lucky – I am just choosing to live in a way that allows it.

141. Re reading your blog Rosanna has been great, as your experience took me more deeply into seeing the reality of how the body takes in every single choice and thought, and wears the consequences of them all. Just shows how self care truly medicine for the body.

142. I guess bucking the trend is something that will occur in time as the greater populous get the message: we’re our own best friend or worse enemy for our health. The wonderful empowering message, if taken from this blog, is that each of us does actually have the ability to answer the ‘why me’ question and in fact, not even have to ask it, if one chooses well enough.

     1. Well expressed Oliver, we are indeed our own makers, shaping the future we live, our choice is whether we live in health and vitality or illness and disease. That we seem to barely accept this truth shows how far humanity has strayed from the principle of true wellbeing. Blaming external factors for what becomes us is not an empowering way to live any life, far better to embrace our role in the health we experience.

143. Thank you Rosanna, this blog is very informative and indicative of how some women continue to live. I resonated with these words,
     ” recognise the downward spiral that in this instance pulled me towards illness…. Do too much…. get tired…. too tired to bother eating well… no energy to look after self…. push on through to get it all done… body totally exhausted… running on stress and nervous energy…”
     there is a better way and it starts with more self-loving choices, and listening more intently to our bodies messages in our day to day.

     1. We are [humans] very interesting. When we feel bad we go to vices which continue to make us feel bad. i.e. alcohol or chocolate. And when we feel good we go to rewards such as alcohol and chocolate. When in the end all we need is deep care for ourselves and others.

        1. So true lukeyokota: “When we feel bad we go to vices which continue to make us feel bad, i.e. alcohol or chocolate. And when we feel good we go to rewards such as alcohol and chocolate”. There are more self loving and caring choices we could all be making through reconnecting and listening to our bodies. Self care is a great medicine for our bodies.

        2. I know… it seems like there are no ingrained behaviours which lean towards actually supporting the body. No matter if you’re feeling bad or good. Crazy…

        3. Hilarious Luke, but very true… When we slip up and feel bad, we actually turn to similar things to that which we go to when we feel good and want to celebrate…. Vices like alcohol and sugary foods are proven to be abusive and damaging to our bodies, but our need to sabotage, indulge and check out often overrides even our supposed ‘all superior’ and clever mind, that knows exactly the health effects and symptoms we get after having these things or going to them.

        4. Recently I had a thought about intelligence. Often, if not always, I find my behaviour change after a rough day.

           – I can be more abruptly outspoken
           – unclear to speak to
           – and say things I wouldn’t normally.

           This tells me that my behaviours are linked to how I’ve lived my day.
           In short the quality of my mood, behaviours and thoughts are only as good as I live.

           So much for the clever mind.

144. Thank you Rosanna for revealing these concerning statistics on women’s health. How long will It take for medicine to accept and adopt the fact that life is medicine and living truly well is key to reducing these statistics?

145. Rosanna caring for ourselves is true preventive medicine and should be part of every human being life curriculum. We need to spread the message to all around us to reverse the awful statistics you provided. Our choices have consequences.

146. Rosanna how truly simple it is to turn this tide of disease. It’s incredible how giving oneself permission to responsibly care for & commit to yourself brings a steady awareness, a relationship with self that changes the very way you walk.

     1. It is incredible how much we are on autopilot in life, never really stopping to think about how we are feeling, and ponder whether there is true self-care present in our lives. That relationship with self is built through care and consistency, and as you say Lucinda, how truly simple, and yet uncommon this is.

147. Rosanna a perfect reminder to continue to choose more loving and supportive ways to live and in developing our own relationship with our bodies.

148. Thank you Rosanna, Re-reading your article has taken me deeper in understanding and feeling the consequence of our choices, whether we do too much, push through, type of thoughts etc, how this way all has an effect on the body. What I also resonated to is how you made the link between the choices and how well you were feeling from these choices. The statistics are staggering, showing that there is a huge population of people affected. It makes me wonder that we have to change the way we live, especially if choices play a big part contributing to whether we feel well or not.

149. Rosanna the “Why Me?” question is a really interesting one. It is so common that when something does not go the way we want it to – or the way we perceive it to – that we ask “Why Me?”. In my experience looking back at all the why me questions there is a common thread – there has always been a way I have lived or something that I have done that has resulted in an outcome. As someone that is learning to embrace responsibility I certainly did not like to consider I had anything to do with where I found myself yet the more I start to see the way I live, my actions have a direct effect on my health and my life then I start to see how by exploring my choices I can easily see why things have occurred. I would often see illness as a failure rather than the body simply letting go or getting rid of something that is not inline with it and part of healing. In the same way that making loving choices is healthy for us – perhaps we need to have a healthy approach to what illness offers us aside from the fear it can bring up.

150. This little word ‘choice’, feels very potent here, in that all of our daily choices come from our ingrained habits and patterns, which have become the ‘norm’, so that perhaps we no longer hold the awareness that we actually do have a choice at all times to chose something different. It feels to me that to answer the question, ‘why me’, one would first look at one’s choices, and I love how you have expressed this so clearly at the end of a super informative article:
     ‘So the ‘Why me?’ is a welcomed inroad into exploring what choices in life we can make to instigate our own positive changes and bring back an awareness to our day to day choices’.

151. So often we see illness and dis-ease as something that comes from ‘out there’.
     Like it is random, a fluke or an unfortunate stroke of bad luck.
     What you have shared with us here Rosanna is the opportunity to simply ask
     ‘why me?’
     ‘what’s my part in this?’
     By beginning to look at our own choices and how we have developed and contributed to the dis-ease in our bodies we can feel the responsibility we have to support and maintain our own health and wellbeing.

     1. Beautifully said Kathryn. It’s a revelation to see how we have contributed to the dis-ease in our bodies through our choices. We know that overeating the wrong foods make us gain weight, smoking and drinking causes the body damage… so is it possible to take it a few steps forward to say that our emotions along with how we do everyday tasks can also effect the body negatively?

152. This blog is a real eye-opener. Thank you Rosanna for the research you have done, to bring these shocking statistics to our awareness. It is very alarming to read that 1.7 MILLION new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in 2012. It is definitely time for us all, to take responsibility for our own health, by honestly looking at our lifestyle choices, and then changing our ways, that are not supportive to the health of our body. Better to do this now, than wait for a wake-up call.

153. Us asking the “why me?” or “what is going on?” is the inroad for us to bring responsibility back into our lives, which will ultimately influence our health. I have always found it fascinating that there is an acceptance of disease occurring because, “I’m getting old” or “You’ve got to die of something”, which leads us down the pathway of irresponsibility and keeps us going round in circles seeking relief for the misery that we have created in our own lives. Our medical systems around the world are now struggling and it is going to take each of us to play our part.

     1. Very true Jennifer the question”Why me” allows me to understand or explore what have been my choices up to now and take responsibility from then on to make more self-caring ones. That might involve treating my symptoms using medicine or treatments provided by traditional medicine, however I am learning that it is not the full picture to just make the symptoms go away, only a relief.

154. I love the roundedness of this article as it presents some moment stopping statistics of the state of womens health today. Quite often this is all they are as we carry on in our lives however what is written offers an opportunity to start to making changes now simply by being honest with ourselves and stopping to take a look at how we run our body. If this process begins now and illness or disease happens we will then be better equipped to deal with it. thank you Rosanna

155. Recently one of Britain’s top cancer specialists unveiled a 10-point plan that he believes could save millions each year. It was titled ‘Tips to Save your life” – Number one on the list was Lifestyle changes. There now seems to be a turnaround in the way some cancer specialists have been thinking about cancer being hereditary. This is something that Serge Benhayon has been presenting for 15 years: it is our lifestyle that creates the dis-ease, we can’t blame it on our genes.

156. I think it is both very brave and insightful to ask “Why me?” Rosanna.

157. Rosanna your blog highlights the fact that illness has now reached epidemic levels, despite the amazing advancements in medical science & treatment. I was definitely a ‘why me’ me person until Universal Medicine presented the possibility that how we live affects everything. I now too can track my body ills to choices I have made in any area of my life as everything affects everything, as your practical examples illustrate.

158. When I stop and think logically it is impossible to negate that we have nothing to do with our health or that illness is ‘bad luck’ that can strike anyone at any time. When I stop and feel I can sense exactly how the way I was living and the choices I made led to me having any form of dis-ease from anxiety to headache to having cancer or even stubbing my toe because I am rushing and not fully present. Serge Benhayon says “the way we live is the best medicine”, and one has to wonder if this concept could provide the missing link for the humungous amount of unresolved research into the cause of particular diseases. I think so.

159. I love how you have sensitively addressed the “why me?” question that women ask about a diagnosis of cancer. It’s so well explained, in the way you look at how we live as women and how this simple ignoring of what the body needs can throw it into chaos.
     I learned much from this blog and won’t be so flippant about ignoring my body in future – it all does impact.

160. The fact that we ask, ‘why me?’ reveals so much about our approach to illness and disease as a society as a whole. The reality – the statistics that represent real people and the countless others impacted upon when a family member, colleague or friend experiences heart disease or cancer, for example – is clearly outlined by your article Rosanna. The rates of occurrence of serious illness are staggering, and yet as a whole, we clamber about, seemingly in the dark, looking for reasons, cures, preventions, without truly stopping to feel more deeply into ‘why’…

     I agree wholeheartedly that what is needed is a deeper look into just how we are living, and what we readily accept as ‘normal’ treatment of ourselves and our bodies. It makes complete sense that things as they are, are not working, that there is something fundamentally ‘off’ in our approach to life, and the way we look after ourselves.

     Personally, I also felt quite blinded to all of this, until coming to the work of Universal Medicine. The teachings and presentations of Serge Benhayon and Natalie Benhayon, and wisdom of Universal Medicine trained complementary health practitioners, have assisted me to come to my own understandings of the consequence to our bodies and way we feel about ourselves, of living in a way that places goals, outcomes, ‘keeping up’, pushing, striving, rushing, ignoring tiredness, living for everyone else first, and so many factors ahead of truly honouring oneself.

     The changes I’ve experienced and also witnessed in so very many people now, have been nothing short of profound and miraculous, and yet they are changes based on the simple common sense of these teachings, that come from a fundamental premise: that we are beings of love, first and foremost, and that by honouring our bodies we honour this love – in ways that are practical, simple and very real. I know that I feel more alive and vital at 46 than I ever have in my life – now that is miraculous, and worth studying… why am I not worn out, experiencing health problems and symptoms that affect my vitality? How come I can work and participate in a longer day (up very early, etc) than I ever have in my life? The answers to ‘why’ are most surely here, and worth listening to.

161. Thank you Rosanna, this is a great blog. When we take responsibility for our own choices and are willing to make positive changes is a great start. Our body is a map of our choices and how we live. When we stop and listen we can prevent, or in some cases cure, our ailments. There is a saying ‘You are what you eat’.

162. Thank you again Rosanna for your great blog. I needed to be reminded that it is my responsibility to listen to what my body is telling me. There are times that I do not do this and my body is racked with pain. I now take the time to really become aware of how I have allowed myself to listen to my ‘head’ and completely ignored what my body is telling me!

163. Rosanna you have presented some staggering statistics and posed some important questions, the leading one, why me? The downward spiral of doing too much, then getting too tired to bother to eat well is a familiar way of life for many of us. There must be something wrong with our way of life – these statistics are un-ignorable. Paying attention to the little signals our bodies are always giving us makes a lot of sense.

164. Thank you Rosanna.
     To be drawing our attention to such devastating statistics on a worldwide scale has to be done, and these should be the headlines, constantly bringing humanity’s awareness to what actually is going on, instead of the ongoing and constant inanity that is on the news every day.
     If there was integrity and true awareness in the media, Universal Medicine and what it presents would be featured every day.

165. What rocked me in your blog was the fact that 9 out of 10 women don’t have a family history of breast cancer. So that dispels what can only therefore be the myth and opens up the debate to look at other causation, including the way in which we are choosing to live on a daily basis.

     1. This stood out for me too Cathy. If this is the case, what is it that leads to breast cancer? Could it be little to do with our genes at all and more to do with how we live and look after ourselves? It is a question worth considering.

166. Thanks Rosanna for a great blog and sharing your own experience of illness and the steps you chose to support your body back to health and vitality. Thank goodness for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for showing us another way, and that illness is the body’s way of healing itself.

167. Great blog Rosanna. Those statistics for women’s health are astounding when we really look at them, and something I feel many people turn a blind eye too, that is until they themselves are touched by them. The way you brought the ‘why me?’ back to being an opportunity for us to explore deeper our relationship with ourselves and our choices was very powerful. Thank you.

168. Thank you for this article Rosanna. The statistics are so loud in showing all is not well, and I can still feel overwhelmed when I get the extent of what is going on, although not nearly as I used to be before I came across Universal Medicine. I have been learning about my responsibility in my own life and in the whole World and this has been immensely empowering as well as far more productive. You have started a great conversation – we as Humanity can not afford to let it continue as it is.

169. What the statistics reflect for me is the extent to which, as a humanity, we do not wish to accept and take responsibility for our lives and health – that a ‘severe’ diagnosis or ‘damaging accident’ is met with : “WHY ME”.

     With all that Universal Medicine present on the possibilities that our choices in every moment is our ‘medicine’, brings a self-responsibility but also an openness for me to accept that an illness is a letting go, or releasing of trapped ill (energy) stored in my body and is a process to be embraced for the true healing it offers, rather than shunned for the inconvenience it may seem to be.

170. Wow these statistics are shocking, but sadly I am not surprised. The way we have been living as a society is in total disregard for our bodies. By looking into the behaviors and lived choices that causes an ill condition in the first place is the only true way in which we can begin to heal these current epidemics that plague our planet. Thank you Rosanna for brining it back to the responsibility we all have in the choosing to live more vital and more healthy lives.

171. This is such a well written article Rosanna. People point the finger at governments and corporations and whoever or whatever else they can blame, but seldom want to really look at the way they are living themselves, as the answer to the question: “Why me?” Disease in the world today has long since been out of control, so it’s time everybody wises up and starts making the ongoing commitment to change the way that we live in such disregard.

172. Thank you Rosanna for the clarity with which write ‘What we are really asking is: “Why did I get this disease?”‘ and for sharing your experience about how you turned this situation around to true health and wellbeing and are taking responsibility for this on an ongoing basis.

