by Julie Goodhart, human resources, United States.
I was pregnant several years ago and had a healthy baby, who was delivered seven weeks early. The experience of being pregnant and giving birth was difficult, nearly disastrous, and I learned a great deal – and am still learning – from that experience seven years ago.
I was not healthy during my pregnancy, and didn’t realise this fact until I ended up in the hospital at 32 weeks with a mysterious case of cardiomyopathy. By this time, my kidneys were shutting down, I was retaining water in enormous amounts, I could barely breathe due to fluid building up in my lungs, and my heart was enlarged dramatically and could not keep up with what was going on in my body, beating at a constant 150 beats per minute (talk about being racy!).
After several days in the hospital in this condition, I went into heart failure and gave birth by emergency C-section. There was a point during this whole event where the doctors told my husband that either myself or my baby, or both of us, may not make it.
But we both did, and after a few more weeks of a variety of different drug treatments, a second hospitalisation, and months of rest, my heart came back to normal size, the water retention cleared, my heartbeat returned to normal, and I could breathe more easily. Was it just the drugs that saved my life? I owe a lot to the doctors and staff who treated me and helped my husband and I through this experience, but I can’t say that it was just the doctors, the treatments, or the drugs that helped me recover. What I can say is that, even in the midst of everything going on in the hospital, I trusted in my body’s natural ability to heal, and in my ability to make different choices to help with my own healing. I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.
And the fact that I actually wasn’t paying enough attention was something I realised with honesty while in the hospital and in the weeks afterwards. I reflected on how I was living during my pregnancy – how and what I was eating and the fact that I was not really taking care of my body. The signs were there, and I noticed some of them, but chalked it up to just another odd thing that happens during pregnancy. I understand now that I was not honouring what my body was telling me.
While pregnant, I was hungry all the time and ate often. Without paying much attention, I regularly consumed large quantities of salt, mostly in prepared food that I ate as a ‘snack’ between meals. At work, there was a big project I was in charge of, and I was in a total push every day to finish it before going on leave. There were many other stressors at work, and I chose to deal with them all myself, instead of asking for help. I realise now that I was taking on everyone else’s stuff, giving my power away, and doing what I thought everyone else wanted of me, instead of doing what I felt was right for me. I was exhausted beyond words, and in overwhelm about the thought of being a mother. I felt that I could barely look after myself, so how was I going to look after a baby?
Even though my body healed physically from this experience, it was about two years later that I started to understand that there was more to the cardiomyopathy than just the physical healing. It was then that I first heard about Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, and attended a Heart Chakra workshop. I started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love. I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love. What was being presented at this workshop was different from anything else I had ever heard a practitioner or teacher say. Although I could feel that what was being shared was the truth, it took a long time for me to admit that the way I had been living was definitely not true love and not the truth.
In time, I started to see how it was not only my lifestyle choices – the food I ate, lack of a steady sleep rhythm, giving my power away, prolonged stress at work that I actually had some control over – that may have led to having a heart disorder but also the fact that these choices stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me. This, I’m still learning as I go about the day – making choices and reflecting on the reasons why I make them – and I understand for perhaps the first time that it starts with my connection with my body.
I am gentler with my body now, and am listening more and more to what my body is telling me every day, such as when it’s time to rest, when I need to eat and what to eat, how to dress for the weather so that I do not get cold and so forth. I am developing more awareness of how my body responds when I exercise, go out in the cold, or even just how I sit at my computer. For me, listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine.
I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.
There is more to learn every single day, and I am grateful for the choices that led me to the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… You may also be interested in reading this article on the connection between heart disease and love.
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
I’ve been listening to my body for a number of years now and my health has most certainly improved. However, there is no peak where one achieves maximum body listening skills and it’s said enough so I can stop listening. The body always has something to say and constantly knows the next levels of love.
This statement stood out for me, ‘that no one knows my body better than I do’. I ponder on the many conversations, the disapprovals etc. I’ve received from others, when I ask for gluten and dairy free foods. Its as if, because I’m not having an allergic reaction I must be ok then, and yet they do not witness what is occurring internally.
We need to honour what is occurring for our bodies. The signs doesn’t have to be in your face either, they can be subtle at first. then they come banging on your door. It’s what we do with it afterwards, is the question we need to ask ourselves more often.
‘I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’ The power of this love is such that stressors roll off like water off a ducks back …I know this to be true …..and yet I can justify behaviours that go against upholding this awesome power. However if I do that it’s as if I have switched a button and more truly disregarding ways present themselves to me….until I switch back again and allow myself to feel the depth and breadth of that love and say yes to only that.
I love what you have shared here Elaine, ‘practice basic self-care’. This is where it all begins from the ‘basics’ and it unfolds and develops to other levels of healing your body is offering. It is true love and support for the wellbeing of our bodies.
I lived with a huge lack of self-love for a very long time and my wonderful body paid the price for my love-less, mind driven choices. These days, although my care for myself is so much deeper than it ever has been, my body still bears the ‘scars’ of this long-term, disregarding way of living. I cannot change the choices, and the consequences, made through many years of my life, but I now know that in every moment I have the freedom to make very different and love-filled choices, and most of the time, those are the choices I make, and my body is very loud in its appreciation when I do.
It’s pretty hard to admit that we have not really been living true love when we try so hard efforting in life – I guess that is why we keep reinterpreting the words love and truth in attempt to distracting ourselves from the hard truth, but lying to ourselves hurts more than anything and humility is actually a very beautiful, healing step we can take to start walking back towards the simplicity of who we truly are.
‘I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.’ Although this may seem very obvious, it is something worth remembering, we are the main and first receptors of our own body signals, so when we honestly listen to them, we simply know what is happening within us and why.
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering” A simple and beautiful appreciation of the healing messages offered by our body.
“no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.” Bingo….that last bit is the real gold and raises a great question – are we really willing to pay attention to our bodies?
Totally true! We are like – everything’s fine even when we have a pain or we know something is amiss until the diagnosis is serious. Imagine how many serious illnesses we could prevent if we paid attention earlier…
I don’t think we consider our hearts enough – they beat every moment of the day and we take this and all its virtues for granted. If our heart could be related to our ability to love – then surely it needs the best possible care in the world.
A great reminder of how many messages our body gives us that we choose to override, our body is a great communicator and I have found the more we listen to it the more it guides us to make supportive choices and when we shut down the communication our body gives us a nudge and another one if we ignore it, and if we continue it eventually brings us to a stop that we are unable to ignore.
It’s a truly amazing story Julie of a deep and profound healing, from being so skilfully supported by the medical staff at the hospital, to making so many changes to commit to self love and self care as inspired by Universal Medicine. You’ve inspired me too as I feel to continue working on taking more care to listen to my body.
I love how this blog takes it beyond self care and self love and asks what is underlying our care and love or lack of it. If we truly develop a relationship with us and our bodies which is self loving and express that love in our lives, our choices come from that foundation and that changes the game completely. At the end of the day we live in our bodies 24×7 and they show us always how we’ve been and the impacts of that, so we have this amazing tool which shows us how we are loving with us and asks us to be more so – isn’t that amazing.
My life has completely changed and continues the more I listen to how my body feels. Not just aches and pains but an inner sense of knowing what to do in any moment. And I thank Serge Benhayon for reminding me that I and all of us know this body language.
“I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love” This is so healing the medical profession can do amazing things and help to bring us back but we have to do our part and as you show it starts with making a choice to be love in everything we do and when we do it is amazing how much the body is able to heal. I have had experience with someone with cardiomyopathy who did not make the same choices as you, was not willing to look at every aspect of their life, to honour themselves in self love and the results were very different.
When presented with the truth, as in the presentations of Serge Benhayon, one of the most challenging things to accept is “that the way I had been living was definitely not true love and not the truth.” This realisation definitely comes with a big ouch but in that moment, we have a choice, accept the truth and say yes to love, or choose to live the lesser way we always have. The only thing about the second choice is that once presented with the truth it takes a huge and uncomfortable force to ignore it.
Recently I had a difficult moment and felt myself holding back, closed off to others, I could feel hardness across my chest and it felt as if the heart just got shrunk but heavier. I could feel how a dis-ease can develop from that way of being if it was my usual pattern.
Wow! Our bodies can really show us in every way that how we are living is not healthy to us.
Some of us can go through a lifetime of abusing our body with no apparent ill-consequences. Others are more lucky and have the opportunity to stop the abuse.
This is an interesting case study on how the cardiomyopathy developed and how you recovered from it and how much medicine helped you in the process.
It’s great how you describe how in taking much greater care of yourself you were able to deal with the stresses of life with much more ease, in difficult or busy times often looking after ourselves is the last thing we think of but it’s actually the thing that keeps us stable and that enables us to keep working hard without burning out or getting unwell.
When we take on everything without asking for help, not only are we under a great deal of stress so too is our physical body, and as a result inevitably something has to bring us to a stop in order for us to take stock.
“I started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love. I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love.” Making life about love, starting with ourselves, transforms everything. What choices do we make on a regular basis that can be tweaked to making them more about love? .
What a wake-up call from the body. Often we put our illnesses and moments as described, as just something that happens without ever associating it with the way we have been living up until that point. It’s amazing how the body appreciates our efforts to self-care and will respond positively.
I love that here love is being talked about as a form of medicine … in self-love and self-care, there is a lot to learn from this.
“There is more to learn every single day” – So simple and so true. What if we changed our criteria for a ‘good day’ from getting lots of activities and tasks done, to constantly learning and being open to seeing more about what goes on in life?
I find it amazing how much a sensitive body that may otherwise be healthy respond to less than ideal treatment – how devastating the consequences can be.
I agree Julie, that we know our body inside out. We know when we are not listening to it yet we pretend, ignorant to the fact that we do know. We have set up big time on purpose a demand if you like to not see a relationship with our body and to not take any responsibility for it. It is our own making and until we are willing to acknowledge this responsibility we will continue to be at the mercy of everything that is outside of us.
Our bodies offers us so much wisdom and understanding about ourselves and life, it is crazy to think we abuse it and numb it with substances and food and block this divine communication.
Awesome that you chose to listen to your body and carried on listening rather than going back to your old habits. Deepening our levels of self-love has huge benefits not just for us but everyone around us as we choose to take care of ourselves and are then more able to truly care for others rather than doing it out of duty etc.
I recently ignored the signs about something, as I too ‘chalked them up’ to something else, and it escalated resulting in three burnt fingers! It was a great lesson and a reminder for me to check in with myself when my body sends a message and don’t override or make assumptions about it. It makes it a lot less painful!
Yes, something that should take a week to recover from can escalate to six months if it gets ignored.
It is often at the moment that our body really breaks down that we realise that how we have been living was totally not in honour of our body. The key is then to still remember this when we feel better again, because I found soon we fall into the same old behaviours again when we don’t look at the origin of the unwanted behaviour.
Yes, that repetition could lead to the same consequences happen again or perhaps even worse.
It is so true that at the back of our lifestyle choices is our relationship with ourselves. There are many things that I knew I should do to care for myself, but my excuse was always ‘I don’t have time/money for that’. ‘I’ was at the end of the queue. The more love we afford for ourselves, the more self-nurturing the choices we make become.
I am in Brisbane at the moment and last night I was walking back to my hotel around dusk, and was getting seduced my being in a big city, with bright lights and wanting to make the most of my ‘big city time’ and was about to set off exploring a bit more but felt to check in with my body. It said something quite different, it said, go home, and rest, I’d like to lie down. And I was like OK body, let’s do that. These moments of self-care are to be appreciated, when we start to listen to the wisdom of the body.
If we don’t listen to our body then our body has to speak louder and louder to get our attention. It is interesting to read how you were exhausted and wouldn’t stop until your body stopped you. I am sure most of us have had similar experiences whether it is overworking before a holiday and then getting a cold on holiday or having a small accident or something as dramatic as your experience.
Julie I loved this sentence ‘I understand now that I was not honouring what my body was telling me.’ When we don’t honour our body it has to bring us to a stop to give us the opportunity to truly understand the choices that we have been making.
‘For me, listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine.’ When I read your blog I could feel that a lot of the time I don’t want to feel/acknowledge the pain I have in my body. This is exposing but at the same time it inspires me to go deeper with my self care and feel into what my body is asking of me.
Without doubt our own quality of and commitment to self-care augments any medical treatments we need to support our health and wellbeing.
Once we understand and know about self-love, we can never truly ignore or override our body’s signals again. Well we can, but deep inside we’ll feel the tension of doing so. Which, left unchecked, will only lead to more dis-ease.
The body offers lots of signs and messages, and with a small shift in where we place our focus, we can hear and see what is being offered.
Wow, that would have been a seriously scary thing for you and your family to go through. It truly is amazing that you both survived and that you are now living in a way that supports you, in a way that we should all really have been taught from a young age and that is, knowing the body is the marker of all truth. What a blessing for your baby to grow up with a mother that lives and breathes this much love and care for herself.
It is gorgeous to know that at any point we can choose to commit to self love and begin to move in a way that is in honour of our worth rather than our reactions to life… and from here develop a connection to a love within that is untouched and untainted.
On reading your beautiful blog again today Julie I am aware that every illness and disease is a message about love, if only we are prepared to listen, learn and expand; as you were Julie.
I hadn’t computed this but of course it is very obvious ‘every illness and disease is a message about love’.
What you have shared here Julie is conveying a simple powerful message;
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that”.
There is much to learn every single day Julie and I have deepened my understanding, and been reminded of, the absolute importance of listening to our bodies from reading your blog. Thank you for sharing.
“I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.” When we are offered the messages our body is showing us we have a choice to listen or not and all our choices have consequences.
We can deny what is going on but at the end it is what we denied that is coming towards us even bigger. So why not listening directly. We call ourselves intelligent but do we behave that way?
Julie you brought up a great point here, ‘these choices stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me.’ I never truly understood about love until I came across Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, it is easy to think of love as the emotional kind, and I’ve learnt love comes from the essence of who we are, and therefore we are naturally love, yet we generally don’t live the love we are.
Any message we receive from our bodies, about love and truth, is a great blessing. Self love and self appreciation are the key; thank you for your inspirational blog Julie.
“Even in the midst of everything going on in the hospital, I trusted in my body’s natural ability to heal, and in my ability to make different choices to help with my own healing. I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.” Very true Julie. So often we give our power away to systems – yet having an inner knowing – and trusting that – can support the body’s ability to heal even faster.
Having a child was a huge support for me in expressing more love. It took me a while to cotton on that the blessing of this was not for my child to receive all of my love, this was the pathway and that the love I was able to express was equally for all.
That deep love that the stressors of the world cannot touch, the more we listen to our bodies messages the more that steadiness and unshakable quality within starts to come out. Living in this way makes you stand out and I have for what feels like a very long time avoided going there in fear of standing out and being attacked. Because no one questions you if your going about human life, paying your bills, going to work yet running with underlying anxiousness or following ideals and beliefs of how life should be. Following our feelings goes against how the world is living. And for me I would say that every time I have connected that steadiness within feels amazing, so much more than trying to fit into life. I sit here now and consider that every time that choice to connect has consistent success and disconnection has consistent failure, so whats in the way of sticking with what truly works?
The significance and importance of self-love and self-appreciation can never be over stated or emphasized enough.
Our bodies will always have an extraordinary amount to say… if we just take the time to listen.
“I trusted in my body’s natural ability to heal, and in my ability to make different choices to help with my own healing. I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.” I am struck by this sentence and can hear how we get so many little warning signs that we can choose to hear, and do something about, or not. It seems so obvious – yet it is not our normal!
Listening and responding is also well-rewarded. Issues in many case simply don’t escalate.
It’s amazing how we can feel that no-one knows our body better than us and yet still be unwilling to listen to what it is communicating with us! Whilst not having such a dramatic story as yours Julie I have spent many years overriding the myriad of messages my body was trying to impart about just how much I was driving myself and abusing my body in the process. It was only when a practitioner told me that if I continued on that path I was headed for Chronic Fatigue that I finally started taking notice and making changes. Since then it has been a constant refinement and I too ‘begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’
It is a constant learning to deepen my awareness and acknowledge those moments where I am not being self loving but with every moment of awareness comes a choice to change my ways or not.
There is always more for us to learn Julie, we are the forever students; however what you have expressed here is a solid foundation for that expanding and learning to happen, thank you;
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that”.
‘I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’ Thank you, I know this to be true and it is putting me on alert to the fact that I can go so much deeper with the attention I am giving my body and the care and love I am able to bring to my responses.
‘I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.’ Yes the truth is our body is much wiser than we often think and when we learn to listen to its signals of wisdom, we start to hear the smallest ones and can choose differently supporting our body instead of working against it to full fill others needs.
Sounds like you have gone from Julie Goodhart to Julie Trueheart – a journey most who come across the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine make. We were not taught about True Love growing up and many of us ended up living in an abusive way in the name of good or other ideals without listening to the wise messages of our bodies. Since I started listening to and respecting my body my life has totally transformed in a great way!
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” The more we accept, appreciate and love ourselves the more our lives change – and that includes medical problems – miraculous!
Returning to self care and self love makes a huge change to our lives, ‘I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love’.
This is a brilliant blog Julie, sharing your experience certainly highlights how much our body is constantly communicating to us. To understand heart failure as a sign from our body, which it is calling out for us to be more loving and to express true love, this is very inspiring as everything that happens to us has a meaning and a reason. To ask why and seek a deeper understanding of what our body is telling us supports and offers us opportunities to learn and grow.
As I read your blog tonight Julie, there is a clear sense the the tenderness I have been living with is now to be deepened, there is a call from my body that is not demanding or needy, rather a sense that I know beyond doubt the quality of love I have activated within, and a clear concise no holds bared impulse to surrender and let what is there within to be lived.
Conventional medicine can work wonders in supporting us when we are seriously ill and Universal Medicine presents the miracle of understanding how the choices we make in the way we are living are the underlying cause of our illness and disease. Making self-loving and loving choices in the way we live with ourselves and others is the best form of preventative medicine.
The word ‘LOVE’ has been so misused that it takes a while of going to Universal Medicine presentations to actually grasp its true meaning again. I am beginning to realise that love is not a thing you do for another or that another gives to you…It is actually what we are made of and if we begin to understand this and not impair our natural disposition then that is when we begin to feel the true benefits of love in the body. We are removing the layers that are unloving and what we discover underneath those layers is love, for ourselves and then naturally this love extends to others.
“I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love.” What a gorgeous line in your blog Julie. It all begins with self-love. Otherwise it is empty words when we speak about what the world may need and we are not bringing to ourselves first. An important first step.
With Julie’s article we are looking at the fundamental connection between self-care and health… Between self responsibility, and the well-being of our own lives… And these are the dots that must be joined within our society for the well-being of all.
Well said Cjames2012, I totally agree. The more we consistently choose to live with self-care and willingness to take responsibility for our choices and our own health the more we will inspire others to do the same.
A gift given from what must have been a very worrying time in your lives. When we are given the opportunity to see our bodies as more than a functioning machine, but actually a collection of divine systems that need nurturing to support us to do all we would like to do, it is truly life changing.
‘I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’ This is the essence, building a body of love, makes it less likely that we are de-stabilised by what is going on around us, and less affected by what people say about us Our strength is an inner-one, gentle but powerfully so.
There is nothing at all that happens randomly, it’s all energy, delivering a myriad of messages to be read and felt. Looking back we can clearly see the lead up and the patterns which lead to a situation, but unless we have a relationship with the body we can miss very obvious indications the body is not in harmony. We are so used to overriding and treating our body as purely functional, but as you have so beautifully illustrated Julie even in the most critical time your body was still willing to communicate that you could trust in it, knowing it was still possible to clear and truly heal.
More and more I am beginning to understand that my body holds such a knowing that is beyond that what my mind even can grasp. Coming from living a life lived from my mind, returning to this natural way of being, where my body is the marker and beholder of truth, is such a relief for my body and my whole being. Instead of a tensed body, I do now live with my body in a calm and relaxed state that is responsive to how I behave myself in life and which is leading me to a way of living that is filled with purpose, vitality and joy.
I am beginning to find that when I take care of myself and there are always opportunities to deepen the self-love, I can take care of that which is in front of me.
Our bodies are so amazing, the way they heal, the way they give us messages about how we are living, the way they are quite forgiving for quite a long time before anything really serious comes along. It is because our bodies are so amazing that we feel we can get away with not really paying attention to all the small messages our body sends us. Imagine how vital we would be if we paid attention and lived well. A wise person lives this way. I needed the big wake up call too before I paid attention and considered truly listening and I am still learning. It is a lovely work in progress.
It sounds so basic, to listen to our body but how many of us actually do it day in day out? Animals natural instinct is to listen to its body, it hunts the right amount and type of food it needs, hibernates when it is time to, when the seasons communicate, so not only are animals connected to their body but all the elements that make up nature. So if we are the most advance species, then why are we the sickest and most destructive to ourselves and nature? Perhaps listening to the body and then expanding the open ear to nature may unlock some of the disaster we have gotten ourselves in and actually begin to live up to our so called advanced label, cause from where I sit it is pretty primitive to be unable to take care of ourselves enough to survive.
