by Cherise Holt, Nurse, Australia
When I was 20 years old, I graduated as a nurse and began to work in a Rehabilitation unit, in a major city hospital. On any shift I would be allocated to approximately 7 patients, all of whom were recovering from surgical procedures, injuries and various illnesses & diseases. They all varied in the amount of support they (and their carers) needed from me, physically, mentally and emotionally.
I worked shift work, usually days, afternoons and weekends and it was not uncommon to work 7 days without a break or have very irregular shifts. I frequently worked until 11pm at night and would then start another shift beginning at 6.30am the next morning. I used to think I had barely enough time to drive home and sleep, let alone take time to wind down properly or bring true quality to my relationship with me (or anyone else!).
I worked hard and I would tell anyone that I thoroughly enjoyed my job. I loved talking to the patients, although found it difficult with those that wanted more of my attention or more solutions from me than I felt I could give. I liked providing care for them, however found that the physical tasks I was doing for them, even the basics of daily care, was becoming tiring on my body.
At age 20, I was already feeling drained by my career; how could this be?
At age 21, I had a serious lower back injury and was unable to keep working, although I had pushed myself to try. I found myself in a young body with limited mobility; requiring rehabilitation, physiotherapy, day procedures and narcotics for the excruciating pain I was experiencing – in fact, I was looking not too dissimilar to any one of my patients.
I held the belief that I was going to get better and return to work as soon as possible, but I had a lot of fear for the physical pain or damage that I could possibly do to myself again. I discounted any thought (or suggestion) that I could find work anywhere else, because in my mind I had committed myself to returning to my workplace and simply picking up where I left off.
As the many months went on, I continued to experience great pain and felt stuck within my own choices. I had placed so much pressure on myself to get back to where I was that I was not listening to my own body and what it actually felt it could do. I began to feel more worthless in my self because I wasn’t able to work and reach my goal; hardness on me that I can see now was only serving to further inhibit my own recovery.
After two full years of not working I had a moment, a communication with myself where I questioned my held beliefs – who says you have to take your body back to that specific workplace? Are you really letting anyone (including yourself) down by moving on?
With this simple conversation, I let go of a belief that I had created and had held in my own head for a very long time, and with my renouncing of its controlling hold, I just let it go!
Within a short time I was applying for new jobs and found myself in a perfect position within a day hospital setting. The shifts supported me, as did the physical workload and my colleagues, but most importantly I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.
When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too. In this we contract ourselves away from the natural expression and personal rhythm that we can otherwise live our lives in and from. The toll that this way of holding back takes on our bodies is enormous (and my back is a true testament!).
These days I am SO grateful that my back and my physical body communicates with me the way that it does, reminding me that when I honour me and my body and don’t compromise myself for ideals, beliefs, pushing, trying, or other people, my body is left free to move in the flowing freedom and beauty that is my own rhythm. On the flip side, when I don’t honour what I feel and what is true for me, my body tells me through an ache, pain or tightness straight away, reminding me that I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal and when I truly listen I am brought back to the truth of what I know and how to be in the way that I live.
Forever inspired by the work of Serge Benhayon & Universal Medicine, supporting me to gather the pieces of the puzzle that collectively bring true medicine and the way that I live back together again.
Read more:
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
Cherise, I loved your sharing as I work in the health care system too and the work is often demanding on our bodies. And once upon a time I was one of the statistics on the verge of leaving the profession and in fact I hated my job. But at the end of the day, we have a choice, to be part of the statistics or go to work and offer our services to the professional or be the casualty of the profession.
We need to take care of ourselves more and more and it begins with us first. When we take care of ourselves first, then everything else around us will take care of itself.
Our beliefs are what cripple us. When we are invested in it, it’s impossible to see the obvious that we could easily relate to otherwise.
OMG Fumiyo, our beliefs not only ‘cripple us’, they hold us prisoners in the illusion, it separates us from everyone. With so many beliefs around us such as religion, culture, food, etc, it’s no wonder there are so many divisions between us.
It’s time to wake up to how we are living.
It’s a really good example of how a belief or way of thinking can get in the way of honouring what’s truly needed, and the complexity our beliefs and ideals can bring into life, instead of the simplicity of responding to what’s needed.
When we get caught up in our own beliefs we are like little hamsters on the wheel going round and round and doing nothing but getting dizzy and pretending everything is ok.
When we hold onto an ideal or belief we can force ourselves to live in a way that is not true for us as we are governed by the belief and not what is being asked of us. This way of being happened to me recently where I placed getting work and money before the relationship with self and where I am at. I had become ‘hooked’ into the belief that I was holding in my body and it took a diagnoses from the doctor to stop the momentum, take stock and let go of the belief. I am no longer attached to the belief and boy do I feel different – light, connected to myself and expanded.
“I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies” and when we let go of a belief we can feel a freedom in our body as one more knot is untied.
Such an obvious communication from your body, yet even when we get a message as clear as this, that the way we are working or living is not working for us and is having a detrimental effect on our body, we can still be stubbornly holding on to our ideas about how we ‘should be’ or what we ‘should be doing’. Amazing to read how quickly you recovered and bounced back to normal life after you’d dropped the pressure you were putting on yourself and allowed yourself to let go, accepting your situation and yourself.
This article is a great reminder of how enjoyable work can be when there is full and complete commitment to it.
Our bodies are extraordinary in the way that they communicate to us the bigger picture of what is going on. By bringing our awareness to this we are able to see beyond the physical and understand what lies at the root of our pain or discomfort, and we then have the opportunity and if we so choose, the grace to deal with it.
I had roughly a 2 year experience of what ideals and beliefs can do to my health when I hold onto them and not listen to my body. I kept asking my body throughout about leaving, and when it said yes I still held in against my bodies wishes. The results were not pretty physically, mentally and emotionally but once I finally called it all off it felt like every cell sighed with relief.
“ I questioned my held beliefs – who says you have to take your body back to that specific workplace? Are you really letting anyone (including yourself) down by moving on?” – When we get caught up in our own beliefs we miss the opportunities that are there for us.
Why ever champion to go back to what caused the pain in the first place?
The moment you move on you pull everyone you´ve been in contact/ connection with. It is a deep hideous belief that we leave people behind, when we move on. We are all interconnected and even though we might not see what effect our moving on has with our eyes, we all have a great impact on everyone else all the time.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too” – so true, and I am finding more and more how sneaky and insidious these things are. I really didn’t realise how sympathetic I was.
Isn´t it amazing how the body communicates with us ? It is like your best friend who would not accept less than a true relationship. How often do we dismiss the loving signs the body is sending us, that we are betraying and not honouring the relationship it offers.
Ideals and beliefs keep us in the our minds instead of feeling what is our true next impulse in our life. It is like a brake, that constantly brakes, whenever we would actually move forward and free ourselves from any outside taken on truths, instead of living our own innate one. There must be a lot of power coming in living and connecting to the truth that is always on offer in us ! ?
Well said, beliefs are a disease of the body. The move our bodies in ways that are not natural to us, causing a dis-ease.
It is not life that makes it hard for us, it is our choices that make life hard for us. We always have the choice of how we respond to a situation and we can always choose to leave situations that are not loving or supportive. We just have to learn though that we can do this when it feels right and not feel like we have to stay forever.
It is great to know that there is a wisdom to the language that your body speaks, and that this simple communication is actually what can be the most supportive for how to live through life.
Our body is always telling us what’s going on, we just have to learn how to listen to it – and realise that there is a deeper layer wanting to be felt, acknowledged and addressed – and that there is a correlation between what our body is showing up and how we are living.
It pays to keep checking in with our body as the body is the marker of all Truth (as related by Serge Benhayon).
There have been articles in the press recently about how the current treatments for back pain are not effective, so this is a much needed conversation and if people are open to exploring their own ideals and beliefs, then there is the possibility for change and becoming more productive.
I love how this blog exposes the physical impact of ideals and beliefs and how stuck we can get on a particular path. As soon as we open ourselves up to feeling what is true for us we are shown where to go. Learning to listen to my body is an ongoing process and after having years of lower back pain I now have much freer movement and am much more likely to respond to my body when it lets me know that I am pushing it too hard.
When we don’t listen to our body it can be a pain in the neck – or back.
Our body tells us a great deal depending on whether we are prepared to listen to it and act in a way that supports it, or disregard what is being communicated and override it, and if we continually override our body, we will at some point come to a stop through illness or disease because we have been running our body against its natural rhythm.
Ideals and beliefs are unrecognisable until we have a reflection from another of what it is to live without the imposition of these. Serge Benhayon offers such a reflection and the magnificence and gloriousness we have live in harmony with – it is already within, awaiting re-claiming as we expose and heal the ideals and beliefs.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too”.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too.” This leads to being on a treadmill and building such resentment in our bodies that we end up incredibly sick.
This is such a great reminder. Thank you, Cherise. So true – when I get caught in what I should do, trying to do the right thing etc. my body is left behind and I keep wondering what that should and might look like and whether I have got it right or not, and I am never good enough. But really, the only thing I am in charge of is to take the best care of this body as much as I can so that the quality I live in is guaranteed.
Wow love Cherise that you dropped that ideal – amazing how we can carry a belief around with us for so long, and wow the freshness we can feel when we finally let them drop. Ideals and beliefs are so heavy they weigh us down and can take us way of track – always better to be open to what life has to offer that way we don’t miss out on the magic.
There is a belief in nursing (and outside of nursing) that unless you are working (slogging it out) on a ward in a hospital, working shift work, then you’re not really nursing. Whilst we know that nurses work in all sorts of environments, the picture of nursing in the ward is a very strong one. This belief or consciousness is a seemingly difficult one to step away from, but its not really for nursing is about people its not about working on a ward in a hospital. So really we can nurse anywhere.
Truth requires no belief for it is a quality that is known right in the very core of our being. Acquiring beliefs is very damaging for our health and well-being as they block the pathway of the truth that lives deep within us being able to express out. Taking on a belief in this sense is akin to taking poison, as your experience so clearly demonstrates Cherise.
Last weeks I realised I have been ignoring the wisdom of my body and tried to hold on on certain beliefs I had about my job and me personal, reading your blog I learned a lot and it inspires me to make different choices and to start to truly honour my body.
So much to learn reading these blogs and comments, I am really appreciating that today. An offering from God for us all to connect to, learn from, reflect with, and evolve with. Today I connected to how I want to please others and the dis-harmony that creates in my own body.
What I am finding more and more is that the quality of how we work, move and live outside our workplaces is just as important as when we are at work.
Very true. There is no ‘off’ switch to our expression. We are continually expressing no matter where we are and what we are doing. So if we find ourselves ‘switching off’ when the job is done, we may well need to question the quality of what we express from this point.
I have found that when we let go of ideals and beliefs life can take us in a completely different direction, and if we had stuck to the ideals and beliefs we would have missed out on so much.
Ideals and beliefs limit us from truly knowing our own magnificence.
The harm that ideals and beliefs can have is remarkable for we do end up contracting away from ourselves and our true expression to move towards something that is not of our truth and only serves to guide us away from it. Our bodies show us extraordinary wisdom and communicates this to us unwaveringly… it is only when we renounce the false pictures and listen to our bodies that we will end up moving to exactly where we should be, and in a way that is true, free of any contraction or compromise.
Our bodies do speak loudly if we are willing to listen and as Serge Benhayon has mentioned many times, the body is the marker of all truth. I have RSI in my arm but I am in a very physical industry. I am at the point that I am having to get very creative with how I am at work. I find it challenging and I am also working through my own strong held beliefs that I should be able to do everything.
Thank you we are offering ourselves a true way of living if we choose to make our movements in detailed care of how our body needs to truly move – not what others expect of you.
How powerful is renouncing! By you renouncing the controlling hold of the belief on you, you could let it go and you could feel that there was more to life and it opened new possibilities, a freedom to choose.
We realise very quickly the power of words when we learn to nominate and renounce. Even the nominating offers a recognition to the body of an awareness. The renouncing may take a little longer as the brain chooses what it perceives it needs to survive and what it doesn’t. The body is super smart though – well worth listening to first and foremost!
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too.” Having been brought up ‘to do the right thing’ I never questioned whether it was the true thing. Ideals and beliefs do not serve us. As you mention, listening to our body, not the mind, is the way forward.
That is beautiful Cherise, very strength-full and courageous to seek beyond the physical illness and look at our wholeness – bring a multidimensional understanding to it: why do we have this, how did we come to it? etc. etc. and all the questions that might arise from there..
This may seem like a simple realisation but it is a trap that most of us fall for, sometimes for a lifetime. Our ideas about what we should be able to do or what we need to do can put unrealistic pressure on ourselves. I love the way the perfect job fell into place as soon as the ideal was let go of.
Working in a job or finding ourselves in situations where people can take advantage of what we can bring and offer is something to certainly be aware of, otherwise it can have adverse consequences on the body. I can see how this can play out in my life, so lovingly saying ‘No’ when I know to say ‘No’ is incredibly supportive to my wellbeing and those around me.
Our bodies are our greatest divining instruments, through which we can always know of the quality of vibration we are choosing to align with. When we live led by the ideals and beliefs our bodies reflect the discord, the reduction and unease that this quality of vibration delivers, in contrast to living surrendered to the vibration of love, where our bodies reflect the vitality, harmony and freedom that represents our true way of being.
This is a very valuable testimonial Cherise, as many nurses are experiencing the same situation that you lived when you were 21 years old. It’s a treasure for them to know that it’s possible to work in another way, in which listening to what our body communicates is far more important than what our minds say. No more should’s but more feel and honour ourselves. This is the best example that you can offer to your patients too.
Shoulds ought tos and doing what is right are all sure ways to crush us, and the crazy thing is we do it to ourselves. Waking up to the toll these have on our bodies is awesome, becoming aware of every time those ideals or beliefs get to us and choosing to renounce them is one of the greatest things we can do for ourselves, and of course, the effects are felt by everyone.