173. Wow – breast cancer for women in the UK has increased over the last 40 years by a staggering 89%.3, that is truly staggering. How are we living that it has increased to such an alarming point. I love how you ask “why me” and explore deeper into what any illness is asking of us, to stop and question how we are living, and not critically or judgmentally but really asking us to question are we really looking after ourselves, are we being loving and caring with ourselves. A great question and great medicine to ask at any point in our lives.

     1. It is a staggering increase Caroline, I agree and it is begs the question: What has happened in the U.K to cause it? How are women living these days that has resulted in such a surge? Are we truly looking after ourselves or putting others first, driven by ideals and beliefs about who we should be?

174. Thank you Rosanna, these are halt you in your tracks statistics that you have gathered here. All I can say is I could have possibly been one of those fatal statistics if I had not been inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine to take charge of my own health and my own life. The enormous effect of making simple self caring, self loving choices based on how one is feeling in their body is vital to changing the quality we live life in.Everyone deserves to know what you have outlined so clearly here.

     1. Well said Kathleen, I know that I too was on course to be one of those statistics and yes everyone deserves to know what Rosanna has outlined here, it should be our basic education. I have Universal Medicine to thank for some very sound suggestions on how to care for myself, how to live well in order to stay well. There is much for us to learn and our best teaching tool is our bodies, the more we tune in to how our bodies feel, the more opportunity we have to keep ourselves well.

175. Thank you Rosanna, this is such an insightful and in depth article. I especially enjoyed reading how your body can communicate with you and by listening to it you have found far more vitality in your body and in your life.

176. I once knew someone that survived a heart attack and as a result changed his lifestyle radically: stopped drinking and smoking, had a new awareness about food, ate healthily, took regular exercise and had a renewed appreciation of life. I asked him if he would have made any of these changes without the heart attack. He said “No Way” The question we could ask ourselves is why is it that so many of us need the ‘stop’ experience before we are able to deeply love and care for ourselves.

     1. Good point Kehinde, I also know many people who start changing when something big hits them. And I also know those who, after they got ‘well’ again, continue with the old life style as if nothing happened. This denial makes us wonder, how is that possible?

177. Thank you Rosanna, I really love your article, as you have brought equally, both the facts and statistics (reality) of illness and disease that is happening globally and revealed the common behavior patterns that we operate with to ourselves. So here, you have shown there is a relationship between the way we live and the rising rates of illness and disease. We can’t ignore the fact, that the common denominator of all illness and disease is a person. How some people get certain diseases and some don’t is attributed not just to genes, but to the way we live, our behaviors, reactions and lifestyle choices. How can we possibly ignore this? Awesome article, thank you

178. Thanks for the informative blog Rosanna and for sharing the scale of the impact of these health problems. This is a sad reflection of how disconnected we are as a society from our bodies, and the ‘why me ‘ attitude shows the arrogance as people aren’t prepared to take responsibility for the choices they make.

179. As a woman with a family history of breast cancer – the statistic that says 9 out of 10 women who have breast cancer do NOT have a family history of the disease is gobsmacking!! What the heck is going on that we women who need to know that do not know it…. Wow!

180. This is such a well written and researched article giving the reader a greater understanding for the much bigger picture on cancer statistics – these are staggering numbers – difficult to comprehend the magnitude – that affect so many in so many ways.

181. A brilliant idea, Gill, imagine if we learned it as children, then we would learn to take much more responsibility for our choices, actions, reactions and expression. It would be so simple, like a natural philosophy — if you do this then the consequences are that. This is maybe taught somehow about choices of what we do per se, (although I can’t remember anyone saying anything to me about that), but not about health and the root causes of illness.

182. Rosanna the statistics you shared within your article are astounding, those in themselves made me stop and consider how deeply disconnected we as a society have become from listening and feeling our own bodies. The attitude that life happens to us, seems widespread, but as you say when we delve deeper into the question “why me?” we have an opportunity to stop and really feel what our choices have been and how we will choose to live from this moment onwards.

183. Rosanna what a brilliant article which reminds me to not ignore my body!

184. Rosanna what I find staggering is that every single condition known to man has resulted from his/her choices! Which therefore also means that everyone has the ability to heal by changing what they choose! Surely it can’t be that simple? Can it?

     1. Great point Alexis, it is staggering to know that we are the cause of all that we suffer because of how we are choosing to live and express every day. The power to heal ourselves is most definitely in our hands and Universal Medicine offers us some incredible tools to support and apply this innate and tender power.

        1. Absolutely, and how empowering is that? Rather than feeling defeated by a diagnosis, we can choose to see it as a blessing and a message about how we have been living up to that point.

185. Rosanna, the statistics are staggering, and the trend is escalating. Everyone now knows someone personally diagnosed it is becoming closer to home and all through our communities. But there is Light in the darkness; Universal Medicine and Esoteric women’s health are providing a holistic approach that both supports people going through the medical process (whatever that my entail, oncology, surgery etc.), and helping people understand how their lifestyle contributes to illness and practical ways to deal with it.

186. The question we could all ask ourselves is: why it is we don’t pay attention to what is going on in our bodies? You have shown us Rosanna how doing too much, driving forward and pushing can lead to exhaustion because all the while we have forgotten ourselves. I recognise this well in myself, less so now, but certainly in the past. As Serge Benhayon says ‘Life is Medicine’. In other words, how we live our lives has a direct impact on our health and bodies, for better or worse.

     1. So true Kehinde, we forget the basic law of cause and effect and when we are brought to an abrupt stop by our bodies, we seem reluctant to put two and two together. If we push ourselves hard, and I too have definitely lived that way, then our bodies will break down. Our bodies require constant loving attention if we want to stay well and healthy and Serge Benhayon definitely leads the field in self care and how to make life our daily medicine.

187. A great blog Rosanna, thank you for your eye opening statistics, of how many people are now affected by serious illness like cancer. Behind these numbers are real people with real families and friends, all of whom are also deeply affected by the diagnosis. Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon helped make me aware of the connection of my health issues and the way I chose to live day by day. Needless to say, I have been deeply inspired to change how I look after myself and how I care for me. My body is still giving me clear messages when I waver and get off track, but by being more aware, I can feel the consequences faster, before they have to turn into a major illness or disease, and can then deepen the loving way I look after myself.

188. Rosanna I love the detail you give in your blog like, ‘the thoughts of ‘too much to do’ or even seeing or hearing something which we can sometimes take on – and then still feel it with us well after the event.’ It’s so helpful because I can feel when I have similar thoughts how my body instantly reacts and goes into stress. It’s a great reminder to take responsibility and look after myself by addressing these thoughts by reconnecting with me and knowing what is important and dropping what is not.

189. I have seen many people in my surrounding die of cancer, and all those people were bewildered and in extreme anxiousness during their sickness. There was nobody to make them aware of their choices and to accept and deal with the consequences.
     Thanks Rosanna, for bringing the awareness on this topic.

     1. That is so common Delorme, so many people see dying of cancer as losing a battle, rather than being supported to look upon such a disease as an opportunity to truly care for themselves, even if death is the only prognosis. Rosanna’s article offers us a new way to approach this disease and understand why our body gets sick in the first place.

     2. Amazing sharing – I don’t really know many, if any people who have cancer, but I can imagine how scary and divesting a time it can be, especially when there are seemingly no answers. What I love about this blog is it give direction, so you can take back control over your life and steer yourself in a new truly healthy direction by simply taking responsibility for your actions.

        1. It would be great if there would be nurses following an alternative program on how to deal with cancer patients in a way that supports them to accept where they are and from there make other choices.

        2. I agree, but in turn the nurses themselves need support. I have done a bit of work experience in a ward, and the care the nurses had for there patients was beautiful to see, but it was being crippled by lack of time, funding and energy because the health system doesn’t support them, so they struggle to support others fully.

        3. That’s true, it has to start from the source.

190. Thats a question worth to ask: “how can we support our bodies back to a healthy life”? World wide our bodies reflecting us that we do not life a healthy life and for me it looks like that there are two ways to be with that.
     1. to ignore it till we can’t ignore it anymore because we get diagnosed with cancer or some other disease and
     2. to invest in sports, yoga, healthy food and so on.
     My personal experiences with both (ignoring or sport+”healthy food”) is: it does not really work. I did nearly die by ignoring and I did put on weight and generated a chronic Asthma while I did a lot of sport….
     First with Universal Medicine and with me making more and more loving choices, my life changed truthfully. And it is getting better, more healthy and more joy every day!

     1. Sandra, we have only to look at your photo to know how true that is.

191. Thank you, Rosanna, for a very informative blog. The statistics that you quote are amazing. It would be even more amazing if we were all educated, via our education systems, to listen to what our bodies are telling us: from what food to eat, when to rest, how long to exercise etc. and to recognise the signals the body is sending us when we are stressed, anxious, and exhausted.

     1. I agree Janne, that would be true education, if we were encouraged to care for ourselves properly by listening to our bodies and responding to what they are telling us.

     2. I agree Janne, and we could all start with the ‘no gain without pain’ mentality that seems to be associated with exercise.

192. This is a great blog, and very practical in the way it showcases the essence of Serge Benhayon’s presentations on the importance of self care and our daily choices. It’s staggering to consider the statistics, yet it makes sense when you consider the deep disregard we all live in and our disconnection to how our bodies truly feel. Society seems to be constructed to even support this neglect with caffeine and energy drinks on tap, sugar and junk food to supply energy the body doesn’t have, and alcohol or other activities to numb and ignore how we really feel – so we can just keep pushing ourselves. The body seems to be placed last on the list of priorities.

     1. Well said Melinda, we have developed a society where it is the norm to pollute and poison our bodies, then seek more toxins to consume in order to pick us up when our bodies fail to perform as a consequence. It is high time we took a serious look at why we do this to ourselves. When we are shown how to value who we truly are, we are empowered to begin to really care for our bodies and to feel well and vital as a consequence. We are worth it.

193. Behind all these staggering statistic are real women, women who have a mother, children, a husband, friends, brothers, sisters, colleagues etc. There are so many people affected by a serious illness or disease. It is time to look deeper and take responsibility for our life and our choices. How our lifestyle is influencing our body and how we will go on. Thank you Rosanna for your excellent blog.

194. I too have been touched by the long arm of cancer with a recent aggressive diagnosis of cancer within my family. May we all seek, or at least accept responsibility for the manifestation of such illnesses.

195. The stats are such an eye opener but often they stay as just a number. Consider how much time we give to learning the history of the 1st and 2nd World War, and the genocide of the Jews. Compare the 8.6 million women who die each year of cardiovascular disease to the atrocity of 6 million that died in the concentration camps in WW2, or the 16 million that died in WW1 which was “one of the deadliest conflicts in human history”.
     The conflict with our own bodies continues to grow and this is something that needs urgent attention, as well as a change in approach as the current paradigm is clearly not working.

     1. Well said Simon. It is time to turn our full attention to what is really going on and be prepared to look closely with our eyes wide open at the facts before us and at what our bodies are showing us.

     2. Well said Simon, when we compare the statistics of well known atrocities like the World Wars with statistics of illness and disease it makes it far more shocking, because as you say it’s easy to just treat them as numbers and not actually connect to the individual people that are affected by that number.

     3. That is a powerful comparison Simon, the fact that we lost 16 million in one war and we are losing half again each year through illness and disease, this is a strong message. How much to do we truly value ourselves, value humanity? We all have to die, it is inevitable, but dying of preventable diseases seems so archaic in the 21st Centrury, for all our fantastic advances we still don’t seem to have understood some basic prinicples about ourselves. There is so much we can do on a personal level to address these statistics and I know that Universal Medicine has supported me to make enormous changes to the way I live, which has transformed my health beyond expectation.

     4. It is great that you have compared the statistics in the way that you have Simon. It brings a greater awareness to the selective blindness we seem to have towards what life shows us. We can rightly be outraged by atrocities of war and genocide, however we can at the same time ignore the suffering of just as many people due to illness and disease. And as you say the conflict within our bodies continues to grow. We definitely need to pay attention.

        1. Golnaz what you say regarding ‘selective blindness’ is so true. Simon’s comparing of statistics is very powerful. I wonder why this isn’t highlighted more in the media? Is it because people feel powerless because we’ve encouraged ourselves to believe that disease is something that happens to us mostly out of basic bad luck, lottery DNA? Or is it that people don’t wan to accept responsibility for their own health?

        2. I was stunned by the comparison, Golnaz. We send troops of peace-keeping forces into areas of human conflict, hold endless talks to try and get to the root of the trouble, but don’t give the same attention to the diseases in conflict with our bodies. Medicines are the troops, but where are the talks?

     5. It’s like we think that illness and disease are a normal part of life, so accept it more than we do deaths due to war and conflict. The apathy towards our own bodies on a day to day basis is having the same devastating results as you so rightly say.

        1. It is a very sad that we have come to accept illness and disease as a normal part of life. The statistics in this blog are really staggering, but we hear them so often that we sometimes become numb to them until it’s more personal and affect us or someone close to us. It’s great that we are bringing more attention to this crisis by having these discussions and looking at how we as individuals can make changes that will support us to not become another statistic.

196. Asking myself “why me?” is very challenging. It brings me right back to my own responsibility if I allow that, and then I can make different choices for myself. Before I met Serge Benhayon my “why me?” question used to be a moan from a victim mentality, and a horrible comparison with everyone else who “seemed” to be doing and being well, but now I find it a very useful way of actually bringing myself home to me to FEEL what is going on and how I have been living. I feel the challenge of doing this is why illness and disease are increasing at a great rate, as it means such a fundamental change in how we approach our lives, our bodies and our health, and many either do not know how or are unwilling to go there.

197. Very sobering statistics you recount in your article. No wonder people become confused by what is happening – it does indeed seem to arrive out of the blue. When my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, one of the biggest feelings the family had was the utter helplessness at not being able to do anything to alleviate the disease, nor indeed to understand why it had happened to someone who had lived such a clean life as a mother. It has only been the teachings of Universal Medicine that have brought me the understanding I sought about the disease; that it occurs in women who often look after everyone else in their life, but show very little regard and love for themselves. That made sense when nothing else before it had.