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” such simple advice that anyone can choose to take and it wouldn’t cost them a thing other than committing to ourself but what a difference to our health it can make? Thank you Julie, great insights.
‘…I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’ So true Julie Goodhart and wonderful to know that this love is in us all equally.
The body is a deeply profound source of true wisdom – much more so than we are commonly led to believe. For me, this exposes the short falls of our current craze of ‘mindfulness’ because it does not bring connection with the fullness of this innate wisdom in our bodies. In connection with the body there is so much more to be felt, to be known and to be lived.
I just love to hear the accounts from those who have realised the true value of self-love. Love has to come from the self first because we are the source of our own love. Seeking it without is a denial of this fundamental truth that love comes from within. To be self-loving is not the arrogant thing many seem to believe it to be – it is in fact how it has to be.
Julie,
I am re reading your article tonight and can truly appreciate the healing that it brings. To not truly allow others to love us, mm, ouch. I can feel in myself how there has been a nagging undermining energy that constantly drops in thoughts that undermine the divinity that I am, and so has kept me from fully accepting and living that I am divine. Not allowing others to love me has been one of these nagging beliefs, as I make the choices needed to knock this belief for a six, I can feel that I am more open first of all to my love and can finally feel that others do actually love me and I can now believe it, and hence allow it, because I feel it.
Health situations like these are indeed a huge wake up call for us to look at how we are living, as the body is clearly telling us that something is amiss with regards to the choices we are making – no one is immune from the many and varied messages the body sends to us on a moment by moment basis. It seems to me that we can either make an enemy of the body or choose to see the wisdom it holds.
‘What I can say is that, even in the midst of everything going on in the hospital, I trusted in my body’s natural ability to heal, and in my ability to make different choices to help with my own healing.‘ Caring for ourselves by honoring and nourishing our body with rejuvenating sleep and a balance of movement and rest can only enhance conventional medicine’s supportive effect on our healing process. Beautifully said Julie.
What you share here is of ultimate value Julie, as our bodies are giving us signals constantly that something is not okay. We have developed a way of living in which we have the tendency to ignore those signals and instead try to not feel them, and mostly do this by overeating or using substances to dull our awareness on the signals being presented. This works for a while, we think, but our bodies cannot cope and have to stop us in our abusive behavior towards it. Big lessons are here to learn, as we cannot relieve our body in truth from any harm that has been brought to it. We can only heal by looking at the origins and take away the root cause of the disruptions we brought into our bodies and only then true healing can take place.
Listening to my body and treating it with love and care seems so sensible and simple. I know I was arrogant when it came to treating my body well. I ran it with the full confidence that l could get away with almost anything and even ignored the signs that were clearly telling me that this was not so. How much more inspiring it is to be in tune with my body and to treat it with loving care. This is the reflection that the world needs. I know when I looked around there was one person in my life trying to take care and everyone else was pushing themselves beyond reason. The more people who reflect good choices, the more it will be an obvious choice.
Our bodies are an amazing reflection of the quality of the way we are living and how we are looking (or not looking) after ourselves. If only we listen…
I loved reading this thank you Julie, making simple lifestyle choices coupled with the awareness that the heart is indeed a vessel of love, you cant lose.
Julie,
I am reading your article again tonight and can very much relate to living ignoring the clear precise messages that my body has always had. I am glad that I am beginning to take notice, and so is my body.
The love I feel for myself deepens every day, and with this so does the love I feel for others. Feeling in my body the beauty of living with this responsibility this brings is divine.
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that”.
This is a beautiful sharing Julie, thank you. Feeling and listening to what our bodies are conveying to us, then responding is the key. Thank you for reflecting this in your blog.
We can learn how in a company or a hospital or a business, there is an interdependency between departments, sections, that is essential for not just the well-being but for the survival of the entity so to speak… And our body is like this, and yet all the messages can be overridden if we choose to forget to listen.
Yes cjames2012 – it is about working in a flow, the sum of all parts together. As people we are naturally drawn to be around each other – in relationships, in work etc. and as you say the body is no different, Every organ has a purpose to work together. What an amazing piece of science this is and a responsibility for us to listen and honour it.
Great point Sally. No one knows our body better than we do. It is whether we choose to listen to the signals or ignore them?
Julie this is a great sharing on Heart failure. What a full on experience to go through, and what learning that you have shared with us all as well. It comes back to self nurture and love and respect of our bodies, where health and harmony are concerned every time.
It is certainly true that if we choose to, we can learn every day more and more about how to truly look after ourselves, to nurture ourselves, in so many different ways and to feel the effects of this in our life, and to feel it radiate out to all those amongst us, in our families, our friends and our work.
Yes Chris, when we being to deeply nurture and care for ourselves the ripple effects are felt far and wide.
Julie, you went through a huge experience of the consequences of living and working away from our body. I ate lots of salty foods at times and got very immersed in projects but was spared your consequences. As a result I simply continued for year after year.
As we deepen our connection with ourselves, it is as if we are bringing a whole new reality to living and indeed how to live, and this cannot help but reflect out to those around us, presenting just by our livingness, a whole new Paradigm.
Absolutely cjames, and this is key..”I trusted in my body’s natural ability to heal, and in my ability to make different choices to help with my own healing.”
Awesome blog Julie and hank you for exposing the main cause of heart disease – that is, not loving ourselves, not allowing others to love us and also not truly loving others. As we know the heart is the organ of love so this makes complete sense.
Well summed up Deborah, love the best cure for heart disease
It makes so much sense that when a organ that is purposefully there to show us what love is all about is not used to its full capacity, we shows signs of failure.
I feel very blessed when I read your sharing Julie. There is so much in your sharing, I can ponder on to check, how am I going through life and what am I doing to support me and what am I doing against me. And a lot of sentences inspire me like “I trusted in my body’s natural ability to heal”. Our body is such a great teacher, we just have to listen. Thank you.
This blog is a real wake up call to the fragility of the body and the relationship we can have with ourselves when we simply listen to and honour the body. I certainly have more to do here with honestly attending to what my body needs and not overriding that for any reason.
Such an amazing relationship to get an understanding of: “I started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love.” Thank you Julie for writing this. I can so relate to the realisation that how I feel has not just to do with lifestyle choices but with way more than that. One of those way more than that factors is how much I am able to love myself and let the love of others in for sure.
‘I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’ Beautiful Julie – your words are an inspiration to us all.
Thank you for reminding us Julie of how tender, delicate and gentle our bodies are and how important it is to nurture and support them.
I love the understanding that Universal Medicine courses present that enables me to reflect on the organs of our body, what they actually do physically, how they are impacted upon by our mental processes, how they love to work in harmony with each other, and what happens when there is stress and other mental aberrations, we place a burden on one organ and how the others react. Such a deep and insightful awareness.
This is a great testament to the true healing on offer when we combine the support of esoteric healing and western medicine. Although I haven’t had a heart condition, I have had other physical symptoms at various times in my life, and when I tried to address this solely with a variety of spiritual and alternative medicines and therapies and with a resistance to western medicine, I experienced at times a relief from my symptoms, but nothing long lasting or sustainable. Esoteric medicine has been the only thing, used complementary to western medicine, that has offered me the opportunity for true healing and is something I now embrace.
Thank you for sharing your story Julie, and the importance of listening to all the little and sometimes big messages our bodies are constantly giving us, it feels that this is a very important part of having true health and wellbeing.
Firstly I would like to honor your deep commitment to changing your life around and making the changes you have Julie. Reading your blog was a good reminder about self-love and care and making that fundamental in our lives.
This is gorgeous Julie… ‘I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’ This clearly demonstrates the power in taking deep care of yourself. I have found the same and it still constantly amazes me, it’s like the more I pay attention to my body the more aware I am of this untouched grandness inside me.
This is such a beautiful sharing. I love that from this experience you have learnt to appreciate even the simple lessons your body is showing you on how you are living and through the greater understanding you have gained from listening to them, you have allowed them to lovingly guide your way.
Very glad you made it through that stressful time, Julie, the drive that you were living in amazes me. I see it often in pregnant women these days, whereby there is not an honouring of this beautiful, special time of carrying a new life – I see some women move their bodies as if they are not pregnant, ie, not giving any acknowledgement or leeway to the changes in their bodies or to the extra weight out front. It’s such shame, as being pregnant can be a profoundly expanding life experience if a woman allows and embraces it.
Every message from the body is worth listening to.
Simple and profound – I have to agree, what our bodies communicate to us is invaluable.
Indeed Meg… indeed.
‘I felt that I could barely look after myself, so how was I going to look after a baby?’ You would not be the first nor the last mother to feel this way Julie and for that reason we as a society need to support new mothers more lovingly and effectively. This is particularly important when they make that first transition into motherhood so they can build strong foundations and a rhythm into their daily routine that will serve them as their family grows up. There are often so many societal judgments and expectations for women to contend with even before their babies are born. Add to that mix genuine physical exhaustion – how can this concoction of overwhelm not but lead on for some to postpartum depression?
Your article Julie has really got me wondering if there is enough prenatal education done on the importance of self care? Education that actually prepares women to nurture and care for themselves so they are able nurture and care for a newborn?? I also wonder if as a community we currently do enough to support our new mums? Are we showering them with too many actual presents but not nearly enough presence of support? Maybe support with housecleaning and cooking meals for new mums can be the baby showers of the future. Just a thought….
A great learning Julie. Presentations by Serge Benhayon have opened me up to look at the way I have been living and the choices I make that are underneath and the cause of my body giving me very clear messages that all is not well. No one to blame, no ‘bad luck’ just cause and effect. By taking responsibility for my body and taking care of myself and nurturing myself in what I do, say and think I can feel a deep and growing love within my body.
Julie, I love how you say “I started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love.” – it is deeply felt. Sometimes it takes a wake up call for us to stop and take stock of what is going on – a gentle reminder, or purposeful shove, in the right direction. What an incredible experience to bring you closer to expressing true love in your life.
Thank you Julie, Glad you came out from the experience with more awareness. The body will always show us how we are living in no uncertain terms.
Julie I like how you realised and trusted that what happened to you didn’t simply happen to you but that you were playing an integral part in it in the way you had been living your life, and thus you could do something about it. Even though we might not immediately understand why a certain situation is presented to us if we honestly follow our heart we are able to make the right decisions.
I can feel that self-responsibility is an important factor in this, as when I take the full responsibility four my own wellbeing I have to confirm that I am contributing in either the healing or the harming part of it. And to me that is the power I have regained and am integrating into my live again. All thanks to Universal Medicine, who are a irreplaceable support to me in restoring this valuable quality of life.
The body always shows us and often we take time to catch up and understand. Thanks to hearing how Julie allowed herself the time to do so, reminds me to understand that time is needed and to allow myself to feel and see how my body is, and why it is can unfold over time, but to stay open and be honest.
Julie what an experience you have had and yet the outcome is amazing. I too have had a heart stopping moment, when my heart stoped beating for 27 seconds. What a wake up call to have to bring me back to self love. Thankfully my heart today is strong and so sensitive to everything that I feel. I gratefully acknowledge it as my current radar of what is happening in my life from moment to moment.
I love that even though you experienced such scary, life-threatening symptoms that you were able to trust and reconnect to your body – knowing that it was able to heal. And that you knew this instinctively, without being told by anyone just goes to prove that this is an innate ability within us all. Later this was all confirmed and your understanding deepened by Universal Medicine. Beautiful.
Your blog Julie Good-heart, is a great demonstration of the ‘relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love’. I came to understand this when I developed heart palpitations which would come on after a period of my being contracted and as soon as I opened more to love they subsided and now do not occur.
It’s incredible how often we ignore symptoms and seem to need to get to a point of malfunction before we stop our momentum and listen to what is going on in the body. We might even be aware of the signs but choose to overlook them in order to carry on the momentum. At every step it is our choice to allow healing or not. The body is always ready to come back to harmony and balance and we just need to remove what’s in the way of that for healing to occur, even if the healing is for us to pass over. So, trusting in the body’s ‘natural ability to heal’ allows the body to open and surrender so the work of doctors, practitioners, drugs etc can be fully received.
I agree Sandra it is so easy to take our bodies for granted and not pay attention to how we care for ourselves. When you consider the basic natural and scientific laws of life, how can we deny that both this care or lack of care cannot but accumulate and be expressed from our bodies at a later date?
There is so much we can learn from the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and it seems that you have really been supported by him and the organisation. The stresses of work and life cause cause such a detrimental impact on peoples health! And I’m really glad that you and your baby are ok.
Julie, it is so awesome to read how what was potentially a life threatening situation for you was turned around by your commitment to knowing that your body can, and did, heal itself. I love how you so articulately express the profound truth that the choices you had made earlier, “… stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me.” As you so wisely say, it is all about our ability to love ourselves, to love others and to express that same love consistently and daily. Truly beautiful.
Dear Julie, wow this is really precious what you share here with us. I love the way you express and the honesty about this process and steady development – let’s say evolving from within. It’s amazing to read, because it’s a lived and true experience. Thank you for sharing.
Julie what an incredibly profound healing you have gone through. You are truly one of the courageous ones who made the changes required to live a life of quality and good health, which filters into every other area of your life. I can feel the hand of God ever present in guiding you through this time also, and the grace within you. I am always humbled to feel how supported and blessed we are when things like this happen – its like Heaven opens up and everything you need is right there at your fingertips… like… bumping into the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, to then further deepen the healing process!
What Julie is sharing really shows that we cannot override our bodies anymore -those “random aches and pains” are gifts to remind us to pay attention to how we may or may not be living. I am not only learning to listen to my body but to respond to the messages my body is sending me- a work in progress for me!.
How beautiful to have discovered the way to love yourself and allow others to love you, Julie. It sounds like a very scary illness to be in and an amazing recovery.
“For me, listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine” – this is a great reminder for me. Thank you, Julie. Little aches and pains here and there I could easily get used to them and treat them as my ‘normal’ and over the time I was not even registering them as ‘pain’. I have been slowly reconnecting with these parts of my body little by little, and it can be challenging as this involves looking at and changing my deeply ingrained behaviour patterns and attitude – which feels like finding a puzzle piece that has been pushed and forced into a wrong place and metamorphosed itself so that it would fit into that given place to look as if it IS in the right place when in fact it so isn’t, and now having to gently peel it off not to break it then finding its right place so that the piece can go back into being what it was in its original configuration.
So very true, Fumiyo. I daily have little niggles that it would be oh so easy to ignore but, in effect, it is my body indicating to me that there is something I need to address in the way I am living or expressing – or even, not expressing! Really, they are messages of love, advising me of where / how I am not being love.
Learning to follow my body’s signals is definitely a work in progress for me as I have well and truly gotten myself into a deep groove of running from my mind over the course of my life. Yet, I am finding it amazing to even recognise that my body is working so hard to communicate with me, but I am slowly learning it’s signals. As you say Julie, ‘no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention’ and my body definitely has my attention these days!
Thank you Julie, I also am so much more receptive to my body’s needs now thanks to being ‘tuned up’ by the presentations of Universal Medicine … I have also found that it is an ongoing process, requiring a more and more subtle tuning in, to which I am sometimes reluctant, but always the result is an instrument,(my body) that is able to resonate with more clarity and strength.
Great analogy cjames, this ‘subtle tuning in’ fine-tunes our ‘instrument’ so it resonates and amplifies the natural harmony and inspires resonance in other bodies.
Julie this is a inspirational sharing of the importance of true love in our bodies and what this really is and how we can live it for ourselves and how this is true medicine. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine are teaching us who we really are and the power we really have and the life we can really live as a reflection for us all to return to our truly loving selves in every way. Thank you for your real sharing and reflection.
It is an amazing process learning to self-love or even self-care again. I keep discovery layers of things that I have believed are more important than me. This comes out just through observing myself, what situations or around which people I am willing to treat myself with a lack of care.
What a truly powerful testament to the responsibility we have for our own physical, mental and emotional welfare. Thank you Julie for sharing so openly your personal journey to discover this.
This is huge for you to share after a truly scary experience, almost losing your life. We all need to listen to our bodies when they are trying to tell us something, I know I have often over ridden what I have heard, to my detriment. Thank you for your sharing Julie.
Thank you Julie for sharing this amazing story, our body does talk very loudly and if we are willing to honour our body and not be lead away from our body but committed to live in our body a great alchemy takes place light turns to love.
This life threatening experience sounds quite scary but ultimately an amazing experience to have lived through, as it offered so much to learn from, and probably still does cause moments of reflection and refinement to your life today. What I have learnt, is Self care, from the woman’s perspective really offers that ‘stop’ moment to connect to and integrate that quality of stillness and essence of ‘woman’ into whatever activities we are doing, and this has been so supportive in deepening my self care.
How arrogant are we that we can do just whatever and everything will be alright. How many people do not live to tell their story and stick to the end to a way of living that is literally killing them. Luckily, there are also people like you that choose differently and learn from your experience, start listening to the body and share your story so we can all learn.
Not necessarily arrogant emfeldman, just uninformed and unaware of just how sophisticated and capable our body actually is.
Sometimes maybe they just don’t want to make the effort to change. It may feel too hard, too confronting, too isolating from their friends and family ways of life. I have witnessed people know they need to make changes to support their health and still not choose to. I am so grateful to Serge Benhayon for showing me another way to live and to myself for having been brave enough to dare to love myself.
Very true Nicholas and this is a first step..” to admit that the way I had been living was definitely not true love and not the truth.” Sometimes it is too difficult to make the necessary changes, for fear of upsetting the status quo of the comfort we are in.
Ariana, when you say ‘our disregard of the gorgeous bodies we are living in’, it really brings home to me the arrogance we must have to treat ourselves in this way. It’s as if you’ve forgotten that you borrowed something from your neighbour and you take it for granted, or treat it as yours, and it’s not until they ask for it back that you realise that you haven’t been fully responsible for caring for it.
Beautifully said Rachel. How could we have the intelligence of accumulating so much knowledge and so many facts, but still avoid the truth everyday of how that relates to our own body and how we live?
To add to this, how have we as a society allowed a way of education and of living that promotes living from the mind, literally from the eyebrows up and so disconnected to the body that we can daily endure incredible self abuse and self neglect en masse and consider it normal?
And such simple wisdom Melinda. It must be very annoying to the eminently qualified person to meet someone who can live with such a degree of care and respect…when in spite of all they know, they struggle to apply it.
Absolutely true Ariana, we need to stop our unloving ways before the wake-up calls begin. In honouring and appreciating our bodies we start a better momentum for a truer way of life.
Hi Julie, you certainly have had your body communicating in a big way. Our body is amazing for many reasons, but as proven in this instance, it openness to heal. The moment you started to listen to what your body had to say, it was 100% there with you. If we see another mistreating their body then we don’t hesitate to point out the truth of what’s going on, yet we can often overlook the same behaviour towards ourselves. Thank you for sharing your experience and the amazing healing ability of the body when you chose to live, love and care for yourself.
” I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.”This is what I have felt too Julie. There are many times in my life when I have not listened to my body and the signs it was giving me until it got to the point where it was impossible to ignore. I then look back and say: Why didn’t I do something to change things back then, instead of waiting and hurting my body unnecessarily? What you write here Julie is a wake up call for many, including myself, that if we over-ride and ignore our body we will eventually pay the price with illness and disease.
I feel that is a hugely powerful claim that I am also prepared to make, Alison, that no one knows my body better than I do. Now it’s a question of working on the part of me that overrides that absolute knowingness, so that all of me can reclaim that truth in full.
Many years ago I was told a very sad but not unexpected news, given to me in an uncaring way and it physically hurt my heart. I remember clearly my heart contracting and being painful for a few seconds. This, and other experiences, combined with the teachings of Universal Medicine, have convinced me of the deep intelligence of my body.
I’ve had the same experience too Patricia, where for a split second your heart contracts and you can feel pain. I also feel when I’m contracted for a period of time that I’ve got a brick sitting on my chest. I know by connecting to myself and doing the gentle breath meditation that this heavy feeling can go away and my chest opens up and feels so free and light.
We are told to listen to our hearts and follow our hearts repeatedly in our lives and we take it for granted…What if it is possible to speak to our heart and in so doing, to hear it speak back to us?
How gorgeous is that quote. Thanks Irena for reminding me of my childhood and how often this quote was shared with me. It’s time to bring it back to life!
Isn’t it amazing that with the ‘intelligence’ we have we still live without care for our own body? I love how you have said ‘ I started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love.’ I can feel in this sentence the true love you are expressing. The message in this blog is of true importance when we look at how most of us in the world are living, with little or no consideration of the well-being of the body.
Thank you Julie and Judy, I agree, how many women and men have to suffer from not understanding about true love in expression. The presentation of Serge Benhayon are sharing another way of living that brings self-love rituals, which are life changing for all who equally share the same responsibility to live in a loving way.