A revelatory moment that not only supported you in your next move, but also every single person that reads this article as we are reminded that holding on to such beliefs only keeps us further cemented in a pattern that if we’re honest isn’t working for us.
The moment we change according to how we feel another wants us to be, or we perform to a set ideal of how we think we should be, we are gone – lost in an illusion deep through which the body will do all that it can to signal us back home to the truth we have departed from.
Beliefs and ideals hurt us more than most of us realise. I am away from home at the moment and have been putting up with sleeping on a bed that really hasn’t supported me. Each night I would say to myself, ‘oh let’s see how I go tonight’ and each morning waking up with a stiff back and neck…. all because I held a belief that I shouldn’t ask for something better. Today I did ask for something better and now have a bed that will support my body and give me the sleep I deserve.
This story is a real eye opener. You remind me how much I try to make myself fit in with the way things are rather than Allow the support I really need. Thank you Cherise.
So awesome Cherise! And a timely reminder for me to consider what it is I’m holding on to, as I experience waking up with a stiff body most days and nearly always experience discomfort through my back.
I can relate Elodie to waking up with a stiff and sore body and I just kept on going until lately my GP said to me ‘ You have to listen to your body… it was if I heard my own words talking to others and at the same time I was using a double standard holding on to a belief I should be able to do what I was doing.
I have also found that our minds can drop in all sorts of pictures, ideals and beliefs that can lead us on a merry dance or to make decisions that are definitely not good for our health and wellbeing. I have discovered that being very vigilant and discerning as to the energetic quality of these thoughts is very important because it has become very obvious to me that not all of these thoughts from my mind are true or in the best interests of me and everyone else.
What I had found is that the connection to myself brought instant relationship with the world – and that from this true purpose was born. The nursing occupation offered me a way to show people the care of people and now what we need to continue and not continue to life in a way that is supporting our body – by living the care towards healing and dedication of care myself.. I have learned that what I master within myself – I easily can take out for other people , and inspire.. So the whole concept of resentment is breaking in parts – as if I live care and true dedication to take real care for my body, I can not help but inspire others to support them making loving caring choices for themselves to – is that not what nursing is about?
What an incredible moment to ask if you are really letting anyone down by moving on. I can see how in fact this would be a great service to everyone who knows you, to see how we can all move on when this is what is needed. I suppose the key here is to read each situation without judgement and then we are able to see what is needed and not just what we want to selectively choose to see.
It is great to know you were able to realise by listening to your body that you had certain Ideals and belief that kept you trapped, until you were able to let go and find another job more kind to your body. It is strange how we often have a false loyalty to a person or position which turns out to be unnecessary !
It is a classic situation to feel stuck in our own choices – but this is a time when we know that we need to re-consider how we are living and the choices we are making. Thank you Cherise for sharing this valuable experience with us all – something for me to ponder on how I too am stuck at times in my own choices.
Indeed Cherise, we can be so trapped in the mind that we forget that we can simply feel from our bodies what to do in any situation we are in. It is so common to dismiss any discomfort in our bodies and to neglect the wisdom and care that it carries, but when we finally return, we will discover that our body is our best ‘friend’ in life and is a much better place to go than to the limited mind.
When we feel trapped within our own choices we also feel trapped within the status quo – and in a world that is based on growth, expansion and evolution this is actually extremely debilitating.
We can let ourselves get so hooked by someone elses ideals and beliefs, that before we know it we have taken them on as our own. But they are so damaging, and can restrict us in so many ways. Since discovering ‘The Way of the Livingness’ and realsiing that I have carried so many ideals and beliefs in my own body, with the support of the Esoteric Healing modalities I have been able to let go of so much unfounded ‘stuff’ that I have, and still am discovering a whole new level of freedom that is opening doors for me in ways that I would previously never have imagined possible.
When we attach ourselves to a belief we shut out any possibility of seeing that there may be other options. Awesome that you now listen to your body’s communication and adjust yourself accordingly. It has taken me a long time to recognise the many ways that my body communicates with me and even longer to not override it on a regular basis but it is so worth it not just for the quality of life that I now have but also for the fact that I appreciate the purposefulness of my life and what I offer to others through my work and other projects.
Wow Cherise, I wish I’d had that same unfolding in my 20s. I entered the cooking industry as a young apprentice and took jobs that were far too harsh for me – but stuck at it and them, when the reality was I could have chosen roles that were far less demanding and debilitating. Congratulations on listening to your body rather than over-riding with your mind.
It’s incredible how caught up in our ideas of how we should be, they can be so tricky and insidious that the only way we can know what is truly going on is to reflect on any ailments in our bodies.
Thank you for sharing how simple it actually is to let go of a belief as it is created by ourselves by tapping into a consciousness that does not allow us to feel the truth of who we are.
All around me I see others living lives that are based on ideals and beliefs, just as I used to. And all around me I see so many that are exhausted, unhappy and in pain as a result of these ideals and beliefs, just as I was. It really doesn’t make sense that we run our lives on what we have had passed on to us unquestioned, instead of taking the time to stop and listen to our bodies, but we do. How much illness, injury and disease could be avoided if how to care for our bodies was one of the first lessons we ever had? My answer would be – a whole lot!
Could our ideas and beliefs be one of the greatest health challenges we face even though as yet they are yet to even be acknowledged as contributing to illness and disease?
Great blog and it also exposes how when we are caught in an ideal or belief we are not free to think the kind of thoughts that free us.
Sometimes it appears there is some huge insurmountable problem but there is a very simple answer it is just we are not seeing it or there is no real problem at all just something we are creating and when we stop creating it disappears.
It’s a great blessing to know that the intangible, like thoughts and beliefs actually have a significant impact on our physical body. In this way I’ve become very much more aware of what it is I’m doing to myself and others when we stay open to this fact and look at changing these things to support my body physically.
I remember working big shifts consistently for years and how this all went for me. There was injury after injury and to be honest I thought this was just how it was going to be, I thought that it was what life was all about and I didn’t think I had a choice. Work hard, work very hard and earn enough money so one day you can retire was pretty much my plan. I had no interest in promotion I just wanted to work hard. The impact on me was great and yet now I still work hard and yet the impact on me isn’t as great, well it’s possible I actually work harder, how can this be? It comes from how I do it, the quality and if I’m listening to the consistent message around me. Back when I was working hard and getting injured and drained there were many things I felt but would just ignore, hold in and dismiss. Now it’s just that I listen to these messages more then before and trust what I am feeling. I am by no means hands off but there is a definite quality to how I am with everything. So I work hard but also take a deep care of everything I feel, it’s not perfect but real and honest. We need to take care of our bodies so it’s easier to listen to it. That is another point that has changed, the care naturally I have for others is now equally taken to myself.
So supportive for us all to see ideals and beliefs as a disease no different to any other physical dysfunction and in fact one could say they are the first disease or illness that leads eventually to the physical problems or ailments.
Cherise a great reminder that when we allow ourselves to be open and honest with what we are feeling, and don’t get caught up in expectations, ideals or beliefs we can free ourselves of the physical boundaries that hold us back.
It just goes to show that regardless of our age if we do not care and look after ourselves our bodies can feel a lot older than we actually are! It also goes to show just how debilitating ill beliefs and ideals can be. I am currently feeling, with the help of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine what have I invested in that is not true or what have I said yes to in my life (either consciously or subconsciously) that is not true and holding me back from being all that I am.
How amazing that our bodies are a radar for ideals and beliefs, soon letting us know through aches, pains and illness if we are getting caught up in them rather than living from our bodies natural, loving impulses.
Health Care Practitioner burnout is a real issue in medicine today. Our training does not really give us the full picture when it comes to the reality on the ‘front line’ and so we go out to work with only half the tools we need and are then expected to deliver unrealistic results based on outcomes that do not take the full picture in terms of how people are living into account.
Having ideals and beliefs also expectations that things should be a certain way sets us up for disappointment. We often take these beliefs on because we absorb our family’s way of functioning in society. It is great to pause and deeply reflect if any if these truly serve us.
Ideals and beliefs can be so ingrained in our consciousness especially in our relationship to work. They are everywhere in society passing down from one generation to another through our parents, grandparents, friends parents, teachers, magazines, tv, the list is endless but when we begin to ask questions about where the beliefs and ideals are coming from it does make us pause to reflect and opens the door to possibly make changes.
I love how this article plainly shows how what we believe or think in our mind has a physical response in our bodies and lives. A moment to stop and consider what we allow our thoughts to be.
Once, in a new job that felt demanding: long hours, night calls, I constantly felt tired. I asked for guidance on what I needed to do differently and was given an answer. By changing the belief I had about the number of hours of sleep I needed each night, I decreased the number and found I had more, not less energy. By devoting morning time to projects, other commitments and nurturing routines, I was given all the energy needed to work each full day with joy in my heart.
We often feel trapped and can’t see a way out, whereas the way out is to see the belief that is holding us back.
This is such a tangible example of the debilitating effects of a beLIEf and the power of recognising that the moment a belief is seen for what it is, it no longer has any hold over us.
Holding ourselves to an ideal, be that about a job, relationship, how and where we live or the type of person we think we need to be, are all very sinister ways of dulling our deeper essence, that may have a way of being to offer us that our ideals have not let us explore.
How interesting is it that when we are hard on ourselves our body can tell us in subtle and not so subtle ways. I am in awe of the love that our body is that it will only let us go so far before it breaks down and communicates with us in a way that we have to listen.
Holding onto ideals and beliefs keep us in the illusion that we have to push and fight in life which is the illusion, when in fact the more we discard of these the more space we create to know ourselves and God and everything that is needed is provided for the good of all.
‘but most importantly I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.’ I have found the exact same. There are beliefs I know I still have and hold onto with such a tight grip that are keeping me ill, while others I have been willing to let go of..but only when I reach that point to realise just how debilitating they are.
Ideals and beliefs are like a millstone around your neck. Since becoming a student of The Way of The Livingness I have become aware of the harm that the ideals and beliefs I had taken on were imposing on my body, both physical and emotional. I now feel a freedom to be and to choose what feels right for me.
‘when I honour me and my body and don’t compromise myself for ideals, beliefs, pushing, trying, or other people, my body is left free to move in the flowing freedom and beauty that is my own rhythm.’ This compromise for ideals, beliefs, pushing, trying or other people, can play havoc with our health. We get accustomed to tension in the body and that is what feels familiar so we do not question it and simply override any hint that it is there until of course the hint slowly turns into a shout. Doing The Gentle Breath Meditation for me has been a marvellous way to frequently allow my body to let go and resume a more natural rhythm. This feeling then becomes familiar and because it is so lovely we want to come back to it and allow it to deepen into more tender and delicate ways of being where the push and the trying feel so alien and we are less likely to choose them so often.
I’ve had this experience many times, when something seemed so fundamental and difficult, yet when I let go of the ideal that is forcing me down that path… the freedom I feel is immense and I’m suddenly able to see the whole plethora of options that are in truth available all the time.
How quickly our bodies respond when we let go of damaging ideals and beliefs that hold us back. I’ve had a sore upper back for two weeks now and it has been very painful and restricting me in what I can do and my movements at times. All I kept thinking was how much I wish it would go, so I could go back to how I usually am. Well how I usually am has contributed to me having this pain. It has changed since I’ve been okay with feeling it and allowing it to show me what needs to change.
Ideals and beliefs are detrimental to ourselves in many ways, how important to be aware of them so we can then choose to let them go, ‘When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do’, and so disregarding ourselves in the process.
Living from an ideal is living disconnected from your body, it is living in your mind and going for a goal without feeling if we can physically do this. It seems silly to do this as we are depending on our bodies to do things, to live and also it governs how much we will enjoy what we are doing.
Thank you Cherise for your gorgeous sharing; what you have expressed here I was truly inspired by, simple yet so wise and true;
“when I honour me and my body and don’t compromise myself for ideals, beliefs, pushing, trying, or other people, my body is left free to move in the flowing freedom and beauty that is my own rhythm”.
‘With this simple conversation, I let go of a belief that I had created and had held in my own head for a very long time, and with my renouncing of its controlling hold, I just let it go!’ This is beautiful Cherise – letting go our beliefs really are that simple.
‘…reminding me that I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal and when I truly listen I am brought back to the truth of what I know and how to be in the way that I live.’ There really is sooo much wisdom inside of us, just waiting for us to allow it to burst out.
‘most importantly I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies’ This is gold Cherise and so true. Letting go our ideals and beliefs is both freeing and healing for our bodies at the same time.
That’s so funny Jane because that is exactly what I was going to say. Great minds think alike!
Often a break from routine or work is needed to re-connect with ourselves and gain new perspectives on life and sense of what is true for us. Cherise you show that we can re-build ourselves by releasing previously held beliefs. Instead of doggedly following a path previously trodden, we can simply walk away from it and find one that supports, replenishes and brings back a sense of self worth.
“I had a moment, a communication with myself where I questioned my held beliefs.” To look at the parameters we hold fast to, and thus affect the physical structure, to address these beliefs and allow the body to speak is a very freeing and healing thing for the body.
if we hold a picture of how something ought to be we imprison ourselves in that picture and get dissatisfied when something doesn’t fit or work out the way we want it to. We have invested everything in it being a certain way. This is bound to fail and if it does appear to succeed at what cost is it? Sometimes we need to think outside of the box so to speak and allow our bodies as well as our minds to dictate our next move.
Very true Elaine, I felt today that it doesn’t matter if I get everything done that I believe I need to and tick everything off my list, if it all comes from a picture, then it is empty and that is what I will then feel in my body.
We can get so fixed on thinking life has to be a certain way and we do everything to make it work out like that, even to the detriment of our bodies. But when we let go and allow life to be as it naturally is there is a letting go that allows us to just be ourselves
Ideals should come with a health warning! Having a picture of how we ‘should’ be can be so damaging to our wellbeing. Bringing more awareness to our body and what it may be reflecting to us through illness and disease, aches and pains gives us an amazing marker for what is true for us in my experience too.