198. Wow, those statistics are shocking, the number of lives lost and affected by the escalating number of people falling chronically ill is incomprehensible. The question “why me?” is a great place to start, because it offers us the opportunity to look at whats been going on for us and how we have been living. Perhaps the way we live and the choices we make are the missing link between sky rocketing illness and disease and an answer.

199. What a great question to ask: “Why me?”. It feels so empowering because with this question, you say: hey, life is not just happening to me and I don’t have any say in it. Because we do! We do have a say in it and we do have a responsibility. Great sharing Rosanna, thank you. This is a question we can ask within many situations. Why me?

200. We are presented with gifts all the time and illness can be a gift. To see what we have been doing that is no longer valid in our lives. Changing behaviour and looking at the way we live when we get sick is so powerful.

201. I grew up being taught that if anyone in the family was ill, they should cope via an attitude of ‘mind over matter’ and to just get on with whatever needed doing. I had to be very sick to see a doctor. There was certainly more recognition and acceptance in ‘doing’ and being ‘busy’ than there was in stopping and recuperating. Needless to say, these ideals and beliefs became strongly ingrained.
     It is through the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I have now come to realise that I am responsible at all times for my choices. In turn, my choices have an impact on how my body functions and my health. Given the statistics you have posted Rosanna, this understanding is ‘gold’. Thank you very much for your dedication in gathering them and putting them in this blog for us all to reflect on.

202. The statistics you present here are staggering Rosanna. its so easy to read those figures and forget that each number represents a person who is someone’s mum, partner, aunty, daughter, sister, friend, work colleague. Breast cancer is affecting us all, not to mention all the other cancers and diseases that kill so many every year. We need to start talking about these shocking statistics and keep asking ‘why?’ How we live life and the choices we make every day is a great starting point.

203. I know I still have a belief around it being a punishment for not doing the ‘right’ thing. I love and see the sense of instead it is the body giving us loving messages to support us to live with health and vitality. There is more power in this to break the cycle of abuse as you have total responsibility but also no judgement, just a consequence.

204. Thank you Rosanna for your sharing and the phenomenal statistics. At one time in my life when I was ill in any way, I would never have looked at my choices and taken responsibility. I am very appreciative of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for reflecting to us the light that we are. I am learning that it makes a huge difference how we treat ourselves in our day to day livingness.

205. I’ve had many conversations with friends/patients in waiting rooms etc when they have experienced illnesses of varying degrees they compare it to their family history and often feel that it was inevitable that they should get that particular disease as “it’s in the genes” – Accepting its their lot so to speak. Your article serves as a great reminder to us all Rosanna and how we can choose to take responsibility for the choices we make in supporting ourselves. Thank you.

206. Learning to live in, respect and listen to my body has been a huge paradigm shift in how I go about my life. Any physical issues that arise these days don’t really surprise me on a deeper level when I honestly consider how I was living until not that long ago. I fully get that my body has to clear out the hubris and I am in a place where I accept responsibility for that. Thank-you for your article Rosanna.

207. Thanks Rosanna. Such sobering statistics that level me right out and take me straight to my body to feel deeper what it is telling me in every moment. Why me? – is such a an important question to be asking, now more than ever, when it’s all go go go for women but all at the expense of our bodies.

208. Great article Rosanna. I have recently been diagnosed with a thyroid condition and there certainly has been the question “Why me?” You have inspired me to take a deeper look at how I live. Firstly how I have been running on anxiety and stress, and how that feels horrible in my body and how that also affects my thoughts, digestion etc. It feels empowering and loving to enquire into this, rather than feeling a victim to the diagnosis.

     1. That’s it exactly – we stop being a victim of our illness if we take responsibility for it. That can be a difficult first step, but the rest of the journey is a golden opportunity to change the way we live, and have more joy in our lives.

209. Your statistics are pretty shocking – thank you for this well researched informations and inspiring every woman to not feel like being a victim of her own disease. How simple changes in how we decide to live can make a huge difference in our health and well being. Thank you for your inspiring blog.

210. I was a bit shocked actually to know that in 9 cases out of 10 there is not a family history of the disease. I’ve never seen statistics that says otherwise but it seems like this is nothing we talk openly about.

211. I love all the statistics here in your well researched blog Rosanna and your last sentence sums it up –
     “Along with the huge advances in medicine, we are able to support ourselves back towards health and wellbeing and show there is a way to start bucking the trends of those staggering statistics.”
     This confirms to me what Serge Benhayon has been saying repeatedly about Self-Responsibility. We can make lifestyle changes that support us in our own well being and I am living proof that works and I am no longer a drain on our medical system.

212. Wow thank you for ‘asking the question’. It is very needed right now in society. I love how you have brought it back to simplicity – “Our body is continually noting everything, and when we don’t pay attention it easily gets loaded, setting off on its way from harmony to dis-ease to illness.”

213. Thanks, Marion, I love your comment – “it was at that point I decided to listen and feel for the first time and take responsibility for myself, not blaming others or being a victim”. As Julie has so beautifully described, when we finally do start to listen to the body, it can be life changing.

214. I do keep returning to your blog Rosanna as I feel there is much here to learn – “ignoring the body’s little signals that lead to such a huge breakdown” so many times I would ignore/override my body’s constant signals telling me all was not well, not just a few times either and yes the breakdown did arrive loud and clear. My heart went into overdrive and it was at that point I decided to listen and feel for the first time and take responsibility for myself, not blaming others or being a victim – the self loving choices came in to my life after attending presentations by Serge Benhayon and Universal medicine. Yes I knew that it was a ‘true healing’ that had presented its self.

215. Me too Brendan! I have found that when I make choices that support my body, particularly in regards to what I eat and how much I eat, it seems to work with me rather than against me.

216. I was very surprised to learn that 9 out of 10 women who get breast cancer do not have a family history of it. This one fact alone made me stop reading and seriously question what is going on that we have such an increase in incidence. All woman should be asking this question.

217. Great article revealing the truth about how women in the world are truly living. The statistics are alarming, but as you beautifully described your life can be turned around from being a victim of illness to appreciating the blessing of true healing that it brings.

218. Thank you Rosanna for a very insightful article. One statistic that you quoted really surprised me, that 9 out of 10 who get breast cancer DO NOT have a family history of the disease. I did not realise this figure was so high, it seems to so often be portrayed in the media etc. that there is far more risk of developing the dis-ease if there is a family history of it. It makes absolute sense to look at the way one is living if one receives a diagnosis of breast cancer, or indeed or any form of cancer or illness. If one is honest and truly looks at how one is living, especially if we admit we are not looking after ourselves, then we can start to realise that maybe we are ourselves responsible for what has occurred. Then the victim mentality can melt away, especially if we begin to really listen to the body and put into place some more self-loving practices.

     1. Me too Beverley! It’s a shocking statistic, and completely exposes the belief that breast cancer is something most women inherit from family members/genes.

219. The statistics are truly shocking, I saw on the news the other day that in the Uk they have raised it from 1 in 3 to 1 in 2 people will be affected by cancer in some way. Great article Rosanna, the whole world needs to wake up and start taking responsibility for self.

220. It’s awesome actually how our bodies say stop, it’s a pity a lot of people don’t listen and go on with what they were doing. It’s all about self responsibility and awareness, I can feel how it is the most important thing to be everyday, and look and feel when I have an illness, and know what caused it and then not doing it again.

221. Thankyou Rosanna for some interesting statistics and for sharing your story .

222. I knew that the statistics were high but was totally blown away by the numbers, because they’re not just numbers but our brothers trying to understand why me as well
     To live another way and inspire is so vital on all fronts

223. This is such an excellent article, and one that is much needed in a world where illness and disease is becoming out of control. It is so important to break the ‘victim’ mentality and encourage responsibility for our choices that determine what then unfolds for us.

224. I love the truth and honesty of your blog Rosanna, and it all makes such sense. So often I know the common sense of life but seem to ignore it when it interferes with the way that I have chosen to live my life. I want to stubbornly continue to do it ‘my way’ without any recognition of how I am actually treating my body. I am slowly learning a different way that is gentle and beautiful and treats the body with love and respect for all that it is offering. I would not have found this new way without the love and support that has been my experience when attending courses and workshops presented by Universal Medicine. This way is slowly connecting me back to a more natural rhythm of living life.

225. I used to feel my body was ‘against me’ when I was ill or in pain. I have now come to realise that having something going on in my body is actually a gift in the sense that it is a marker to show me how I am living and the quality of the choices I am making. There is no blaming in this process, only allowing for a deeper awareness of what affects the natural harmony of my body.

     1. Thank you, Carolien, I can relate to this very much. It is much more loving to see disharmony or pain in our bodies as a reflection to help us make better choices.

     2. Caroline I relate to the feeling you used to have that your body was against you when you were ill or in pain, and I still react with some degree of frustration against myself when I am unwell and not able to do everything on my to do list. Thank you and Rosanna for the clear sense of responsibility that we all now need to pay attention to, in order to understand more about healing from illness and disease.

226. A very well referenced account of how someone has taken responsibility with the question “why me?” When most people are faced with an illness or disease and ask this question it is usually a finger pointing game towards: toxins in the environment and food; genes passed from our parents; etc etc. However the finger rarely points towards ourselves and the choices we have made in our lives. The author of this article has beautifully shared how our body uses illness and disease as a way for us to take responsibility for our choices in life.

227. Thank you Rosanna- A well written, informative and sensitive article. I did not know that 9 out of 10 women had no family history of breast cancer. This in itself is enough for someone to ask ‘well why?’ and to further delve into the possibility that life patterns and choices are a contribution. I am only in my 30’s and have known 5 women with breast cancer, and one dear friend was recently diagnosed. For my friend- I love her honesty of knowing and saying that she was living a way that was not supportive, she always put others first and was on a constant treadmill to keep up with work, family and friends. Cancer has made her stop, listen and honour herself and what she wants in life for the first time. Cancer definitely affects a circle of people around the one that is diagnosed and it is time that we, humanity, started getting real and truthful about the why? and what is it about our lives that could be potentially contributing to this disharmony of illness in the body.

     1. Absolutely Johanna; a friend of mine’s mum had cancer almost 5 years ago and it is still talked about quite often within their family. It certainly does affect a large circle of people.

228. I can so easily relate to that downward spiral of bad health choices. I have at times slipped into a momentum that has made me choose behaviours that are clearly not supporting my body to be well. What I love about the presentations of Serge Benhayon is how much clarity is brought to the minutiae of those choices and how much easier it is to redevelop a greater awareness of the body and the impact our behaviours have on how we actually feel and from there live.

229. This is a great article Rosanna.
     Like you, I developed a thyroid condition, many years ago now, which completely stopped me and made me examine why it had happened and how I was living my life.
     I can confirm it was because of those very same contributors.
     Knowing what I know now through through the wisdom presented by Universal Medicine, I can see and absolutely know, it need never have happened.
     The statistics you have presented are shocking and ought to bring us all to a stop to truly feel them and to then examine every detail of how we are living. Those statistics are not just numbers on a page but represent actual women who exist no more, loved ones of many, many, many more people who’s lives are affected by their loss.

230. As I was reading your article Rosanna I remembered a conversation with someone where they had turned the ‘why me’ question into blame — that it was their fault they had got the disease they had — cancer — because ultimately they were a ‘bad person’. We can so easily turn the ‘why me’ question into something so negative and evil where we can beat ourselves up, decide we’ve done something wrong, maybe to the point of no return, and thus not let ourselves see that it is never too late to make different choices for ourselves and our bodies. Perhaps it is because of this attitude that can be so prevalent in our societies, that we fear disease, instead of seeing it as a loud tell-tale sign from our bodies that the choices we’ve been making up until this point may not have been as loving for our bodies. By going into blaming ourselves or the disease itself, and becoming victims of what is going on, we disempower ourselves, and don’t let ourselves see that our bodies, and the situation at hand, are offering us an opportunity to make far more self-loving choices from this point forward.

     1. Katerina, I was one who when 20 years ago was told that I would likely not live for more than 2 years after being diagnosed with cancer, asked the ‘why me’ question – but only for a few minutes! For whatever reason, I never felt to turn the question into blaming myself or feeling that it was my fault. The only course I could see open to me was to empower myself by reading all the research I could find related to cancer. However, while the cancer has not returned and I obviously did not die, I only healed on the physical level. It was not until I met Serge Benhayon 10 years later that I started to appreciate that all dis-ease has an energetic root cause before it manifests in the physical body. Since changing the way I now live and through making more self-loving choices, the true healing has now begun!

        1. It’s fascinating to hear your story also Anne, even though your body had no physical symptoms of the former cancer you had, your true healing only began once you started to appreciate the energetic root cause and changed the way you lived.

231. These statistics are staggering and given the advances that have been made with conventional medicine and the rise in complementary medicine we need to ask ourselves what is going on with women’s health? We need to start working together as a community to support all women.

     1. Well said Mary-Louise – something is not adding up – and too many people are leaving it to the experts to sort out – but isn’t it time that instead of asking ‘why me’ – that we start to ask ‘why the imbalance’ and look at what’s going on in our own lives.

232. Great blog Rosanna, thanks for so succinctly bringing all the statistics together to show how illness and disease affects us worldwide, and to bring it back to the way in which we are living our lives – from the physical things such as food and rest to the emotional and stressful situations we find ourselves in. We certainly need to start becoming more aware of all of our choices and how they affect us.

233. A fantastic blog Rosanna. ‘Why me?’ is a very good question considering that a staggering ‘9 out of 10 women who get breast cancer do NOT have a family history of the disease’… I agree with you completely, and think it is about time we start looking at how we LIVE and the CHOICES we make, when/if our body tells us something, or if we get ill.

     1. Good point Susie, so much emphasis is placed on family history when in truth the statistics show us that it is not playing a part in this disease. Maybe we need to look at family culture instead, as you say, start looking at how we live, our choices, our self care and how we respond when we feel unwell or tired. These factors may seem very simple, too simple to have an effect. It matters very much what we eat, drink, how we work, rest and play. Our bodies are very sensitive, it matters very much how we treat ourselves.

        1. This comment also gives a significant pause for thought when you apply it to those that are having elective mastectomy’s because of the their family history. It asks us to look at our choices, and as Rowena says, our family culture… blended with the appropriate advice from the Doctor. Not just to reach for the knife and give no thought to how we are living.