Sometimes I feel my heart open and I feel very light and expansive. At other times it feels tight and hard and my whole body is tense. It’s been absolutely amazing to explore what affects these different states, what thoughts, what reactions and what choices, with Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. It’s been life changing to learn about the Way of the Livingness, a way of life that promotes more light, open-hearted and expansive moments than hard, tense and contracted ones. Who doesn’t want that?
Jeanette I too have had these moments and it really is amazing how much our bodies can share in regards to our choices if we really listen to it. Thank you.
True Kelly, and I feel these are great tools to start with…”For me, listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine.” The simpler the better.
I understand now why inside my chest it can sometimes feel so free and open and yet at other times like there’s a fist inside. It is through applying what I have learnt through my studies of Serge Behayon’s work that I have a much greater understanding what is happening inside my body and why.
Great description Dean, not so unfamiliar for many I daresay.
Beautifully said Jeanette and it’s an awesome study into the inter-relatedness and interconnectedness of how every single move, choice, action, thought, emotion and feeling etc., impacts the body and our entire being. It brings a new awareness of the responsibility we have for our state of being.
Yes Melinda, and that responsibility is sooo empowering. When I found out that my state of being and health is up to me it was like a miracle. It has not meant that all is starry skies and roses, but at least I can trace back to my choices that led to my dis-ease and do something about changing instead of falsely claiming victimhood. I love this!
I love that we now know that we can re-empower ourselves by “tracing back our choices”, as you say Jeanette.
I love what you share, Julie – our bodies communicate with us all the time, we just have to choose to listen and honour what we feel.
It is so freeing to allow the expression of the heart to freely flow and to experience the power of this expression of my love and truth in the world. Why have I held it back for so long and kept it within, building a contracted body controlled from the mind instead of from the heart? It makes no sense to me anymore.
Wow, that is so powerful Ariana. With making more loving choices you have been able to avoid the family statistics and family health issues. That is pretty huge, but so true. Every choice we make counts; especially every choice we make to love ourselves and others.
Thank you Julie for sharing your story – it’s an amazing learning you’re sharing here so openly: how to take care of our hearts in truth.
Self care is the foundation of self love – something that I neglected before meeting Serge Benhayon. The degree of self harm I was living wasn’t extreme, but by the standard that I set for myself and live by today, it was a far cry from the tenderness in which I regard myself now. This scale changes by every choice I make.
Julie as someone that can be very good at doing things (apart from exercise!) what you bring up is really important point, as it’s the quality, intention and reason why we do these things that is key. For eating healthy, resting, working hard but not going into stress etc.. I found all these really good for me, but it is only as I bring a true care and tenderness to these that I start to feel the real difference.
Allowing love in as part of our lives and keeping our hearts healthy as a result is not something we equate together. We usually assume keeping hearts healthy is down to exercise and food and dealing with stress well. It’s a whole other ballgame when we connect to the fact that heart problems are linked to the amount of love we let in and express out! Something to deeply ponder on.
I love your comment Rachel. We think of heart health as food, exercise and ability to de-stress, whereas a better workout for heart health would be to let lots of love in and expressing lots of love out.
Thank you Julia… it is these statements: “This, I’m still learning as I go about the day”, and “There is more to learn every single day, that are the truth for so many of us now”… we have understood, experienced, felt, that there is a reality, diametrically opposite to what is being presented to us in society on so many levels, but that it does entail consistent choices to continually re-connect with that which is true and supportive of being the loving human beings that we truly are.
Heart Failure is definitely a message about love and how we are living cutting ourselves off from others and hence ourself also. What a blessing to learn whilst becoming a mother and the responsibility for ourselves and others. Thank you for sharing your transformation and learning to love yourself and live lovingly, inspirational and well worth appreciating.
What is truly amazing is that you listened to what your body was telling you and didn’t carry on regardless in the same disregard when you started to get better, this is worth deeply appreciating. Thank you for your inspiring blog Julie.
It’s so important that we listen to our bodies and yet so many of us in the past have dismissed the very clear signals they’ve been sending. Your experience Julie must have been a very frightening one but at the same time an amazing opportunity for true healing. Thank you for sharing that when we deny our own love and the love for and from others we really are shutting the heart down.
When I hear about something big happening in a persons life, it can be easy to be sympathetic, sad, sorry to hear it’s happened, get caught up in it but the truth is that it has the potential to be the most amazing and life changing experience that connects one back to themselves and the love they are. Your sharing once again illustrates that Julie. You made the choice to go deeper and to practice a more loving way in being with ‘You’. You are precious and the fact that you are bringing more of you to the world is a gift to us all.
Sometimes I wonder what it is that I am not listening to in my body, and get worried that as a result some big illness will occur. It is like I have this notion that I should be more aware then I already am, which of course is always possible, but it seems important to also learn to be exactly at the level of body awareness that I have, not pretending to be more or less, just here, and to let the lessons happen as a result of my choices, because this is how I seem to learn most deeply.
Great point Shami; its so important to accept where we are at, whatever awareness we have; and to be with that. All is unfolding lovingly if we truly allow it.
There is a powerful message in this blog. I particularly loved reading “…the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me.” What you have shared here really hit home for me as growing up I found it incredibly hard to allow others to truly love me, as I did not truly love myself. This has now begun to turn around as I let go of more and more of the protections that I have used to hide the fact that I have not felt worthy of love, which is slightly insane as we all come from love!
This is such an important lesson in listening to your body. There is no way to fake true care. The heart will know.
The body gives us so many signals about our state of being – if we choose to listen. Yet how many of us, myself included, have ignored these signs and carried on as normal. So many people, when cured from an illness, resume their old way of living and are then surprised when it reoccurs. It would be so wonderful if western medicine were to understand that dis-ease is a reflection of something deeper, rather than their tendency to fixate on function and make things ‘better’, which isn’t necessarily healing.
On reading this blog a couple of things struck me – the first being that it is incredible how we can be living in a way where we don’t realise we are living in an unhealthy way until a serious health issue arises to make us stop. And also that are certain times in life we are accepting of the conditions being experienced as is supposedly a normal thing to happen e.g. “The signs were there, and I noticed some of them, but chalked it up to just another odd thing that happens during pregnancy.” I know I have accepted and excused how I was feeling because of pregnancy, having young children, oh it’s my period etc. without questioning further. Thank you Julie for sharing how our body is always giving us signs.
Likewise I have deep appreciation for all that Serge Benhayon has taught on self-care being the bridge back to the love within us. It is quite alarming how far we have strayed from this in a life – your heart condition being a true wake up call – but so long as we keep making the choice there is nothing to stop us from living a loving and truthful life.
A beautiful article Julie. Your return to love is truly inspiring. Thank you for sharing this important message – ‘I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’ So powerful and true.
“I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.” so true Julie, it is through our commitment to connect to our bodies that we can listen to it when it is screaming at us to make changes or refine the ways in which we live in order to bring more love and harmony to our everyday lives.
Dear Julie,
My heart is like a barometer of truth telling me constantly if I am in contraction or expanded and expressing love.
I experience it as a very sensitive and receptive organ both physically and energetically. The heart has a lot to communicate I feel, if we are prepared like you shared to “listen” .
Julie your openness, honesty and responsibility is certainly inspiring to read. With the serious nature of your heart condition to appreciating the care and support you received with the medical profession was a blessing compared to the many critical accounts of doctors we often hear about. However all along the way this was coupled with your knowing that the care you take of yourself played an equal role. Something I feel many of us can learn from.
This is gorgeous to read Julie, thank you for sharing your experience in such an open, honest and simple way.
Thank you Julie for sharing your blog, the heart is the centre of love, the love we accept from others and the love we emanate and hold others in. To hold this back is to not let people in and to not express the love we have for others. When we live holding back love it feels like the heart is being strangled and a hardening to people and the vascular system becomes a symptom of cardio vascular disease and an ever present tension that takes the heart out of its rhythm. To claim that we are love is to open the vascular system up and to then stand in the love we are and allow the in breath and out breathe of love – to flow through us as a vessel for the divine.
Thank you for sharing Julie your article is very inspirational for me as someone who has recently been diagnosed with a heart condition.
Thank you for your article Julie. It is always great to have a reminder to look after yourself all the time too. If we only just took the time to listen to what it is telling us.
I used to think of my body as a machine. Then one day I woke up with chronic fatigue syndrome. I was 17. Very quickly that condition taught me that I could not just use my body as a tool for my own purposes. It needed to be respected, listened to, and it had its own language. I very quickly got over chronic fatigue, but I would not say I healed the root cause. I spent another 15 or so years in what today I would call exhaustion, but back then I thought it was OK because it was not chronic fatigue.
It was not till I learned to really listen to my body, that I really started to get honest with where my body was at. That was 8 years ago. Today I would say that what I considered OK 8 years ago, I would now call exhaustion.
My point is that we tend to measure our health by a unit of measurement known as comparison, and comparison can be a debilitating condition in itself, for it caps us from realising the truth of many things, including what true health really feels like.
So true Adam, many of us are walking around in exhaustion and anxiousness and have lived like this for so long we believe that it is normal. Anxiety and exhaustion has indeed become the new ‘normal’.
What a very honest sharing Adam. 17 seems so young to have had chronic fatigue, but shows that it can happen at any age when we push ourselves to extremes. What you say about living for 15 years with what you thought was OK, actually being exhaustion sounds so true. Since my teens I have had a fast heart rate which I just took as normal for me. Now almost twenty years Iater I recognise this as anxiety, with a lot of it happening as I close down my heart in certain situations.
What a lesson you have presented to us Julie; that being basic self care and listening to the rhythm and flow of our bodies.
Thank you Julie for sharing and your beautiful expression.
What a true healing Julie. A lesson learnt about not only how you were physically treating your body but also how you were generally in life.
Thank you for sharing Julie. It makes sense that not expressing love and not allowing love in would lead to a heart condition. It is just as important as exercise.
Good on you Julie for highlighting the consequences of not looking after yourself and the vast transformation that can be achieved when you treat yourself with care and love.
Thanks Julie for an incredible blog. To know that you could have lost your life or that of your babies is a huge realisation about the importance of self care and love. I really felt the impact of your words when you highlighted not to “dismiss random aches and pains”. Every message from the body counts to how we are living in each and every day.
I love your last point here ‘every message from the body counts to how we are living each and every day’ – this is so spot on
A truly powerful story Julie, thank-you. To be faced with one’s own mortality, and that potentially of a child, is no small thing in life. I deeply appreciate how you have returned to your honouring of what is true – and what you’ve shared in regards to Universal Medicine re-opening you to the “relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love”. That is everything.
Not enough can be written about this, and about how our bodies and physical health are impacted upon by the shutting down of love in and with ourselves, and in the way we hold others. We need our allopathic medical support, and it is amazing… but boy is it a wake-up to feel the potential of how our expression of love (or withholding of it) affects every system in the body.
Beautifully expressed Victoria, it is super important to fully understand the consequences of holding back our expression of love to others and also our own inability to receive love for ourselves and the impact this has on our health and wellbeing.
There is so much for medicine to explore here, isn’t there Francisco… Such understandings have only just barely begun – making the sharing of these true stories so vital. As Serge Benhayon has said, again and again, “Expression is everything”.
I know for me, that my understanding of the impacts on the body of the quality of our expression, deepens every single day…
Thank you Julie. The body is an amazing reflection of how we live with the state of health in our body reflecting our life style choices.
Thank you Julie, it’s interesting as I was reading your article I was thinking ‘oh, my heart is fine…’ but the more I continued to read the more I could feel how much it is constantly communicating with me – and not always ‘fine’!. It constricts if I am being hard on myself or hard on others, or not letting others in, it palpitates if I eat too much of the wrong food or go into any kind of drive or raciness… it is forever communicating with me, asking me to listen to myself and be open to loving myself, loving others and letting others love me.
Well said Brooke; when we truly listen the heart is not always ‘fine’. It responds to our thoughts and what choices we make. If the choice of thought is not loving to myself or another, my heart tightens up. If I choose to be loving with myself and others, my heart and chest feels open and free.
Thank you Julie, your article is a great reminder to take more care to live love and to express it. I too have improved my health by taking more care of my body but my heart is still not functioning perfectly, and as I know that it knows how to do that naturally, there is something more I can do to allow that, and that is to let people in, to express more fully who I am, allow myself to be seen and to be more honouring of my own feelings.
‘…I have a choice to live a life of true love’. What an amazing physical experience Julie. Even more beautiful is how you recognised the connection between the physical heart and you embracing what it was showing you and teaching you about your life; and that it is about love of self and therefore others.
That’s deep Bernadette. Connecting what we feel physically in our bodies to the wisdom it offers about life.
Thank you Julie for sharing you powerful testament to how the state of one’s body and function of organs are are a direct reflection of how one lives – that the state of health of one’s body is the result of one’s choices.
And it is by allowing ourselves to look at the choices we have made – not with judgement, but with love – we will gradually start making choices that support us and by that our lives and bodies will heal and change.
Looking at our choices with love and not judgement is so true Michael and makes a huge difference to our health and well being. As soon as we become critical and judgemental, we can harden and shut out the love for ourselves and others.
Julie, thank you for sharing your story which is full of wisdom and inspiration
As you point out our daily choices pave the way for our health risks and calamities.
I loved reading this again Julie – and in recent learnings of just how many people in the world die of heart disease (the no. 1 killer) it shows me how much of a responsibility I have to stop putting love second – after I’ve got everything I need to do done – but to rather welcome it with open arms and gentleness into every second of my day.
A great reminder of the importance of listening to what our bodies are telling us. The following sentence from your article sums up beautifully what can be achieved through self care and attention to our bodies. “I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.”
Yes what a turn around from the mind set that has our bodies letting us down. Seems to me that it is us that let our bodies down!
I agree Mariette with your questions. It seems that so many are caught in the spin of life by being stressed, anxious and exhausted. The intensity is increasing. In that state it’s virtually impossible to express love and so it’s not surprising that this is having deviating effects on our health.
Well said Rachel and Mariette. How life changing it will be when people realise that self-love is the key that opens the heart to give and receive love. As you say Rachel, whilst people are stressed, anxious and exhausted, it is virtually impossible to express love.
Your comment makes me realise how we can so easily end up creating more disease the body. There are so many go to foods and habits to numb ourselves from this fundamental truth that I can see what starts as a lack of self love, self care, self nuturing can turn into so many diseases and illnesses. We cannot continue to live a life without true self love.
So wisely said Suzanne: “We cannot continue to live a life without true self love”, as if we continue to do so, we are giving illness and disease a free ride into our bodies.
Beautiful to read this blog again, especially because I was supporting a friend yesterday in the hospital at the cardiology department, It was very busy there and the woman behind the counter said that it is always very busy. Heart problems and heart diseases are rising and while reading your blog again, could this mean that there is a huge lack of self-love in the world and a lack of living a life expressed from true love?
What you pose here is very interesting Mariette. For ages now heart disease has been the no.1 killer. I always thought this was related to men who overeat, ate greasy food and drank lots of beer. Recently I have been seeing/reading more and more literature which states that heart disease in women is a big killer and also read a stat that stated that coronary artery disease kill more women that all cancers combined and so this is an illness affecting both sexes. Julie’s awareness that her heart disorder stemmed from a lack of self-love and true Love is something important for us to consider here when looking at this disease.
Good points Mariette and Shevon, and the fact that heart disease has not gone away despite decades now of campaigns to change people’s diets and levels of physical activity, shows that heart disease has a deeper energetic cause that is so much more than just changing a few habits.
So true Shevon. Heart disease has consistently been the number 1 killer in our society for decades now. Bringing this back to a lack of self-love feels very true and makes so much sense.
What’s incredible here Julie is that you have not only talked about the usual lifestyle habits that make us sick but you have talked about what is underneath those habits – a lack of self love and love towards others which is the energy that drives those habits.
Absolutely Andrew – we don’t really talk about much more than the symptom and the cure – but getting underneath the cause, I now know, to be a vital part of the healing process. Medicine is an amazing resource, but so is the human body if we are willing to let it truly talk to us.
This is an important point, about looking at what is the driving force behind those habits and making change from there, rather than just trying to fix the habit as such.
Listening deeply to our bodies is excellent medicine.
This is true healing. Only when we can see what is driving it all can we arrest it and make another choice…a more loving choice.
So true Sara. True medicine and deeply healing to be aware of what is driving our ills and to then choose a more loving way to be.
I agree Andrew. Letting go of the habits and looking at what is underneath those habits, a true prescription for healing! Lack of self love and love towards others is such a huge one to look at, particularly when it is an alien concept for so many.
Great blog Julie. Thank you for sharing the importance of looking after one’s self and paying attention to what your body is saying.
Thank you Julie for your sharing. What an amazing journey from a heart that was failing to becoming so heart-full.
The heart organ is pretty incredible. Not just a pump station for blood, it beholds a gateway to deep wisdom.
Indeed it does Dean, indeed it does. More than I ever thought was possible. It is a real process for me connecting back to my body and putting it first because the head has ruled the roost for so long. But the more I connect to my body the more I realise what such great wisdom it holds. And this gorgeous blog this morning has expressed this greatly. Thank you Julie.
Yes Julie it is a gem and a timely reminder that the body is where we feel the real truth .
I agree Dean, when my head overrules and I ignore that deep wisdom, my heart feels sick. Not in a medical way, but that feeling we get when something isn’t right.
Yes Catherine, my heart feels like a fist when I back away from my feelings.
Yes Dean I couldn’t agree more. The heart really is full of amazing wisdom and if we choose to, it can expand us all in oh so many ways.
Where would we be without it?!
Wow..great comment Dean. The heart when taken beyond just the physical organ is certainly a gateway to deep wisdom.
A very deep wisdom…
This is so true Dean, we underestimate what the heart can do, as it is much more than just a physical organ. When deeply connected with my heart, everything around me looks different, my eyes soften and I see more of life and people, in a way that I don’t see when I am walking around with worries, concerns and woes. What I have experienced is that when I am walking around in the latter state, I am dis-connected from my heart and have closed it down.
Not only is the heart so much more than a blood pumping station, but it like our entire body holds the deep truths about life.
So lovely to feel how majestic the heart is, How there is so much more to it than it’s physical function which is actually pretty amazing in itself, how it is in continual service up to the very end.
When I think of a person who is truly serving others in life I immediately think of the heart – its commitment to what it is there to do never stops until the end of its life (and ours!).
So true Dean… how amazing it is to feel the heart open and to access a deeper wisdom that holds all equally in love. This would have made no sense at all to me a few years ago.
This may sound strange but the moment I start to think bad things about another person, my heart beat starts to change and my chest tightens very uncomfortably.
You often read or hear about someone who has had a heart attack and they go on to make different choices and develop a new sense of appreciation for their life and their bodies.
What I get from reading your blog Julie, is that you have gained a deeper sense of responsibility with regards to your choices and how those choices then play out in your body. Very inspiring read.
Wow Julie your body spoke loud and clear about what it needed. It was inspiring to read how far you have come and how much effect our choice’s have on our body.
Julie Because you have written this I get more insight into the heart and a deeper understanding of pregnancy and self-love. Thank you.
Thank you Julie for sharing how you built this relationship with your body, “I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love.”
This is truly inspirational how you instigated the deeper healing by the movement towards more self-loving choices, addressing the energetic cause as well as the physical cause.
Wow! – a big wake up call you received. But how awesome and inspiring to read how you returned to health by your self loving choices from listening to your body.
An inspiring story Julie. As a young boy growing up I was constantly told ” toughen up boy”. How different my life may have been if I had been told “listen to your body boy”. Something so simple and basic that was taken away from me, so I could present an image, “a man”, that allowed me to fit in to what the world expected me to be.
Hi Julie- we are so used to overriding our bodies and giving into life’s stressors that we forget that our true wellbeing is based on listening to our bodies to lovingly feel what is needed. A big learning for me!
‘There is more to learn every single day,’ – this is so true Julie. There is such a deep and constant well of knowledge there for us to access when we are willing to listen to our body.
I totally agree Sara. How wonderful to grow up with this knowing. Listening to and appreciating true communication from our bodies and knowing the consequences of our choices would lead to a totally different way of life and wellbeing.
I love your blog Julie and for sharing your understanding of expanding your understanding of the heart to include the energetic as well as the physical. This is what Esoteric Medicine so powerfully offers us – a deeper understanding of the human body and how it reflects how we live. This is a true complement to the wonders of modern medicine to support our true well-being.
Education on true self-love is how we need to raise our children, so that they know how powerful they are and that every choice they make is registered by the body and will have some consequence, whether it be healing or harming. Your blog is inspiring this Julie, as is the work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Yes Sara I agree, “Education on true self-love is how we need to raise our children.” Being prepared for life with this understanding, that every choice is registered by the whole body, would make a tremendous difference to the choices we make and our resulting health.