“…I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.” I too have discovered how destructive holding onto beliefs can be, not just from the effects on my body, but on many of those around me. It is utterly exhausting living a belief, in a way that is not true, and the first place it is felt is in our body, and if we choose to ignore the body’s messages there is certain to be a big stop moment ahead.
Being in a young body and experiencing the pain and disability you describe suggests the ideals and beliefs are far older than this life alone.
Thank you Cherise, re-reading this has been very beneficial and just what was needed at this moment, as I am in the process of questioning my job and what beliefs are held there.
Wanting life, a situation, myself or others to be a certain way I find is a sure fire way to become frustrated and miserable in life. Having this ideal picture of how life should be often feels very imposing and serious, whereas when I accept myself and life as I am, it is and how other people are, it’s like a weight has lifted off me. Achieving such pictures is often fleeting at best and always leaves me feeling empty whereas accepting doesn’t, it only has space to expand and be curious to what more is there in life.
There was a period in my life when I trained as a therapist and one of the key elements in this was around how to change belief systems. This was very empowering and being able to support others to hold more positive beliefs about themselves and life seemed to be a wonderful thing. But is it really so wonderful? Today I feel that beliefs are not so necessary at all but what is truly wonderful is a real true connection with our innate beingness. For me, this innate beingness does not believe in itself but knows with absoluteness who it is. You might say, my belief in beliefs is no longer.
Thank you Cherise – your experience is very profound. It’s like your body was totally rejecting the workplace and asking you to be elsewhere, which you realised and eventually honoured. There is so much communication like this happening to people, yet we get stuck on these ideas about how things should be and end up blaming and cursing the body for not cooperating with our desired outcomes.
This has come at a perfect time where I can feel myself being pulled to work to a picture and not really pay attention to what my body is sharing with me. In deep appreciation.
To learn to bring “true quality to my relationship with me”, is an incredibly crucial realisation in our lives. This will allow for much needed changes to take place in observing where we go into disregard for ourselves.
Cherise what you share is a great reminder that we need to stop and reflect on how we are living, choices we are making and if we are caught in ideals and beliefs. It is so easy to get caught in the drive and push of being a particular way, against the truth of our body. What is beautiful is when we listen to our body and let go of ideals and beliefs we have new and beautiful openings waiting for us.
It is a constant refining process to first become aware and to secondly let go of the ideals and beliefs that come up for us. Once we become aware of them we realise that we have been owned by them, like living under a rock and unable to see beyond it; however with an awareness and openness of the games and traps we have been caught in life becomes more like an open field of endless space that supports us to see more easily if we find ourselves under the rock again!
Cherise, this is a gorgeous reminder to not push through or force things – it shows us that we can let go of self imposed ideals and that we can allow the flexibility to look outside the box, to allow ourselves more openness and hence explore options that our body is actually naturally asking us to head in.
I love this ‘flexibility’ you describe Henrietta and that it really comes with our natural communication and direction from our bodies.
There is a way of thinking that we can think is the only way of thinking, until such time our awareness opens up and we can see differently; but until then, we know no different. What a fascinating and interesting scientific study this is and through the teachings of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon we are given the opportunity and the space to choose our awareness back again and to awaken to our own scientific understandings on life.
It’s amazing how draining it can be to be stuck in a certain mindset or belief about how we think we should be as opposed to connecting with what really feels true for us from our whole body.
This highlights just how much self-care, listening to, honouring and responding to what are bodies are saying is really important, especially in such physically and probably mentally demanding jobs such as nursing. Also, goodness! How many beliefs or ideals do we have unconsciously running us that we are not fully aware of? I never even truly or fully conciously considered this until meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and know through the Sacred Esoteric Healing modalities I have been able to truly clear many but writing this I can feel there are still many there that are not fully known that need to be felt and called out so they no longer have a hold on me and define who I am.
It is such an eye opener how you have become aware of what you needed to consider as a result of the back injury. It’s so true, that we often carry ideals and beliefs that push us to keep going down the same path we were on, irrespective of what’s right for us.
What’s amazing about all these stories is just how much confirmation there is that our bodies are communicating to us all of the time. We don’t get taught this, and for many it can be a concept that goes against everything they thought they knew. But the proof is in the pudding and deep down, we know that we already know what we need to know!
Love it Cherise! This is such a perfect one for me to read. I love the fact that all you needed to do was acknowledge and renounce a held belief. It opened up the door to a range of possibilities that you otherwise would not have been open to! Dead keen to put this one into practice…as I know my beliefs around what I ‘should’ do really hold me back.
Considering that a held belief is a disease in my body is huge. That an ideal or belief can block the flow and rhythm in my body feels true. It is so worth reviewing what we are holding onto to feel if they really serve us, is really worthwhile and refreshing.
There is much that I can relate to here in my line of work as a TV and Film Director. The hours can be crazy and very erratic. Universal Medicine has given me so many tools that support me and I can now easily handle 14-16 hour days of intense work for long stretches (without gorging on food or digesting copious quantities of coffee!). What’s more the presence and strength that is within me and my body means that I am able to be constantly present and super solid in what I am doing. Minimal lulls in energy, mood swings or reactions. Strong and solid. By no means perfect – but there is no questioning that what I am able to do is very different from the norm and every millimetre of that has been inspired by Universal Medicine. My choices, my moves – but without being shown the way, I would never have found it.
A fascinating article to read as the UK’s doctors and nurses are all debating and actioning strikes in protest to their workload and pay. To be burnt out by 21 is utterly insane. We have to totally re-evaluate what is going on here. Our bodies are screaming at us (the stats tell the story). Universal Medicine offers practical, actionable and accessible solutions and choices and many thousands have benefited deeply by making even the most simple of changes to their lives. That’s the thing. It’s not rocket science. The zillions of dollars wasted in research would have us believe that the solution is mighty complicated. Not so. We all have the answers. All we need to do is listen to our bodies.
Thankyou Cherise, this is a great line “I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal”. I am also learning to identify beliefs and ideals, I know I have them because I often still push my body and ask more of myself than necessary, rather than listening to the wisdom inside myself and trusting what is right and nurturing for me as per how I feel within.
Ideals and beliefs are what keep us feeling small and constricted in life. Keeps us living and moving in a way that is like we are in a box, that has a certain size and shape, and if people don’t fit into these boxes that we construct, we can get upset. It is these constructs that then impact on all other areas of life, our work, relationships, our bodies, they reduce us, not allowing us to be the fullness and grandness of who we are. Coming back to our connection with ourselves is what helps to break down these ideals and beliefs, feeling and healing our hurts also are ways that we can let go and know we are so much more than the little box we used to initially look out at life through.
Oh yes Cherise, those ideals and beliefs they certainly do have an impact on the body. My body is showing me very clearly at the moment some of the ones I am carrying. I can see how quickly I can get caught in them which takes me away from me and from God and the connection to everyone else. Let them go … becoming aware of them allows me to do this. Great blog thank you.
I have found moments in my life where energy was exerted for something outside of me, and it would be just missed or never found. These actions would cause tension on the body that was ignored. Being a horse with blinders on I was willingly not seeing other possibilities. It was not until I would stop looking outside of myself that better choices became available.
I know so well this controlling hold a belief can have on us and how simple it can be to let go by renouncing this fact but this requires an honest look inside to see our fixation and that we are the only ones to stop this.
Thank you Cherise. I have let go of so many ideals and beliefs but still find myself reacting now and again and realise I am still holding on to something, I am still attached to an expectation or wanting something to be a certain way. Thank you for nudging me today to look deeper and commit to more letting go.
Wow- it’s crazy how our ideals and beliefs about something can be so fixed that we are unable to see outside of this, until something gives way e.g. our body, with intense pain- which unfortunately we only listen to in the end. Is it possible that if we listen to our body’s messages early we do not need such a dramatic wake up call from our soul.
It is crazy it takes us so long to get to a sensible and practical solution, it’s like our brains have been wired or configured so not to get this! It has taken me literally years to honour what I felt to be true about my purpose in life and the job I knew where my heart was even though I knew this as a teenager! Honouring ourselves needs to replace the overriding we do; and Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine are the go to people in reflecting and living that honouring part.
‘After two full years of not working I had a moment, a communication with myself where I questioned my held beliefs – who says you have to take your body back to that specific workplace? Are you really letting anyone (including yourself) down by moving on?’ Questioning the picture of how we think things should be can be a great catalyst for true change.
If we could learn to pay more respect to our body’s wisdom and guidance and honour its rhythms, we might learn that we can work productively without the burnout and exhaustion that so many people suffer from. And if we can live in this way, then we are in much better shape to help ourselves and others live truly.
Keeping life fluid and being open to change makes life so much more interesting and allows us to grow in ways we did not imagine. Having this projected idea of where we are or where we should be, just stunts our growth. Life is like a dance, fluid, beautiful, a surrender to love.
The mind is very good at justifying our decisions whereas the body’s communication is honest and direct.
Making our job or others more important that our own wellbeing never ends well. I can feel your genuine love and care for people Cherise and as you have discovered if we don’t truly take care of ourselves and listen to the body’s signals we cannot truly take care of another.
This is such a great sharing, surely the alarm bells must be ringing if we have burnt out, injured, worn out professionals at the age of 21. If we have people so dedicated and purposeful who one year after graduation are already unfit for work, then there is seriously something to be looked at in how we train, how we teach, how we prepare young people, or all of us really, for a life of work and service. Universal Medicine is an organisation that supports people to understand how they can take responsibility in supporting themselves so they can bring more of themselves, more presence, vitality, well-being and inner strength – and in this way can truly support others and truly serve.
It says an enormous amount about our way of thinking of health care and well being when our very doctors are presenting health problems and aliments no different to what is being experienced by the patient. It feels a bit like we are just patching holes instead of truly healing the leak, which can only be healed through changing our way of living
Our ideals and beliefs have such a strong hold over us, that we often don’t even know that they are there until someone exposes them in us. But to become aware of a lifelong ideal or belief and to understand the impact this has on our body and consequently on others is incredibly liberating and once realised and let go of, allows so much more openness and love to be expressed. Connections with ourselves and others then become deeper, and relationships have the opportunity to evolve in all sorts of directions, and sometimes quite unexpected ones. Its a win win situation all round.
‘When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too’ – this really says it all Cherise. We get caught in the ‘should’s’ and instead of listening to our bodies and making choices that feel true to us, we disregard our feelings and follow what we think we ought to do based on exterior ideals and beliefs. Often this harms our bodies in one way or another, and as you’ve shared this can lead to many things such as exhaustion and even physical pain.
What if the way people walk is being influenced by their ideals and beliefs they carry and how different would their whole life be if the ideals and beliefs were constantly being called into question, and identified as being a lie. It does seem as though we carry so many and have an actual belief that they are harmless because they have been part of us for so long, but are they really that harmless, and how would we know if they are never questioned.
More awareness of ideals and beliefs and the impact they have on our bodies is well over due, and are far from harmless. Many of the ideals and beliefs we walk around with are passed on from generation to generation and we never question them, but what if these unquestioned ways are making us ill? The only way we can truly know this is by questioning them and listening and paying more attention to our bodies.
I had a similar experience of a body telling me very loudly when I treated it in a way that wasn’t loving. It took about 3 years of repeated illness before I listened, but when I did I could see it was a blessing to have such a talkative body!
Sooner or later we will come to know the truth of what you have written here Cherise about how beliefs and ideals are a disease in our bodies. We might for example believe that we have to be a certain way as a woman in the world and this belief then asks us to behave in a certain way that is totally against how it actually is for us in our bodies. An example of this might be the woman who believes that she has to be all things for all people and as a result does not nurture herself, which eventually will lead to her getting ill. Our beliefs and ideals are not just innocent things that we carry around with us, they actively affect our lives and the life of others so is it not time to take responsibility for them?
It is great how you now bring things back to your body, rather simply relying on what you think or perceive to be right or wrong. For example what may be ok one day may not be ok the next, especially with things like food – we have to feel what is most supportive for us at the time and not follow any be all and end all diet or regime.
Keeping an eye out for the ideals and beliefs we hold onto is a constant and lifetime, but worthwhile, pursuit of what is true, and can only lead to a sense of well-being when they are discovered and renounced.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do…”Well said, which highlights how easy it is to disregard the body and ‘do’ something when we follow an idea or belief, instead of choosing what to do when we regard and taking notice of the signals or even symptoms that the body may be presenting.
Sometimes I don’t even know why I choose to hold onto an ideal or a belief, but there is a tension that builds up in my body that makes it perfectly clear it no longer serves to hold steadfastly by this ideal.
Having recently attended a workshop presented by Serge Benhayon, I am celebrating how many ideals and beliefs have been exposed over the years of attending these presentations and the choices and changes these have supported me to bring to my daily way, which continues to build strong inner foundations, true inner confidence, psychological wellbeing and the flexibility and health of my physical body.
One of the greatest revelations in life has been to let go of ideals and beliefs and the patterns that bind me, your blog Cherise is confirming of ‘ letting go’ in order for our natural path to be cleared and our part in the puzzle to be revealed.
To have the understanding of the body’s wisdom and the breaking down of the ideals and beliefs we have constrained our selves with, is like ‘the get out of jail card’. We have locked ourselves into an expected outcome which doesn’t allow the magic of God to unfold on the path before us. Universal Medicine has given me the key!
‘When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too’ I would say this is for many the normal way of life and we have thus learned to consistently override what our body is telling us until we get a big stop as you have had. How important is it that we once again learn to listen to the signals our body is giving way before it needs to become something so big that it literally stops us in our tracks.
It can be such a trick if I blame outside people or situations for pushing my body past what its natural limits are. Rather it is my own ideal and beliefs, should and should nots that are actually the source of the drive or pushing.