        2. There are more and more women having mastectomies because of a family history of breast cancer and I found this quite surprising. We have obviously placed a lot of stock in family history, but have we discounted the role of lifestyle. Is it perhaps a much bigger factor than society is willing to accept? Do we want to know about our own role in the illness and disease we may come to suffer from?

234. All the statistics in this article blew me away as these are actually women, our mothers, children, aunts, friends, work mates, nieces and grandmothers. Women who live lives connected to other people and hence more people than we could possible imagine are affected by the illnesses and diseases we suffer and die from. The ‘why me?’ questions does feel like a deeper question is being asked and that is: “what is going on with the state of health?’

235. Those staggering statistics ask us to make a stop and to deeply consider what we have accepted as normal, but actually is very harming and does not support our natural way of being. It requests to have a deep look within at the choices we have made so far. This can be very confronting. To allow this process it is so important to be not judgemental in any way, regardless if it is in the connection with myself or others.

236. “I don’t always choose what my body is advising, but I then have to live with the consequences while my body’s reaction to that choice plays out.” Fantastic insight Rosanna – this is so spot on, a theory I’ve (unfortunately) tested time and time again. Our bodies know, we just ignore our in-built physician’s advice.

     1. I guess our body is like an in-built physician, our very own Doctor and our task is to listen to the physician and respond accordingly. With any symptom or bodily response, the earlier we respond, the less severe the health consequence may be.

237. Most people ask “why me” as the victim of what they are experiencing as you say, blame the world or something outside themselves for experiencing an illness or disease. “what have I done to lead me to this” is a different question that begins to bring out different answers, and rather than being the victim, we are empowered to make a change.

238. I asked myself the same question when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I found that by asking this question it allowed me to be open to taking responsibility that dis-ease doesn’t just happen to someone. It is the choices that we have made that eventually lead to the illness. A year or so after my diagnosis I learnt and felt in my own body that breast cancer is due to the lack of self-nurturing. I have since turned my life around to one where I take full responsibility for my actions knowing that they affect my body and how I feel. I now rest when I feel it is needed rather than push through, my diet has changed considerably to be gluten, dairy, sugar, caffeine free, I continue to develop an ongoing relationship with my body on a daily basis where I honour my body in all that I do, I go to bed early, I wake early, I don’t drink alcohol. But more importantly it isn’t WHAT I do, but the HOW I do it as the important point. The quality in which I choose my actions deeply affect my body, my being. I am deeply grateful to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for reflecting that there is a different way of living, one where I honour myself as a woman. It is a far cry from my former relationship with my body pre breast cancer.

     1. This is a very powerful testament to the true effectiveness of self love, self care and self nurture, thank you Donna. Our health is in our hands and there is so much we can do to support our bodies, simple things like cutting out the foods our bodies find difficult to process and resting when we need to. These two things alone have an unfathomable effect on the immune system, which when given such support will work miracles for us.

        1. Absolutely, Donna, it’s not just why we do but how we do it that has the greatest effect on our body. That has been a huge learning for me too.

     2. What you share Donna is amazing, to have been through the experience of cancer and to have taken the time to reflect on things must have been a truly healing process. It feels to me that we often don’t give ourselves the time and space to stop and really connect to why we may not be feeling well, and that doesn’t have to be with just serious illness, it is worthwhile doing at all times. I have found that the more I practice listening to my body the easier it gets to attune to the signals it is constantly giving out.

239. Once again I am reminded that I am in control of what happens to my body! What food I eat, the way I treat my body each day and the need to listen to the subtle and not so subtle ways my body speaks to me. Thank you Rosanna.

240. I had no idea that heart disease was the number one killer of women in Australia and more deadly than all the other cancers put together. Wow

241. These questions are really high time to consider. Billions of dollars going towards research but still the incidents keep escalating. I dearly hope we haven’t reached the point where we have given up wanting to know what is causing us to get illness and disease. That would indeed be a very sad thing for mankind. We have a strong drive not wanting to be the cause because it makes us feel like we’ve failed. But it’s not about failing, it’s about being empowered understanding that the choices I make with my body has an effect on the body. When we look at it that way we can bring the focus away from the blaming and feeling guilty to understanding why the ailment has occured. In short this will happen since the money is running out and this approach in changing the way we are with ourselves is pretty much the one thing we’ve yet to explore. Universal Medicine should be looked into by the researchers and they would find a very healthy complement to the already amazing work done by doctors, surgeons and health staff.

242. A very interesting and eloquent article, some of the figures you provide are shocking, I was particularly struck by “…figures show us that the incidence rate of breast cancer for women in the UK has increased over the last 40 years by a staggering 89%.” What is going on in society if breast cancer can increase by 89% in 40 years? What came to me is that the question you put forward concerning a true reflection concerning “Why me?” is a great place to start. Something is definitely occurring that is creating this shift and until we ask “Why?” for ourselves, a change in these statistics will not happen.

     1. I agree with you Samantha, this article is so informative. I reflected on the ‘why me?’ question too, and actually asked myself ‘why NOT me?’. Is there something deeper that I need to be looking at? At 70, I seem to have escaped the major conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and yet I am far from perfect. Is it luck, or am I being given an opportunity to responsibly deal with my ‘stuff’ and develop true self care and self love? If so, that’s awesome.

243. I have realised whilst reading this that when things occurred to me in life, I too took the ‘victim’ route and asked ‘why me?’. Now I say ‘how has this happened?’ immediately accepting responsibility for my role in whatever has ensued. This is an evolutionary change, one for which I am very grateful to Serge Benhayon for showing us how to be our own lights in our own lives.

     1. Thank you for sharing Michelle. I can completely relate to what you have said. I also was steeped in the “victim” mode and often had an air of “poor me” in everything I did. To turn this on its head by asking “how has this happened?” changes everything. This turns irresponsibility to responsibility. I love how you have expressed, “I am very grateful to Serge Benhayon for showing us how to be our own lights in our own lives.” It is beautifully put.

     2. Well said mm, these days I find myself asking “what have I done to cause this?” when I feel pain or discomfort. The first thing I do is think about what I have eaten or if I feel stressed. This is a major evolutionary shift for me, as I too could assume Victim Mode very easily. I too appreciate Serge Benhayon for showing us all there is another way to live life, “showing us how to be our own lights in our own lives”.

        1. I agree Rowena, since meeting Serge Benhayon and putting into practice how he has shown us there is another way to live our lives, I now also first look at what I have done to cause whatever is causing me pain or discomfort. It is a complete turn around for me, I used to blame anyone, especially my parents, then my husband for anything that went wrong. I certainly used to assume Victim Mode, as well as being the martyr. Unfortunately in our society nowadays, few people want to truly take responsibility for all sorts of things that might happen to them. The immense explosion in obesity within society is one such example. I owe so much to Serge Benhayon for “showing us how to be our own lights in our own lives”.

     3. Yes that has made a huge difference for me as well – when something goes wrong I can look for a cause or change my behaviour. It doesn’t work every time and sometimes it requires a lot of patience but overall it works hugely better for what Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine are teaching than what I did before – not knowing what to do.

     4. Yes, I’ve gone down the victim route too mm, blaming others, or even God for things that happened in my life. Someone said to me recently “things just don’t happen”, we create our own destiny, and we if can stop blaming and take responsibility for that then things will change. As I have started to look at my choices, my life has started to change and open up in ways I would never have imagined, and all this is thanks to The Way of the Livingness and Serge Benyahon.

        1. I agree sandrahenden, I am amazed at how when I am willing to be open to how I have played a part in whatever is occurring in my life, how the choices I have made leading up to the event are very very clear to see, not always straight away as Christoph has shared but by remaining open, it does become clear.

     5. Awesome, it’s a great way to turn round the question and make it about our responsibility in a situation no matter what it is, because we are often very quick to blame others where in reality it is ourselves that need to accept our part in it.

244. Rosanna, I loved your take on the question: “What we are really asking is: “Why did I get this disease?” as it’s rarely a question we dare to ask because ultimately we know that the way we live has had a knock on effect to getting whatever illness arises, over it being ‘genetic’. You bring it back to the body and make it all about the body; it is indeed ‘our advisor’, and the greatest one at that.

245. Wonderful clear descriptive account of the cause and effect of daily choices and accountability that we each hold to look after ourselves and our way of being.

246. Rosanna I love that you have taken us deeper into this. Whenever we get a disease and other ailment we often do look back to see what has happened. We usually find an answer whether it be as simple as getting a cold, we back track to the person on the train that was coughing or someone else in the family bought it home last week etc. But are we looking far enough back or better still are we looking deep enough within ourselves. There is a real healing there in any moment if we are willing to look deep enough. As you have outlined things are getting worse so it is obvious to us all when it comes to illness and disease we aren’t looking deep enough. For me the next time ‘something happens’ I will be looking deeper to see where it started but not settling for the easier answer that usually comes. I will be looking deeper within myself and not looking to the outside world for the answer.

247. Hi Rosanna, this blog certainly took away the ‘poor me’ from the ‘why me?’ since all our choices are simply that – ours – to make. Thanks for a blog which was enjoyable to read and very informative.

248. The statistics are staggering and as you say Rosanna, on the rise which does beg the question ‘What is going on?’. Whilst we are looking for a cure for say cancer, diabetes or heart disease, we’re not asking a key question which for me is ‘what is causing these conditions and why are they all on the rise?’ which you have touched on for yourself in your own experience of illness. Without asking this, looking only for a cure is looking for the solution or fix to a problem but not looking at what is causing it, and therefore there is no healing, just management of symptoms.

249. Great blog Rosanna, and thank you for sharing the statistics, which are frighteningly huge – and yes, the impact is even more enormous than those diagnosed as of course, the family and friends for those diagnosed with serious illness are affected too. I like the way you have brought it back to responsibility for our choices, increasing the awareness that how someone chooses to live has a direct impact on their body. I am definitely feeling more and more in how my choices directly impact on my own body, it is a work in progress!

250. A great article Rosanna, thank you. These shocking statistics really don’t have an impact until we know someone who is affected. It is great to call it out and create awareness around our responsibility in our own health and wellness.

251. The statistics in your article highlight a massive problem. They are shocking in fact and do stop you in your tracks. If these statistics and many more about cancers and other diseases, were widely publicised, it would start to at least ask the question, why, what is going on?

252. Thank you Rosanna for the very informative blog you have written. I have always felt that everything comes with blessings if we so choose to see it in that light.

253. Thank you Rosanna for your insight and sharing. Yes, the body ultimately shows to us the choices we have made and our responsibility in this process. Our body does not just ‘get’ the disease or ailment. There is much unawareness and irresponsibility leading up to the ‘stop’ provided – I have found this out firsthand.

     1. Good point Francene, our bodies do not suddenly get ill for no reason. I know I used to put my head in the sand when it came to truly looking at why I got sick. There is so much arrogance and ignorance too, in not choosing to see that how we treat ourselves affects our health. I know that having the humility to put two and two together and finally admit that how I was living was hurting my body has brought about a miraculous change in health. Raising my awareness and taking responsibility was the best thing I have ever done for myself.

254. The statistics alone Rosanna say so much about what is going on. We may not have the atrocities of world wars going on, but there is definitely a world wide epidemic of battles happening within our bodies. When I realised that illness & disease comes FROM us as a result of our lifestyle choices and not TO us out of the blue, it was very clear that the responsibility for my health was in my own hands. This is when my life really started to change & each loving choice was felt in my body…it is an empowering way to live knowing that my own evolution is a result of my choices.

255. Thanks for presenting these statistics Rosanna. They show that we can’t just put illness and disease down to genetics but need to consider our daily living. It can feel really confronting to look at that but once we are ready to it can be very empowering.

     1. Yes Annie, the science of Epigenetics is leading the way in showing how our lifestyle choices have a direct effect on our health. I don’t need scientific proof as my body holds the truth of my choices, but it is great that science is seeing this as it will inspire more self-responsibility and this is an empowering way to live.

256. Thank you Rosanna for an important article on the statistics of breast cancer. I can definitely relate to being one of those family members who have lost people and have lived with relatives who have suffered with breast cancer, as both my mother and her sister had the disease. My mother survived her breast cancer but her sister had both breasts removed and died within her early 40’s.
     For many years the thoughts of having breast cancer myself was always lurking in the background of my thoughts but since meeting Serge Benhayon and listening to the presentations on how and why we can end up with certain diseases, has helped me enormously. I now have a deeper understanding of the way in which our daily choices can and do affect our health, from a pimple to a tumour and that there is no need to fear them.

257. Great blog, Rosanna and very thought provoking. This line stood out for me this time: “women are almost three times more likely to die of heart disease than breast cancer – it is in fact the number one killer of women in Australia.” This is an amazing statistic. We are pouring so much time, money and emotional energy into breast cancer, and yet women are silently dying of so many other diseases, all the time. It’s time we started looking at the big picture – that true medicine is the way we live.

258. Thank you Rosanna, I too have learned a lot from your article. Like you, I have had an ongoing and growing relationship with my body, listening to what it is telling me and seeing how this affects my health. When we make choices with how our body is feeling in mind, it’s amazing the changes that can happen, I agree.

259. Thank you so much Rosanna, I too have learned a lot from your article.
     It was also confirmation for me of how I now live too – with the awareness that my body does ‘speak’ to me quite loudly and let me know what is working, and what is not. For me also, an ongoing learning but one I am definitely having fun with.

260. Life threatening illness and disease have the potential to bring amazing change and life expanding opportunities in regard to the choices we make. You have brought up the confronting issue and choice often made, that is ‘comfort’, knowing that we can hide in comfort rather than ask the hard question ‘why’…….and copping out by saying it will never happen to me. Thank you for making it all so real.

261. Dear Rosanna, in reading your writing the awareness you have provided on a very practical level is staggering. Maybe the question we should also ask is: “What are we doing to ourselves?” Why is it that the normal (so to speak) way of living is to live pushing, pressuring and exhausting ourselves? For me and I feel for many others the underlying issue is this feeling of not being enough, so always looking to improve and get approval to know one is good enough. This way of living is so exhausting. And of course takes its toll on our bodies, then as you say depending on how we are living out this lie will depend on how it affects our bodies. I arrived this life time with thyroid issues, diagnosed at 2 years old. Then medicated to my late teens, going from super hyperactive to being classed as lazy in my teens, as at that time the medication had taken me from over active to under active. At this time of my life I never asked if this was because of the way I was living. I looked at it as being my lot and I simply had to live with it. Hence other ailments also began, sinus & asthma being the worst. Now, as I live with greater responsibility, I know that none of what I experienced just happened. I know how I was living impacted on my body. Knowing this is so very empowering, because the one thing I can and have changed is how I live.