Great point Sara. It would be wonderful if this was taught at school, starting in primary school and all the way through.
I love what you have shared here Julie;
‘I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’
This is so simple and yet so powerful. Listening to our bodies is key.Thank you.
Yes Kathryn, this spoke to me too. Lovely blog Julie, so very powerful and it blows away any notion of illness just happening to us or being genetic. You’ve so beautifully tracked back to see how you were living contributed to your heart problems. And now, can feel how by practising as you say basic self-care, your body is loving you back big time. Thank you for sharing your experience with us Julie.
How wonderful if everyone could see that any heart condition is a love condition and then be willing to self care and love. This is a great article Julie, thanks for sharing.
Wow, what an experience you’ve been through Julie, such opportunity for learning, which you have taken up, beautiful, continue enjoying the deepening of love for you.
Prevention is definitely better than cure. Why do we wait until our bodies tell us something is wrong before we take action? We should be like a car, every year have an MOT test, to ensure all parts are working satisfactorily.
I like that idea Mike! Or we could choose to be more open to dealing with situations as they arise and the body wouldn’t need to shout so loudly for us to stop and see what is going on. The subtlest of signals could do it, if we hadn’t already clocked the truth of any situation.
It is crazy how we can override what our bodies tell us to such an extent. Thank you for sharing your story and for reminding us how important it is to honour our bodies and what they are telling us.
A great blog reminding us how our heart speaks volumes.
I love reading this blog as it’s a great reminder of how important our heart is and that beyond its physical function, our heart’s health responds greatly to our ability to take care of and love ouselves and others. Makes the saying ‘Listen to your heart’ even more relevant.
Wow Julie, what a true healing you have had.
There is so much in your blog Julie to reflect on and to feel the deep awareness you now have of the beautiful vehicle that is your body. It feels to me if we do not see the responsibility that we each have to care for and to appreciate our body the opportunity to share the love that we intrinsically are within will not be forthcoming. Your words “the more I practise basic self care and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” ring true for me also. Thank you for sharing your story.
You are so right Julie. There definitely is more to learn and more to love about our bodies and ourselves everyday. Loving and appreciating the unfolding process.
It is interesting that many people are aware of the connection between salt intake, blood pressure and heart disease. However, I am not sure we all know just how much of an impact our daily livingness has on heart disease, just how strong that influence is.
Your words Julie, ” I realise now that I was taking on everyone else’s stuff, giving my power away, and doing what I thought everyone else wanted of me, instead of doing what I felt was right for me”, is probably what the majority of the world’s population suffers from too, no wonder we are all so exhausted. And the only way we can change this ‘global illness’ is through the collective choice to self-love, and not seeing this as being ‘selfish’ but completely healing for the body.
I can totally relate to the selfishness of choosing self-love. That it is something that you just didn’t do and you are the last person that you needed to check on. What hog wash – how can you possible look after another if you haven’t been looking after yourself. I started looking after myself and from this place I have noticed that my relationships have changed and when I support another it is real support that I offer.
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” This is so beautiful and true Julie.
It’s amazing how you are exploring the idea of not giving your power away anymore and what that means. It was also lovely to hear about letting yourself be truly loved by others as this is the only way you can love out to others. A truly lovely blog, thank you
Julie, this is an absolutely gorgeous sharing. An amazing story of healing.
What you have written is so true, and it is lovely to read it expressed so clearly:
…”these choices stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me.”
And the way back to love is also expressed with such loving clarity:
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.”
Hi Julie, it’s clear that you knew your body well and how in truth you could be caring for it. The wisdom the body shares is totally inspiring if only we are willing to listen.
I have been making a concerted effort to listen to my body of late. What is really interesting is that it has a very different message to offer than what comes through my head.
Yes Dean, what my head wants to do is often very different to messages my body is sending me. A great example is my body not feeling hungry, but my mind saying its dinner time so you must eat. I’m learning that my body is very wise and I’m paying more attention to what it says.
Yes there is more to our bodies than a vehicle that transports the head around!
What an amazing testament to the impact of our lifestyle upon our health and well-being at all levels. That it is our responsibility, and within our power, to maintain our own health and not for doctors and others to sort us out when we get ill from disregard and lack of self-love.
Thank you, Julie. Reading your article inspired me to get my own heart checked out as I have the opposite problem, my heart rate is extremely low. I now know that my heart works in a slightly different way, which is awesome information to have, particularly if I ever need surgery. Thanks for the inspiration, Julie.
Your lived experience of such a serious and life threatening situation – cardiomyopathy, and the process you took in your recovery from it is very inspiring!
There was a woman with cardiomyopathy on the postnatal ward, and this condition was undiagnosed until she arrested the day before going home. I feel to share this blog with other midwives to help them get a deeper understanding of the condition.
Julie, like you I had several big stops before meeting Serge Benhayon and attending Universal Medicine presentations whare I too ‘started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love.’ This inspired me to make different choices, which are available to all if we are ready to take responsibility. The key is to understand that we have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love.’
Beautifully said Anne. As you say, ‘the key is to understand that we have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love’.
This is a powerful sharing that really shows how much our bodies do communicate with us and if we do not pay attention and override we harm our bodies, thus harming us. This was a very strong message from the body and through your choices you not only have a deep healing but your life has changed to being very loving. Very inspiring – how our quality of life changes when we connect to our bodies.
We really are masters at ignoring our bodies and just investing so much in a life that may be very productive but has not joy in it. Julie, this is an amazing turn around and true inspiration to so many still running the treadmill in such disregard in their lives.
Beautiful – I love that you say that the more you we take simple steps to care for ourselves and be gentle, the more we connect with the love that’s within us. That is GOLD – I am glad I know this now and this is exactly how I feel.
Me too Felicity, I have also found that the more I connect to my body, the more love I feel for myself, which I then want to share with others. It really is a simple choice to look within and be gentle and loving with ourselves, first. We really are FULL of treasure.
‘Listening’ is such a key, isn’t it Julie… So often, it’s through something seemingly more ‘extreme’ that happens, an illness, disease, accident, perhaps something life threatening… that we have the opportunity to truly take stock, as you have done, and from there, look back at the ‘less extreme’ but highly significant choices we have made that may have contributed to what is going on for us now.
This ability to truly ‘listen’ to our bodies, to feel the impacts of things we are doing, to recognise where we are being called to deeper care and nurturing of ourselves for example, is to me what true education should be all about. Imagine learning this as a child – that we needn’t negate so much of what we feel, and that our bodies reflect back to us (from tiredness, to an illness), and that we needn’t ‘push through’ life regardless.
We are constantly presented with the opportunity to learn about ourselves and our bodies, to learn to care more deeply… What you’ve shared here Julie is the way forward, and brings self-awareness and responsibility back into the equation of our health and wellbeing – factors that are largely dismissed, and yet so simple to integrate into one’s daily life, should the willingness be present. Thank-you.
Thank you Julie. There is so much in your sharing. I get a new and deeper reflection each time I read it.
Our connection to our body is the key we have all been looking for but that which has been there all along. I find the more I stop and the deeper I allow myself to feel, I notice areas where I am holding tension in my body and where my body feels quite fluid and lovely. Simply letting the tension go created the space in my body and the openness that feels very natural. Letting people in, loving self, loving others and accepting love from others, all stems from how open and surrendered I am allowing my body as well as just accepting and appreciating me.
A great reminder to listen carefully to my body, and honour what it tells me Julie, thank you for such a lovely and honest sharing. ❤
Great to read your story Julie. From my own personal experience, it is allowing a small amount of time to make those stop moments in the day and assess how my body is feeling that can make a huge difference to how I live. Often only a minute or so is required to allow me to feel more of what is going on and sometimes put a stop to a momentum I might have been living in. This can be as simple as accepting feeling cold and putting another layer of clothing on. This can I find have a huge impact on my long term wellbeing and it is a really cool process to keep increasing the levels of self care I give myself. Thanks for your blog, brilliant to read of your experiences.
Yes Stephen, it’s true that the simplest of things like keeping yourself warm or taking a minute in the middle of a busy day can create space that allows you to make more loving choices. Over time it’s also been my experience that these small things have had a long term effect on my well being.
Great blog Julie. If we only listened and not override the signals. We all receive many amber and red lights during our life but can easily keep driving on with little regard to their meaning. Your blog is a fantastic reminder.
Heart failure turned out to be a blessing.
I love coming back to your article, Julie. as I can feel the gentleness how you treat yourself and your body. It is awesome to have this tool and by applying this I observe how my body feels amazing.
There has always been a tendency for me to want to fix things, make them right or override them as a solution to what I am feeling. It’s like I go for that response before allowing myself to stop, be still, feel and listen to my body. What I have learnt and am still learning is to accept what I feel and that may well be that my body and aching, tired or stiff. Once I accept this I can also feel this amazing being within me that is in a constant state of joy no matter what is going on around me. It is then that I can choose to bring myself and my body more into alignment with each other or I can continue to race off unabated with whatever is going on emotionally in the world. like you, I wouldn’t be able to do this without understanding and committing to true self care as presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Thank you Julie. Your blog reveals how by simply reflecting back on the way we have been living we can realise we have the choice to be more loving with ourselves and make true and lasting changes.
Each day I am gaining a deeper awareness of how awesome my body is and how it is communicating to me each moment of the day.
Thank you for this great article Julie. Our bodies are truly amazing in their constant communication with us. When we are self loving we can make the choices that will support us the most. I agree wholeheartedly with your last paragraph:
“There is more to learn every single day, and I am grateful for the choices that led me to the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.”
I agree Shelley, it is a great article by Julie and wake-up call for so many who are not listening to their body and its communication. If this was taught in schools, maybe more of us would have this understanding and not leave it until a major illness forces us to listen and make the necessary changes in life.
It’s so great how your body has taught you to be gentler with yourself. I find it incredible how many messages my body gives me, when I choose to listen to it, and how it shouts louder when I’ve ignored it until I do stop and listen. Having ignored many messages in the past, I find learning that self awareness really eye opening.
I love reading this blog and how much you have lived and learned from listening to your body, the different choices you have made and the realisations along the way. One thing that really becomes clear when reading through all these blogs is they all discuss the impact, effects and life changes when we self love, nurture, listen to our body, what is shares with us and honour what we feel. For all these people to write about amazing changes in their life, health, relationships, work etc – for me definitely means there is something very real, attainable and very true in their lives and making self loving choices.
Absolutely Gyl, these stories are very inspirational and very real and not at all about applying a rule or framework to better ourselves. Rather in the deep honouring of listening to our body we actually have a way to naturally be and live harmoniously.
Absolutely Gyl. From me reading all these inspirational stories shows me that there is a huge value in listening to our bodies. That it makes a big difference to everyone around us too.
How right you are Gyl. It is so beautiful to see and feel the unlimited power that self loving choices have.
Gylrae, absolutely it is very inspiring reading others life transformation based on loving choices and also feel the power that comes with it.
Thank you Julie, and also a great reminder that the heart is the seat of true intelligence and that this awareness, combined with our reconnection to our bodies, is truly the path of true wisdom.
A great example of how we easily register the signs in our body that all is not good, but that it can often take a dramatic bodily reaction or occurrence to get us to look at the true cause – the way we have been living our lives and the choices we have made to that point.
Yes why is it Cathy, that we wait until we are on our knees before we wake up and start to make changes, when it can simply be a choice to listen to our bodies before our bodies scream ever more loudly at us. I for one prefer the ‘prevention is better than cure’ tactic.
Good question Sandra why do we wait until we are on our knees. Could it be that we have fear in taking responsibilty of our lives and choices? However when we are forced too, we then have no choice. It’s crazy how we let things get to that point.
Great point Sandra – it does seem odd that we keep pushing on with behaviours or habits that we know are not good for us, and not until we are seriously ill do we consider that we need to make changes, and some times it is too late! I agree ‘prevention is better than cure’ tactic any day.
Absolutely crazy when we see it written down, I agree Cathy and Sandra but how many want to take personal responsibility rather than go and try to get the ‘quick fix’ from the doctor – only to be told it has gone beyond that stage. Big wake-up whoops and one to avoid when we know the body is giving us messages all along the way and if we don’t listen to the warning signs, we get hit by the sledge hammer wake up call!
Julie, yours is an inspiring story that all of us (humanity) should take heed of rather than wait for the ill effects of disregard and love-less lifestyle choices to take their toll.
It is the same for most of us, we wait until there is some kind of catastrophe before we start to look at the life we lead. It seems that taking responsibility for ourselves is something we don’t do so well. Yet, as is shared above, many are ‘happy’ to take on the responsibilities of others. Airlines understand this “please place your oxygen mask on yourself before assisting anyone else”, or words to that effect, maybe this could be a subject in primary school.
Your story of how you have turned your life around is very inspiring – I have always felt that there must be a connection between heart disease and the love we let out and let in, the love we live and the love we accept and claim as our own. One of my parents was a perfect example of this: a heart as big as they get, but an adopted and lived inability to be that love to the degree that I could tangibly feel it was possible.
“For me, listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine”. This is very true Julie. If nothing is random and everything happens for a reason, then every ache and pain we have is our bodies way of telling us something isn’t right. As humans we are very good at overriding these messages but if we choose to listen to them we can save ourselves a lot of ‘aches and pains’.
‘I felt that I could barely look after myself, so how was I going to look after a baby?’ I also felt this when I was pregnant and certainly did not pay attention to the messages my body was giving me. It’s lovely to read how through this whole experience you had an innate trust in your body’s ability to heal and were so willing to listen and make different choices. Truly inspiring Julie.
I love the simplicity of what you have shared that it all comes down to self care and self love. It’s so easy to go off into our thoughts and heads debating this and that but really the answer is with you all along – your body – it is there waiting, so lovingly to show you everything.
Dear Julie, thank you for sharing your amazing recovery and discovery of self love and nurturing. ‘that may have led to having a heart disorder but also the fact that these choices stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me.’
There is so much our bodies are communicating to us all the time, if we just stop to feel.
Self love continues to unfolding for me, it has been such a different way to live my life. Before being introduced to Universal Medicine I had no idea how to self care or what self love could bring for me. I look forward to the journey of deepening my self love and sharing this with all my relationships.
Thank you, Julie for sharing your experience with such honesty and growing awareness of how our choice to ignore the constant super loving messages our body sends us has a tremendous and disastrous effect on our health. I love how you came to trust and honour more and more the wisdom and true intelligence of your body and also how you connected to the fact that your heart was calling you to self-love and to allow the love of others to be there for you as well. Really inspiring.
Dear Julie, I love what you have shared and particularly the deep care you bring to yourself and how you go about your life.
‘I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.’
This I have experienced too, the more I deepen my self-care the more love there is for myself and then automatically with everybody else and nothing in this world can take that away from me. It is a super solid foundation I live from that continuously expands and and supports me.
Dear Esther, this is so true and the deepening never ends. For me illness already begins with not being able to live a consistent and joyful life. It begins when we are not able to laugh once a day or at least smile. It begins when I lose myself and cannot feel my body in certain moments. All this is not far away from illness and disease. Actually it leads to it.
Thank you Sonja for unfolding the next level of living a true life of vitality and joy. It is in those moments of connection and playfulness with life that I am more fully present and less likely to miss the messages that my body are constantly communicating to me.
Wow, how far we let it sometimes come and ignore all the signs our body gives us. To the point that we really get ill. This overriding of the warning signals is seriously to look at and reveal – as it is a global problem which leads us into a waste condition of illness and disease. Self-care is really a topic which should be taught already in the school and Kindergarten.
I know exactly what you are talking about Julie, and no matter what your body is telling you, unless you are willing to listen to it, then and only then can we start to make true change. Knowing that ‘Everything is energy and everything is because of energy’ as Serge Benhayon presents – then when the body is talking to us this means we have chosen an energy that is creating this in the body. Something that is not us but we have allowed in. Hence the power is in our choice, we are the creators of our existence.
“I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” How obvious it becomes when you describe your experience, Julie, that if we ignore the intelligence of our heart, which has always been considered the organ of the body connected to love, it will eventually protest and show us how neglectful of ourselves we have been, and so have been leaving ourselves open to attacks from outside, and our own thoughts. I love that, the deep feeling of warmth for myself and everyone else inside me, when any symptoms of my body, or outside disturbances no longer affect me in the same way.
That was beautiful to read and I’m glad I’ve taken to the time to stop and read this out loud. Thank you for sharing.
Hello Julie, your child birth sounds very similar to the one I had when I was born and I suspect my mother would have been in the same momentum as you were.Thank you for sharing.
The preciousness of pregnancy- a time to stop and really feel the connection to the unborn child & truly honour the body.
I don’t feel this is emphasised enough in antenatal classes.
Your article shows that the body never gives up on us, even though we may continue to override what we are being told. It’s beautiful how you now look upon the random aches and pains as an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding and awareness of the body.
Beautiful Julie to read the way you changed your life after the awareness of the real devastating implications of how we have been living that can affect us. The fact that we can change things is very beautiful and empowering, as is our bodies ability to heal itself with loving care . You show us how we really are responsible for our own life and in doing that for others also around us. A great sharing and learning, thank you.
Hi Alexis – I loved your comment about gentleness – especially your relating it to how we treat a baby. That will help me to remember to live this way. Thank you.
What a beautiful account of an enormously life changing moment of time in your life, thank you Julie for sharing this very loud and clear reflection of how we can transform our lives when we begin listening to what our body is letting us know.
Thanks Julie – ‘I trusted in my body’s natural ability to heal, and in my ability to make different choices to help with my own healing.’ – what a lovely, self responsible approach! It is supportive to me as I too am taking more notice of what my body is telling me and working on not overriding it’s messages. Thank you!
What a beautiful blog Julie, thank you. You have shared and confirmed the importance of us developing a daily routine of self care, self love and self nurturing of ourselves and our bodies as a whole as the effects this has is astounding.
Everyday is something to learn- yes I agree– the body is a constant teacher for us.
I agree Julie, feeling the seemingly random aches and pains, offer us the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of our day and how we are going through it. I’ve also discovered it’s a great way to make day by day choices that support me – rather than ignore the signs and let things slide into illness, which I also used to do.
Well said Rosanna, that certainly offers an opportunity to get in touch with what the body is telling us. Rather than seeing the pains as a “pain” I am finding they offer a great moment to stop and reflect.
A few years ago I experienced severe heart palpitations over a period of a couple of years. It felt like my heart was kicking or turning over quickly in my chest. My specialist said that it was OK and that I would need to learn to live with it – it wouldn’t shorten my lifespan and would be more of an annoyance.
Like you, I came to realise that the problem was caused by how I was living and that it, as you point out so beautifully, “stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me”. As I learned to live more lovingly and with the support of Universal Medicine, the kicking heart stopped. The body is truly amazing isn’t it!? I didn’t have to ‘live with it’ at all.
Maree, that’s another powerful testimony showing how we live affects our health, and when we change the way we live, how the body comes back to health!
We hear that term a lot ‘live with it’. I do love how our body won’t even let us ‘live with it’. Pain is our best friend in those times – that persistent voice that says ‘deal with it’.
Everything we do either puts a strain on the body or supports the body. Self love and awareness is the key to making the choices to guide ourselves along the path of living rather than dying.
“listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine.”
Just starting to understand what honouring the body means – the par above works for me, thanks Julie.
This blog shows that self care and love is at the basis of a healthy body. We tend to forget that at the cost of our body, which in fact carries us around including babies like in your case. Great example what loving choices on a daily basis can have as an effect.
We put our bodies through so much stress at times, It is incredible how it finds its balance, it knows what it needs to do. great that you pulled through.
Amazingly powerful story Julie. It was clearly touch and go at one point but you trusted in your body and your body pulled through!
There is a social pressure these days to keep going while you are pregnant, working up unto the last minute so you can have more time off after the birth before returning to work. I was frowned upon in the 70’s for returning to work part time when my first son was 9 months old. It seems like we are still trying to work out the balance of what’s right for us, and external circumstances can dictate sometimes. But your example shows how important it is to consider the body at this time.
It seems that there has been pressure on women for a long time about all aspects of life, not only what we should look like, but how we should act, even in pregnancy and child birth. Julie’s example is a great reminder that self-care, and paying attention to the signs of our body is what really counts.
Hi Julie. Thank you for your inspiring article. I am continuously amazed by the human body and its capacity to just know what is needed to get itself back into balance. I love the trust you show with yourself and your body whilst you were unwell. There is a strength in this knowing and a real courage to begin to look at how we live our life and how this does affect us and those around us.
I agree Jen. Reading your blog Julie I felt your strength and dedication to nurturing a tender relationship with your body where every ‘message’, ailment is heard and not just dismissed or put down to bad luck. Given the prevalence of heart conditions worldwide this story offers huge inspiration or anyone who reads this.
Self Love is at the heart of everything. Having greater awareness, through self reflection, of our own part in the development of an illness is always the start. Being able, as you did, to discern that there was more to health than just physical healing is a lesson for us all. It shows us the importance of living each and every day with attention, love and care in all the choices we make.