You make it very clear that hanging on to any ideals of how things should be or what we should be doing is definitely a health hazard – a bit like a straitjacket or a corset that doesn’t leave us any room to respond to what is actually true as opposed to a mere construct of our mind.
It is so true that when we do not take care of ourselves and listen to our bodies first, the care or service we provide for others is lacking the love that we all crave.
It is true to me that we tend to underestimate the impact of our thoughts and held ideals and beliefs over the body Cherise. While I was not raised with this awareness, I have become aware by listening to the teachings and presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, that we are that much more than only our thoughts and that the highest form of intelligence is found in love, which we are imbued with and our bodies are an immutable part of. Therefore to me connecting to my body has become that important as when I do that, then to me I feel I connected to God, to something that much grander than my thoughts can ever give me access to.
An ideal comes from the head and has no real place in the body, as it has not taken the body into consideration. An ideal then becomes the slave driver to the body and makes it work against itself. This is clearly a recipe for disaster. An impulse on the other hand, comes from the intelligence of the body as a whole unit, and will never push or drive as it originates from a spark that ignites the body into the movement that is required.
There seems to be many more ideals and beliefs that circle around in the thinking mind than we can even be aware of. So perhaps it is just a case of taking it a day at a time and addressing them as they arise, without judgement of ourselves, and just letting the process of clearing what is harmful out of our bodies so we can simply express more of who we are, unencumbered by the should’s and the should not’s of this world.
Ideals and beliefs cause trouble…big time! The wisdom our bodies share with us is honest, so very honest, but when we ignore this or override it, our body will tell us – ideals about how we need to be at work is a big one. Ideals about the role we have, what is expected of us, what needs to be delivered, etc, etc can cause immense stress causing all sorts of physical symptoms if we buy into it.
Our bodies are amazing, really amazing. But when I stop and consider all that mine does automatically that I take for granted, it’s almost unfathomable. And so to ‘think’ we can override this with our mind now seems quite ridiculous. Mine speak loud and clear to me these days – if I go away from the simplicity and honouring of myself in how I live now – bang, I’ll get a symptom of some kind to let me know – instantly.
Cherise, this is a powerful reminder that it is our body that we first should take care of, as without our body and the quality of being within our body then what is our purpose? What’s great in what you are sharing is that to follow the ideals of how we are meant to be is clearly exposed as not only being damaging for us but all those around us. It makes me look at my purpose in work, in the way I work and all the things that get sent our way and the choices we make with those.
“….when we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too”.
The funny thing about ideals and beliefs is that they are so deeply ingrained within us, we are usually unaware they are running us constantly. Ways of being get handed down through generations, so thus are normal and frequently accepted without question and the incarceration continues.
Serge Benhayon’s presentations have brought the gift of true reflection – there is another way to live with joy and love equally so for all, the ideals and beliefs are exposed and can be let go of if so choosing.
Our bodies truly do hold a wisdom and ability to communicate this to us. From my understanding the bodies natural form of communications as in discomfort, pain, illness or disease and viewed and skewed by our beliefs that if symptoms show they are to eradicated or at least covered up. What if our collective understanding and approach to these ‘symptoms’ was one of a simple ‘ah here’s a message – what is it telling me’? This alone would support a choice to possibly return to well-being before more harm, pain etc. can develop. Super simple if we let go of the belief that we can only seek answers and outcomes in specific ways.
There is so much wisdom in the body, all we have to do, is re-train the mind to be in conscious presence with it and then we have the ability to listen to our body in full and respond to what it is calling for – the recipe for true well-being.
Whilst visiting a family member in hospital, there has been an amazing opportunity to speak with medical personnel about their own, sadly-lacking, self care and well-being . One doctor was saying there had been no time to eat and on a very long shift and had eaten nothing since the day before – no breakfast, lunch or dinner and still another couple of hours before going home. On leaving the ward, as I passed the doctor outside, he was munching through some biscuits to keep him going – he smiled and said “Yes I did need some food”.
Playfully I replied that no doubt these biscuits would be full of sugar to keep him going and this would lead to coffee to prop him up further”. He stopped chewing, looked stunned and then broke out in a big smile – “you are right, how can I genuinely care for others if I don’t care for myself”
Our ideals and beliefs hurt by creating disharmony in our physical bodies when we make them our focus, the driving forces behind our livingness they make us sick. When we let go of our ideals and beliefs and trust our innate knowing and honour what we are feeling, our bodies emanate the love that we are.
I’m not sure how well known the expression is but the way it is for me is “square peg, round hole”. Which relates to the insane struggle of trying to squeeze a square peg (the ideals and beliefs of what I THINK my life should be) into the round hole (the purpose, service and joy of what my life is and can be, if I so choose). Until we let go of those images, until we are prepared to let go of the self-investment in it all, until we are prepared to drop the protection that we think this images afford us, until we are prepared to be transparent and open to the truth of who we actually are…then we will always be a square peg. And I can say that I have spent much time trying to hammer the square peg in to the round hole – and all it does is bash and damage the peg (my body)!
For me there is zero question of the wisdom of the body and what it is telling me. The question is – am I prepared to listen?
Cherise I like what you have said here: ” I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.” It is really time to be more aware of this kind of disease as most are not aware of it. We would save a lot of money if we would allow ourselves to think – what if this is true?!
I came to a deeper level of appreciation of your blog Cherise, how we are so much more powerful than the ideals and beliefs that we take on, when we allow ourselves to observe and feel what they hold us to in our bodies.
Thank you, Cherise, for exposing how we can imprison ourselves with ideals and beliefs. When we lock ourselves into there being only one way to do something that we’ve got to measure up to, we put incredible strain on ourselves and our bodies to move in a way that is not natural to us. Listening to the body is a sure fired way to break through this trap, as you have clearly shown us.
Living under any ideals and beliefs is like holding ourselves to ransom, to be something or look like something before we let our true selves ‘just be’ in the world. With ideals and beliefs we bring judgment which also holds others to ransom too, as no one else can live up to the pictures we have in our own heads, this is just crazy and is actually what complicates and clutters our lives with the dramas, the doubts and the emotional issues we create too.
In my work with parents and children I am a first hand witness to the harmful nature of ideals and beliefs and the devastation it can cause to our bodies. Disengaging from our ideals and beliefs and re-connecting to our innate all-knowing nature is good medicine.
It is crazy to think at age 20 you were already feeling drained by your career choice. What is great is the difference and changes you have made after choosing to take care for yourself and your body. After all how can we help and support others if our body is not supporting us?!
This subject has brought up a lot around the ideals and beliefs of nursing and shift work, but like any ideal or held belief, they are all exactly the same.. a thought, picture or image of what we ‘think’ should be happening, things ‘should’ look like or what we should be ‘doing’. Commonly, all of these still capture us in a prison of looking outside of our own natural intelligence and the wisdom that we carry in our bodies, they keep us seeking recognition and our ‘sense of self’ from others or our perceived successes and failures. What if we just were … we just (beautifully) existed … and we were stupendously divine and delicately cherished for just being who we are? How then would this change the way we see the images that flash before us and make the choices to take them on or discard them by the way side of our otherwise fully complete and amazing lives with ‘us’ and our pure loveliness.
I agree the shifts for nurses can be long and arduous, I have also come to understand that workdays for many in the hospitality industry are from 7am to midnight, and this can be for five to six days in a run, working under pressure, without proper breaks. Why do we think it is acceptable and normal to have to endure these work conditions – Is it any wonder why we as a society are so burnt out?
Absolutely Cherise, which energy we choose to connect to and stay being connected to makes a huge difference to our lives and our health.
I was just pondering on the finishing work at 11pm and then back to start again at 630am. There is much about the way that nurses work in hospitals ‘on the floor’ so to speak that is not supportive to the wellbeing of nurses and this is a great example and it is a very widely accepted roster practice. I have heard nurses say I just want to get those 2 shifts over and done with, but at what cost to our body?
There is something profound to be learnt each time we converse with ourselves, asking what is truly going on and questioning our thoughts and where they have come from. If we are met with answers that are already depicting us as ‘less than’ or ‘not good enough’ or come with any degree of ‘trying’ or ‘pushing’ then they are NOT coming from our true hearts and wisdom and are set-ups from an image that we have already invested in.
On the contrary, when we are met by thoughts that confirm our own amazingness and cherish us in a warm wrap that leaves us feeling a spaciousness to make our next move, with ease and honour, we are coming from our hearts and the same love that God knows and holds us in. What a difference and what a healing that comes from knowing we have a choice of what energy we wish to align and thus connect to at any time in our lives.
It is extraordinarily powerful to connect our ideals and beliefs to what immediately or eventually plays out in our bodies – from tense shoulders or neck to high blood pressure or other stress related illnesses such as anxiety and depression. True education would have this topic front and centre!
Ideals and beliefs are villains whose sole purpose is to derail us from our natural way of being.
‘I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies’, I think that one day science will actually confirm what you are saying Cherise, that ideals and beliefs are a toxic substance in much the same way that alcohol is.
‘With this simple conversation, I let go of a belief that I had created and had held in my own head for a very long time, and with my renouncing of its controlling hold, I just let it go!’, Cherise the freedom that this created is palpable.
Cherise we all hold a myriad of ideals and beliefs. These ideals and beliefs ensure that we behave in certain ways, they are invisible forces that play a pivotal role in our lives. They govern all aspects of our lives. A single belief such as ‘life is hard’ can reach it’s grimy way into every corner of our life, keeping us ensnared in a repetitive cycle of struggle.
Letting go of the ideals and beliefs and honouring what our body truly says brings a freedom and healing, ‘I am SO grateful that my back and my physical body communicates with me the way that it does, reminding me that when I honour me and my body and don’t compromise myself for ideals, beliefs, pushing, trying, or other people, my body is left free to move in the flowing freedom and beauty that is my own rhythm.’ This is beautiful Cherise.
It is so important to consider that ideals and beliefs play a role in the physical outcomes of our bodies. We are so good at hiding how we feel, what we are thinking, what we call in, and how we respond to carrying this around with us has to be released in some way. But as is shared here – we also have the opportunity to not be in this pattern by letting go of the ideals and beliefs to begin with, and knowing that we are simply responsible for our choices, either healing or harming. And the moment we lace these with how we want things to be, it is harming.
The more I allow myself to let go of the ideals and beliefs I carry, the more I can feel the real me. It’s that part that is kept hidden away, that I know very well, has permission to come out and be seen. It feels so natural and freeing every time another belief or ideal is unlocked.
The more self accepting and self appreciating I am the less anxiety can penetrate and disturb me. Thus working changing jobs or beginning in a brand new field of work, the commitment to life and to learning without perfection becomes an enjoyable part of life, not one to trip me up or catch me out!
As I go for a job interview this morning, this is the perfect blog for me to have chosen to read. No pictures, ideals or beliefs – just being myself and allowing ‘me’ to fully engage and be ‘seen’ the process. Thank you Cherise!
When we trust what we feel and don’t compromise or override it, it allows us to not only listen to what we know is true but to honor what we are feeling. These feelings that are always present, but are feelings that we all too often sometimes choose to ignore.
Having ideals and beliefs, which are based on ways we would like life to be but aren’t, hurt us. They hurt us in the striving for them. They hurt us in wanting them, as when we focus on them we are not being present with ourselves and always looking ahead of ourselves, therefore never truly appreciating the moment we are in. They hurt us because we can be blind sighted to all the amazing opportunities we may be presented with that are not in alignment to reaching the ideal or belief but are really in the direction we need to be going in. There really is so much harm that can come from allowing ourselves to be governed by ideals and beliefs. This blog is a great example of this too.
The tricky thing about ideals and beliefs is that we don’t question them and just go along with them in the belief that we are doing ok, and that there is nothing wrong. And yet the body can be put under a huge amount of stress by following and adhering to the beliefs we are fed – only when we start to feel for ourselves and question these ideals and beliefs will we be free of the influence.
American football has to be like team boxing except they are wearing body armour. But Rugby is football without the armour. Players on the professional level of all physically demanding sports pay a high cost to their bodies for their success. But, what happens when an injury happens and when their top medical facilities can no longer fix what you have permanently broken? Your life as you have known it is now finished! You are discarded just any other broken tool that has no purpose. Exercise and fitness is a requirement for the vessel we reside in, steering it going over the falls in a barrel tends to decrease our longevity.
When we invest in pictures, ideals and beliefs we create complication out of simplicity.
The body never ceases to amaze me with how it consistently and lovingly reminds me what is not true and when I honour and listen to the communication life flows a whole lot better.
The stress we place on our bodies by going into drive in an attempt to live up to the pictures we have created of how life should be lived according to our ideals and beliefs is profound even when we know our bodies are telling as something very different. Our bodies support us by offering us messages all the time and if we choose to listen to our bodies rather than our heads we naturally live with more harmony and vitality in our bodies.
“I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal”; this is such a telling statement Cherise, and from your article I can feel how you developed that connection with your own wisdom through the experience of your body. However there was that moment when you suddenly realised you could not return to the same job when your inner wisdom spoke to you, instead of seeking outside for the oughts and shoulds of a hard held belief of what needed to happen. The body moves and changes following its own inner rhythm, and to keep it rigidly adhering to the continual pressure of our beliefs destroys its natural way of being and brings about dis-ease in all its senses.
Goals and plans, ideals and beliefs, simply bear no semblance to truth of our bodies which know all. The body only knows truth, as truth is a universal quality of energy, and not a conjure of the mind.
To the goal driven society that we live in, your story is pure medicine, Cherise.
Thank you for this example of how ideals and beliefs hurt us so and stifle our body’s natural flow and “personal rhythm”. I have been aware lately that I have been overriding some of the messages from my body and the call to be more tender and honouring with myself, and your blog inspires me to go deeper.
The message that is fed to us when we are seriously ill or incapacitated is ‘to fight it’, as if the body is the enemy and is belligerently standing in the way of us returning to our former lifestyle and function in full. When the truth is that our bodies actually hold the key to unlocking the innate wisdom within, if we choose to let go and surrender to our bodies and be willing to listen to what they are communicating with us.