262. “Our body is continually noting everything, and when we don’t pay attention it easily gets loaded, setting off on its way from harmony to dis-ease to illness” – that’s key for me Rosanna. In fact I feel everything that is going on and I have reactions to that. By ignoring that, I can not deal with it and get more and more loaded, which leads me to disharmony. Illnesses and diseases are the way of the body to get rid of this over-loadings (disharmony) and so they are key for me to go the way back and face what I did not want to feel in the first place. That’s my way if I ask “why me”.

263. One of the awful things about breast cancer is that it is so emotive and a lot of media thrive off this. There is a huge amount of attention placed on the hereditary aspect of breast cancer (which is only true for a small percentage of breast cancer) this can also increase the emotion and stress of such a disease. It is not just one person who has breast cancer it is then the constant ominous threat that all the other women in your family may be diagnosed with cancer, even if you are told it is not hereditary, it still lingers as a possibility.

     What I love about this article is that although it is personal it is not loaded with the usual emotion of breast cancer and this allows the space for a woman to truly be empowered to make change and not feel a forever victim to a disease that is seemingly out of her control.

264. Thank you Rosanna for sharing these statistics. Knowing that we are not victims to illness and disease gives us the power to make self nurturing and loving choices – to listen intently to our bodies, which offer the only honesty out there. Our bodies are the markers of truth.

265. This blog highlights how a big STOP like a major illness can actually be a blessing, the illness demands a stop, demands a reflection and offers an opportunity for real change. I know from my clinical experience as a Naturopath all the physical, dietary and medical support we can give to a person is oh so much more powerful if this person is also working on the way they live and their daily choices…basically working on how that got to the point of illness and dis-ease. The way of the livingness as presented by Serge Benhayon when lived creates miracles.

     1. I couldn’t agree with you more Zoe. The Way of the Livingness is life changing. I have also seen how people have repeat procedures yet their lives remain the same. It is as if the problem is themselves and that is who they are. Helping someone who isn’t helping themselves is like pouring water into a bucket with holes, it becomes a fruitless endeavour, when all we need to do is start plugging up the holes.

266. Whoa! “9 out of 10 women who get breast cancer do not have a history in their family”. That poses a big WHY. Those numbers have really surprised me. So that says to me there is obviously much more going on here with the cause of breast cancer than the so called hereditary explanation. So often have I heard women make a statement something like “I don’t have any family history of BC so I don’t feel I’m at that much risk”. Well these statistics throw that philosophy out the window. Ignorance is often a word used when we just don’t have the understanding around where to look for the answer but more conversations over a cuppa or around the dinner table particularly around these stats may just tap into those answers. Let’s keep asking these ‘why’ questions and feeling ourselves what the answers might potentially be OR attend some Serge Benhayon/Universal Medicine presentations and what is offered in understanding the wisdom of our body and how when we start to listen to its wisdom speak it will tell us how we can chose a more loving, nurturing relationship with our body, ultimately choosing a livingness that supports true health, well-being, and above all, offers Love. Thank you Rosanna. Your blog has inspired me to start more conversations around all these stats. Thank you Serge, for bringing us back to true medicine.

267. A well researched article exploring one of the most asked questions Why me? Thank you Rosanna. It is amazing that we have the key to our own wellness in our own bodies. It seems that we just have to be still enough to feel it.

268. Thank you for a great blog Rosanne, it is eye opening when looking at the statistics and diseases all around. It is so true that by taking responsibility for ourselves and the situations/diseases we find ourselves in, we can then make new choices and begin to start making a real difference in our lives and to our health and well-being.

     1. Very true Karina, and our choices can be very simple too. Just going to bed earlier, not having any dairy or gluten products can make a massive difference to one’s health. Slight adjustments can support our bodies in such far reaching ways.

269. I was really fascinated by this well researched sensible article bringing much needed attention to current cancer statistics and raising the questions and possibilities that there are deeper reasons for developing this disease that are currently scientifically accepted.

270. “Why me?” IS such a great question to ask yourself. As this blog presents, it is simply whether one asks this question truly wanting an answer that is the key.

     1. Agree Paul, when we ask, do we really want the truth?

     2. So true, sometimes we really don’t want the answer because it invariably means making changes which can often feel ‘too hard’. But as this blog presents, it is clear that in listening to the smaller/earlier whisperings of our bodies wisdom, the bigger more devastating stops need not happen.

271. This blog is the sort of material women should be reading in main stream media. Not just how to ‘fix’ an illness – but what’s really behind it – what is happening on a global scale. This is what we should be aware of. How we are choosing to live well before we are sick.

272. This is a great blog, thank you for sharing the statistics also. It is something that I see whilst working in a hospital, that illness and diseases are ongoing and many people ask themselves ‘why me?’; often with a shrug of the shoulders to say that ‘I really have no idea’ and ‘there is nothing I can do about it’ which isn’t really true when we begin to realise that we do have a very big part to play in our own health and the choices we make and there is a responsibility to be taken to empower us to get involved in our health and to know more intimately our own bodies.

273. The question – Why me? becomes a very empowering one when we take a deep look at the way we are living every single day.

274. Wow, this really is staggering to see the state of women’s health laid out like this – and this is only one variation of disease – cancer.

     If our health in general is declining so rapidly, why are we not asking why??

     It makes so much sense that it is the way we are running our bodies that is affecting us so greatly…

     Your insight is gold Roseanna. Surely if our bodies are becoming ill from the choices we make on it’s behalf; It is time we let our body speak to us, and actually start listening to how it would choose to live.

275. Thank you for sharing Rosanna, what stands out for me amongst the statistics is that: ‘9 out of 10 women who get breast cancer do NOT have a family history of the disease’. This is in contra to what we are told in the news, as so many women get unnecessarily worried because of a family history to the extent that many have mastectomies to avoid any possible future breast cancer. The ‘C’ word does bring up a lot for people, especially fear, fear of death and dying. It is great that you have brought it back to taking responsibility for your life and how the choices you make get your body to where it is today.

276. Great article, Rosanna and your experience and the sensitivity with your own body shows how wise it is to listen to one’s body in order to stay healthy or find back to a healthy lifestyle.

277. Thank you Rosanne. Those statistics are alarming. It is time that we look at the possibility that it could be the way we are living that is causing all the illness and disease as nothing else is working as the statistics show. It would be great if this was part of research in discovering the cause – our livingness

278. The answer to the question ‘why me?’ is so simple when we stop and reflect back on the choices we make in every moment…….are they harming or are they healing?

     1. How simple you have stated it Janice- the only question we can always ask in every given moment – harming or healing.
        Simplicity at its best, thank you.

     2. Thank you Janice for the simple reminder that applies to every moment of the day; “is what I’m doing to myself or another healing or harming”?

     3. Janice thats a very good point, instead of looking at the end result of something and asking how its happened what you offer us is that its about considering what the choices we made were and then that the end result is simply the outcome or consequence of those. Were they healing or harming.. something we are not taught at school.

279. Thank you Rosanne, I love all the statistics and how you share all the other illness and disease that are so prevalent today. Most of all, I love how you bring it back to what have I been doing, what are the choices that got my body to where it is today. Back to responsibility. It is from this place that we can make a different choice.

280. I was in a shop the other day looking at a packet of ‘Jelly Beans’ on the packet it said, gluten free, soya free, nut free, egg free and then it had another banner ‘no added preservatives’, so you might forgive me for thinking that these sweets are healthier than some when the reality is they are just as full of sugar as all the other sweets. If sugar is a contributing factor to cancer then why do we allow these misleading messages on the packets of children’s products?

281. I can relate to the “why me” having an illness for some years now – but with saying that I am now appreciative of what this illness has shown me and given me the opportunity to look at my choices. I can see exactly how I came to develop my illness from how I have lived my life and am now enjoying facing the changes necessary to live a more true life for me and everyone.

282. Rosanna, I love how you flip the “Why me?” Question from a victim mentality to actually using the question to begin to take notice and explore what the body is offering us. There is so much it has to say. Through the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine we are shown just how powerful a messenger illness and disease really is in bringing us back to our bodies so we can understand how we have been living our lives. Illness and disease can in fact wake us up to taking responsibility for the choices we make. It certainly did for me and has changed my life miraculously!

     1. Well said Suzanne, illness and disease are messengers. Their message is generally not welcomed, but when we choose to stop and pay attention to it, the message can motivate us to take a different road in life. Our bodies have an incredible capacity to clear and heal themselves despite the crazy things we expect them to deal with. When we get sick, even if it is just a cold or headache, the body is giving us a message. We always have a choice. We can stop and ask “Why? What have I done to cause this?” or plough on regardless and use medications to kill the messenger. Thankfully I too am choosing to stop and ask why, I never used to. I agree the change is miraculous.

        1. Agreed, Suzanne and Rowena, it is beautiful to feel “why me” being transformed from a cry for sympathy to a call for personal responsibility. And instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we can joyfully look at the way we have been living, knowing that if we got ourselves into this situation, we have the power to change it.

     2. I agree Suzanne…’just how powerful a messenger illness and disease really is in bringing us back to our bodies so we can understand how we have been living our lives. Illness and disease can in fact wake us up to taking responsibility for the choices we make.’ But let’s not wait for illness & disease to wake us up to the fact that all of our choices end up in our body. As Anne has said above, we have the power to change and make different lifestyle choices.

283. Hello Rosanna, more and more of us have been touched by someone with an illness or disease. You have highlighted some amazing statistics as well for us to open up to and ask more questions. I enjoyed how you broke this down into the day to day or I say moment by moment choices we make. Do we really support ourselves in our day or in our moments that then set up the next moment for us? If we look around at the world we live in you would have to say no. I love articles that give us a different view of the world and get us to start to asking more questions instead of just ‘going along’ for the ride. Thank you Rosanna for one such article, I enjoyed reading it.

284. Yes! Let’s take our responsibility and support the best we can our healing process.

285. A superb exposition of the question, “Why me?” and the answer to it.

286. Rosanna, your article is something for us all to deeply reflect on. I assume most of us have been in situations in life where we have posed the
     question «Why Me?». Yes indeed, could it be that no matter what situation we find ouselves in, and whether it is a positive or negative «why me?»,
     it is always our own choices that have got us there?

287. I love how you explore the question: Why me? For a long time I thought that illness and disease just happened, a case of bad luck so to speak or not having a good functioning immune system. After coming into contact with the teaching as presented by Serge Benhayon, in my own words: that everything is energy, and therefore everything is because of energy, I started to see that there was a reason for things happening to me and like you are saying in your blog, it is a way of my body telling me there have been some choices that I made that have resulted in this illness or disease. This just makes so much sense to me.

288. This is a great reminder to check in and feel our bodies placing the importance of how we are feeling instead of what needs to get done.

     1. I agree Caroline, it’s so easy to keep going in the doing and forgetting to stop and check in with our bodies. Rosanna has shared great statistics.

289. Thank you Rosanna. The statistics you quote are quite sobering when you consider that they are just a few of the diseases and ailments that we as a humanity suffer from. Ignoring the messages our bodies are giving us is the first step on the road to ill health, and, as you have very well expressed, taking responsibility for our everyday choices has a huge impact on our health and well-being. I too have been inspired by Serge Benhayon to take responsibility for all my choices and as such I know I am lowering my chances of becoming one of those health statistics.

290. “my delicate system had no tolerance, and so I could acutely feel that the choices I made had a direct impact on how I felt and how my body was reacting to those choices.” This stood out for me like a huge billboard of ‘That makes so much sense!’ as that has been my experience when feeling flat out exhausted. A lot of what you have shared makes a lot of sense in that I too have been noticing more and more that my thoughts and actions change how my body feels. The more I focus on how my body feels the more I feel how my thoughts and actions impact in my body.

291. Thanks Rosanna, you have sparked me into feeling,
     The statistics are scary, why does that not ‘wake humanity’ ?
     It seems to be a huge step for us to surrender to ways of being that are unknown to most people = ‘not doing, listening to our bodies, eating healthily, expressing our truth’, hence we keep on keeping on, until, we HAVE to stop.
     From experience I recommend, do not wait for that to happen, come on world “wake up now”…………..

292. It’s easy to brush aside those colds, or headaches as just one of those things without stopping and reflecting… How have I lived these last few days/weeks that have resulted in this? In myself I know it’s because I don’t want to feel the disregard or lack of love that I have chosen. When we get to more serious illness feeling the bigger momentum of ill choices must be that much more of a challenge. I do know that avoiding the question “why” does not lead to healing and only buries the issue further. So the question “why” and “why me” are important questions to investigate.

293. Thank you for this down to earth, practical and well-researched article, bringing to light the shocking statistics we are accepting as a normal part of 21st century life. Let’s screech to a halt and reconsider – the stats are getting worse, everyone one of us can make a difference.

294. Thank you Rosana for sharing these startling statistics, that should be stopping everyone in their tracks and asking ‘what is going on?
     I love bringing it back to everything we do has a consequence, whether it contributes to good health or a decline in health and wellbeing.
     I have seen illness and body pain as such an inconvenience. I didn’t like to stop as I believed l was slacking off if I did rest. I can now see though, that such beliefs like these and keeping constantly busy, affects my body and in turn my body shows it.

295. Yes I agree Rosanna, “Why me” is a great launching point, providing the person asking is truly asking and not in self pity. There is such a great opportunity to go to a deeper level of awareness about all illness a disease, that anyone can connect with if they choose and this extends beyond illness and disease to a wonderful quality of life. Perhaps it is also pertinent in this thread to ask, why has lifestyle illness become the number one killer in the world? Does it not reflect we have a choice to radically change our relationship with our health and our bodies, through lifestyle choices?

296. Sobering statistics here that call us to sincerely ask what is going on.. Lifestyle choices are becoming more well documented for the profound impact that they have on our health and wellbeing. I’ve certainly found that taking simple steps to be more aware of my body and how I feel and reflecting on how this has been affected by the way I’ve been living has improved the quality of my health.