Like you say Julie, our bodies relentlessly offer signs to us if we feel and listen and this constant relationship is such a beautifully healthy foundation in our day-to-day living. Thank you for a very honest blog.
Beautiful sharing Julie, I love how you have been able to turn things round for you after such an intense time. Your comment – ” I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” – resonates deeply with me too, thank you.
Hi Julie,
great to read this and acknowledge the importance of listening to our bodies 24/7.
Then we can become masters of our body and what it needs. From where I come from, hardly listening to it and overriding all signs, to where I am now is a huge difference and I know it is a never ending relationship. So I better cherish and love my body, which I do with an increasing willingness.
Julie thanks for your article. I wonder how drastically we would all change the way that we go about our day and indeed entire way of living if we were to treat ourselves the way that we do a baby. How glorious would each time we gently place ourselves down on the bed for sleep be ? Even just tenderly lowering our buttocks on the chair would become sublime !
Lovely blog Julie, it really is taking it to another level when we start to listen to everything our body is telling us and not just brushing it off as something that “just happens”. Our bodies are so intelligent, it’s amazing what we can learn when we stop and listen!
Sometimes it is scary to feel the pressure I put my body under. But it is definitely more scary to consider the consequences of ignoring the everyday signs, knowing what the accumulation of lack of awareness and care could mean. Thank you, Julie, for your open and honest article and for the prompt to be super respectful and attentive to my body’s signs and symptoms.
I was amazed when reading your blog – wouldn’t being pregnant warrant asking MORE for help than normal? It is amazing how much our habits carry over – even when our situation dramatically changes. Thank you for your blog.
Self-care is so loving not only for you but for the unborn baby & all around us. Thank you for this reminder. When I was 1st pregnant many years back, it was still about doing everything I would do normally in the day & then at night be tired & go off to sleep which was not truly caring for myself, as I was listening to my body but not acting on what it was telling me. I used to feel it would be selfish to not do what I had to do at the stake of my body – how ridiculous.
Going to a Heart Chakra workshop by Serge Benhayon offered a different way of living which I hadn’t heard of before, but could really connect to & understand. It has taken me time to make slow self caring & loving choices that leave me feeling absolutely amazing. Still making & deepening self caring choices every day.
I am also developing my self care choices everyday. As this process unfolds I am learning that choices which used to support me, no longer do as I have moved on and need to deepen with new ones. It’s fascinating as I have begun to realise there isn’t an end point where I can say that I have “arrived” but will forever be evolving of what it truly means self-care and self nurture, to love myself and others.
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” This is beautiful Julie. Your post illustrates how making simple loving choices can turn our lives around.
That our bodies are key communicators and show us immediately what is going on – is incredible. As I listen to talks by Universal Medicine, it has allowed me to hear and understand things about the body that I have never been taught by other resources around me. And it is basic stuff when you break it down. But no one really talks about it, so no one really registers the important vessel we’re housed in.
Hi Julie,
Thank you for sharing your story – very extreme one at that.
It reminded me when reading it about something that happened today. I was at Uni and learning to take blood pressure, listening to the heart with a stethoscope and how to wash hands correctly (I am studying Midwifery).
I listened to my own heart beat through the stethoscope and I couldn’t help but listen and feel what was happening. As I stood there I could feel a slight strain in the way my heart was beating which allowed me to feel this strain all over my body. As I listened and became more aware of my body, I was totally surrendering and letting go of the strain and being lulled by the sound of my own heart.
It reminded me when reading this of the strain we put our hearts and bodies under when we hold back from loving and being loved.
It is so interesting how we have that phrase in our language, “a strain on the heart”. That is exactly what we do to ourselves and the body suffers.
very true Elizabeth. We somehow know quite well how to describe it in sayings we have used for decades. Funny how we have let these words become without meaning, when there is so much truth to be found in them.
It is incredible how much our body tells us if we listen, and equally unbelievable how we can almost totally ignore (at our peril) what it is saying.
This is very true David.
Thank you for sharing your story Julie, quite a serious situation you were in, life threatening. Incredible that you can link it to your simple choices of lifestyle, eating habits, stress and the everyday choices we make without thinking about the cumulative consequences. A lesson for all of us.
What a wonderful piece of kit our bodies are. We take them to the brink of life threatening conditions, sometimes even over the edge, and yet, when we start to love and really care for them, they respond and begin the healing process. Awesome.
I find this incredible too Catherine… our bodies respond so readily to tenderness, care and love. The more I let go and open up the less I ache and my body systems flow and work with much more ease.
Yes Catherine. Our bodise are great at showing us when we are going against our own flow, and also so quick in responding when we offer them love and care. I too often marvel at what an amazing friend and wise ally we have in our bodies.
I agree Lisa. One persons sharing and learning can also be a lesson and experience for others to learn from. This reinforces the importance of us each sharing honestly our actual experiences and learnings.
Nothing happens for no reason and like you shared Julie and as I have experienced the body is very willing to ‘talk’ to me through feelings, sensations, aches and pains. After reading this I pondered on some of the signs I have been aware of for some time yet have been ignoring, a tactic that does not ever heal or clear the feeling but provides a momentary distraction or numbness. What if I actually stopped to listen to these constant ‘little’ feelings I wonder..
Julie your blog reinforces for me the truth about self-care.
I agree Patricia, self care is so powerful.
All the blogs I have read today seem to have a common theme of self care running through them, hmm I wonder what this is trying to tell me?
Kevin I know that feeling, especially about the heart and listening to signs the body tells us.
It is amazing to really claim that the heart extends beyond the physical organ. We all know this to be true but somehow wait for scientific evidence to really be able to believe it. No-one can argue with your lived experience.
Well said Rebecca.
You are right Rebecca. All our expressions tell us so, like, ” that was heartfelt”… she “spoke from her heart”… “open heartedness”. Through this blog, Julie has been able to make the connection to illness of the physical heart with our expression from the heart…(or lack of it). Do we really need science to show evidence before we can accept the two are linked?
Well said Rebecca, I know i’ve been caught in waiting for evidence based practice to catch up.
However if I continued to wait for them to catch up…. well there would be a lot of time to catch up on.
Your article highlights for me the pressure that is placed on women during pregnancy to be radiant and glowing and that somehow it is expected that women should be basking in the process of being pregnant. When in fact you had a demanding job and felt some apprehension about motherhood – isn’t this the norm for many women today?
So what I love about your article is how you were able to turn around and see that there was nothing wrong with you or the life you had, simply that the way you were handling situations and taking care of yourself could have been done with more love, and in response to clearly seeing this you chose to change. How remarkable and inspiring.
Well said Shami, it is a very strong ideal that we expect women to be glowing, radiant and sailing through a very intensive process for the female body, growing a baby. It is very beautiful how Julie recognises that she just needed to bring in more self love and nurturing into her daily life, something that truly benefits mother and baby all round.
Well said Shami, there definitely is a preconceived idea of how a pregnancy should go, but it definitely doesn’t take into account modern lives of women with busy stressful jobs as well as a household to run. It is amazing to read how Julie didn’t chalk her experience up to a fluke of pregnancy but instead looked a little deeper to how she was living and made some changes for the better.
Shami, Rebecca and Rowena, what you have all said is so true. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that pregnancy is not an illness. True, but it is a time for nurture, rest and time taken to connect to the precious new life within. A time for wonderment.
That’s lovely Catherine, A time for wonderment, nurture and connection to the precious life within.
That is the key, if we are willing to pay attention and take the time to truly listen to what our bodies are telling us, thank you Julie for an amazing story of true healing.
Thank you for the great sharing Julie. Our bodies are amazing and the wonderful thing is they are continuously talking to us if we so choose to listen. As you say “There is more to learn every single day and I am grateful for the choices that led me to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Incredible Julie. There is indeed much for us to learn each and every day, and your experience with pregnancy and heart failure is an amazing example of how the body communicates with us so profoundly.
Wow, an amazing experience Julie, and how awesome that in hospital you could start to see how there were signs and reasons behind what was going on instead of fobbing it off as a part of a difficult pregnancy. Add that the later understanding that the deeper reason was a lack of self-love and expression of love, and you have the perfect package to heal and move on, and give an amazing reflection to your child of what true care and responsibility looks like.
Thank you Julie. We can easily look at the statistics for Health Care industries around the world, and the acknowledged understanding that there is an impending world wide crisis. From 12% of the USA population having diabetes AND 37% having pre-diabetes (this means that if a person doesn’t radically change their lifestyle they WILL get diabetes), to Dementia alone filling the western world’s hospital beds by 2050 (where will all the other patients go?); there is obviously a rosetta stone of awareness needed to change the course of humanity.
Universal Medicine provides this awareness, with its comprehensive integration of science, philosophy, medicine, life-stlyle and more, into a practical and supportive Way of The Livingness that, if embraced by humanity, would enable humankind to live in a way that would allow our health care systems to take a big breath and support us all in a relatively stress-free, not overburdened environment.
Julie, your story is very relatable, I know many people that are in the same patterns you were in. This would be awesome for so many to read.
I also have found it is much less likely that I will be affected by the outside world when I take care of myself more deeply. it is a brilliant feeling to live in a steady way and incredibly simple to initiate and start to live like this.
What Serge Benhayon and Esoteric Medicine present – and what you tap into here, Julie, when you write ‘I started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love’ – is a true blessing; for it teaches us that every part of our body – every organ, every limb, every mechanism – has an energetic counter-part which relates to a certain aspect of how we are as human beings in the world, and to a certain aspect in our relationship with life. This is indeed unconventional, but hundreds of people have identified it as being true, and we – and our application of these teachings – are a living body of evidence of their truth and validity. They are a blessing for humanity, for they offer us the opportunity to truly see what our ills, diseases and bodily pains are about (i.e. what causes them), and thus to take responsibility for and truly heal them.
It is awesome that you have discovered through the teachings of Universal Medicine the relationship you felt between your condition of cardiomyopathy and your own self-love. What a revelation!
Thank you for sharing so openly and honestly the steps you walked to reach the realisation that your body had been communicating with you and how, gradually, you came to honour that communication through listening to it. With the openheartedness you share in this article you have surely earned the right to be heartily healthy from here forward.
Hi Julie, I appreciate your honest account and reflection of where you took the wrong path at that time in your life. Self care and self love is the only antidote for sustained living. I know this to be true at a very deep level as a result of making changes to my life as per the offerings from Uni Med teachings. And yes, there is so much more to learn everyday.
I liked your phrase Julie, “For me, listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine.” It’s easy to ignore these aches and pains and just get on with the day, but taking the time to stop, take notice and support my body when they come up has made a real difference to my vitality and health.
It’s liberating knowing that there is a reason why things happen to the body. Earlier on in my life I never paid attention to why I was feeling a particular way, just on the recovery and getting back to feeling well. As a result there were recurring injuries that were a result of the way I was living and treating myself, and it was only when I started to change that (thanks to what was presented by Universal Medicine) that these recurring injuries became a thing of the past.
Julie thanks you sharing that self-love and the connection with our body is an ongoing learning each and every day. I’ve realised recently that I’ve tried to make it a ‘goal’, something to be done and ticked off, (the old way of approaching life) and yet my body is clearly showing me that it is something that can be continually deepened in each moment if I choose to listen. I’m also coming to see how challenging it can be at times to accept the love that we are as our natural way of being, because for so long we have been told that life is about achieving things, not just being.
We so easily dismiss an ache or a pain in our body because we give priority to that which is outside of us. For me I have always been racy, thinking I could only have a rest once all the jobs on my list were done, to find out after completing them exhaustion. I am learning to be less racy in my days and therefore more with myself, so that I am able to feel my body and what it is asking of me.
I definitely agree Caroline, and can relate to very easily dismissing aches or pains for many reasons, such as, ‘It’s nothing’, ‘I’m just tired’ or ‘It’s just a scratch’.
How remarkable the body is and so simple to read if we allow it. Thank you Serge Benhayon and your presentations on everyday living.
Julie, thank you for sharing your journey. You are clearly living proof that the way live directly affects our health as does the way we “love”.
That is very honest Julie,
When you are ill I think it is very wise to get help from your doctor and the medical system but also to look honestly at your life and change what is not working. Thank you to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for presenting Esoteric Medicine which integrates so well with western medicine to make healing truly holistic.
It can seem clichéd and simple to talk about self-care and self-love, but I’m realising these are so fundamental to living a life of joy and vitality. Thanks Julie.
Thank you Julie, you are a living testament to the fact that Love is medicine for the body. Love that comes from the way we live – nurturing and caring, noticing how our body is truly feeling, and following our inner impulses.
I love that summary, Jenny: “Love is medicine for the body.” Beautiful.
Once we wake up to listening to our body, really listening to the true messages that our body gives us, it feels so natural..and (eventually) even easy. So then we look back at how we had been ignoring these messages, and it’s like “How could I have not not been hearing what my body was telling me?” We exert a lot of energy trying to block out our in-house message system! I loved the title of your story..and your awakening…….and the happy ending!! Thanks for sharing your good heart, Julie Goodhart.
Your name got me too Julie – now you have a ‘good heart’ from all that you have learned, embraced and healed!
In a different circumstance medically, I also had a big healing in my heart and realised it was to do with how I had been living – physically very healthy, but not energetically. I’d been infected by rats and ended up in the emergency department with atrial fibrillation – the top of the heart fluttering instead of beating, with the pulse racing. I lay there for 5 hours in this condition, wired up to monitors, scared, as the doctors had warned me not to take it lightly. Then at one point, I suddenly felt a huge ‘dark cloud’ lift out of my heart and leave.
I realised in that moment that I had been living all my life not trusting other people, not letting their love in, being guarded in how I loved, and that my heart had been full of sadness. In that moment it cleared, and my heart’s healing began. Our amazing bodies….
It was time for your heart to heal Dianne. Beautiful story.
Wow Dianne amazing story and that you were able to feel what had been happening and how you could heal from that.
It’s true that we have such a big part to play in our healing and well-being. If we take ourselves out of the equation and just hand ourselves over to the doctors, we are ignoring and dismissing the power that we have, because as you say we know our bodies better than anyone.
Hi Julie, I loved reading about the changes you have made, and your understanding of love and how the body is affected by lack of love. I too am learning to have a more loving and respectful relationship with my body, and to really appreciate its patience and wisdom.
Reading about your journey Julie, it is lovely to see that you have made a true difference to your self and the way you live your life, by having had that experience and looking for true answers, so that transformation could take place. Thank you for sharing.
I couldn’t help but have a giggle that you last name is Goodhart.. What a great reminder for you to take care of your heart.
Sadly we often need to get sick before we listen to the body and all those little aches and pains are just seen as an inconvenience. The awareness of our body as a marker and teacher, and the healing and expanding effect of Self-love and self-care is mostly unheard of in our world, and I feel blessed that I, too, have learnt about, it brings so much more than physical health.
To override what your body is telling you is easy, to look and listen to it means taking responsibility. Our bodies are so amazing, I am so often astounded how much the body can handle and readjust, before it says: hey, this is enough. Great article about listening and taking responsibility- thank you.
Great comment Steffi, I like what you have shared about how we will often choose the easier option of not listening to our bodies instead of taking responsibility for the way that we are living and the choices that we are making.
Fantastic article Julie. I too am learning each day to listen to my body and what it is telling me more and more. It is remarkable how responsive our body is to the choices we make. Thank you for sharing Julie.
I agree, Leah. Once I started to listen to my body it had so much to say! This made me determined to never ignore its communications ever again. As you say, it is amazing how the body responds to being cared for, no matter what we have put it through.
Julie – thank you for sharing such an amazing experience – I constantly marvel at what our bodies can recover from when given the opportunity.
I love what you write here: “I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.”
This is so true, Mary. I know how I have lived in a disconnected mess for many years and can see such a reflection from the positive changes I have made more recently, Phew! And more to go, I know; it’s an ongoing journey.
I can relate to the ‘being pregnant’ part of your blog in a couvade-ish way but your insights and experience around self-care and paying attention to what our bodies are telling us are gems Julie. Thank you.
We seem to have gotten to a point in the world where we are lauded for pushing ourselves to the extreme. For example, the gruelling pace athletes push themselves to, working through on jobs without even a short break, pulling all nighters to finish that uni essay or even pie eating competitions.
We really need to look at this and ask ourselves – why are we seeking to abuse ourselves and gaining ‘kudos’ or ‘respect’ for doing so? – Is this respect real, or is it just recognition that we receive because in truth, deep down, we feel miserable and will do anything to hide that fact from ourselves?
Your honest account here Julie blows the lid off this and shows that by honouring ourselves we have an opportunity to live truthfully with, and within, ourselves.
I agree Michelle – people really know how to push themselves to do more than their body can support. Its pretty crazy to think about how we’ve built this time precious fast moving world and lost the stillness and appreciation along the way.
Hear Hear Michelle. “We really need to look at this and ask ourselves – why are we seeking to abuse ourselves and gaining ‘kudos’ or ‘respect’ for doing so? – Is this respect real, or is it just recognition that we receive because in truth, deep down, we feel miserable and will do anything to hide that fact from ourselves?” Question this we should.
This is a great reminder for me Julie, thank you, ‘For me, listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine.’
“I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.” I agree to this, as my body has its own speach and signs and when I care for it lovingly and listen, we “work greatly together” 🙂
It’s great to read an article about the connection to the heart and vascular system and to love. This is something as an exercise professional I have been exploring since going to Universal Medicine presentations and hearing this for the first time. The symbol for love is the shape of the heart and in pondering the connection, it has made more and more sense. For example, if I treat my body lovingly during exercise, is it amazing how I can exercise in a flow and rhythm that allows my body to stay quite relaxed and open and expansive, while still exercising strongly and getting my heart rate up. I don’t like impact but I can exercise on a cross trainer where there is no impact. I have also explored how walking without significant heart rate increase can allow me to feel expanded across my chest and down my arms, especially when I feel the love of walking and connecting to my body, for its own sake – not to get somewhere or because it’s good for me. I feel these notions of lovingly looking after myself with exercise are related to the message in this article. I also get inspired every time I read in an article how there is a knowing the body will heal itself if we truly support it. I feel health to fitness to amazing wellbeing is really only an extrapolation of this same principle.
It’s amazing how much we disregard the messages our body is sending us, even though it’s sending them all the time! I so relate to what you write. I had become a master of overriding the subtle and not so subtle messages my body was sending me, then getting annoyed when I was not well – how arrogant is that! Fortunately now I have begun to listen and even though sometimes I slip up, I know where I need to come back to, as the saying ‘the body is the marker of all truth’ is so true.
When we are in relationship with ourselves, honestly considering and reflecting on what we choose, we are no longer at the mercy of what is going on around us. This is huge. As we connect to the deep quiet within us, we can be in life without being an anchor-less cork tossed and buffeted by the sea we are in.
Indeed Matilda and valid point, total presence with our body is making us stronger and steadier in the face of what is going on around us. Thank you.
I can relate a lot to your sharing of being pregnant, not listening to my body, not taking care of myself, stress and taking things on at work. There was so much stress and tension in my body during the pregnancy I didn’t allow the baby all the space she needed and she stopped moving and growing. Forced to stop and lie down changed it a little, but I stayed very busy in my head. It took me a long time to get enough body awareness to make different choices. Today it is still work in progress when it comes to being present every moment of the day and to keep feeling my body all the time.
Our bodies have a lot to share if we are willing to listen!
Thank you Julie
Your words Julie reminded me how we grow up to see life events, as merely an ‘accident’ or ‘coincidence’. We often think of the harm drugs do but what if the way we judge our actions (and those of others), is one of our greatest poisons? What if we could be super accepting of ourselves? I feel that then we would see the truth, uncritically and be able to acknowledge life’s events as the amazing gift they are.
I love the fact Joseph that you have here suggested that negative thoughts or judgements on our self, and others could be more harmful to our body than drugs. I would love to see some research on this!
Absolutely, that would be an amazing picture to capture…those thoughts are often so readily available they become a damaging and unregulated drug – until we choose differently as Joseph suggests.
Agree Joseph, would definitely give a new spin to rehabilitation.
Yes, our body is really our ‘own best friend’ when we listen to it. The more we open up to listening, the more it can share with us.
True. How empowering this statement is ‘that no one knows my body better than I do’.
How often do we drag our body along with us, tell it to shut up when we dont want to hear it’s wisdom and negate it until we may be forced to listen?
It’s pretty crazy when we consider that our body has been with us since we were born and lived every choice we have ever made, whether at its expense or not. It makes a lot of sense that our body may well hold the key. Do we honour our body or deny it’s voice?
It’s a good reminder to say so clearly “that our body has lived every choice we have ever made”. This, Deborah puts a stark reality to the topic. I have been so dismissive and arrogant, at times, thinking I can get away with poor choices, but my body shows me quicker and quicker that unloving choices can really hurt my health.