There is so much to celebrate from what you have shared here Cherise, the fact that you listened, gave yourself permission to heal, not holding back from truly feeling what was there to be felt.
Cherise, I loved this part about giving yourself permission to move on, that this isn’t a failure, in fact it is just evolution. And how wise you are from your experience, not a victim of it.
It is so important that we always ask ourselves the question, “is this still supporting me?” It is very easy to hang onto situations, work, or relationships way past their point of being of service to ourselves. And if they are not serving us then we are not serving by sticking with them in the same way we have been. It is of course possible to change our approach to a particular job or situation and transform it into one of service but the oh so important question still remains, and must be asked and asked often.
A great question Naren. Truly I am sure that we would be a lot clearer in body, mind, and of stuff, objects and the like, if we asked ourselves this simple question regularly. We are creatures of habit that hoard, when in truth much of the ‘stuff’ may long be redundant or superfluous to our everyday living.
Cherise I love how with one “simple conversation” you were able to blow apart a belief that had held you in a place where you struggled to move on and how once that belief was released that the doorway to the next stage of your life was flung wide open. Such a great reminder that staying stuck in an old pattern, an ideal or belief can have hugely detrimental consequences to our health and well being, holding us back from the wonderful life that is possible when we trust and let go.
Its incredible how much our body does speak if we are listening. Slight blemishes (even though I am no longer a teenager), coolness of the skin, sniffly in the morning. All signs that some sort to elimination or clearing is taking place, and if we choose they are signs we need to pay attention to.
Cherise I find it so uncanny that you as a nurse – helping people rehabilitate, ended up at 21 with pains in your own body. This, from what I understand is not uncommon as so many of us can easily take on the help role and push ourselves to the point where we are the ones that need help. What a difference when you started to listen to and honour your own body, which resulted in a position that supports you. For how can we support others if we do not support ourselves first.
On reading this blog again what struck me today was this line – “I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies” I have never likened beliefs to disease but knowing that ideas that I have had in the past, without considering my body in the scenario, this makes complete sense.
Hello Cherise and I remember shift work, the 7 day night works and the double back shifts. At that time I thought I loved it because of the days off you would get afterwards. After 13 years of it my body vertically fell in a heap, the toll was huge. I never question the system I was working under until I could no longer physically work at all and then I could see more of what I was doing and had done. When I was able to look back I could see there was signs all along something wasn’t right but I wouldn’t stop, why? As you are saying the ‘ideals and beliefs’ I had around work had blinded me to what was really happening. I believed that if you got a secure job and worked hard then everything else was taken care of. I did this and did it very well and yet my body and the relationships around me were in turmoil, I was devastated. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine supported me back on track and so I still ‘work hard’ but the way I do it is important. I take a deep care of myself and it’s not that I don’t get my hands dirty but more I bring that deep care into my every moment with what I am doing. This way everything including me is supported. Thank you Cherise.
Landing the perfect job, securing the next project…they all come loaded with pictures and expectations about what and how they might deliver. In truth only we can deliver anything to ourselves and only if we truly and deeply care and nurture ourselves.
What you have shared here, Cherise, highlights a culture in nursing where we often work so hard looking after others that we live in total disregard for our own bodies. It doesn’t really make sense that as health professionals that we work in this way. It is amazing what happens when we listen to our bodies as you have- a great learning for all nurses.
Back issues are so widely prevalent in society, and often with little understanding of what is causing the problem. Your approach to consider that your body is communicating to you when something is not right goes a long way to understanding an illness and how to truly support yourself while dealing with symptoms.
Holding on to ideals and beliefs can keep us boxed into a very narrow way of living and expressing, never getting to know our true selves and our full potential, only through questioning and observing these strongly held and often ingrained ideals and beliefs can we begin to let go and open ourselves to other possibilities.
Just as easily as we can take on a belief and then be completely dominated by it, we can just as simply let it go and feel the freedom and space this creates. Yes, we are continually choosing our experiences.
The body always pays the price to our choices, there is no escaping this fact. Many of our ideals and beliefs can remain hidden and ‘undercover’. Every physical outplay or emotional expression can reveal much if we are willing to be humbled by the clarity that is expressed by our body, and not to shrug it off as something menial.
When we deeply honor our bodies and treat them with tender loving care, they respond with gratitude, and show us an even deeper level of love and care that they require, this is never ending, not with perfection, but more an unfolding relationship that feels more lovely the more we listen to our bodies and develop this friendship.
“In this we contract ourselves away from the natural expression and personal rhythm that we can otherwise live our lives in and from. The toll that this way of holding back takes on our bodies is enormous (and my back is a true testament!).”
Much harm is done in disconnecting from our bodies and hearts; humanity’s current state of illness and disease is testament to this fact.
When we seek to fulfill an outer image or ideal about life, we compromise the quality and depth of connection to our bodies and hearts, in this disconnected and driven way we are not coming from the love we all have and know in our hearts, and therefore our interaction with others is harming. In contrast when we honour and connect to our bodies and their inner wisdom, and the love in our hearts, we bless every-body with that love and honouring.
“who says you have to take your body back to that specific workplace? Are you really letting anyone (including yourself) down by moving on?”
This is a very powerful statement Cherise, as it undoes all the ‘should do’s”, and images that we drive and push ourselves and bodies with, I personally drive and push myself as I picture myself to have to be a certain way, and therefore need to live up to this expectation and perfection, which is extremely detrimental to my body and affects my mood, and all those around me.
It felt so honoring of you Cherise for you not to return to your job, just because you had invested in that as your career. Our ideals, beliefs and images of how life should look or be, can be a huge imposition and imprisonment, on our natural expression of what is needed to do for us and in a way that serves others.
The Medical system and the long and stressful hours that staff are expected to work is not sustainable, one only has to look at one of the statistics, in the UK, one doctor commits suicide every day. These people are supposed to be our role models, showing us what true health and vitality is. Self-care needs to urgently be introduced to the medical system staff.
Our physical ailments, aches, pains and disease are our bodies’ way of communicating with us that something isn’t right in the way we have been treating them. When we push our bodies too hard, go to bed late or eat foods that aren’t supportive, our bodies will let us know, should we listen to their messages and see them as a blessing not a curse, we are well on our way to true health and vitality.
Thank you for the awesome blog Cherise, and how damaging it is to our bodies having a picture or image that we pursue in life and then run our bodies like a machine in pursuit of this image.
There is poetry and inspiration in these words that honour you and all of us Cherise, ‘… my body is left free to move in the flowing freedom and beauty that is my own rhythm.
Yes, the body reveals all to us, we just need to stop and listen.
I used to be ruled by ‘should’ and ‘should not’s’ and it was exhausting. I would constantly be doubting myself and what I felt all in an attempt to fit in. The more I listen to my body even if it may go against what I think I should be doing the more energy I have. It is a bit like the notion of how much sleep we need – the moment I go into should I want and crave more yet when I wake up when my body naturally does the more energy I actually have. It makes such a huge difference when we work with our bodies rather than trying to fight it.
There are ideals and beliefs every where in society and they become so ingrained in us that we take them on without questioning as to whether they are true to us. I have come to realize that if I am to live a life in truth it is my responsibility to let go of these ideals and beliefs otherwise I continue to live a lie to myself and everyone.
It is not surprising that I keep returning to this blog as I work through a HUGE pile of ideals and beliefs that I have been carrying in the last few weeks. A powerful blog that brings it all to the simplicity of choices.
How amazing is it that we have such a great reflection from within our own bodies about the extent of love and harmony in our ideals and beliefs. I know from experience at times I can go for a long time just like you thinking I am doing well and I am completely happy, until my body forces me to stop and reassess, and every time my level of understanding deepens and if I have to make any changes they are immensely supportive. It would be great to not have to rely on aches pains or discomfort for such messages, but until we learn to proactively sense the truth for ourself, our body’s signals are great allies.
Yes living from ideals and beliefs is very imprisoning and causes tension in the body.
I love what you’ve shared with us Cherise. This sentence sums it up for me: “when I don’t honour what I feel and what is true for me, my body tells me through an ache, pain or tightness straight away, reminding me that I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal and when I truly listen I am brought back to the truth of what I know and how to be in the way that I live”.
It is telling us / sharing the wisdom with us, how crucial it is to listen to our body. That by listening more and more to our body, we’re actually getting to know ourselves more and more. And by loving, honouring and communicating to ourselves, we’ll be revealed everything we want to know about ourselves and the Universal Laws that surrounds us from every angle, including God. Isn’t this Magnificent. Making the body as our primary marker for our health is turning the tide of giving so much value to the (isolated) mind.
‘…but most importantly I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be!’ Isn’t it so true that we often realise the truth of a matter afterwards, when we are no longer in it. In the case of ideals and beliefs, they actually mask the truth, allowing us to choose otherwise and be held by that which is only real because we make it so.
Cherise you present here the importance of listening to our body, and also highlight the ideals and beliefs that we use to carry on doing what we know is not OK for our bodies and causing injury or burnout.
It is amazing to see the extent of what we will put our bodies through to keep an ideal and belief going, and then wonder why our bodies could not uphold the image – at this point we can either listen to our bodies or push through, either way we always have a choice.
The pictures we live by, often stemming from our ideals and beliefs, literally run the show, we chase them in our choices. Given this truth we are not the orchestrators we believe ourselves to be, but merely the puppets, in our own life stories.
There are so many ideals and beliefs that can run us each day. This blog is a great support in exposing the games that they play.
After reading this I’m really inspired to look at my life and see the ideals and beliefs I let run me. Once they become clear and we are open to letting go our investment in them they can disappear. The hold they had is the one I gave them. I reclaim myself and I no longer feed them energy and the hold is gone.
The body is truly amazing in the way it gives us signs and signals such as pain or discomfort to tell us to stop and listen to it. And naturally when we get a pain we want it to go away quickly because it stops us from living our lives in the way we have got accustomed to living them. However what we need to appreciate is that our body is showing us that in fact we have got the pain because of how we have been living, and that in order to really heal it we have to be willing to look at the choices we made that led us to that point.
Understanding this is revolutionary in supporting us to move forward in true vitality in and with life. Being able to look back through our choices and connect to where we stepped away from ourselves is a beautiful and very useful tool.
To discover that by having ideals and beliefs I was investing in something outside of myself, in something that was not me, and thereby not living in my own truth I was in fact denying me being me.
Often we are swept up into the consciousness of the industry that we have chosen and the nursing profession has a track record of burnout, stress and exhaustion. It seems that little is done to recognise this as still, there is little true support to educate and teach nurses longevity in the profession.
How is it possible that we can be exhausted by life, by work, even before we’ve really started our careers? There is clearly something wrong with the way we’re living, with the way work is and how we are expected to be at work. When we then get sick it’s all about getting back to work, instead of addressing why we got sick in the first place. One of the biggest ideals is about letting people down, but if we truly honour ourselves and are true to our bodies then I now understand we can never actually let anyone down.
I find it scary at times how much we alter what we do to fit in with a certain picture or belief we have about how things should be or should look like. It is like we completely morph ourselves into somebody else just so we fit in and do not stand out. Yet we all know our body suffers as a result. The more I simply express the truth I am feeling, even though other people may not want to hear it, the more vital my body is. And when I hold back from saying what I feel I get exhausted quite quickly.
It is amazing the pressure we put ourselves under to uphold the beliefs we carry, and the lengths we will go to keep the belief alive, all along knowing that something is not working.
What we think is the ‘right’ thing to do is not necessarily actually true, in the sense of not being all-encompassing and understanding of every aspect of a situation and everyone involved. I too have found my body to be a great marker for showing me whether I am choosing what’s true or just what I believe to be ‘right’!
The body is so amazing in the way that it gives us messages. Any choice that does not come from the body has to be from the head, therefore it is an imposition on the body and comes from an ideal. I am still uncovering layers of ideals and beliefs that affect my body, and some of them are surprising, like how much food I really need to eat. As I work on building my quality in my body my body tells me more and more how to live in order to be alive and vital. If I listen instead of over-riding with my head I do indeed begin to feel very alive and vital. Beliefs can weigh us down in more ways than one.
Yes beliefs are so rigid and lock us into situations with no true reason. I feel that we have collectively given away our power to beliefs when we have so much knowing, feeling, and living wisdom inside ourselves. I appreciated Cherise your comment to about how your body has a flow and its own rhythm when you let go of beliefs.
Why do we keep ourselves in positions that are harming us? This is a very good question and one that needs deep pondering. Any ideals and beliefs that hold us in a situation that is stifling us in any way need to be looked at and explored and their effects felt. They need to be nominated and blown out of the water as they say.
Re-reading this bog today this line jumped out at me: ‘I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal and when I truly listen I am brought back to the truth of what I know and how to be in the way that I live.’ Sometimes I feel like I complicate my life looking outside of me for the answers, as you state so clearly here Cherise, we have it all within us if we choose to take responsibility to re-connect with our essence and be guided by our inner knowing.
Carrying ideals and beliefs in itself feels like a heavy load.
Living with an ideal or belief narrows my view, I can feel that I become set on something playing out in a certain way. So it might be that I feel an ideal that I should be in a certain relationship, be a father, be a strong man, be able to do this task or that, have a big house, a fancy car etc etc, but none of these are the essence of who I am, just images of who I might be and thoughts that actually suffocate the joy of life in each moment which comes much more when we let go of needing to live a certain way.
That is so undeniably true Stephen living with ideals and beliefs narrows our views it constricts us restricting us from being open to living the life we were born to live because of our tunnel vision bound by the pictures our ideals and beliefs have created. Through love and understanding we can let go of our hurts and move on connected with our essence and express all of us in the raw pure true selves.
I love hearing how grateful you are that your body communicates to you. I don’t hear this very often at all. It’s so refreshing.
Appreciation is so important, thank you for the reminder.