297. Great point Doug, and it is so much more empowering and freeing when we do consider that our health is determined by our own actions. Being a victim of illness or disease feels a bit like a prison sentence, perhaps we need to re-evaluate the way we look at illness and accept the greater part we play in how our bodies are and how all dis-ease of the body can be viewed as an opportunity to stop the ill momentum of the choices we have been making.

298. Reading this and the comments is so supportive. Growing up I picked up on attitudes of ‘shut up and soldier on’ and ‘it’s your bed of roses you have to sleep in it.’ Both attitudes shout victim. It’s wonderful to feel how I am responsible for my choices and that they make a huge difference to my well-being- challenging though that is at times!

299. Thank you Rosanne, for opening up the ‘why me?’ discussion. When that question comes up in conversation I usually run or change the subject. I feel it is very confronting when someone asks this question at a time when they are feeling so vulnerable, to then answer by getting them to look at how they live & to take responsibility for their choices. What you have shared is that it is a very valid question & one we should all be asking whether we have breast cancer or a blocked nose, & that only through asking it & looking at our choices do we have an opportunity to truly heal.

300. It makes sense that we ‘join the dots’ between our choices and our health – how could we forget such a thing?

301. Great article Rosanna and it is a very powerful question to ask ourselves, “why me?”. When we truly stop to listen, our bodies tell us about every single choice we make, because as you say, its our bodies that have to process them. I too have flourished in health since meeting Universal Medicine, learning to listen, respond, make different choices and feel better now than in my twenties. We are facing an enormous rise in illness and disease across the globe and these questions most certainly need to be asked. We can turn around some very dire illnesses and diseases if we change how we live each day and you are living proof of just how much can be healed when we begin to love our selves and our bodies and make loving choices throughout our day.

302. Rosanne, you have so simply expressed how we can take responsibility for what is happening in our lives, or use what is happening to look deeper into how we are living. Allowing a greater awareness of the part we play in our own lives. How the choices we make are fed back to us.

     1. I agree one of the factors that is missing in our modern health care is responsibility. It seems we want to live however we want and then when our bodies reflect back to us these lifestyle choices, we want medicine to come along and bail us out. But the statistics highlighted in this blog show that medicine cannot keep doing this forever (as good as it is) and sooner or later we are going to have to consider the missing factor of responsibility.

303. We can no longer ignore what is so clearly shown to us: people do get more and severe illnesses and diseases then ever before while the western medicine has never been as advanced as it is now. This makes no sense, are we missing something here? The question ‘why me’ is then a great question to ask ourselves when we truly ask and can be honest in answering it. This question then will show us the truth about our lifestyle choices and will provide us with the opportunity to make more loving choices that will bring true healing to us and to society.

304. I like that the comment “why me”.. As someone who has experienced breast cancer, I certainly asked this question. I don’t believe I really had looked at my choices in life until I came upon Universal medicine, and started to take better care of myself and even look at my choices.

305. Thank you Rosanna. I really enjoyed reading this. Although ‘enjoyed’ is not normally a word associated with reading about cancer, the way you have presented this causes no alarming reactions of fear or panic in me as the reader, but actually leaves me feeling curious and open to understanding why I might have any dis-ease. This is definitely an article for my reference library.

306. Rosanna, this is a great article highlighting the undeniable link between the quality of our health and the choices we make on a daily basis. Instead of asking ‘why me?’ when illness does catch up with us, would it not be wiser to ask ‘why did I not listen to my body before now?’. This question asks us to consider more deeply what it means to truly care and be responsible for ourselves. I know from my own experience, as you mention, illness not only affects us but our whole family as well. There is a way we can start bucking the trends of those staggering statistics, and articles such as yours inspire us to start listening more attentively to the body, moment by moment.

307. I really like how you have made the ‘ why me ? ‘ an invitation to explore our choices to make our own positive changes and bring back our awareness to our everyday living choices, something I have found has worked for me and I continue to work with. Thank you Rosanna.

     1. Yes good point Ruth. Rosanna has turned the “Why Me?” into a very open and powerful question. This question is often asked when we are facing something very seriously wrong with our bodies, but not many people will then go on to ask “how did I make this happen?”. When we do and when we are truly open to hearing the answers there is much we can do to alter the course of such dire disease. After years of ill health I am now learning that my body is a living miracle and at long last I am beginning to treat it as such and in return, it is glowing with health and vitality. Being aware of our every day choices is key and most definitely a work in progress, but it is an occupation I fully recommend.

308. Thank you Rosanna for your well written and researched article. The statistics are staggering on illness and disease these days. Time for us surely to take more responsibility in the way we live our lives? The why me ‘victim ‘attitude, as in things happening to us by chance, is not accurate at all. It’s articles like yours that can help dispel the myths surrounding this. Healthy life style choices can make a huge difference to our wellbeing.

     1. Yes Sue, it is this “victim” attitude that is so much easier to adopt than to stop and take ones own responsibility.
        Taking this responsibility may bring up many of the hurts one has buried so deep, but for me it felt like being freed from a cage. With taking responsibility, vitality and joy have come back to my life.

309. Great blog and what I got from it was that the question we should be asking is perhaps not ‘why me?’, which has a helplessness attached to it, but a more empowering question of simply ‘why?’ Which opens up the possibility of looking at perhaps it is the way we live and treat our bodies every day that might be contributing to these health conditions.

310. “Why me?” The question is asked when body already is showing signs of illness. Before it we do whatever we want with it. We never think about our choices.
     Thank you, Rosanna, for bringing back the awareness of our daily choices. And instead of feeling self pity, suggesting to take a full responsibility for those choices.

311. Great blog Rosanna. Bringing together hard facts about where illness and disease rates are heading to and the responsibility we have in that with our daily choices. It´s important to increase our awareness about the relationship between our choices and our wellbeing. I, too was heading towards a poor state of health until I realized that it´s me and my lifestyle, similar to what you described: a vicious circle from doing too much, being exhausted, pushing myself through, high intake of sugar and caffeine to get me through the day, restless sleep and so on. Serge Benhayon and other esoteric practitioner presented to me the possibility of being more tender and loving with myself. Now it´s a circle in the other direction, inspired day by day to make more loving choices and from that experiencing a better health and greater vitality. 🙂

312. Seeing the numbers rise in illness and diseases is very shocking. A lot has changed in our lifestyle to what was lived say 40 years back. We are surely affected by the lifestyle choices we make for us and they would affect our well being.

313. “Why me?” It’s a great place to start when attempting to understand what’s happening to our body when it’s ill at any stage….and when chronic diseases are indeed so prevalent, it’s never too late to make adjustments to the way of living that got us there. I really appreciated hearing your story, Rosanna and how you were on the right track and then along came Universal Medicine connecting all the dots with the energetic factor. It’s made all the difference to me, too.

314. Thank you Rosanna for the loving reminder of our choices and their consequences

315. About three years I saw on a television show about a story of a young woman that had cardiovascular disease and learnt it is the number one cause of death for Australian women. Rosanna you have reminded me that at the time I was shocked by this and I am still shocked for the same reasons today. As Rosanna points out this is not to diminish the significant impact of breast cancer as that also is affecting many but why is there so little public awareness about cardiovascular disease in women? And simple education too – what is it? what are the risk factors? what are the early signs and symptoms to look out for? There seems to be a perception that cardiovascular disease is something that middle aged overweight men need to watch out for – not women…….

316. Thank you, Rosanna. A fantastic take on the ‘Why me?’ question.
     I am constantly amazed by how my body responds to my choices – good and bad, with brutal honesty. I am aware of the choice I have – I can live in a way that is in agreement with my body, or not. This is the responsibility = power that I have over the body I live in. I can start practising it wisely, or wait until a serious disease hits me.

317. I totally agree Rachel – This blog is awesome and empowering – thank you Rosanna. The statistics are a big wake up call for us all, but I love how you came around to know from your body it’s our day to day choices that directly affect our health and well-being – as you beautifully expressed here:
     “but what I can say is that becoming aware of my choices and how they affect my body and consequently my health and wellbeing, has brought me to feeling and being the healthiest I have been since I can remember really, and certainly feeling more vital and light than I was even in my twenties.”

     It is never too late to make more loving choices and I have found that when I give to my body in this way it gives back to me 10 fold.

318. Thank you Rosanna for presenting with such clarity these staggering statistics and for calling out the undeniable link between the way we live and the illnesses and diseases humanity is increasingly affected by. Despite so much clear evidence, the link is not easily accepted by the many, including health practitioners. Whenever the words ‘choice’ and ‘responsibility’ are mentioned, people do not want to know. Cancer patients are still told that cancer is just a matter of ‘bad luck’ and, because they don’t want to take responsibility, they choose to believe it. And thus, there is no opportunity for true healing. However, does this mean that a constantly increasing number of people are having ‘bad luck’? Does it mean that their bad luck is increasing and that’s why they are getting cancer???… A friend of mine who is dying of a very aggressive form of connective tissue cancer has been told exactly that. It is just ‘bad luck’. I offered her, very lovingly, another view. She felt what I had presented to her and allowed herself to express more with me. No one had presented to her the fact that cancer does not come out of the blue. How much more true healing would take place for cancer patients if they were offered the possibility to see how their way of being and living affects constantly our bodies? Immense.

319. I love this blog which I found to be a beautiful mix of statistics on women’s health and lived experience. In the wake of these alarming stats it feels like the truly responsible choice is for us to begin deeply caring and nurturing our bodies. I have found that choosing to be loving, caring and nurturing has supported my health to increase and raised the platform of what I now know health to be.

320. I am completely stunned at those stats. I knew it wasn’t good but when you see it written, it just wollops you! I am particularly amazed that 9 out of 10 cases of breast cancer do not have a family history! There is absolutely no room to blame family anymore. We create illness all on our own. Our bodies are very much our own responsibility!

321. Why me? has all of a sudden become a very intelligent and not just an emotive question, thank you. It actually invites a deeper probing and pondering on the choices we have made and their consequences.

322. Rosanna it is so powerful that you ask a question so openly where most of us shut down or withdraw. I love what you describe and bring to the surface – this is so much needed. We like to choose not to take our responsibility for our lives because it is much easier to blame the genes or something similar. Thank you that you are such a super role model and expose what we all need to hear.

323. 9 out of 10 don’t have a family history of breast cancer, so why is there a link to genetics at all? Is it because people want to blame it on something outside of themselves, which then gives them reason not to take responsibility for their illness? Why me? gives us the opportunity to be honest with ourselves and to look at all aspects in which we have been living and to then make tender loving choices that can then support us in truly healing.

324. Great article Rosanna! I have definitely found that taking responsibility for how the choices I make in all aspects of my life – from what, when and how much I choose to eat, to how hard I work each day, or how I react to situations that arise – has resulted in a significant improvement in my health and wellbeing. The support and guidance of medical professionals on its own was not enough – but combining the two proved the best way forward for me.

325. Sadly we are asking “why me?” not until we have it. With your amazing blog I realized that I can ask now “why we?” – realizing that I am affected by cancer and all diseases of humanity because I am humanity as well.

     1. Very gorgeous and true words Sandra. Thank you for bringing this into the discussion.

326. Rosanna it’s so true that people impacted by cancer and other diseases feel confused about why it happened to them. I love your simple explanation of how your choices around how you cared for yourself impacted the development of a condition in your body. I too have found this to be the case and with the support of Universal Medicine I have completely turned my health around.

327. A great reminder to “listen to your body” and it is up to the individual to truly heal the “cause” of the illness.

328. Thank you Rosanna for a well rounded article. It is refreshing to read a piece which makes references to other diseases in women as well as breast cancer. I understand this is a disease which needs attention but when reading the figures for heart disease and other conditions the expanse of chronic health issues broadens. Having experienced breast cancer the ‘why me?’ was only momentary because even though I was surprised at the diagnosis, when I looked back at my health history I had menstrual cycle, digestive, breastfeeding and emotional issues for many years before this. The breast cancer was only an end result of not listening to these signals from my body. Sometimes I feel that all the attention that is put on breast cancer can be misleading us to think it is only our breasts to pay attention to and checking for lumps will make us ok. Yes this is part of it but I have come to learn it is a whole body care thing and this happens in how I look after myself in every aspect of life. So having a painful period or headache or finding a lump all deserve attention and the question ‘what is my body showing me here?’ asked. The only difference is what medical support is needed. In this way we can take responsibility for the part our choices and lifestyle play in illness and disease, whichever one it may be. It is time to question and take seriously Women’s Health in general, from unbalanced periods as a teenager, to breast cancer in a 30 year old, to heart disease in a 60 year old. It is all telling us something.

329. Thank you Rosanna for your blog. It brings back the responsibility we have for our health and well-being in looking deeper and accepting what our choices have been. This way of living feels very empowering.

330. As I have heard it said by Serge Benhayon, the body is the marker of all truth. And so you have captured the essence of this in your blog Rosanna, as you highlight how our choices determine our future, including how they affect our health.

331. On the BBC news this morning statistics have been revised, to say that now one in two people in UK will experience cancer in some form in their lifetime. Also that 4 out of every 10 can improve their chances by changing their life-style. Universal Medicine students can attest to the fact that so many of us have experienced dramatic changes in our health and vitality when we chose to take responsibility for our own well-being.

     1. It is great news Sue, that at last it is being officially recognised that our life choices affect our health, and that we can bring about a change by taking responsibility for our own well-being. As students of Universal Medicine practicing this way of being we can share our experiences with others to support this.

332. We can all be quick to ask “Why me?” when things go wrong and perhaps look for someone, or something else to blame. If we ski too fast down a bumpy piste and fall and break a leg we accept that we are the cause of our pain. It is interesting that we don’t take this reasoning into the way we live and the consequences that may result.

333. Rosanna, great article. I too have recently been diagnosed with an overactive thyroid & can so relate to the busy, doing too much, and even the mental state of feeling overwhelmed, so it was great to have your wisdom reflected!
     Now I am listening more deeply to my body’s signals, and not allowing myself to over ride these (for the most part). The diagnosis was a welcome confirmation to my innate knowing that the way in which I was living was not supportive of my body. I am turning this around, and blood results show my hormones are re-balancing…however, without the self-responsibility for how I choose to live, I doubt this would be the case. I would likely still be asking that question ‘why me?’ from a victim mentality as I went on making the same harming choices I always had!