Great comment Deborah, why do we ignore it until we are forced to listen? Just thinking about this, and I know that many of us have constant niggles, pains, discomforts that we put up with each day and push through so we can keep going. We are ignoring these early signs at our peril, as the body will continue to communicate how we are feeling, and the intensity builds until things get too bad – and all it’s asking is for some different, more self loving choices.
It is incredible to begin to see the power and the big part the heart has to play in our health and well being . An open heart that is allowed to flow and love In its true glory is a beautiful thing .
And is seriously good for our Health.
Simple self care is something I sometimes forget to do until the body reminds me, sometimes in a very un-gentle way. But the more I listen, the more love I feel for myself and others. Simple and Easy (until I make it complicated).
Our bodies are always communicating with us, it is up to ourselves when we listen and honour what it is clearly telling us, the longer we ignore it, the louder it speaks and the more severe the consequences. Thank you for reminding us how important it is to bring care and love to ourselves, and so then to others.
A great learning for you Julie, and for us to benefit from too. Wonderful that we are learning to self-love and be with ourselves in everything that we do. What a healing there is in this for us, we are self-medicating. And thanks to Serge Benhayon who has been pointing these facts out to us.
Absolutely Beverley. Thank God for Serge Benhayon and all that he has brought (and brings) including presenting the importance of True Self-Care which is deeply needed in the World.
The truth expressed so beautifully Beverley.
This is a great point, Beverley, self medication that is available for all, can’t be bought over the counter, and costs nothing. Because it is, quite simply how we live each day.
Wow, I loved reading this account of your choice to take responsibility and turn your complicated health situation around. With simplicity and love you have transformed your life and I celebrate with you. An inspiration for all, thank you.
Helen that’s the resounding message that is coming through all the articles, blogs and comments – it’s great to stop and appreciate that its through simplicity and building a foundation of true love within ourself that everything changes.
Here it is again – simplicity – I love it. Yes, so truly pointed out David, it is in all the blogs and articles, simplicity and building self love to allow for true change/transformation within. Thank you.
Thanks Julie, the way we all override and push our body is like we are punishing it for some reason. Yet when we listen to it, all it has ever been doing is talk to us and showing us there is such a simpler gentle way.
Wow Joel, it IS like I am punishing my body!!!! That’s given me a whole new way to approach how I live. Thank you.
That is a good way of looking at it Joel!
I was told when I first presented to a Universal Medicine practitioner that my body felt like it had been dragged behind a horse. Punishing disregard is such an apt description for the way I treated myself. No longer thanks to Universal Medicine.
Yes Joel, I agree that is how one may choose to look at how to deal with what is going on in the body and yet another way is to give up and as I heard from a 70 year old relative recently – “who’s fault is this that this is happening to me – can I blame my father or my mother”! Offering the possibility that it could be the responsibility of each one of us was met with silence. I agree with your words “Yet, when we listen to it, all it has ever been doing is talk to us and showing us there is such a simpler gentle way”.
That is so true, Joel – I know I just felt like a victim of my body for years. It was great when I realised that my body was just there to support me in my life and to offer me the opportunity to build a foundation of love and commitment.
I agree Joel, it is almost like we push and punish our bodies as far as possible before they break, but why not listen to the signs, be honest about what they mean, and see how far we can go without leaving ourselves behind.
“listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine.”
Thank you for this read. This is gorgeous. I have had some shoulder pain for a while now, and you have supported me to take an honest look at how I live everyday which might affect this. Rather than chalking it off with self criticism.
Thanks Arianne, it’s interesting what you say about ‘chalking it off with self criticism’, how we can dismiss pain and discomfort as just something negative that we must have done to ourselves. There is no love in this sentiment whatsoever, and yet how simple could it be to stop and listen without judgement to what our bodies are telling us.
I love what you both say here Janet and Arianne. It can be so familiar to go to self criticism if we notice something is not to our liking, whereas lovingly looking at what needs to be looked at is so much more supportive. I find that when I am not harsh with myself I am much more likely to see the cause of any problem and then make adjustments with ease.
Thank you Julie for sharing your experience. Amazing how these experiences in truth are a gift as they offer us the opportunity to stop and reconnect to our body and what it is showing us. Wonderful that you took that opportunity and explored much deeper the root cause of your illness and how this has set in motion a wonderful journey of discovery and self care. Inspiring to read thank you.
Beautiful sharing Julie- Our bodies sure do have a way of making us listen. I too am deeply thankful for the presentations of Serge Benhayon as they simply make sense to everyday life. By listening to my body now, taking the time to connect and stop and be open and loving- life is very enJOYable.
Such a beautiful blog Julie , thankyou for sharing .
It is amazing that such a serious condition can be recovered from and health regained with the simplicity of listening to your body and caring for yourself. We make things so complicated and love the complication as it distracts us from what we really need to do.
I love how you make the connection between cardiomyopathy and your lifestyle choices including loving yourself and others and allowing other people to love you. It is no coincidence that we refer the symbol of a heart to love. Living lovingly is in the same way good for your heart!
Julie, thank you for sharing your journey, what an experience you have been through, and great turn around. You commitment to self love is a great inspiration to us all and a great reminder that we must pay attention to what our body is saying to us at all times.
What a lesson that was for you Julie, and what a lesson for us readers. What rings a bell for me is the line ‘nor allowed others to truly love me’. I think being able to let myself be loved, in fact even simply knowing I am lovable is as important as loving others. And my guess is this only possible if I love myself to start with.
Wow, what a heart stopping experience that really was the beginning of a major turning point in life. Your commitment to keep bringing self love back to your body is inspiration for true healing. Thank you for sharing
Listening to how your body is feeling is huge. You’ve just given me a reminder to be more attentive and pay attention to what’s going on.
The heart truly knows everything.
I felt really touched by reading this. The gentle nature of the story being told and a reminder that all of us in some way or another have to deal with trying situations or adversity and that we could all bring a deeper understanding to our fellow human beings by knowing that they too have hurts and by being less judgemental with each other, the more we can truly connect with each other.
It makes a lot of sense that, “the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love are connected.” That the health of the physical organ relates to how much love we let in and express out… It’s so simple. My understanding is that heart disease has higher death rates than cancer rates and yet it doesn’t get the same focus? Diseases of the heart and circulatory system (cardiovascular disease) account for almost 191,000 deaths in the UK and an estimated 17 million worldwide each year. (The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health-IOSH). That’s huge! Do theses statistics show that we are starving ourselves of love and are living in a way that is so contra to our natural way of being? What if we expressed more love and allowed more love in, would we see a dramatic shift in these statistics?
Timely reminder of the love for self and how that affects every part of our lives. Even to the point of drastic health issues. It is well worth investing in a loving way of life.
I deeply appreciated it when you said that when you are the love that you know yourself to be, the stress of the world cannot touch that. Amazingly simple and outrageously crazy that we almost, at times, seek drama and complexity to cover up ourselves.
This is a fabulously loving article Julie, bringing in the connection of the physical heart with the way we live and the way we are towards ourselves. I also love the link at the bottom of your article ( http://www.unimedliving.com/medicine/disease-and-your-body/heart-disease-is-it-all-about-love.html) – it has a great audio attached to it and a beautiful saying about Love. Both your experience and what’s written in the Unimed Living article dovetail beautifully to widen our understanding of heart disease.
This is amazing to share Julie and the commitment and love developed to listening to your body is a great inspiration. Our healing definitely lies within us all and as you show, clearly starts with opening our hearts to ourselves first and then it follows with everyone else and our life really does change. Thank you.
Julie, you have presented an incredible opportunity here. Just to consider for a moment that we do not have to be governed by life and its intensity, but can come to each and every day with a held quality and steadiness that allows us to participate fully without being a victim of circumstance. Inspiring.
I love your story Julie, thank you for sharing. I was particularly struck by your following comment, it is powerful and offering us a gentle reminder to self care:
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.”
How true are your words about listening to our body, which speaks clear and loudly, but how often do we choose to ignore it? A major health situation often is the catalyst to turn around how we have been with ourselves and to realise this is a wake-up call. I feel deep appreciation for the presentations and teachings of wisdom from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine which I also found, and so decided to make loving choices for myself, realising the truth of how I had been living in the past. It is an ongoing unfolding each day with each choice made, listening to what my body is telling me and honouring that.
I agree Anna and I too feel very blessed to have met Serge Benhayon before my body got to a critical stage, because I know I was heading towards some major illnesses if I had carried on living as I was. The wise teachings of Universal Medicine have supported me to truly listen to and respect my body and shown me very clearly that my health is in my hands. Major illnesses are a great catalyst for change, but we don’t need to wait for them in order to begin looking after ourselves.
Thanks for your honest sharing Julie. Great to hear how you have turned your life around and living in a more loving and honouring way. A great inspiration for all and confirmation that our body is truly miraculous when we listen to it and honour what its telling us.
Beautiful honest sharing Julie of how you became aware that your lifestyle choices -lack of self love contributed to heart failure, and then by stopping and listening to your body signs your healing began and continues to deepen its love.
A great reminder to “listen to your body”. Also, the “heart” is such a beautiful and powerful organ, no wonder everybody loves anything heart-shaped!
Thank you Julie, yes how simple it really is to just listen to our bodies which have the answers to everything we need to know in every moment.
Thanks Julie, for the real honesty you bring about how much we can ignore the blatant signs from our body that we are abusing ourselves. And we are supposed to be the intelligent ones!
How clear is your message Julie, Heart failure a message about love,
You have really have turned it all around simply by practising more self care, and listening to the signs the body is constantly offering. Feeling a deep love within, so the stresses of the world can’t touch that. I am constantly inspired by you sharing your journey here along with the many others through their own choices to have found their way back home to the simplest truths thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine
This is an awesome blog – Thank you Julie. It is so important that we listen to our bodies so we can make the choices that support them the most and I love that you have been able to bring your heart more into it.. into living a way that is loving and bringing true care to yourself – we are all totally worth that.
What an incredible journey you have had Julie. A huge awakening to your true self. I love it when you say…
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that”
I am noticing that too, so I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Julie, I love the way that you have shared the intelligence that your body has to offer, amazing!
Your summary also resonated strongly with me with your expression that “I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” This is GOLD.
How empowering is it to know that we can actually develop a way of living that has us feeling all that is going on in the world, yet we can stay connected to the love within us – and the fact that despite what is going on around us, we are this love.
I agree Rob. When I connect to how incredible I am the stress don’t escalate and everything is possible.
Your blog is beautiful and really outlines the importance of listening to our bodies. As Oliver said, the heart is so symbolic. By listening to your body you could make the changes in your life. But if we choose not to listen to our bodies then we never receive the lesson that our bodies are constantly teaching us (or trying to!).
Thank you Julie, I know at times I can ignore the messages I am receiving from my body in the rush to get things done. What your sharing beautifully highlights is the importance of connecting with and listening to our body.
I love this line, so simple but true –
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.”
Julie thank you so much for sharing what happened. It sounds so scary but for you to trust your body is so inspiring to read for me as I have often abused mine and hearing self-loving choices are so powerful is always a great reminder. Thank you. I feel inspired to be way more self-loving and deepen that every day.
Julie this is a beautiful story about a time in your life that was no doubt very challenging to experience. I love how you used this as a turning point and discovered so much more about yourself. Thank you.
Self-care is so simple when you read it like that Julie, that is hard to imagine why it is not one of the basic tenets of our education as we grow up. “I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love.” Now there is a good foundation for everything in life.
It’s so amazing how loudly our body can speak to us when we obviously weren’t listening to the conversation it tried to have with us earlier, and the one before that, and before that…
My health and body has also completely transformed since I began making loving choices – inspired by the simple and profound wisdom presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. In re-connecting to the same wisdom within me, I am continually learning and unfolding more and more love.
It is amazing to hear your story Julie, and the enormous changes you have made to live with the deep love you do today – Wow.
Wow that’s really intense, it is magic though that you can share this experience with everyone and live a way that can inspire others to also listen to their bodies.
How awesome. I love your sharing on your experience with healing from cardiomyopathy and after giving birth. How you now choose to know your body, and listen to what it is telling you shows such commitment to real self-care and self-love. Now that’s great medicine!
Thanks, Julie for such an honest recounting of your life leading up to giving birth and I could really feel that base level of trust you had in your body knowing what to do. Actually living love develops when self-love is chosen over our usual disregarding habits….and I’m constantly amazed at how we repeat ourselves in these habits in ever widening or diminishing ways.
If we are more self-loving by listening to our body’s signals, the habits eventually diminish, yet if we override these messages from our body, the consequences just get bigger and bigger until we do take notice! A perfect set-up really, and one where choosing to be more loving just feels so much better.
Dear Julie,
Your writing has allowed me to see clearly how much we as human beings take the easy road. For example snack on easy to get foods, that are often full of sugar or salt, choosing to stress instead of speak up, not exercising because there doesn’t seem to be time in our day to do so. The ability you had to stop and truly asses the situation that you found your self in is especially inspirational. In deciding to support your body and be more caring and loving you were able to provide it with what it needed to heal. WOW…
I too have had a similar experience, through choosing to care for my body and with that care discern which foods were affecting my body and making choices to not eat the ones that harm it, I am now Asthma Free. I had been asthmatic from the age of 21 through to the age of 40. Amazing huh. I now love being able to breathe every day and the freedom that this offers me. Going for a walk without wondering if I will need the asthma puffer that was in my pocket. So very freeing in so many ways. The terror I used to feel if I was out and realised that I didn’t have a puffer with me is now a thing of the past. Simply writing this has revealed to me that even though I no longer suffer from Asthma, I have not completely dealt with how it felt to be asthmatic, so thank you. My journey of self discovery and self love is deepening.
I love what you say about the ‘easy road”. It is the ‘ugly road’ if we were honest but we tend to go with easy as its comfortable, familiar and does not require us to be responsible for our choices. The truth is our body cops ALL our choices and Serge Benhayon reminds us of this and then it is for us to choose another way of living that is not abusing us, like Julie has and You.
How inspiring to read Leigh Strack that you are Asthma free and I can say the same and more – I am asthma free and bronchitis free and my family have had bronchitis for generations and I was told it was in the family, so you just accept it.
Not accepting that ‘easy road’ is where real change starts.
Thank you for your amazing comment Leigh.
Yes, we do know our bodies better than anybody, or rather if we listen to our body it knows everything about itself. That’s not to say we don’t need medical treatment at times because we do, but if we listen to and honour our bodies before we get sick we can have a true vitality that comes from our bodies harmonious and loving natural state.
I am astounded on a daily basis at how wise our bodies are when we develop the clarity and ability to listen to what it tells us. This article is a great testament to this.
Ah the amazing language of the body. I am so glad I have learned to pay attention.
Thank you Julie. Our bodies are amazing and are always communicating messages so that we can do something differently, stop doing something, or start doing something that will nurture and nourish it, or prevent abuse. I have learnt to listen more to what aches, pains or other symptoms are telling me and the more I do, I feel that my body says ‘ah you’re listening, I can tell you more’…I love it!
Wow Julie, what an amazing blog! I really enjoyed your honesty and your simple way of looking at your life and the simple way of dealing with the amazingly complex medical picture – you have broken it down into 1-0-1 care for self and bringing in gentleness and awareness and building on this. When we make it this simple then we know that we can do this as it becomes child’s play. Thank you for the inspiration that no matter how far away we may tread from the truth, the body helps us come back and it does this so by asking of us more of simplicity and more of self love.
Thank you Julie. Yes our body speaks loud and clear when we are willing to listen to it. I for one am paying attention to how I look after my body daily and learning how to listen to the signs my body gives me.
I remember as a young adult really wondering about where disease came from, and whether I would be the “unlucky one”. What I love about this blog is it so clearly lays out the potential that we can all participate in our own health and wellbeing. Without judgement, blame or criticism, but simply asking – is it possible the way I am living isn’t supporting me? Or another great question – what is my body saying to me today…?
Yes very true Heather, we often see getting a major illness or condition as ‘bad luck’ rather than the clear message that it is showing us that the way we are living is deeply affecting our bodies.
Spot on Heather. And yes, it is another great question – ‘what is my body saying to me today..?” To me it helps expose the naivety of the solely thinking mind.
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.”
Thank you Julie I can so relate to that. My body is actually very clear on what it’s asking. Although I have not been faced with serious illness, I too am on a continuous journey to deepen the connection with my body. It is asking me to treat myself with the outmost tenderness and love, it is taking me to be with me every moment of the day.
Love that line: “I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that” – this is the way back to love and a more healthy life.
It is so true, we know our own bodies more than anyone else does, so no wonder the key to our healing lies within us.
Yes, Elizabeth, and how often do we give away that knowing to others when we are desperate because we have not been listening to our body’s wisdom and have sought other opinions or measures to “cure” the symptoms.. Our own bodies offer us the healing through the symptoms, they are the key to reconnecting and allowing ourselves to listen.
How affirming Julie, as you learn more every day, to have found that “the stressors of the world can’t touch ” you ” when you feel a deep love within “.
I could so relate to your story Julie: the push and the drive, worrying about others more than yourself, abusing your body with food, and the big one – not paying attention to you. I too loved being presented by Serge Benhayon about the connection “between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love”. That was a wow moment for me, and from there I was able to acknowledge that before I met Serge I actually had no idea what love truly was, as throughout my life, more often than not, “love” hurt. How could I express something that I did not know? To now understand what love is has changed my life in so many wonderful ways, and my body that suffered so much from my lack of attention is now so much more healthy, and my truest marker of how I am living.
Thank you for sharing your story Julie. A confirmation that our bodies tell us loud and clear when we are not taking good care of ourselves.
I love how you write Julie about the choice to live a life of true love, and the fact that this choice begins with a commitment to self-love. The love within ourselves CANNOT indeed be touched by the pressures of life, it is there forever.
Thank you Julie, I love this blog and the tenderness it is written in. So much of it just makes sense and it all comes down to how we live and look after our body. It is easy to dismiss this and override the love we naturally have for ourselves and other people and trust in what we feel.
Thank you Julie for sharing your experience. It is amazing all the different signs our bodies can give us by saying: “Hey, what are you doing?”. I love this line Julie, it is so true: “I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.”
Thank-you Julie, this article is a great example of how by not shrugging off those twinges we sometimes get, and understanding that the body is reflecting back to us all of the time on how we are living, and making different loving choices that will support the body, is the way to start taking responsibility for our own health.
Wow Julie what a great blog you wrote. You are so honest and not holding back anything – that can give other pregnant women the opportunity to be it as well and that is the best medicine at all.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story. ” ….I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” This shows to me a simplicity that living from the connection to your body brings to life.
“I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love.”
I’ve become aware through reading your article, and in particular the above sentence that loving myself has been something that I’ve felt I’ve had to master, something that I’ve had to get right.
Sure I’ve made some huge changes and have more true love in my life than ever before but I’ve been holding back and settling for better.
What I now realise is that as I make the choice to fully commit to self-love the rest will take care of itself.
It is easy to ignore and override aches and pains as inconveniences or random things but I agree Julie they are our bodies way of offering us an opportunity to be more aware of how we are living and how we could be more loving with ourselves and others.
What a way to start Motherhood Julie.! To see how you came through what must have been such a scary situation, just become a Mother and seriously ill too . Your belief in your bodies ability to heal and then finding Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon all seem to have been factors in your healing yourself and your deeper connection to your body and heart.
Thank you Julie for a very inspiring story of true self care and its need and how our bodies talk to us no matter what and it becomes more extreme until we choose to listen.Beautiful.
i love how you share Julie that is not just looking at our choices, but more so where these choices come from, i.e. the relationship with ourselves. Without changing this we will not have lasting changes in our choices.
The body is a pretty awesome messenger and this blog shows us just how loud it can speak to us. Great that you were able to listen and begin to live in a more loving and harmonious way. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thanks Julie, it is so true that we often ignore what our body is telling us, and dismiss these messages as “random aches and pains” as you said, when absolutely nothing is random. I loved it when you said that in stopping to listen to your body and care for yourself you discovered a deep love within that the stresses of life cannot touch.
Thank you Julie what an amazing turn around. I find it’s incredible the healing effects of self care and the awareness it brings to those signs and messages from my body. A very inspiring article.
Like you Julie, I found Serge Benhayon after suffering several heart related conditions and the first Universal Medicine event I attended was a Heart Chakra workshop – it felt like I had ‘come home’. Like you, ‘I started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love’. To begin with, allowing myself to embody ‘self-love’ was a difficult step as I had been raised to ‘put the needs of others first’ and taught that to consider self first was ‘selfish’! However it was clear to me that, like you, my choices up until that time, ‘stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me’.
Like you, I now listen to my body every day. . .and like you, ‘I am grateful for the choices that led me to the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine’. I now see my heart dis-ease as the blessing that it was!