It is through our connection with our bodies that all is revealed.
The problem is that we are taught to override what our bodies are telling us from a very young age and everybody else is doing the same, so somehow that makes it ok, right? Clearly not!
If we all listened intently to our bodies, hospitals would not be under the heaving pressure they are today. Cherise you are living a way that others can be inspired to as well. To break this pattern of override we are in, we must identify and break the ideals and beliefs of this world that we subscribe to.
Thank you for sharing Cherise. My body constantly shows me what is true and what is not, and at times this can still annoy me but only because there is a part of me that wants to do what it wants when it wants in total disregard to me! Thank goodness for what my body shows me – otherwise I would be in a very different place than I am today.
“At age 20, I was already feeling drained by my career; how could this be?” – and how common is this? Young people leaving school and then University already exhausted by the rigours of the education system and then by the early years of their career.
Allowing outside beliefs, ideals, ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ to determine how we live our life is like wearing a straight jacket…been there done that, and am a work in progress…as it brings in thoughts of doubt and lack of self worth. It is very limiting and constricting.
Yes Cherise, living from and making choices from our ideals and beliefs are really limiting. I know just recently I could feel how much I was keeping myself boxed in with my thinking about how I was at work, what I was expected to deliver and really creating a lot of angst for myself in the process. When I allowed myself to feel more deeply what was there for me, I learned that I was placing a lot of ideals and beliefs on myself about what it meant to be a consultant, what and how I needed to be in that role with clients. This was very exposing, but also liberating. I have now been able to change how I am behaving and reacting to things and people at work.
The natural beauty of life’s flow, and the constellations that appear when we let go and surrender show us all we need to know and what we need to do next..
Our bodies speak to us so clearly, yet we don’t always listen. I too had back problems when nursing. Back pain is said to be one of the major reasons for taking time off work in today’s society. Introducing self care programmes into places such as hospitals – where lifting and supporting patients is a daily task – would seem to be essential. Learning to support ourselves and questioning the beliefs we have – which for me were about putting others first ( until I came across Universal Medicine) is so important. Great post, thanks Cherise.
There is such wisdom in what you share Cherise. It seems crazy that we override the messages that our body is constantly communicating and yet we are so conditioned around these beliefs and ideals of what is right or what we should do. Imagine schooling where we learn to connect first with our bodies and then respond or make decisions about what or how we do the next thing.
Dear Cherise,
I knew to re read your amazing article tonight. I am finding myself feeling the subtleties of what you share, how much our bodies do communicate with us on a second to second basis, and how any stray thought that takes me from the essence of my being is immediately felt in my body, as you say with a soreness, tightness, uncomfortableness. My body is by far and away the only true connection that I have with my essence and the choice to stay present with it is a choice to be made over and over again, forever.
So, the goal is a fully open, fully transparent dialogue with our bodies. But what I can feel is how these ideals, beliefs, pre-conditions, expectations etc…all are a fog that descend over that dialogue. And once in that fog it becomes easy for me to ignore and deny the truth of what I am feeling. We have to be prepared to hear the news – good or bad – and independent of any investment in the outcome. This is still a massive banana skin for me.
We are a strange creature at the top of the food chain! Our body can run all by itself with the signals sent to the brain. With all of this extra time, we invest in things outside of us that can have a detrimental effect on our natural harmonious functions. We override our body’s messages or numb our ability to feel. We allow ourselves to become less by investing in anything outside of us that doesn’t complement us.
Cherise, how beautifully you share what is possible when we stop and actually listen to our body and choose to trust and do things different and act upon this, rather than being stuck in an old mindset in which nothing can possibly change and we end up going round and round in circles in the old harming way.
“I held the belief that I was going to get better and return to work as soon as possible…”
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too.” There are so many people living like this – that this is now such a normal way to be. It is a gift to read Cherise that listening to our bodies and to care more for ourselves could help to stop us following all these ideals and beliefs we have.
Fascinating in which detail you describe the effects of either we listen to our body and we can have a joyful life or we don’t, and then we will suffer, because only our body can tell us, what is true for us and what not. My biggest challenge is at the moment, that I easily overeat and the consequence is – I feel terrible for a long time. To listen to the body 24/7 is the key to feel joyful all the time.
Cherise if you were taught during your education how to care for yourself and how to work in a way that was with your body, your story may have been different. For those really tasking jobs such as our healthcare workers basic fitness, a way to move with the body and strength building is essential.
So often we want to help, take care of everything, but in the process we care nothing for ourselves, not honouring what our body is telling us, resulting in injury, illness and burn out. For one to give true care, this needs to be lived by themselves first.
Amazing Cherise, it is power-full once you call out the truth of a behaviour that does not support you to feel good. This is very enlightening for you in moving forward in all that you do. It is not forgotten when it is felt in the body. Its a marker to connect back too when things get foggy.
Cherise you have made a good example of how important it is to listen to the body and on the flip side the consequences of not.
Yes Joe, Cherise highlights for us the importance of listening to our bodies in a real and true way, directly from her own living experiences in both scenarios, and showing us what truly works.
Thank you Cherise,
I too can relate to a stagnancy in my life due to attachments to certain ideals and beliefs that prevent me from moving on and evolving within myself.
And yes the body is definitely the messenger of truth now that I am willing to listen more closely to what is being communicated.
“I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.” Absolutely true, a belief puts strain on the body and is exhausting because it’s lacks truth.
“I began to feel more worthless in my self because I wasn’t able to work and reach my goal; hardness on me that I can see now was only serving to further inhibit my own recovery.” It is so common that our worthiness depends on our job and if we can’t work (for whatever reason) the person feels worthless. Such a strain on the body when it has to be somewhere where it is not.
Ideals and Beliefs is such a good one to look at, we have the obvious ones that we can see and openly address but it is the ones that are not so obvious and subtle which has this insideous control over us that we have to bring a fine tooth comb to. The more we can let go of all the ideals and beliefs the more free we are to just be who we naturally are. Honesty is the key to this one and Serge Benhayon has been a massive support in seeing the truth and honesty behind why we choose to do things in life.
The harm to our bodies through ideals and beliefs cannot be overestimated when you look at the health statistics everyday increasing and all we take on and carry contributing to this. A great blog highlighting what is going on and the love we can connect to and really make changes to our bodies by living this from the inside out.
I feel very interested in the possibilities which open up when we let go of ideals and beliefs – perhaps much more for me to look at here in my own life.
This is beautiful Cherise – it is crazy to realise we can get so set in wanting or needing something to be a certain way but then when the realisation comes that we don’t have to be bound by this, there is a newfound freedom – a freedom in the simple realisation that it does not have to be that way. Allowing ourselves to be open and flexible in life is so important. The example you have given is GOLD – your dedication to your work and your love and connection to the patients and your career is palpable, but as you have learned, we cannot impose on our own body to perform in a certain way in order to be there for another at the detriment of ourselves.
I too spent a year working at a major hospital as a wards person which was an intensely demanding job physically. I was one of 2 women in a team of 20, and all the other men were exfirefighters or cops or boxers (in other words quite strong men physically) – some of my jobs involved taking patients back and forth to their chemo and radiation treatments (in their beds – so this meant manoeuvering the bed through the hospital corridors and lifts etc), positioning patients in their beds for meals, lifting immobile patients up for their baths etc, pinning down psychotic patients, doing CPR in the emergency, attending any emergency situations, taking any deceased patients to the morgue etc etc.
These were very demanding jobs physically, yet I loved every moment of it and was dedicated to the team. However, it did take me about 6 months to admit that my body as a woman was not quite strong enough nor designed to continue with this as a career. This realisation was hard to accept but once I stopped seeing it as a failure, then I could move on with ease and understanding to the next amazing job! So thank you Cherise for your sharing, as it has reminded me of what I went through and what a blessing it is when we tune into the body – what you have presented is a valuable thing for us all to contemplate or ponder.
It’s quite a realistic picture you share about being drained so early on in your nursing career. The pace and demands can be very taxing, which many health care workers would have experienced too. It highlights how vital it is to bring the practice of self care into the health care system. The benefits of this practice is actually not just for one, but for all.
When we connect it seems that there are plans greater for us than our small minds could ever imagine.
Spot on Nicole – sometimes it is almost impossible for us to see ‘the bigger’ picture – we focus on what we think we want to do, without realising that there is that something far greater just around the corner. And as you have said, when we connect, when we allow ourselves to feel the body and heed what it says, then another world seems to open up for us.
Who knows what seeds we are planting for the future when we cross paths with anyone.
I absolutely love your string of pearls (your words) which are like quotes to be saved:
1. “When we connect it seems that there are plans greater for us than our small minds could ever imagine” – NS
2.”Who knows what seeds we are planting for the future when we cross paths with anyone” – NS.
These are both GOLD…and are seeds themselves for much pondering in wonderment at what can unfold in life if we so allow it!
True, if we surrender we can be surprised by the flow of what opens up for us to do in service.
this is true Nicole and the great thing about this is we do not have to do or make it happen. It is in the surrender of self and the focus on the all encompassing way of life that we will find the space opening up for things to come our way that are past what we could ever think we wanted.
Great point Carolien I find that when I have lost that connection I can go looking and then find myself completely distracted and off track.
Super point Sally! I experienced this yesterday – I could feel myself observing my responses and now can see how I was not quite realising in full how much ideals and beliefs are held in the body. Great to untangle this further.
when I was 25 my life came to a halt through serious illness. As you Cherise all I was focussed on was getting back to work as soon as possible. I was focussing on doing what I did before even though my body was giving me loud and clear signals that that was not a healthy way to be for me. The surrender to the body is not an easy one, to let go of what we want, think and live we should do has been, and still is, a big unfolding, but when we do our body will be there literally every step of the way to support and guide us to a new way of being and working.
This is so opposite to what is widely practised by people who are ill. People are championed for ‘beating’ an illness and going headstrong back to work regardless of what their body needs. But this simply perpetuates more illness and does nothing to change the way that we live. There is definitely a surrender needed – a surrender to the body and it’s signals and messages. This may seem scary for some as it is accepting the unknown in terms of where it may take us, but ultimately it is the road to true healing, and true healing cannot happen any other way.
I agree Rebecca, we battle instead of surrender as in the surrendering we need to let go of all those things we used to keep us standing. We believe we will fall but instead we will be free to truly move forward.
Beautiful, Carolien and very reassuring that when we surrender “our body will be there literally every step of the way to support and guide us to a new way of being and working.” So ‘all we have to do’ is surrender and take care of our bodies and the rest will be taken care off.
exactly Monika but we dare not go there as we need proof that this is so before we let go and surrender but the proof will only be there after the surrender. We have this way put ourselves in a spot from which we dare not move.
in that I realise that to get ourselves out of this situation we may learn to trust our body in little steps. Learning that when we do adhere and honour what our body is telling us we are on track and this will be reflected back to us.
My biggest enemy is not out there somewhere. It is taking choices that don’t support me, equally it is taking choices with the intention to self gain. Immediately emotions come to the rise and the body contracts.
What a great realization Felix – “My biggest enemy is not out there somewhere”. This is so true. It is the saboteur we have within us that does not care about how our choices affect our body.
I have played the game of pleasing others due to what i thought was right or wrong. Over time I have come to truly know and learn that ideals stop true understanding and false pictures of the way I should rather than BE living my life.
nb this feels true for many of us, including myself – where we have gone straight to pleasing people and being nice as ‘the norm’ rather than honouring our bodies first. It is interesting how we want to please, but at the same time we shut people out – whereas if we simply just be, then we allow others in and develop a much more foundational relationship.
I loved reading your blog Cherise. It is so familiar for many people for these images to drop in, that can keep one stuck and not move along. Removing those ‘ideal and belief’ goal posts and to live life on an open playing field offers one to live with their amazing potential.
I love this anlaogy Johanne, just get rid of the goal posts completely and have an open playing field. The goal post is such a narrow way of aiming for something and sure you need precision and focus to get it but you are limited on what you are working with, when you take the posts away you open yourself up to have an endless direction on where you are impulsed to go. How freeing is that!
Agreed Johanne, removing those ‘ideals and beliefs” goal post from our lives creates a gateway to the universe where anything is possible.
The words removing or dropping already feels like a load has been lifted.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too.”
Cherise thank you for your amazing blog- making it so real to see how harming ideals and beliefs can be in our bodies if we hold onto them. How awesome that you choose to finally listen to your body and begin the true healing process.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too”.
Ideals and beliefs are certainly debilitating; what you have written here Cherise is so true, thank you for highlighting this.
I loved reading about the way in which you listened and responded to your bodies messages.
Ideals and beliefs don’t offer a gateway to our heart but instead entry onto a path leading in the opposite direction.
Beautiful Shelley, ideals and beliefs don’t add any love or truth to this world and deliberately deny our greatness and divinity.
‘At age 20, I was already feeling drained by my career; how could this be?’ This is a crazy situation that at this age we can be drained by our chosen work – we are simply not currently prepared to work in true service and rather to the contrary through our ideals and beliefs.
Basically we have allowed ourselves to be tricked and sold a story and a dodgy version of what life should be like which is far short of the grandness, power, wisdom and love that we are capable of.
So often I know I have had a certain picture in my head of how things should look like or turn out like, but that may not be how they are meant to turn out.
Andrew that is so true, I find I either have a picture that something should be amazing or a disaster, each of these are equally damaging, instead of allowing things to unfold and trust they will unfold as needed, based on the way I am.
Spot on Andrew, and as Cherise has presented in her blog, it can be really difficult to let go of the picture we have, almost like it has a certain hold on us. But the freedom we get when we do let go is amazing!
Ideals and beliefs and our behaviours that are chosen to carry out such demands we place on ourselves is a huge factor in our health, thank you Cherise for opening up this conversation. When I question why I do the things I do if they result in my body feeling less in anyway then I know something outside of myself has been placed as greater value ahead of my body. With the body sharing as it does, without judgement or criticism I am learning that the more I listen to it’s wisdom the more non-sensical it becomes to place anything outside of what is within the body as a greater importance. This isn’t being selfish or ‘up myself’ but more of a way of living that then I can be with others in a much more whole and complete way rather than in parts or in pain but there regardless of the quality I bring to others.