334. An amazing article and I learned a lot from reading it, thank you Rosanna for presenting the statistics and for exploring the ‘Why me?” showing how from your own experience you have seen the changes in your own body and how you are able to support your body from your daily choices on how to live, eat and be. Thank you.

335. A great article, thank you Rosanna, highlighting how the way we live has a direct effect on our body and health now, and, health to be. We cannot keep living in ignorance and being totally irresponsible without facing the consequences of some form of illness at some point in our lives.
     It is time for us all to start listening to our bodies and honouring all the messages, small or large that it lovingly conveys to us.

336. Thanks Rosanna – these statistics are a reality that we have to keep reminding ourselves of — there is certainly something more to be explored here.

337. A great post, thankyou Rosanna. I too can relate to the ‘why me?’ “….all these ailments can provide us with a way of understanding ourselves and bring an understanding of the relationship we have between the choices we make on a day to day basis and their effect – instantly or cumulatively over time – on our health and wellbeing.” I never used to take responsibility for the quality of how I lived, although living a fairly healthy lifestyle. It is thanks to Universal Medicine that I truly looked at my choices and then freely chose to change.

338. I love the suggestion that the “‘Why me?’ is a welcomed inroad into exploring what choices in life we can make to instigate our own positive changes and bring back an awareness to our day to day choices”. The World Health Organization (WHO) is very well aware that the majority of diseases are lifestyle related but just knowing this has not helped us. We need to be able to go deeper and honestly look at the way we are living in all areas of our life and then to find a way to change what is not working.

     1. I agree Elizabeth it is so easy to look at our life style choices and say, I eat healthily, I exercise, I do all the right things and yet I still get cancer or I still get sick. “Healthy” people do get cancer, the key is to go deeper and look at all areas of our lives not just the ones that are high lighted in health organisations. How we talk, how we sleep, do we live in anxiousness, exhaustion, (the list is endless) all have an impact on whether we will get sick or not, and being really honest with ourselves with things that are not really working for us is the first step.

339. I Love the breakdown you give of your choices leading up to your thyroid condition. We continually ignore our bodies and make unloving choices until our bodies have to release these loveless choices in an energetic package as physical illness before we stop and listen. When we take responsibility for the choices that we make things really do start to make sense.

340. Learning to feel what my body is telling me and following through with this, has been the biggest help in dealing with physical challenges. Once where I used to override and push through to get things done, now, thanks to the presentations by Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, I have a different outlook on why health issues have presented. It is such a joy to live this way (a work in progress) and now, when my body does not feel great, it is easy to see why this happened and what it is I did that contributed to the change.

341. Lifestyle and its relationship to the prevalence of disease is the big white elephant in the room. The link is now well understood, yet we choose to give most of our focus and attention to the factors that are beyond our control. Making lifestyle changes that are healthy and more in tune with the the way our body naturally functions is actually quite simple, yet we continue to pour millions of dollars into finding cures (which is still needed) whilst ignoring the fact that the largest piece of the puzzle is right in front of us.

     1. It is so the elephant in the room, it is like a dirty word – our lifestyle choices impact our health, yet it is SO OBVIOUS. But as a society, we really don’t want to put two and two together. It’s too confronting. I know I am confronted by it daily, that I can really have so much impact on how my body feels by the choices I make.

        1. So true Adam and Vanessa, our choices are key, but often we’d rather get ‘fixed’ by something out there, that pill, that procedure etc. than actually look at what we do. And it’s something many of us are challenged by often – the truth is often we don’t want to change our behaviours, we’d like to keep them but get rid of the nasty side-effects, hence our pursuit of all types of solutions to address the symptoms while ignoring that elephant in the room, how we live.

342. It is amazing what our body tells us, if we take the time to listen and feel the effects of our choices. Food, work, exercise, all have an effect and can be felt in the body.

343. Hi Rosanna, I appreciate your sharing here as I can relate directly. Thank you for this beautiful reminder, and heartfelt article. With love, Shayla

344. Those statistics are really exposing of the true disharmony we as a whole are living in at present. Sometimes I ask myself ‘what is it going to take’ for me to stop making less supportive choices that ultimately harm? The body is continually, lovingly showing us what is not true for us, but all too often we see symptoms as an annoying hinderance that gets in the way of our day. We have a gift right at our doorstep calling us to live in a more loving way, and for that our body will say ‘thank you’.

345. Reading your very revealing and levelling account of how many people are diagnosed with cancer is a very shocking eye-opener. Presenting plausible questions to people so they may be assisted to understand the ‘why’ and choose to move into a deeper level of ‘how to from here’.
     This reminds me of a Professional Allied Health poster I saw in a medical facility.
     It had 8 (?) photos of “deadly’ killers and the number of people (in Australia) that die from such things, i.e. shark attack, snake bite etc.
     All awful ways for life to end, but the numbers were seriously just a few.
     The last picture was of the humble 3 seater couch.
     Numbers of deaths it contributes to is in the thousands.
     A very real clear message that the most harmful things we do to our selves are just there in front of us, and possibly being portrayed as something that may make you feel better.

346. These shocking statistics should stop us in our tracks and not only have us asking ‘why me?’ but ‘why?’ full stop. These statistics show us that something is very wrong and we need to stop and ask why are we as humanity in such poor shape, what is going on?
     We have the best medical system ever with amazing advances in medications and surgical interventions which help us to manage our conditions, live longer and even survive cancer. But what is happening when the rates of illness and disease are sky rocketing out of control?
     I agree starting with ‘why me?’ is a great question, as it allows us to reflect on the part we play in our health. I wonder why though we have to wait for the massive health issue before we are pulled up by our body to ask the question.
     The moment we start to feel less than full of energy and vitality, we should be asking ‘why me?’ rather than letting ourselves get further and further away from our natural state of wellbeing before we question what is going on.

347. Thank you so much for sharing this piece of writing. After reading this article I felt to share a question: Could the question ”why me?” actually capture more then seeing ourselves or others as victims of illness and disease? Could this be a signal that it is ”me”(us) that can make a change? So that the question ‘ Why me?’ could actually be looked at differently, and be seen for the actual beautiful responsbility that we all have and can all take for our own body – and own health. Why me, is absolutely is place, ‘yes it is you, as you are the only one that can change it’.

348. As I read through the statistics provided about breast cancer, cancer in general and then all illnesses, I started feeling the weight of it all – what is going on with illness and disease is huge! It was great that you followed it up by bringing it all back to your own experiences and learning of how it is related to responsibility of how we live. A great way of seeing the big issue of illness and ‘why me?’ is actually a loving pointer and a start of the conversation for us finding our way back to living in greater care and honour of our self and every one.

349. A well-rounded article exploring how we affect our health and well-being through the simple choices we make. This is a challenging concept for some, but the way it has been presented here makes a lot of sense and opens up the opportunity for real honest reflection without judgement about the way we live. Thank you, Rosanna.

350. Thank you Rosanna for your beauty-fully expressed article based on “why me?”
     I really enjoyed reading it, despite the eyes becoming more opened to the shocking statistics that seem to increase month by month. The question “why me?” could really be replaced with our growing awareness with “Why not me? – how is it really that I have been in disregard or self-abuse in my daily behaviours, attitudes and belief systems.” It feels like there could be the possibility of a gargantuan surge of personal awareness being bestowed on us all to wake us up so to speak, lovingly so, calling us to attention to be more observant as to our daily choices and lifestyle. What if we could introduce a little more tenderness and self-care, listening to our bodies and not over-riding what we hear from the perhaps driven thoughts from the mind. The possibility is worth considering – and I have found the loving inspiration I was looking for from Serge Benhayon and the presentations from Universal Medicine.

351. As devastating as cancer is for those directly effected and for everyone around them, what I find most shocking is that 8.6 million women die worldwide each year from cardiovascular disease.
     The constant putting of ourselves on the back burner, continually giving ourselves the message that we don’t count as much as family members, work colleagues, etc is in such contrast to who we truly are, it’s breaking our hearts.
     How can we truly care for others if we don’t learn how to first care for ourselves?

352. A well researched article Rosanna. I can really feel how delicate and sensitive we are as people, but override our feelings when we push past what our body can handle. As a man, just because I can lift a heavy table does not mean that I do it alone. We really do hurt ourselves with these thoughts and actions, but the physiological result is devastating to more than the person who develops the illness, in the case of breast cancer, 1.7 million women plus their family and friends, enormous! And that was just in 2012.

353. It is indeed alarming to see the statistics for breast cancer and other women related cancers & heart disease affecting so many women in the world. Despite all the advances in medical technology the statistics are rising each year.
     Your article proposes that lifestyle and our choices do indeed affect our health and vitality and that it is about us taking responsibility for this and living more lovingly.

354. Thank you Rosanna for providing such a clear link between the choices we make and the effects of those choices on our health and well-being. This leads to the question: “Are we looking for the answers at the ‘wrong end’?”

     While there have been billions of dollars spent on looking for cures to ‘fix’ our health problems, it appears that little attention has been paid to ‘why?’

     Throughout society we see a reluctance for people to take genuine responsibility for their health. Is it possible that the level of self responsibility required for self-care is simply too challenging for those who are looking for the answers to the multitude of health problems?

355. The statistics you share are staggering and the question we need to ask is Why? What has changed in the last 40 years that the rate of illness has sky rocketed? Connecting life style choices and the way we are with those choices is a very reasonable angle to take. Taking responsibility for our heath and wellbeing is so very needed.

     1. I have found this also is true, Kate. By understanding I am responsible for my health through my choices I feel much more empowered to deal with illness when it comes up. The fear of getting ill has gone because I know that through my body I will be shown what I need to change… I just need the willingness to listen, take note and make adjustments.

     2. A local GP said to me the other day, how refreshing it is to have someone visiting the surgery taking a deeper level of responsibility for their own wellbeing, wanting to support their health, rather than many who are coming in to the surgery expecting a solution to get themselves fixed and not being prepared to have a good look at their lifestyle choices as part of the way forwards from dis-ease to health.

356. Rosanna, I can totally relate to this. For me it was the Gastrointestinal tract that was my weak point. The way I felt about myself and ran my life, the amount of sugar and cake I ate, the way I pushed through exhaustion, all ended in a serious illness that I have only been able to come out of by making different choices with my health and lifestyle. My illness was self made, and allowed to go on to the point of near death. Learning with Serge Benhayon to listen to my body and how things feel in it was the turning point for me. Actually taking responsibility for the fact that I can feel exactly what is right for me and what is not – and listening to that – has changed my health completely. I have taken myself from serious illness to building true health inspired by the teachings of universal medicine. I, like your friend used to ask why me, though now I understand it is because of me. This has been refreshing, it has shown me I can change it.. And I have.

357. What a great insight into how we are affected by all of the choices that we make.
     I felt to contemplate on who are the people that are represented in the statistics relating to physical and mental illness, and realised that it is really difficult to think of any adults that I know that have not suffered some kind of illness, and more often than not multiple illnesses.
     The model of harmony to dis-ease to illness is a great insight into the path of illness and one which makes total sense to me and what I have observed in those around me.
     What a gift we give ourselves when we take time to feel the dis-ease in our bodies and feel into “why am I feeling this way?” and then making more loving choices.
     We can turn this trend of illness around, loving choice by loving choice.

358. Great blog Rosanna. I have found that it has taken me quite a while to be able to hear the messages my body was sending me because I had spent so many years choosing to numb myself against emotional pain I had been carrying around. Gradually the numbness has lifted and I have begun to feel more clearly the effects various foods have on my body, and also that how I chose to react to other people and circumstances produces different states in my body. This feels very real and grounded and is allowing me to take more personal responsibility for my health and well being rather than just doing what someone else says is supposed to be good for me.

359. Great blog Rosanna, a stop moment for all who read this. None of us are immune to illness and disease and when viewed along the lines that you have shared disease can be seen as an opportunity to explore and reflect on our life, how we are living it, what is working and what is really not. The question Why me when asked without blame or judgement can be a gateway to a new way of living if we are honest and chose to take responsibility for the choices we have made.

360. Thank you Rosanna for answering the basic question, I too have had to ask, ‘Why me?’ How powerful it is to ponder on this question and take affirmative action instead of blaming anything outside of ourselves. I have found it all comes back to my responsibility to be in my body, listen to its constant messages and then take self caring and loving action.

361. Great article, we just assume life is and that we have no direct relation to its unfolding. How could we not think that the way we live does not have an impact on our body. When we over exercise we feel our muscles to be sore. The racy lives we live impact our internal system. It is just a quieter impact, so it seems but we have actually stopped listening to our bodies and use the old throw away line of- I always get a cold in winter, or my body always aches. No that is not normal, how have we allowed our body with signs of struggle and illness to become normal.
     Why do we not question all the small signs and only the big ones when we are then forced to stop.

362. Why me ? Gosh! how often has this question been asked. As you have so beautifully expressed Rosanna – – – “Our body is continually noting everything, and when we don’t pay attention it easily gets loaded, setting off on its way from harmony to dis-ease to illness”. This be the answer in most cases if not all. Our body supports us everyday in every way BUT how do we support our body everyday in any way? There is another way ~ a “loving way” as shared with us by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine starting with us simply taking responsibility for the choices we make each and everyday.

363. Thank you Rosanna – yes the “Why Me?” question is really so often posed – and often too illness is seen as a punishment accompanied by the question “what have I done that is so bad to deserve this illness?”. These perspectives and approaches keep us in the victim category, as if there is nothing that we had to do with the situation and that this is just something that randomly happens to us. However, if we can allow ourselves to let go of these approaches that see us as helpless and instead allow ourselves to acknowledge the fact that perhaps there was some part that we have played in the big picture that lead to this illness or dis-ease, then all of a sudden, what opens up for us are other possibilities – and a level of self empowerment. This in turn allows us to begin looking at how we have been and what we could change in the way that we have been that is more supportive of ourselves and takes responsibility for our own health. I too have been down the track of feeling like a victim by ‘getting an illness or disease’ and it was not until I realised the part I played in it, that I was able to really move on from it. But it did take a lot from me to break that pattern of seeing illness as a punishment and that I was a helpless victim. Today I don’t let this determine and limit my recovery – I have learned and am still learning how to take full responsibility for how I am on a daily basis as I now understand that every little thing counts towards how we are and how we feel and how this can support or work against our health. That said, I now see illness and disease as a blessing – a stop of a way of being that is unsupportive, and an opportunity to explore another way of being that is more in line with our natural way of being.