Loved reading your story Julie of such a profound example of how our body lets us know when it needs our loving attention. Beautiful to hear how you heeded the call and turned everything around. I am learning that my body is my friend and it speaks with love and honesty. It truly is the marker of all truth.
On re-reading this blog I love Julie that you did not put your ill health down to bad luck and that you were open to honestly looking at the choices you were making in your life and how these affected your health. This feels like great medicine and true responsibility. How amazing would it be if everyone simply stopped, honestly reviewed their life & health and the choices they were making and then began to bring more care to the body. Without a doubt this would have a positive impact on our health and turn the illness and disease statistics around.
Even if I did not know you Julie I’m sure I would have cried at the part where the Dr. had to tell your partner that ‘you and/or your baby may not make it’…I met you about a year after that and I can say that I am witness to how much you have changed over these past 4 years. I feel a palatable warmth in our conversations now which I feel melt something in me as it brings me to feel my own heart more, so I would say that you show the world a miraculous healing of the heart and what the magic of trusting and loving the bodies that we live in and express out from can bring! Thank you Julie.
“I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” Great article thank you. I have had this experience that you write about so clearly, practicing basic self care is transformative and it has deepen my awareness of how my body feels which has also lead me to be much more loving with myself and other people.
This is an inspiring blog about self-care, I especially love this part “I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” I can really connect to the possibility of this level of nurturing in my own life.
It is amazing how we can ignore our body when it speaks so loudly to us and only choose to listen when it says I cannot take anymore. It is great how you took responsibility for the way you were living and made loving choices to change this.
Brilliant Julie, I love what your sharing with us in how you took responsibility for your health and the choices you were making. That in itself is significant when we actually begin to get honest and acknowledge our part in our own state of health and wellbeing.
Thank you Julie, a beautiful and powerful blog. Your sharing shows how everything is energy and we are responsible for every choice we make, and how those choices impact on or body, and our lives.
Thank you for sharing your experience, truly amazing.
WOW what a story and what a loving message and rest your heart gave you. I too am constantly developing an ever deepening yummy relationship with my body and learning to listen to her and her wisdom – makes life a lot more simple!
It seems so odd that our society suddenly becomes very supportive once we get ill or have an accident, or have a breakdown or whatever. Yet there seems to be very little support for individuals to self-care, de-stress, and all the other ways that we can prevent stresses and strains from developing into ill-health. The old adage of ‘prevention is better than cure’ seems to have very little real weight in the workplace and in life in general. Thank you Julie for showing us a very clear example of how to change this cycle of ‘running ourselves into the ground’
You are right, Paul in your observations. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. It would make much more sense to support individuals to self-care and de-stress and perhaps then we wouldn’t end up with such serious illness in the first place.
“It seems so odd that our society suddenly becomes very supportive once we get ill or have an accident, or have a breakdown or whatever. Yet there seems to be very little support for individuals to self-care, de-stress, and all the other ways that we can prevent stresses and strains from developing into ill-health. The old adage of ‘prevention is better than cure’ seems to have very little real weight in the workplace and in life in general.” … expressed so well Paul thank you and unfortunately so true, We have become a society of solution seekers instead of living in a way that prevents illness and dis-ease in the first place.
Hi Paul, you are spot on here – the status quo means we live in a constant level of disregard until the ‘snowball’ gets big enough to knock us to our knees.
I still find it is the little/subtle signs that I ignore repeatedly that ultimately culminate into a message that cannot be ignored.
So True Paul “prevention is better than a cure ” those small steps to listening to our body the niggles the aches and the permission to take care of ourselves, really becomes a big step in the long run to educate a true health care which will one day become normal in the workplace and beyond…
You hit the nail on the head there Jane with your comment about taking care of ourselves being innately normal. It doesn’t need any justification as you say.
Powerful article Julie, thank you. You made a great point about ‘chalking things up’ to being pregnant, rather than stopping to pay attention and investigate the ache or pain. How many times do we just dismiss what we are feeling, ignore those little red flashing lights on the dashboard until suddenly the whole body stops working and we wonder how we got into such a state. Every ache, every pain is a message from our bodies and when we pay attention to the small ones, we can prevent the big ones from happening. Your choice to look deeper, investigate yourself and start loving yourself is very inspiring and shows us we are very capable of healing major health issues by taking responsibility for our way of life.
Wow Julie what an eye opening story. It is truly beautiful how you have made the choice to care and support your self more and more and it definitely is something I am learning day to day too. As woman though we really do push ourselves tremendously hard. We try to please everyone else, but forget ourselves. Let’s bring the love back to ourselves ladies, we are so worth it.
So true Kelly, the momentums we live in as women are horrendous. Learning that there is another way to live, thanks to Universal Medicine and now, Esoteric Women’s Health, has been groundbreaking for me and so many of the women I know.
This is an awesome blog, Julie, – thank you for sharing your journey from ignoring the signs from your body to start feeling into what your body is telling you. Your realization that your choices stemmed from lack of self-love in the first place is huge, – and you just inspired me to go deeper myself. Thank you. Feelings, – here I am.
Thanks for sharing with us your rocky road back to self; it was a great reminder to me to not ignore any aches or pains, for each one is my body trying to tell me something.
With a steadiness and tenderness that is palpable you have shared such a powerful story. I am often in awe of the clarity and accurateness with which my body communicates with me. All we have to do is be open and willing to listen, giving ourselves access to a well of wisdom. Self-care leading to self-love leading to love of humanity. Simple! Thank you, Julie.
I love what you say Julie ‘I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, that begins with a commitment to self-love’. It is this loving commitment that I so appreciate being reminded of and feeling in your blog. Thank you.
‘Although I could feel that what was being shared was the truth, it took a long time for me to admit that the way I had been living was definitely not true love and not the truth.’ Ooh I know that one Julie! Why is it we don’t want to admit what we’ve created and take responsibility for our choices? Is it because it’s too uncomfortable to know we’d do that do ourselves? It seems we’ll do almost anything to hide this rather than take a good look. I love your honesty here. It’s great you can look at the whole picture and not only see what your choices were that had led to your situation but also see where those choices ultimately stemmed from and really get to the root cause. Now that’s true responsibility.
It is amazing when we realise how far away we are from really listening to our bodies and having a true understanding of our health. Universal Medicine brings very simple and practical ways to reconnect to this fundamental part of life – listening to and honouring the body. Quite a story Julie, thank you.
Julie, as one who experienced this as your partner, I can certainly say that the whole experience taught me how amazing our bodies are in compensating for how we treat it (as in your heart enlarging to compensate for the water retention) and how our body gives us so many chances to live more lovingly with true self-care, as you have described in this article. You continue to be an inspiration to me in many ways, and I can see how I can improve my own self-care and listen to my body signs if I am abusing it, however small, as it all has an effect in the end.
I’d love to know how your health is now, how your heart and kidney functions are? Just by reading what you say, you make it clear that you already feel better, and I am sure that the organs of your body have responded to how you have “treated” yourself. We look to medicine to “treat” us, and often overlook how we treat ourselves.
Thanks, Julie. I can relate very much to the huge relief of tension when we finally stop pushing and driving the body so hard, and start listening to what it has to say to us. It is incredible how we can ignore the messages for so long, and what it takes for us to stop and pay attention. Nonetheless, it is never too late to honour this most important relationship, and allow it to be foremost in our lives.
After dismissing everything I have felt for so long it is difficult to remember not to and really pay attention to my body. I love this line ‘For me, listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine.’
How often it is that a crisis or crossroads is what pulls us up and forces us to start asking the question – How did I get to this place? We are blessed that the body is constantly there and waiting till we do stop and ask, for it is waiting with the truth. Western medicine has developed and offers fantastic support in healing our body, but it needs us to work with it to reach true healing of not only our physical being but the mind and heart. Julie, you have presented whole healing so simply and made it known through your sharing that it is possible and if made a part of your life, can lead to a more fulfilling life. I, too, have been caught up in ‘life’ outside of myself and it was only through a crisis that affected myself and young family that caused me to ‘ask’ that first true life changing question – ‘Who am I?’ and so the true healing started.
It’s beautiful to read a blog about the heart. It’s such a symbolic organ, even to the most skeptical reader; for me, all that is shared makes perfect sense and so does the choice to live a life of self-care and making generally loving choices.
I agree Oliver, we all know about the heart and that it’s not only an organ that beats but a place that somehow symbolises the core or essence of us – I’m pretty sure all people of all cultures recognise that. It follows then that we might naturally want to connect to our hearts, and live from this place first and foremost.
Well said Oliver, I agree too – it does make a lot of sense to live with self care
‘There is more to learn every single day’
I totally agree Julie, what a joy for ever long I have left.
I’m with you there Kathie I totally agree with Julie “there is more to learn every day” What a Joy that is !
Your description of how you were living and coping when you were pregnant, Julie, and the severity of your condition when giving birth, are unfortunately common, as many women these days are working under stressful conditions during their pregnancy and up to the last minute. Your story of trusting your body and then listening to its messages about how you had been living, and now, how you can choose to live by respecting and honouring it, and the gifts it now gives you, is an inspiration for all women.
I too have found that my body ‘speaks’ to me constantly and the more often I not only listen to it, but respond lovingly to it’s messages, the more naturally and ‘loudly’ I can feel what it is telling me. Sometimes I listen to and heed the messages from my body but sometimes I still choose, like many others, to override them. Are we as humans just in such an old habit of living like this? Of ignoring all the ‘danger’ signs, of pushing through our pains and distresses, eating foods we know are not healthy for our bodies? I wonder just how disconnected from our bodies are we, and why are we? When I think about it, no other animal is as disregarding of it’s physiology and natural instincts as we are. I am so grateful to Universal Medicine for highlighting this old pattern to me and turning my attention to being more self-loving. I believe it has saved me a lot grief.
Me too. Re overriding what my body tells me, I know it’s a lifetime pattern or habit of doing so that brings me undone. It’s a hard one to break if you’re a ‘doer’! But with persistence and patience (also a tricky one for some of us to learn) I’m getting there.
Hello Julie, a great read and thank you. I find it interesting as well how ‘we’ choose to bring babies into the world.
I have children as well and I remember the things we did prior to the birth. It was almost like you were pushing everything around to prepare for ‘the day’. For me now it doesn’t make sense and as you say it is about developing a relationship with your body and not pushing yourself around.
I love the ending of your writing about the relationship between you, the intention to self-care, listening to your body and feeling the deep love that is inside you and then best of all the fact of the outside world not being able to touch that. It shows me how powerful this all is.
Such a great example of what we do to our bodies every day, even when we don’t have a pregnancy as a deadline for getting things done. The biggest lesson I have learnt from Universal Medicine is “the body is the marker of truth” and it proves it to me time and time again when I am open to connecting, feeling and listening to my body.
So true Suzanne I’m with you there ” the body is the marker of truth” I always knew something was not right in my body the way I pushed through, overriding through mission driven pursuits, banging and bruising my way through and only feeling my exhaustion when I stopped. It was only when I was hit with a health crises did I stop and listen to these markers. Thank you to the constant reflection learnt from Universal Medicine I constantly inspire myself to listen to my body as a guide through life .
Thank you Julie, a powerful account of how our body speaks so clearly to us when we are not being loving with ourselves and pushing the body beyond it’s natural ways. I too am learning just how much there is to learn about myself by listening to my body.
Julie, your story again emphasised to me that it is all about living in a truly loving way and paying attention to the messages your body is sending. If only we were taught at school that our choices will always come back to us and will be expressed in our body for us to learn from and to reflect on.
Thank you for sharing this Julie. I know from experience that pushing through and doing what is “expected” whilst over-riding how I truly feel and what I truly need has left me feeling hard and miserable. Without connecting to how I am feeling or taking care of myself I have done certain jobs in resentment and frustration. I have learnt that listening to my body and doing tasks whilst remaining focused on it, and as gently as possible, helps me to develop my relationship with me, so that it is my quality that becomes more important than the task in hand. I am still learning consistency with this but have learned that on the days where I choose to do this I don’t get exhausted, and feel full when I go home.
So true Michelle “pushing through and doing what is “expected” whilst over-riding how I truly feel” requires great effort and leaves us miserable and often brings in frustration and resentment. I find it is easy to get caught in excuses such as “but it has to get done so I can’t stop”, but the truth is even when it is no question of avoiding the action e.g. when a baby needs your attention, or for me a team of people are relying on my input, it only takes a moment to pause, feel what is going on and start again honouring the message in what I have felt. For me in these cases this impacts on ‘the way’ I relate to the task and ‘the energy with which I continue’. The honouring makes the world of difference.
Julie this beautiful writing offers huge inspiration and insight into the importance of our choosing to bring more understanding and awareness to the signals that the body constantly offers us. Like Jane, I too used to feel a constant victim in life and running my body in total exhaustion without ever stopping to listen to it. In the end the body stopped me and I had to listen or be more sick, through continuing to choose the lack of care my body was asking for. Since attending presentations by Serge Benhayon and Universal medicine, I have been inspired to let go of harming ways and deepen the commitment with myself to stop, feel and listen to my body more consistently. It is a forever deepening work in progress! Heartfelt thanks for your sharing.
What an amazing journey we venture on when we begin to listen to the messages our body sends us.
I loved reading this Julie – your love and honesty pours out of the article. And this line rang music to my ears ; I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention.
That is the simple truth of our bodies. And like you, as I start to make practical changes that take more care of me, my body shows me what’s really going on. It is an amazing cycle.
Wonderful inspiring story Julie that shows a great deal of wisdom is available to us when we listen to our bodies.
Julie, what a great opportunity to really reflect on the connection between disease and/or conditions etc and how we are living and taking care (or not) of ourselves. I love what you say with “I’ve noticed that the more I practice basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” Well said!
The heart as an expression of true love, what an inspirational way to look at it. I love how you share about seemingly simple things, like dressing for the cold, resting when you are tired and to eat when your body asks for it. So simple, yet how often do we do this on a daily basis? I didn’t do these things for a very long time, taking my body for granted, thinking that I could do whatever I wanted. One day, I was stopped and then I realized, things need to change.
I can feel I will read this blog many times. There is so much here to learn from and take in. I’ve had really bad chest pains this week and although doctors has given me the all clear I know my body is calling me to live much more lovingly. Thank you Julie, I can really feel the next steps I need to take after reading about your experience and I feel this blog will be a huge support as I make my way back to love.
Thank you Julie for sharing with us the importance of listening to, and caring for our bodies….the best medicine available.
Great sharing. The body gives signs 24/7 what it needs, what is loving and what is not. We just need to reconnect to our body again and re-learn to listen to it again. That has been my path as well the past years. I have experienced that since I give myself e.g.my body the support it needs, my body is becoming my marker for what to choose in each situation. I just feel: is this healing or harming my body? And do what my body tells me. It is a practice still. Anyhow, whatever choice I make, I get it reflected back to me right away. My body never lies.
I enjoyed reading about a person’s building trust in their connection to their body – how this deepening connection helps the body to heal and be heard, so choices can be made to build quality of life well beyond a baseline of health. I could feel in this article a truth which helped me to reconnect to our potential of an ever deepening process where self love can open up to a love that is not containable and provides an amazing amount of joy and capacity to serve.
Thankyou Julie for your openness and honesty about how you came to realise that you were responsible for your own health. I love how you write that “I started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love”. It’s interesting isn’t it, that the heart symbol is used throughout the world in so many ways to convey an expression of love to another, but more often than not that expression is not really ‘true love’, it is just a symbol. How different the world would be if everyone expressed what they know to be true from their hearts…
I can relate so much to your experience Julie, what you share shows how profound a change we can all make in our lives when we begin to self-love and listen to our body. Just beautiful.
“The heart as an expression of true love”… we are only beginning to scratch the surface of the intelligence of the heart. It is far greater, all knowing and quicker to respond than any of the greatest minds in the world put together.
Wow Julie, what a beautiful piece of writing! I love the line “no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention”. I’ve often felt that too and am connecting to it more and more as I take greater care of myself in all aspects of my life. It’s amazing how loud your body “speaks” when you take the time to listen.
Love the phrase: “these (lifestyle) choices stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me” – so it is not just a choice to make but also to pay attention where this choice is coming from/based on and where does it lead us to. Do I start to care for me more lovingly because I want to better my life, or do I do so, to be able to express what we truly are and what is needed in the world. My body is worth caring for because it has an amazing job: to express love.
Thank you Julie for sharing your story. Your words here are very true, ‘I began to understand that I have a choice to live a life of true love, which begins with a commitment to self-love.’ I know from my experience that until I started my commitment to self-love, when my body gave me messages, I would always override them and eventually I would be forced to stop and address any issues that I had. Like yourself, making the choice to self-love has had a profound effect on my health and wellbeing and I am more likely to listen to the messages my body is giving me.
Thank you Julie for sharing your inspirational journey into self care and self love and listening to your body. Yes the body does call to us loud and clear to get us to listen and never gives up. In trusting yourself and then meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine what an amazing confirmation of the importance of love as being who we are.
‘ the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me’- thanks for the inspiring reminder Julie.
This is a great example for all of us to listen to what our bodies are telling us and like you wrote Julie the signs were there. I know from my own experience with illness that, when I reflect back and look at my choices, there are the tell-tale signs of my dis-regard to my body and how I am feeling and reading your account has brought back some realisations about my own two pregnancies. Thank you for sharing.
HI Julie, I also have found a lot of clarity and empowerment through the Universal Medicine courses, presenting the importance of listening to our body. I now take much, much, much better care of myself and follow through with medical support where needed. In fact, I used to avoid medical consultation but now I fully embrace it as part of absolutely taking responsibility for my health. What I have found is that the more I pay attention to my body the earlier I catch an illness and sometimes this illness is less of a physical illness and more of an energetic disharmony. Loading my body with stress, whether emotional or physiologically (due to lack of true care) has an affect on my health and I have found that it is well worth listening to my body’s own early signals of disharmony.
Knowing that there is another way to live life from the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine has changed everything. Like you Jane I am also learning to “listen to my body, and to take care of myself, nourish myself, nurture myself.” I used to feel that “life did me” and was subject to the pace, drive and motion of life and was taken along by the crowd. Now I feel I can make independent choices and get off the hamster wheel, or that crowded street and take my own path. I am in control of my own choices and my life. Now, that’s a huge shift.
“I was taking on everyone else’s stuff, giving my power away, and doing what I thought everyone else wanted of me, instead of doing what I felt was right for me.” Very familiar words, I once ‘thought’ those who cared for themselves first were selfish and indulgent. These days I feel so blessed that with the love and guidance of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I’ve put that fallacy ‘well’ and ‘truly’ to rest. Julie, how wonderful as a mother, you are now able to offer the gift of this deeply loving and tender way to your child.
Julie thank you very much for your open and honest sharing. It touches me deeply and inspires me to deepen my awareness and honouring of what my body is telling me. It resonates deep within in me when you say: “For me, listening to my body is also about not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains, which are simply offering opportunities for me to develop a deeper understanding of how I go through each day in this body of mine.” It´s already work in progress but I can feel that there is even more to honour. Great reminder.
It’s amazing what our bodies can go through and what strong messages we can either ignore or take note of. What is truly amazing is what happens as soon as we do start to take notice and begin simple caring changes…
Thanks Julie, your blog showed me that there is always the opportunity to more deeply look after our health through the choices we make. If we are in overwhelm about a situation such as you were in your pregnancy, there is the realisation of what you can do to bring back the vitality and wellness. This is what i have found the Universal Medicine teachings provide so clearly, such simple practical steps we can all take to live in greater well-being.
From reading your honest sharing Julie….this is my hope for the future = ASAP !
we will not have to endure a ” nearly disastrous ” experience such as yours, to get us to pay attention, connect to our bodies and find the ” deep love within us all “.
Thank you Julie for your sharing – It is such a wake up call when our bodies give out very loud signals that something is not right and our choice if we choose to listen and make those self loving changes. I used to think that I was super woman just pushing myself every waking hour to be something for everyone but myself. This was till my body said “enough” I ended up in hospital – my heart just kept racing and shaking my whole body yes, I was very frightened – Although I did not know how at that point but it was clear that I had to make changes in my life. The how came in the form of me attending a one day presentation by Serge Benhayon/Universal Medicine. That’s a few years ago now – yes I’m still a work in progress but listening to my body with a very different pair of ears.
A great demonstration of how the miracles of modern medicine can so easily go hand in hand with the Ageless Wisdom and together, lead to true healing.
A great sharing Julie and you offer much to many here. So easily we find ourselves pushing past what we know is true for our body and ignore the signs along the way. I did not always have the level and love of care which I have for myself today ( and this is continually building) and I used to push on and as you even in pregnancy I kept going, working a physical job on my feet all day and into the evenings which tired me immensely and ended with me being hospitalised at 23 weeks and then going on to deliver a very small baby early. Since attending the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have opened to a much greater awareness of my body and choose to listen to what it is showing me now rather than ignore it and keep going. This way has been developed by introducing a loving relationship with myself and so doing, knowing that I am worth loving and taking care of.