Beautifully said Leigh, it really doesn’t make any sense at all to value things outside of us at the expense of our true connection with our bodies. This is something I still do at times, but like you I am learning to treat my body with greater importance – it is not selfish, it is self-full and to be full of myself and express myself in the fullness of my essence is my responsibility to humanity.
I agree Leigh that often self care and self love are viewed as selfish acts (which is a belief in itself!) but if we care for our bodies and choose to not abuse them and ourselves, then it is simple science that everything we express outwardly to others will also be of the same quality of love. Hence to self love or self care is a very responsible act that benefits all.
I found it really supportive to re-read your blog Cherise and this time the words that jumped out at me were ‘I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal and when I truly listen I am brought back to the truth of what I know and how to be in the way that I live.’ – such a powerful statement and one that supports us to know that we carry all we ever need to know within us.
Indeed Jade, when I feel into my beliefs they feel quite empty and unsubstantiated, yet the wisdom that I can feel through my body carries a weight and knowing to it.
True, Jade, we all carry this wisdom in us and it is empowering to hear that we just have to surrender and we are connected with it.
Yes, when we allow simplicity to be part of our life instead of complexity the wisdom of God reigns forth.
I feel you broke at least two beliefs during this time, Cherise. There was the one about having to get back to your original workplace and then one about your back injury being a failing of some kind. What I love about this article is the simplicity and sweetness I feel when I consider having an open, respectful, listening relationship with my body, which can then be my greatest ally and guide.
Reading your comment here Matilda, I realise that I still hold a belief about failing if my body is not ‘well’. Work to do for me to completely connect to the truth that my body communicates to me about my choices that are not in harmony with my every move and any form of disharmony in the body is truly a loving reflection for me to respond to. The ultimate communication comes from my body.
In your career as a nurse Cherise, you are supporting others to care for their bodies and you are a shining example of what that actually means. The support that you are able to offer your patients in your new job may be far more than if you returned to your old workplace.
We are sold the idea that to know God is to aspire to connect to a higher state of mind. But the truth is the only way to re-connect to the livingness of God is through the body. This explains why in a nutshell we do not as human beings experience the divine presence of God – not because he does not exist, but effectively because of the way we move our body. We treat it with contempt for the most part. We harden it, abuse it, treat it with disregard – in a way that no other animal is capable of. The question is why? The answer – because perversely by doing so we are able to deny our relationship to divinity. And this is why we are able to argue about the existence/non-nonexistenc of God. By focussing on the intelligence of the mind, we ignore the intelligence of the body, and in doing so ignore the only form of intelligence that allows us to know the divinity of God.
I agree Adam that any ideal and belief to me seems like a way of denying our divinity, which is like a sphere trying to convince itself it is a cube and forcing itself into that shape, even though its natural form is a sphere. And our physical bodies reflect the force we use to distort ourselves into something we are not, to fight what we naturally are and cannot change.
Pondering on ‘having ideals and beliefs’ and ‘pictures of life’ made me come to the conclusion that it is actually quite obvious that all of these are actually a way to influence whatever is presented to us in life? This is robbing us from openness and innocence to receive and feel whatever is reflected to us. It’s like a form of control of which we are so used to (or at least I am;-)) that it’s seemingly hard to fathom that these are actually not of our True nature, but rather taking us away from a True connection. How important is it then to be honest about these and building a life with less and less ‘ideals, beliefs and pictures’? Crucial to me! For me it takes away the pressure of having to behave in a certain way in order to avoid discussion, fighting, disagreement, etc. Not that I’m pro one of these, but if I’m ‘just’ sharing me, it’s up to the other one on how to interact with me. And the same the other way around. The world would be much more free and tension and the drive for perfection would belong to the past… Imagine that this will be True one day. When depends on each and everyone of us.
I love the feeling of questioning everything we do and how we do it to explore whether we have made a choice from how we feel or from an assumption or expectation from an ideal or belief.
How often do we push on, doing what we think is expected or we ought to do at the expense of our bodies? I also did this far more than was healthy for my body and it constantly told me so with pain and tension and emotional lability. Sometimes we have to stop and walk away, make some space to observe and feel.
This is true Jeanette, I was taught as a child that we must keep pushing on. If we stopped to feel our bodies and take a rest if we were tired, we were considered lazy.
I love this ‘extension’ Jeanette to include ’emotional lability’ – I look back with incredulity and a touch of horror at the roller coast ride my life was in my twenties and thirties when it felt like I was being tossed about haplessly, pretty much completely out of control of myself. Finding the work of Universal Medicine has been an extraordinary support in my return to my own driving seat as it were.
That’s a great way to put it Matilda, having been ‘out of control’ emotionally much of my life, to now be back in the driver’s seat feels incredible, and it is hard to believe I ever lived any other way (but I did). The work of Universal Medicine has most definitely been instrumental in this.
Yes, when the body gives us messages we would rather ignore, we see them as bothersome. When we start to value the body as our precious home, the messages it sends us are gifts.
Love this Kylie, and what an awesome and wise teacher it is!
Our body has an innate wisdom that will tell us in its own way if we are honouring it or living in disregard. Our role is to listen to it.
It is great what you have shared here Linda and I only can confirm, it can be a challenge, but it is fun because in the end the body feels vital and joyful.
I find it very inspiring how you turned the corner and walked away from a situation that didn’t support you and your health; we make it very hard for ourselves when we think that things need to stay the same or should be a certain way.
Yes, the ‘shoulds’ can be dominant that it simply does not occur to us that there is another option. Thank you, Cherise, for inspiring us to always find a way that is supportive for us and our bodies, because everyone benefits as a consequence.
Well said, Gabriele, it can be very liberating to look beyond the ‘should’s and ‘ought to’s to the truth of what we feel inside.
“but most importantly I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.”. Well said Cherise – it is a well embarked process to uncover what ideals and beliefs we are holding in our bodies, as in are they truly serving us or not.
I agree Sarah and it can be surprising what we find when we go looking. I had not understood the extent to which I/we can hold such ideals and beliefs (believing that they were mainly from institutionalised religions etc.) until I allowed myself to be open to the possibility. Revealing and letting go of them feels like taking down the walls of a prison that I did not even know I was in.
Nice addition Michael….A friend of mine and I talking about love and relationships a while back and she was in a lesbian relationship and I remember judgement coming up and I was a bit shocked. I had always been openly supportive of gay relationships but it was the first time I was hearing more intimately about a relationship and could feel the judgement. I did not even know it was there so I was grateful that I felt it, acknowledged it and could then let it go because it was not the truth but a belief that I had taken on somewhere that was buried but operating within me subtly.
It’s amazing just how many opportunities we are given – it’s an obvious one but I am currently finalising wedding plans with my partner and asking why we are making the choices we do exposes so many held ideals and beliefs.
‘At age 20, I was already feeling drained by my career; how could this be?’ Wow, there is so much for us to appreciate and to learn about our bodies and about how to have a relationship with this amazing vehicle that we express through. It is mind boggling to even consider not lovingly caring for it!
I have recently had flu with cough, but I never quite accepted I was ill and so went back to work much sooner than I was well enough to do so, because I knew they were short staffed and were calling me each day to check when I was coming back. This was a huge learning because through feeling guilty and not allowing myself to surrender to the illness and to my body I am only just turning the corner 3 weeks later.
Alison I have done this too. Feeling guilty and going back to work too soon is another way we mistreat our bodies.
Yes Debra, I allowed all the reasons why I needed to go back to work cloud the fact that I was still not well. I sold myself a story rather than listening to my body.
Hmmm… guilt… I have definitely spotted that this is one of the most insidious and sneaky emotions, in terms of us dismissing and overriding what we know to be true.
Exactly Matilda, guilt has been coming up a lot for me to look at lately for me, and it has crept in areas that I really thought I had dealt with, so as uncomfortable as it has been it has been great to have the guilt exposed .
Most women have this ideal picture of how their body has to look like. Can you imagine the impact this has on our bodies, when we are constantly communicating that the way it is, is not good, and that is has to change? What a pressure and tension and total disregard to our bodies.
Thank you for sharing, Cherise, what is unfortunately a common experience of being burnt out by your job at an early stage. Your learning and process of re-connection to self care/love is inspiring to read about, and offers a different way of approaching our working life.
There are great benefits in listening to our bodies in order to aver problems, pains or illnesses. However, really listening to our body gives us much more vitality than we may ever imagined was available to us.
AM aver?
I agree Cherise, when we allow ourselves to listen to our bodies and honour our rhythm within, then there is no tension, just an ease and simple flow. Life becomes very complicated and hard when we start imposing ourselves with ideals and beliefs.
It’s utterly exhausting to go against ourselves; and yet super energising when we work with our body 24/7.
The tricky thing about ideals and beliefs is that they often come so mantled and disguised. How many of us follow a goal thinking that’s a good thing or admiring others who are able to reach their goals when in truth these goals are reached at the expense of the body. Reaching goals is being a servant for a configuration of energy that dictates us from outside how to be and act.
At the moment, there is a lot of talk and hype around ‘Virtual Reality’. Read the media and it seems to be the next big technology breakthrough we are yearning for as humanity. Yet in ‘reality’ these instruments are an escape from the true beauty of the life that surrounds us every day. The heavy helmet, visor and cumbersome gloves you see with these Virtual Reality kits remind of the ideals and beliefs you describe here Cherise. They sit over us and obscure our true view. They weigh on us heavily like suits of armour do. They restrict and distort our movement and gestures, all in the name of a ‘better vision of life’ we can escape to.
But what if we let go of the ideals and beliefs we hold on to so tight? We may find that the beauty and warmth, the wonder and depth, the sensational vibrant life we have longed for so long, actually lives and surround every day, just waiting for us to remove the goggles we wear, filled with these false pictures and ideas.
Beautiful parallel Joseph Barker. What if ‘virtual reality’ is a reflection of the way we already distort our perceptions through ideals and beliefs. Perhaps we should be looking to remove our ‘tinted glasses’ – rose or otherwise – and see what is really there. We might get a wonderful surprise.
Cherise, I too am so grateful for the deep wisdom of my body and all it communicates. In the past I saw illness as an intrusion to my life, something totally inconvenient that stopped me from living the life I was choosing and thought I wanted. Now I am able to see the gift that illness brings – that opportunity to stop and look at my life and its disharmonious and unloving choices. Illness offers us a precious opportunity to not only reflect on our choices but to make more loving ones for ourselves and by natural consequence for all those around us.
This is beautiful Jane. What a difference it make when we see illness as a blessing. We are no longer reacting with emotions and spreading more disharmony in the world but contributing to the healing of all of us on all levels.
Wow reading you comment here Jane, I am taken to a new level of appreciation for the awareness that I too have gained from the presentations of Serge Benhayon and the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom. Both hold the key to so many ills in our world. Your expression is a beautiful example.
Beautiful bernadetteglass. Illness and disease as presented by Serge Benhayon through the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, offers an opportunity for healing in a way I have never encountered before.
Beautifully said Jane, indeed illness is an opportunity to stop and reflect on what images we have been running with and discard those that are not serving us and choose more loving ways to live.
So true Francisco. It is amazingly healing when we view illness in this way.
It’s a remarkable gift to see the body breaking down as communication, it can be all too easy to consider it ill luck or fate. It is neither of these things and the Universal order of the world is all the more beautiful because of this.
Our bodies are connected to a higher truth and what it reflects is love. The moment we see it as something else, we have interpreted it and not truly read. Understanding our body’s communication is a learning – a new language, we once knew but did forget.
Recently I did burn my fingertips on one hand and instead of doing whatever to make the pain go away – I just did feel it. I felt it in my fingertips and it burned even more. And I saw why this did happen, my inattention and I saw my learning in this experience, saw the reflection of my body. I did not move in love and so it came that far. I did understand. The pain in my body did move and I felt my neck and forehead and then…it went away. Later I realized that I had no blisters or anything left but a bit red colored skin. No pain. The healing of ‘not ignoring’ what I get and feel.
Wow Sandra Schneider – the power of truly feeling what is there to be felt and accepting what is there to be learned. Awesome.
Yes Richard – It is so, we have till now nearly no idea of to which power we are connected to, if we connect and choose so. One day what we call today ‘magic’ will be normal (normal magic 😉 ) – which leads me to the wondering, how much magic I am already living with and in, without realizing because it did become normal to me….time to refresh my view, see and honor.
And then we can live that ‘one day’ now – if we choose to.
Your blog highlights how we forget we have choices. Sometime it takes someone or something to get us to see there are other options. Sometimes it’s a serious illness or disease. We can then decide if we are gong to make a change or go back to our old ways.
I have noticed for myself it takes some practice to consistently move to my own rhythm in my body even when there are many reflections in the world telling me to move in a different way.
It is great to view ideals and beliefs as an illness that affect the body no different to a virus – they are things that do not naturally belong in our being, that infiltrate and infect us and create disharmony in the body, but can be eliminated and removed.
It does seem crazy that work wears us down and takes such a heavy toll on our bodies. Is it no wonder then that many of us see work as something to be endured rather than enjoyed?
Yes, it is nearly taken as a given that work demands sacrificing our body, in whatever way that may be depending on the circumstances. And that is crazy – I can feel how I have bought into this misconception myself at times and just relegated my health to the bottom of the list.
Yes, it’s horrible when people feel their body is the enemy. Actually, that was me. Now I’m so appreciative of it because it is my loyalest friend ever.
haha. Our body is our greatest inconvenience until we accept it is our greatest teacher.
Cherise you have described so well how ideals and beliefs hold us to a way of treating our bodies harmfully and how it is possible to be free of being owned by the constant pressure and expectations we allow to govern our way of living.