364. Rosanna your excellent article is so relevant and timely. Yesterday the number of female colleagues at the university in which I work, who are currently on leave with a diagnosis of breast cancer, was a topic of concerned conversation. The common thread with all the affected women were that they were real ‘go-getters’ – ie’ superwomen’. This resonates with your words ”Do too much…. get tired…. too tired to bother eating well… no energy to look after self…. push on through to get it all done… body totally exhausted… running on stress and nervous energy…”. As working women it is so easy to get caught in a cycle of always doing and achieving and forgetting to nurture ourselves … I too was on that path but fortunately an appointment with Serge Benhayon brought to my attention the fact that I have the choice to change my outcomes through my everyday living.

     1. Yes it can be easy to get ‘caught in a cycle of always doing and achieving and forgetting to nurture ourselves’. That has been a strong one for me, I have to continually bring it back to my choices and choosing to nurture and care for myself.

365. What a great answer to the common question – Why me? While a diagnosis of illness and disease can be frightening and devastating, it is as you say an opportunity to look at how we live our lives and the choices we make and in doing so, with the support of medicine, true healing and changes can begin to occur.

366. Thank you Rosanna, I feel what you are describing here in this blog is the possibility of living a much deeper level of self-responsiibility. The question, ‘Why me?’, can certainly support us in this, but most of the time when this question is asked it is said in self-pity or the like, and therefore this does not allow us to take the necessary responsibility that is needed to make long lasting changes which bring about a new understanding of the illness or disease our body is presenting with. Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon have supported me to break out of the self-pity cycle and see illness and disease as an opportunity to learn what my accumulated choices are telling me, so I can then make changes to how I have been choosing to live. Therefore, allowing myself the opportunity to not repeat the cycle with the same illness or a new one. This way of being with illness and disease is much more empowering rather than feeling like a ‘victim’ of it all. Self-responsibility is so very healing in itself and I am thoroughly enjoying feeling the lightness that comes from accepting that the buck stops with me and no one else. It really frees me up, and everyone around me, to get on with the business of living a loving and joyful life.

367. Rosanna you show us a very practical and deeply loving way to live, which offers us the chance to access the deep wisdom of our bodies, and one by one to start to answer the question, ‘why all of us?’, perhaps even before we need ask the question, ‘why me?’.

368. These numbers are huge! Even more when we consider for each diagnosed disease like cancer a whole family is diagnosed.
     Beautiful, Rosanna, how you bring it to the real question to be asked: what choices have I made and with what effect on my body? What did I (not) feel and act upon?
     I agree: we feel everything and there is always a cause and an effect relationship to any one activity, whether that’s a thought, something that is said or indeed the things we do.

369. Thank you for providing these eye opening statistics on breast cancer and women’s health. I knew breast cancer was very common but I didn’t realise 9 out of 10 women don’t have a family history. That pretty much blows out the genetics theory as the major contributing factor. If more women knew this it may also knock out a bit of complacency in women who do not have a family history. It is crazy the way certain conditions attract more funding and public interest. It reminds me of wildlife charities – how all the cute and furry’s get all the funding. Why me? This is a great place to start to ask our body how it feels about how we have been running it, to feel our moment by moment choices and choose the ones that create ease rather than dis-ease.

370. As you say Tricia, the ‘why me question’ is often asked once we get sick or overwhelmed in our life. Another question we could also ask is ‘why do we have to wait for illness and disease before we become aware that the way that we are living is not it?” Once we take responsibility for our choices, we can choose to see the ill-path before it manifests as a major illness.

371. Why me? is the question so often asked when we get sick or overwhelmed in life and this is a briliant article sharing so much of the answers to this for us to look at for ourselves. Thank you Rosanna for such a beautiful honest sharing of where you and we as humanity have got to and through the Inspiration and teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine can see how we are presented with a choice to change and take responsibility for ourselves and how we can live lovingly. This as you have shared brings a vitality, health and aliveness to our bodies.

372. The numbers are alarming and it is commonly known that lifestyle has a lot to do with disease. The next step is to truly make a change, to find ourselves worthy of the change and to start caring for ourselves on a much deeper level.

373. I really enjoyed reading this Rosanna – ‘why me’ is so common to ask when anything bad happens to us – but your point on understanding our choices behind the result is HUGE. Illness is seen as a normal part of society – it is accepted that people will inevitably get some form of sickness throughout their life – and it is common that we blame that sickness on exterior factors. I am certainly guilty of blaming a cold on the person next to me sneezing.
     So what you present here – is true responsibility – well before we get sick. To look at the way we live as a means to support and nurture ourselves rather than encourage ill health.

374. Great question Rosanna and it can be really applied to anything: Stuck in traffic jam – why me? No toilet paper – why me? The angry customer – why me? Of course it can also be asked in the opposite way: promotion – why me? An amazing relationship – why me? Winning the lottery – why me?
     A question we could ask more frequently because things are really a lot more inter-connected than we choose to be aware of.

     1. Yes indeed. Good point Judith.

375. Rosanna this is superbly written and and for me summed up by the words, ‘I don’t always choose what my body is advising, but I then have to live with the consequences while my body’s reaction to that choice plays out.’ When we tune into and accept that our bodies feel everything, our choices become clearer and our responsibility does too. The statistics you share are startling, and a shocking prediction for our already overloaded health systems. Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon point us back to developing a loving relationship with our bodies as the key to wellbeing. Thank you

376. Thank you Rosanna, your blog shares the stark reality of the statistics in relation to the lives lost to breast cancer and other forms of cancer, illness and disease. You pose a question for us all to consider “Why did I get this disease?” What I found inspiring in your question was how you welcomed it as an “inroad” to bring awareness to your daily choices and how to truly support yourself back towards health and wellbeing. I see you bucking the trend in taking responsibility for your choices and your health

377. Thank you Rosanna, a great article to help us see the enormous affect we can have on our own health, both positive and negative. I love your reminder that every choice comes after a feeling – so when I made a choice to eat chocolate and ice-cream when I felt sad, low and tired I was actually eating as a reaction to how I was feeling – oh yes, then bloating and feeling a whole heap worse both physically and emotionally! It took a body meltdown to be honest about this cycle of abuse though and I am now fascinated by why we need the “why me” moments, the trauma, to make us stop. Fascinated by why we don’t simply listen to our bodies? Awareness and this kind of conversation is crucial to be able to put a circuit breaker in so thank you again.

378. Rosanna, thank you for your honest and open findings of your experience of illness, with such an informed overview of the extent of illness and disease today. I was not aware of these facts before. They are indeed staggering and as you say affect us all. With rapidly rising rates, surely, as you present, looking at how we are in our everyday is the key part of the picture. Without judgment or blame, this can be seen as a way to understand what has brought us to that place. “Why me” is a great question to ask and you present much here to ponder on, I want to read it all again.

379. I have asked myself this question for a long time now, “Why do I get this disease?” In the past it just used to be “Why does a spot come up in that one particular place in my body?” Since becoming a student of Universal Medicine and learning about emotional energy becoming held in the body, and why, I understand so much more about my part in my body’s healing journey. I have had a rash for seven years now, and it has moved around my body depending on how I have been living and what is clearing from it as I take note and accept responsibility for that. and has given me important information about how I can support that process. It is now in one or two very small significant places, probably indicating the attachment to my deepest held behaviours and beliefs. This helps me to know what to work with towards my own healing.

380. Thank you Rosanna. This is an important question you are asking as we are too often standing at the crossroad of illness and disease and do not seem to know how we got there. And yet it is quite simple if we start to look at how we live more closely and allow our body to guide us.

381. This is a very thought provoking article, Rosanna. When answering the “why me” question it is so common to always be looking for answers outside of ourselves- genetics, the environment we work in, food etc rather than owning that it could be the way we have been living and the choices we have made. We are such a “fix it” society that we expect that there will be a medical fix for what is happening to us which again often absolves us from taking any responsibility. Feeling into our bodies and addressing the signals we get from the body is such an empowering way for us to live and we can then be partners in health with the medical profession rather than totally dependent on it.

382. Rosanna,
     You answer the question which has hit a stone wall for…a millennia…”why me?” with compassion and simplicity.

     I was inspired by the teachings of Serge Benhayon because they made SO MUCH SENSE…and nothing until then had been presented with a consistency (the teachers, practitioners were not well!) and had not worked to help me make the life changes or bring about the sense of well being I was looking for.

     Over the past 4 years I have become so much more self honoring, self empowered and loving and as such I am now able to be that for others. I have observed and felt just how key it is to get honest about how I support and nurture myself and my body or how I neglect and abuse myself…

     As Rosanna says “…understanding of the relationship we have between the choices we make on a day to day basis and their effect – instantly or cumulatively over time – on our health and well-being.” is the BIG answer.

     I myself, would like to see this in all the headlines. Are we ready to consider a deeper level of love, integrity and responsibility? How loud must the body scream to get us to do things differently? How bad does it need to get?

383. The statistics are staggering that you share, and how the media has manipulated the facts if you didn’t read anything else you would think that the majority way women get breast cancer is genetic! How wrong is that, but the media focus on it so much its really shocking to discover it is only 1 in 10 the other 9 out of 10 not genetic… That really blew me away. The manipulation runs deep. I knew about the heart disease stats and again it makes me wonder because the focus is very much on cancer not heart disease. Like you Rosanna I have seen the great benefit of making changes to my lifestyle choices to my health very much inspired by Serge Benhayon, you would think the media would want to report on that…. interesting that.

     1. Great point Vanessa. I certainly thought breast cancer was a genetic disease, because that is the impression often given by the media.

384. The topic of cancer is obviously an emotive subject for many people, and for some it may be too much to consider our own role in illness and dis-ease. I enjoyed the wholeness with which you presented the possibility that our own lifestyle decisions have a bigger influence on our wellbeing and lack of dis-ease in the body than we often give credit. I have started to learn how the small subtle things can make a big difference to how I feel, be that how well I prepare myself for sleep, or if I let my mind race away, all the little things we do add up to the harmony or dis-ease in the body that we will feel.

385. I really recognise that process of the downward spiral that pulls towards #illness…. ‘Do too much…. get tired…. too tired to bother eating well… no energy to look after self…. push on through to get it all done… body totally exhausted… running on stress and nervous energy… and finally an uncontrollable, over active #thyroid condition.’ or what ever the individual person and body ends up with.
     I too don’t always choose what my body is advising, but living with the spiral effect is becoming less and less appealing, and so I’m more inclined to want to look after myself and not experience the way those choices play out.
     My body wants #harmony, and is just telling me so…

386. Rosanna – In reading your wonderful article I loved feeling how this question “Why me?” can either be asked in a victim mentality, woe-is-me or what have I done to deserve this sort of energy, or it can be asked with the openness to seeing the opportunity to really honestly feel how we have been living in disregard, and how the disease is giving us the perfect opportunity to really stop and feel that and make loving changes and grow. We don’t need to get sick to stop and make such changes, but often we don’t change without some sort of difficulty arising to ‘make us’ stop.

387. Thank you Roseanna for broadening my perspective on cancer. It has just become so normal to sense that there is a rising number of illnesses going on throughout the world, we almost block it out and just accept it. We think, perhaps the latest medical technology will keep it all in check and therefore we are OK. We are never OK while we ignore the obvious signs that these statistics are tellings us.

388. Rosanna, this is a very clear and concise writing, exposing the statistics with regard to various illnesses and diseases. It has really made me sit up and be more aware of these shocking figures on a worldwide scale, affecting so many lives. As you say, “Our body is continually noting everything, and when we don’t pay attention it easily gets loaded, setting off on its way from harmony to dis-ease to illness”.
     I used to be highly skilled at avoiding any communication from my body or having to look at where I was not being honest with myself. Thanks to presentations by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, I have had more understanding of conscious presence with my body and how my choices affect everything. This has supported me, and continues to do so, to address some personal ‘health scares’ in a completely different way. It still amazes me how resistant my mind can sometimes be, to embracing deeper self care and feeling exactly what the body is calling for. Slowly but surely, this dominant mind is being re-configured to let the body lead the way!

389. Thank you Rosanna for presenting the facts about breast cancer around the world and then relating these figures so well to everyday life. I have also at times pushed myself too far and not taken care of my body in favour of all the things I have to do. But actually in light of the current disease rates I can see how actually very irresponsible this way of living is.

     1. Rosanna has put breast cancer into perspective with other illnesses that blight the human race. Her article is a wonderful tool for reducing fear in those who have been diagnosed with cancer.

390. Thank you Rosanna for sharing – so much of what you wrote really resonates within myself (and I’m sure many others) particularly with the thoughts of “too much to do”
     This does still catch me at times and results in my heart literally over beating with an intense anxiousness. My body being such an amazing marker of how I do or do not make self loving choice.

391. Thank You Rosanna for an informative and reflective article on the relationship between how We live our lives and dis-ease / illness.

392. Rosanna, I enjoy the way you turned around the age-old ‘why me?’ expression which usually comes loaded with self-pity and playing the victim. Instead it becomes a positive starting off point to explore what has lead me to this point where my body has broken down to become one of these horrifying statistics. You must have provided a great reflection to your friend.

     1. I agree joesphinebe2012 in that ‘Why me?’ becomes a starting point of exploration into the choices we may have made up to that point. For me, this process requires understanding and is not about being judgemental or critical of our past choices, but simply reflecting on, and observing, the impact that these choices may have had on the body, so that from that point, we are offered the opportunity to begin making different choices. The key for me personally in all of this and when I have situations where I’m asking ‘why me?’ is to take this back to self-responsibility. Self-pity and feeling like a victim can often come from feeling like events / circumstances etc. are the fault of another or something happening ‘to’ us, however when I bring it back to ‘my’ choices and ‘my’ body, many of these feelings seem to dissipate and provide me the support to take this responsibility.

     2. I agree Josephine, using the ‘why me’ question to begin the exploration into the truth that our bodies are speaking to us moment to moment. If we haven’t been listening, then what a great opportunity to learn more and begin to deepen our relationship with ourselves as the energetic beings that we are.

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