Thank you Julie for this inspiring blog.
Letting in more self-love and self-care has been and still is an often challenging process for me. Yet the changes this brings are so profound and beautiful. With the love for myself the love for others starts to grow and I like to be with people again, start to become more vital and joyful.
Thank you for sharing your story how the love you have for yourself and your body has unfolded over the past seven years. What amazing bodies we have. It is the marker of truth.
It is amazing how it takes something so traumatic for us to listen to the messages from our body rather than over-riding them. Thank you for sharing Julie as your experience is inspirational.
Giving everything of your self for others creates a vacuum within ourselves; not listening to what our body is trying to tell us, causes the body to step up its message to stop. How many people use the stop as a pit stop, change the tires and full speed ahead? Julie, by looking at the part that we play in the cause of our illness, by how we are living and the signs we dismissed, shows us the way forward and the importance of self-care.
This is a top post Julie Goodhart and thank you for sharing so honestly your near death experience. It really is amazing how your body did heal and your heart went back to its normal size. What is amazing is the changes you have made now and how you are living.
This bit really stands out for me “I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.”
Thank God you got some real answers when you came across Serge Benhayon – a man who sure knows what he is talking about.
Our bodies are very wise, it is us who need to stop and listen to what they are telling us. Then to honour our bodies communication, and treat our bodies with care and love that they are asking for. A great sharing thank you Julie.
Thankyou for your amazing article Julie. “I’ve noticed that the more I practice basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” I so agree, as my body shows me, sometimes not so subtly, where I could choose to make changes. Developing more self-love feels very yummy.
Thank you Julie for giving such a strong account of how our bodies are constantly showing us the effects of our choices.
Wonderful account Julie of how you chose to come back to your own love, and the vitality that this choice offers. The inspiration of love.
Thank you Julie for your amazing story of your experience – from push push push overiding all that the body was indicating to now being inspired to see that there was indeed another way. As an aside I noticed after your name you indicated that you were in “Human Relations” – how interesting don’t you feel – for it seems that our body is asking us to first of all have ‘relations’ with our self before we can be there in relationship with others – what an awesome awareness.
Julie, you have put it so clearly the care and self love we need to have towards our selves. Paying detailed attention to our body and the messages that we are receiving on a daily basis.
Thank you Julie for sharing this. It is truly a blessing when we allow ourselves to listen to our bodies and let them guide us and to see our life and everything that happens to us as something we can learn from rather than something that just happens out of the blue to us.
Thank you for your article Julie. When we layer ourselves with many unloving ways, something in the body has to give way, break down, pop or twist. So much in life is seen as normal and accepted, sport, music, culture, food and emotions, but truthfully the body tells us otherwise if we listen. I have put unnecessary strain on my whole body and stressed it to the maximum with believing and engaging in all the above without feeling first. It is still a learning process, but wonderful to be learning and listening much more closely.
I agree Matthew. It is amazing to think that we accept living from chronic stress or anxiety with the odd food of questionable nutritional value crammed in our mouths in between deadlines as normal. It seems if enough people do it the same way then it becomes the norm and is not questioned. But if we listen to the intelligence of the body then it easily shows us our true quality of life.
Yes we have accepted lovelessness to be the norm. The fact that most of humanity live this way does not make it right. We live with stress, anxiety and tension putting what we do far above the quality we do these things in. Bucking the trend and saying ‘no’ to this is a challenge as I am learning how to lovingly deal with overwhelm without going into panic and self-disregard, but to make self loving choices instead. This takes practice, but it is something I am willing to practice for the rest of of my life!
Absolutely Matthew, we have gone astray as a humanity with ‘so much in life being seen as normal and accepted, sport, music, food, culture and emotions…..’. Not surprising that our bodies say stop loud and clear from time to time !
To let Love in and to let Love out is the most natural thing to do, as the heart is physically supporting us every second, every day, life after life. Yet we tend to make it so complicated…
I love this Felix. Breathe in – let love in. Breathe out – let love out. What could be simpler or more natural than breathing? We do have a tendency to complicate even that!
Thank you Julie for sharing what you have learned about taking responsibility for your own health. It was a very hard lesson that could have played out differently if you had not stopped and instead had gone back to the old patterns of pushing through and ignoring symptoms. So often, that is what we have been conditioned to do – year after year, just push on and bury what hurts or troubles us with food, drink or other things to numb the pain. Thank you again for showing a different way of living.
I agree, it is like our bodies break down shouting to us STOP with an illness and mostly we either ignore it or override it. Our bodies are just reminding us how precious and magical we really are and that we are not honouring or living with or in accordance to that. We have a lot to learn and what Julie has shared is an important part of that learning.
Thank you Julie for expressing the correlation between; self-love, love and the health of the heart. We have come to know that the physical heart is associated with love but there is mounting evidence that the relationship is factual.
Julie, what resonates with me, when you said “I trusted in my body’s natural ability to heal”. It does what it needs to do to support you. It is such a blessing to have it and work with it (not against it).
My story is similar where I have had some big events where my body was telling me something and it was time to stop and listen. It is for us to feel those aches and pain, and take time to momentarily build that understanding what your body is saying (It speaks!). It’s an adventure you signed up for and its the most rewarding eventful adventure there is!!
Serge Benhayon always states “The body is the marker of truth”. You can assess whether those choices are right for you. It is our most power-full tool, and it is the tool we need to deeply take care of the most!
Well said Rik. There is an absoluteness in the statement: ‘The body is the marker of truth’ that heralds an undeniable STOP moment for me because my body at that moment recognises it. I also love Julie’s expression, ‘I started to learn about the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and the heart as an expression of true love.’ Truth and Love, what a world changer!
Yes – what a whopper! How many people are really prepared as of yet to take note that the amount of love they let out and in literally affects their heart? That living in connection to truth and love through the marker of their bodies, is what in truth affects the health of it?
Wow Julie thank you for sharing about what happened to your body when you are not listening to it. This is a great example to get a better understanding of how our life style choices affect our bodies. Everybody shall read this to get more understanding in this.
It is amazing how many women push themselves up to the last minute of their pregnancy. This can be such a time to connect with our bodies and the life inside us. We miss out on this when we are too busy rushing around our workplace! It is great that you discovered that you didn’t just suffer a random illness but that your body was telling you something important about the way you were with love. How simple and lovely the changes are in your life.
Julie’s blog is a great example of how illness does not happen randomly and that we have a large part to play in what occurs. This is the beauty of esoteric medicine. With the understanding it presents, when we are open to looking at our own lives from that perspective, we can gain a lot of insight into what is contributing to any difficulties.
Great blog, Julie, thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom with us. Pregnancy is such a great opportunity to learn to listen to our bodies (because there are two of them, speaking loud and clear!) and if we choose to ignore or over-ride those messages, the bodies speak more and more loudly, until we just have to stop and listen. It is so beautiful to read how you are now listening to your body, and how that is transforming your health and your life.
Beautifully written Julie. Your sharing about your symptoms and illness and how you took this situation to heal and to look after yourself in a more respectful way is offering another perspective to illness and disease. It is so true, our body knows naturally how to heal, it just needs that we listen.
Thanks Julie, for sharing how important it is to step into the sacredness of a woman when you are pregnant. This delicate period of a woman’s life is about stepping up the connection to our femaleness not rushing around and being super woman.
Julie, thank you. To understand and develop true self love is to put the love of our self first. There is then a steady reassurance in our everyday decisions. Beautiful and continual learning.
Julie thank you for sharing your understanding, of why you had the heart problem and how you choose to live now….taking responsibility, listening to your body, not just saying let’s fix this and keep on living, how you were before, that led up to the illness. So inspiring…..what a lovely reflection for people… their is another way.
Thank you, Julie. “…I started to see how it was not only my lifestyle choices … that may have led to having a heart disorder but also the fact that these choices stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me.” This is huge. If we are all able to connect with our body at this level of depth and bring understanding to the way we live, there would not have to be as many cases of diseases affecting so many people’s lives.
Thank you Julie. I felt the absolute Truth when I read, “these choices stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me.” This has been my experience with heart conditions, and along with the amazing support modern medicine offers, realising where the heart condition originated from is what brings the true and deep healing that is necessary to open back up to Love.
Thank for sharing your story Julie. It’s crazy that it often takes someone else to remind us of what we have always known and felt about trusting our bodies and listening to our bodies. Why do we spend so much time ignoring or overriding what we feel until our body breaks or we have a big physical issue?
Very true Lee; it’s crazy that it sometimes takes someone else to remind us that our bodies are our truest and most reliable markers for the way we live.
Thank you for sharing your story and the understanding and lesson you came to, it does take a lot of honesty to admit that how we have been living has not been loving or in line with honouring what our body feels, as our body is a marker of truth and cannot lie … It is just that we can! What you said here really resonated with me “I’ve often felt it’s true that no one knows my body better than I do, if I’m willing to pay attention. And the fact that I actually wasn’t paying enough attention was something I realised with honesty while in the hospital and in the weeks afterwards.” This is something I am just understanding and feeling within me, that no one knows my body better than me but I have not been listening or honouring this relationship to the depth and intimacy that I know I can and is possible. I feel excited at the opportunity of getting to know me more : )
What a “wake up call Julie”! You are in no way alone in needing this degree of urgency for the body to get your full and undivided attention – so many of us need the medical disaster to stop us in our tracks and to inspire us to ask “what is going on and what do I need to do to stop this cycle?” It is also sad to see just how many of us do not stop…
At the age of 20 I very nearly died of an asthma attack. It took me until I was 38 to stop eating the dairy that was causing the condition.
Thank you for sharing the way you treat your body now, in the finest of details…down to keeping yourself warm.
It is in those tiny details that we bring self care to life.
Julie, such a beautiful article, I love how you get underneath the choices we all can make on a day by day basis to the nub of it, are we prepared to live in a way that is truly self loving? If not then we automatically compromise ourselves starting in small ways which expand and grow larger, and along the way we have our body flagging for us, how our choices affect us, if we take the time to listen. Your story is a great example of how our bodies stop us and show us where we’ve been and that there is another way to be – they really are our markers of truth.
Julie what an incredible experience that you chose to learn from. How inspiring for people to feel that we do have a choice in how we care for ourselves and how this impacts how we are in the everyday life.
Thank you Julie for sharing such a powerful relationship between how we self-care and truly love ourselves and how our bodies respond to this if it is there or not.
I loved reading how you now listen to your body and what it needs, something I’m also working on at the moment and enjoying feeling and seeing the changes in my day and how I am with others when I do put my body first and listen. Beautiful sharing Julie!
Your beautiful account Julie allows me to feel the presciousness of you and the way you are now living. It must have been hard to feel all of the ways that you had been with yourself especially with the depth of health issues that presented but by the way you reflect on it all I feel and am inspired by your lightness as well as your ability to honour yourself and honour your body. May we cross paths one day so I can meet the woman that I feel has touched a place within my heart.
This has been a great reminder for me Julie, I love the way you talk about the heart as a physical organ which is responsive to the way you live. I also developed an irregular heart beat in my early thirties that would come in bouts every few minutes, I can now definitely associate it being related to not expressing love in a true way or allowing others to truly love me – as you so clearly put it.
Thank you, Julie, I really appreciate how you deepened the honest relationship with yourself and your body during this time, and your words – “the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that” – sing out loud and true.
Thank you Julie for this revealing blog. The body is certainly communicating to us very directly about the way we live our lives – it is like a musical instrument, either sounding discordant or making harmony, and it is clear to hear. I love the way you said you trusted your body to heal, to restore balance. It is truly incredible that the body can come back from such a crisis . . . when we get out of the way and allow it the process to readjust from what we have pushed it into.
I also love how you say, ‘I’ve noticed that the more I practise basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that’. Let’s say ‘yes’ to love and ‘no’ to the stressors.
“There is more to learn every single day, and I am grateful for the choices that led me to the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.” I feel the same way. It has been a revelation to have been presented that there is more to our illness than random bad luck, and that through out choices and how we live is reflected to us through the health of our body. Thank you for sharing Julie.
Julie what a great sharing so real and practical the way out is through our choice, there really is another way to live, love your last line – can’t touch this!
Wow Julie that is quite an intense experience you went through and an inspiring revelation. Having read many of the blogs on this site it becomes more and more evident the essential role we each play in our overall health and wellbeing. Viewed from this broader perspective it paints a clearer picture i.e. where illness or disease decides to show up is not a random incidence or a case of bad luck, rather it is the body’s way of alerting us where we have left a part of us unattended for too long. It can be a gift in fact, an opportunity for greater awareness calling us to listen more lovingly. I know for myself this has been true… although not necessarily always easy.
I too honour the loving voice of my body more these days; an ever-refining process.
Thank you for a great sharing Julie. A really beautiful outcome. Yes, the key is to really listen to our bodies. Our bodies let us know how we need to be living, and what is self loving. It is amazing the wisdom that the body shares with us. IF we are willing to listen.
With heart disease still being the no. 1 killer, your sharing here Julie is very important. It re-iterates that we do ALL have a part to play in the illnesses that our bodies experience. This is the beautiful thing about the teachings from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine on esoteric medicine. Esoteric Medicine helps us understand what else is going on behind the physical manifestations of any illness and disease. To understand the root cause and how this plays out in our lives, leaves us in a much better position to heal it.
Thank you Julie for such a simply and beautifully put, clear example of what the wisdom and truth our bodies hold, only if we listen and respond with self-care and self-love. I also am touched by the lack of drama or emotionality that appears to accompany your process of self-responsibility in dealing with the issues associated with your heart condition. Could that be me feeling true love that you are expressing?
I love what you share about coming to the understanding of what your body was reflecting to you, & then taking responsibility to listen to your body & make different choices to support yourself. If we all made these choices, would there be the huge increase in illness & disease (mainly due to lifestyle) that the medical profession are currently trying to deal with?
It is so beautiful that you share about the signs the body gives when not living with self-love and a true way of caring for your body.
It is an empowering concept that we have input into our illness and disease states, and an incredible model for health. Universal Medicine is such a balanced wellbeing organisation who, along with being very much pro medicine, bring in the reality that lifestyle and choices play a major role in our health status.
Wow Julie, what an amazing turn around! Very inspiring story.
Thankyou Julie for sharing your story. Serge Benhayon’s work provides such a wonderful awakening to how we are living life and the impact this has on our health.
Thank you Julie for sharing your journey back to the practice of self care and to the deep love within. I agree wholeheartedly when you say “There is more to learn every single day, and I am grateful for the choices that led me to the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.”
Great blog Julie! To see heart failure as a message to express your love (starting with yourself) is an insightful reading into a very physical condition. It is so easy to just think it is bad luck, which also then means I don’t have to take responsibility for what is happening to me. Your approach of, the more I invest into my body the more my body and I am able to deal with, like a pregnancy, bigger work load, different climate, or supporting others in their needs, etc. makes a lot of sense to me.
I agree Judith, Julie’s insight into her heart condition is very insightful. It is so inspirational to read of someone’s experience where they have not just put their poor health down to bad luck. I love that Julie had the courage to bring honesty to her life, look deeper and reflect on how she was living and how the choices she was making contributed to her health. We can all do this stop, be honest and reflect on our choices and take loving responsibility for our own health. Serge Benhayon’s presentations have supported me to re-learn how to take responsibility for my life and my health.
Thank you Julie for sharing your health crisis and how you used it to make radical changes in your life and understand how the heart connects to our expressions of true love. I was rather resistant to the idea of self-love when I first came to the work of Serge Benhayon but over the years have been amazed to discover how making simple self-loving choices does indeed reveal a profound love within.
Thank you for sharing your tremendous experience. It is a great example how sensitive the body is reacting. It can’t be emphasised enough that listening to the body is very valuable and important to establish a good body awareness and to not accept something less, because we think it’s normal.
Juilie I too can so relate to your blog when I reflect on my pregancies and the lifestyle choices I made. After coming across the teaching of Serge Benhayon I felt a coming home to me and I started making more self-loving and self-caring choices. A life of more awareness and appreciation too of how amazing we all are.
Thank you Julie for your honest story. I can very much relate to all that you’re saying, specifically with taking on everybody’s stuff and feeling as though I can’t ask for help. It’s a very ingrained way of being, and it doesn’t actually work in terms of living a simple and joyful life. I too am choosing to pay closer attention to my body…and that does work!
Inspiring read Julie. 9 years ago I was driving my body at work to earn more money (permanently in the anxiety of trying to clear some old debt), and still playing hockey 4 nights a week. There were initial signs that year that my body was not coping with all of this, and during that hockey season (my last) I developed 2 heel spurs and towards the end a damaged shoulder. But I kept playing on. Despite being super fit, in my last couple of games I could feel my heart beat well over anything I had felt before, and I was struggling for breath from the get go. I was ashen grey in colour. I did not have a heart attack, but I was close I am sure, and had I kept playing the next season, I am sure that is what would have eventuated. I did not need medical diagnosis to tell me that I was. My body was telling me in no uncertain terms that this game I “loved” was no longer for me. Since then I have started to listen more closely to what my body is telling me it can and cannot do and the turn around has been amazing.
Hi Julie, thanks for sharing, not just your amazing story of your return to health from the cardiomyopathy, but also the true healing that has continued since then, as you have deepened your relationship with your body and with love.
Than you for sharing your story, Julie. The way you took time to listen to your body, and start to treat it with more respect, is an inspiration. Then you met Serge Benhayon, and began to treat it with love and self care, and embarked on your journey of an ever deepening understanding of your body – awesome.
Thanks Julie, what I love about your blog is the openness you show towards taking responsibility for what was going on in your body, and the consequent unfolding of what that hospital episode was all about. It makes perfect sense, which in my experience is always the way… there is nothing we can’t understand about ill health when responsibility is taken and we are open to it’s deeper root, as you were.
Wow Julie, what a wake up call. Glad you are here to tell the story of how you realised that your lifestyle choices are the best medicine that you could grace yourself with. I love how you are ‘not dismissing seemingly random aches and pains’…I too have found that this is how the body communicates to us, lovingly steering us back to love should we choose to. If something uncomfortable comes up in the body for me, I stop and ask myself why…what choices had I been making that led to the ache or pain in the body? Since choosing to live this way and take responsibility for my choices, I have felt an enormous amount of freedom – realising that my evolution is in my own hands.
Julie this is a powerful message that asks us to go deeper than the – ‘I’ve made a bad choice’ – why we make those choices also has to be unearthed – why don’t we love ourselves deeply? Amazing read and so very supportive.
What a stunning story and transformation – Thank you so much Julie.
It’s so true that we know our bodies more than anyone else and that they are always giving us signs – letting us know how we are truly living – in balance and harmony or not. I am learning to love this deep innate intelligence of my body too.
It is really inspiring to read where you have come to with :
“I’ve noticed that the more I practice basic self-care, and the more I pay attention to the signs my body is constantly offering, I begin to feel a deep love within me, and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.”
I don’t think we really comprehend just how important listening to our body actually is. I know I think I can ignore mine at times. However, when I do my body speaks loudly and I suffer for it. The dishonouring of my body is becoming less and less, as I deepen my understanding of just how precious my body is.
Wow Julie, thank you for sharing your experience. It is so beautiful to read that you were open to the healing your body presented and throughout your hospital experience you had this inner knowing to trust “in my body’s natural ability to heal, and in my ability to make different choices to help with my own healing.” Getting to know our bodies by paying attention to the way it feels and deeply caring for ourselves is a beautiful way to take responsibility for our health.
Yes Julie agree ! Our body for sure is wise ! Thanks for sharing your story
I noticed when I was pregnant there was this natural feeling in my body to become more still; I was not always surrendering to that feeling of stillness because of the choices I made to do, do, do. What a force do we as pregnant woman have to call in to go against this natural feeling inside us, especially when we are pregnant? As you say Julie, when we make the choice to listen to our bodies and get more of an understanding what the body is communicating, we will find this place of stillness that is there waiting for us (and not only during pregnancy) – a deep love that is untouchable.
Although not having experienced such a dramatic medical situation I can very much relate to the attitude towards self you are describing that led to the disease in the first place. Listening to my body and practising self-care were totally alien to me before Universal Medicine, an idea at best but surely not lived. By introducing self-love we begin to surmise how much is keeping us from being who we truly are. And so the shedding of all the layers of lovelessness begins. And as you say we can begin to feel a deep love within.
“I can feel a deep love within me and the stressors in the world can’t touch that.” Thank you Julie for this line. I know this is true for me too, but sometimes I forget – and why? Because I have let go of the connection to that deep love. This is a beautiful nudge to nurture that connection.
Julie, what a beauty you share with us by posting your understanding of what the heart disorder has brought to you, that you feel that your heart disorder is the result of the choices you have made and, “that these choices stemmed from a fundamental lack of self-love and the fact that I neither expressed love in a true way, nor allowed others to truly love me”. Beautifully said and this feels so true for me.