It is incredible Cherise that you had to work such irregular shifts, sometimes for over 7 days, and night and morning shifts in a row. I hear this a lot around me and I notice that I then think: “oh it is only at that workplace/hospital”, but I get a sense that this is so much more common than I realise. I feel we should take much more care for shift workers, to at least make sure they do not have to do these irregular shifts. As you say it sometimes seems that there is no other way, yet this is a belief and when let go of, can open up a whole new way of doing it.
I agree Lieke. Night or weekend shifts are an important part of certain professions, but to do these regularly only works if we have a rhythm that will support us having such variable routines.
I have experienced those shifts myself, Susie. I have found the strange working schedule in England that they call the ‘European schedule’ – a new standard routine of working four days of days, then two days off and then return to do four nights. The body has a natural rhythm and this flip–flopping our sleep patterns causes a higher level of sickness in staff. It was explained to me it makes it fair for everyone. I just see it as a way to abuse everyone all of the time.
Good point, Lieke, let’s not just accept a situation because ‘it is the done thing’. If there is a way to be more loving with our systems we need to make sure that we are open to change.
It is our bodies that will best re-write the systems and not our minds.
These kind of working patterns are common in social care environments too Lieke. I’m sorry to say that the priority is in getting shifts covered, rather than looking after the wellbeing of the staff. And staff members often sacrifice their own wellbeing for additional pay, or to gain recognition and because they are worried about losing their jobs. We have to realise that staff wellbeing has a direct impact on the quality of interaction and relationship with patients, service-users, customers – and therefore the business or service itself. My feeling is that this is well known and common sense – but that the potential implications of the way businesses are run is more than we are willing to accept…and will remain until the health and wellbeing of our staff teams force us to change – if that isn’t happening already.
Yes well described and said Richard. It is like the shifts are being covered with staff as if they are robots and can do anything as well as the staff members often don’t do it any other way. But as you say the quality of care for the patients gets less when it is done this way. We cannot see it only as the end product: the patients get cared for, we have to see it as a one like healthy managers, healthy staff, healthy care, healthy patients and in the end this results in a healthy community.
We need to see that the way we are working in our health and social services is not currently conducive to the wellbeing of the staff and is in truth creating more illness and disease. There is a fundamental lack of integrity here. One day – soon hopefully – we will acknowledge this lack of integrity and appreciate its true impact. To become a healthy race of beings, we have to live in a way that supports true wellbeing – whatever work we are doing.
Agreed Lieke, this does feel like a belief that does not in truth serve anyone. If we were to open up to honouring and respecting what our bodies reveal perhaps we could design a schedule that supports everyone.
The shifts you describe Cherise as having to work, and that are all too common in our caring professions, shows to me a system within a society in crisis. We have allowed things to get to a stage where we don’t place value on the things that matter, and it is almost inevitable that people will break down when they are asked to work such intense patterns.
I can relate to this blog as I have also had lower back pain for many years. I have come to know that my back is a great barometer of how I am living. If I am pushing my body too hard to achieve a certain outcome, or changing me in any way to fit in or to be liked or to be nice, then my back lets me know that I have compromised myself in some way. When I have claimed who I am and the truth of what I feel, my back feels looser and less sore.
How awesome that our bodies communicate and register the quality of our living Andrew. I am appreciating that my body is my master teacher. It naturally knows harmony and will let me know so. There is a whole new level of responsibility to be gained if we are to address our health issues as a society.
Learning to listen to my body has been a true revelation in my life. It really does offer the most clear and true feedback on how we are living, what we are eating, our movements etc. It is a truly amazing ‘companion’ and guide for life.
Cherise you have uncovered something huge here in the whole way we look at illness and recovery. When our bodies become ill they are actually communicating with us that we have evolved or need to evolve or move on from a way of living that no longer support us. And yet the whole way of thinking around being ill revolves around getting back to how things were. So when we do this, we are in effect working against the whole purpose of the illness in the first place!
Amazing blog about such an important subject. The statistics on lower back pain show that it is one of the most common ailments that we all experience. Could it be related to holding back or over-riding our natural rhythm and truth that we constantly feel?
My back is a weak spot in my body. I remember soon after relocating to another country I was debilitated by back pain. I could not figure out what had caused it. On the surface our move had gone smoothly, but I remember vividly a moment in a swimming pool where I admitted to myself that I was worried about if we had made the right decision. In that acceptance my back pain immediately went.
That is a great example Debra, having suffered with a bad back for years I know what it is like and I had a similar experience. Some years back my husband went out and bought another tent, which I did not see the need for. Shortly after I developed a back ache and when I was in the shower one morning I was asking myself why was I mad about him buying a tent and I realised that I was worried about money and instantly the back ache went.
When we believe something should be a certain way, we close off to other possibilities. I can see how that results in tension and dis-ease in the body.
And chances are, we are not that great in what we are doing and delivering to others because it is all based on a compromise and on sacrifice at the alter of a belief – and we pay for it with our true health and wellbeing.
There is much to what you have both expressed here. I am only beginning to feel and see the insidiousness of beliefs and what a thick wall of defence they are, constructed to protect me from what could not be further away from what I am currently responding to.
Beautifully shared, Cherise – “I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal and when I truly listen I am brought back to the truth of what I know and how to be in the way that I live.” Our bodies inform us precisely how we can best serve and nurture ourselves and others.
This is so true Janet, ‘Our bodies inform us precisely how we can best serve and nurture ourselves and others.’ It is quite incredible how most of us ignore our bodies, eating junk food, drinking alcohol, staying up late – all of these go against what is natural for the body, it is like we are in a constant, daily battle with our bodies, doing the opposite to what would be caring and nurturing for them.
At times my body has felt quite uncomfortable as an ideal or belief leaves my body, highlighting the pain that my body was in even though the ideal/belief couldn’t be felt.
No-one should feel that exhausted and have so much pain at that tender age.
And we are all responsible for the individuality that leads to this pain and exhaustion Jeanette. Cherise and thousands like her would never end up with a severe back injury if we understood that we are made to work together. In fact it is the only way we will ever truly live the love that we all know is possible.
“…when I don’t honour what I feel and what is true for me, my body tells me through an ache, pain or tightness straight away, reminding me that I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal and when I truly listen I am brought back to the truth of what I know and how to be in the way that I live.”
This is a great reminder that our bodies forever communicate, but do we listen?
I remember being told once that where there is no listening there is no communication. Made sense to me – yet how often do we fail to truly listen? Here we have an amazing connection to true wisdom that is present all day, every day – we just need to ‘present’ ourselves too and be humble enough to hear it.
Imagine a life where we could hear the beautiful sounds that are communicated from our body, and not only the screams of illness or disease that are signalled to get our attention because we have ignored everything up until that point…
Great point Liane – there are times when we may feel our bodies are not communicating or have never communicated to us, however it is simply that we have not been listening or have chosen to ignore what they have been telling us.
A great question Liane. We sometimes lead ourselves to believe that there is ‘no support available to us’, and we can blame the people we are in relationships with (family, friends, partners etc.) when we’re having a rough time for not helping us through it or being ‘there’ for us. To make these excuses and justifications we have to completely ignore our bodies – the best friend we thought we never had, constantly giving us advice and reflections on what choices are true and what choices are not; the best support in the world.
We live in a gigantic body of love that is God, also known as The Universe. Within this body, our body is constantly receiving messages and signals from the greater body in which we are held. This communication pathway is both magnificent and simple, for it is how we are naturally designed to be. Our physical bodies are vehicles of expression that receive impulses from non-physical realities; the formlessness becomes form and is thus expressed into physicality.
But…and it’s a big ‘but’ – instead of allowing this natural communication pathway to occur, what we do is tamper with this communication by placing obstructions in the way so that the messages can’t be received in full. These obstructions can be foods we eat that dull our receptors, the way we move (counter to a true way to move that supports the body) and by assimilating a vast array of ideals and beliefs that act as blockers that serve to inhibit this communication, as Cherise has so eloquently described.
Remove these blockers and the wisdom of the Universe is there on tap, because it is within every pore of our beings and cell of our bodies, for such wisdom is simply the love of God pouring in and through us and it does all this, all of the time.
Thank you Liane, I could feel my body responding and expanding to the truth you share here. Nothing ignites me more than knowing and feeling that at a cellular level, I am a replica of all that the universe holds and therefore carry its wisdom. The way I live and move therefore reflects this, or the blockages to this as you so beautifully share.
This is truth, Liane. Every time I honour myself by not blocking those signals, it is amazing to feel the pulse of the universe in my being.
This is beautiful Liane. Thank you for all those beautiful reminders.
“At age 20, I was already feeling drained by my career; how could this be?”. How incredible, isn’t it. I guess many among us can relate to this. I’ve always loved working, but looking back I was definitely worn out at the end of each day. Getting through the days by eating a lot of sugar (including sugar from bread) and consuming alcohol at the weekends. Making more responsible choices has vitalised me more than ever before. And allthough the learnings never come to an end, I can now honestly say that I wasn’t that honest when I was younger…
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too”. This is basically the foundation that most people are living on, hence the levels of illness and disease are rising. I have found it is only when I started to develop a relationship with myself rather than following what I think I should be or be doing that I can feel and see how tightly bound I have lived in this way. Listening to our body is key to unravelling this.
Yes, our bodies are amazing and know the truth. They are our best friend so it is crazy how little we listen to them!
We can take our best friends for granted too Nicola!
Nicola indeed, the more we get to appreciate our body and what it tells us, the more we also realise how little we’ve listened to it, how much it does speak to us and how it’s always told us exactly what we needed to hear, but chose to be ignorant of.
hear hear!
So true Nicola. What if we were educated as a child to acknowledge and appreciate this? It is such a joy to observe this in the children of parents who are students of the Way of the Livingness.
Agree Nicola – my body, a friend that is worth listening to and a relationship that is to honor and care for. I have more joyful conversations with my body since I start to care for it/me.
Me too Sandra, my body and I have become great friends and have lots of very lovely and often very amusing conversations. By old habit, every now and then I can be a little rude and not listen, but my body is very patient and politely and firmly reminds me and speaks a little louder if need be!
If my body to me (and yours to you) is such a great friend even when I am not to it – imagine if I would honor this relationship and talk and act equally in/from love, like my body does….we both together (my body and I) could reach the sky. 😉
My body & I: a Dream-team. Only that dreaming it will not make it real – but living it. 🙂
ha ha very true Sandra, it is certainly about living and walking it and not all talk and words
And words are beautiful and can be healing if used from a body which is connected to its essence and lives what it says.
This is an interesting point Nicola. If we consider how much we are ignoring, overriding and simply not listening to ourselves, we have to question what quality we are bringing to our relationships. We don’t often like to think that we may be standing in front of someone talking and listening intently, but on a deeper level that same ignoring and not truly listening is also taking place. How we are with ourselves is in fact playing out in every interaction. I love how these kinds of realizations inspire us to go deeper.
Excellent point Vicky, if we don’t listen to ourselves then we certainly are not truly listening to others, even if we think we are. Recently I have been attempting to stay fully present every time I walk through a door. It is amazing how often I find that I have walked through a door and forgotten to be present. I did the same experiment some years ago in terms of being aware every time I took off my seat belt. The more aware I become, the more aware of how unaware I am. Equally the more I start to listen, the more I become aware of my quality and presence (or lack thereof) when listening.
I am realising just how much I have spent my life living up to ideals and beliefs that were never mine. This is quite horrible to feel how hard I have been with myself and others as a result. Living life from a coping mode is no longer possible and true allowing, feeling and vulnerability is the only way, listening and honouring my body and this is a moment by moment process to catch out these thoughts and beliefs. A great blog offering a true foundation of communication with our bodies thank you.
It is quite one thing to have your own opinion which many of us believe we have. But when we look closer, are they really ours? Or are they passed down and fed to us as our own? When we understand that even our thoughts are energy feeding us, we can begin to look a little closer at what really goes on, and then as to whether we should pay heed to our thoughts at all.
Yes Jenny Hayes, well said. A closer scrutiny of ‘our thoughts’ might be quite revealing and show us that we have in fact taken on the thoughts and energy of others throughout life. Not so much ‘our thoughts’ at all but more of a ‘thought soup’ that we tap into.
Tricia, I can second what you have written. Also I have lived from ideals and beliefs and now I realize in wanting to undo them I am caught in new or other ideals and beliefs. It is a layer after layer process which requires honesty to expose them and eventually get not anymore trapped by them.
Cherish what a wonderful insight: “When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too.” That is really something most of us have not been taught from day one but this is really something so important that should be taught.
So true, and these ideals and beliefs create a picture of what something should look like. In trying to create this picture we then lose ourselves and harm our bodies in the process.
Lee you nailed it – “In trying to create a picture of what something should look like, we lose ourselves and harm our bodies in the process.”
well said Ester and Lee, we built pictures that are impossible to live up to and so we will always feel we fall short. This feeling keeps us from knowing ourselves in the grandness and divinity that we are and thus is a foundation for illness and disease.
Great point Gill. Before Universal Medicine I thought that if a body ‘looked’ healthy that it was, how very incorrect that belief was. I have since applied the science and art of Self-Care as initiated by Serge Benhayon and my body changed dramatically. There is a massive difference to how I felt before and after and that exposed this belief for what it was.. completely false.
I have had a similar experience Matthew. I used to be a fitness instructor and on the outside I looked great, but on the inside it was a different story. Bringing the focus to how I feel on the inside has turned my life around and now there is a wholeness to the way I live. Self-care is a major part of this change and it’s no longer just about the look. I too was inspired by the presentations of Serge Benhayon to see there was another way to live.
There are many beliefs in the caring profession that make carers forget about themselves for the betterment of others and that this is something to be congratulated. Many nurses/carers live a very exhausted life because of this and the consequences are enormous.
Self-sacrifice is huge in nursing and many of the “caring” professions. But who are these professions caring for? Definitely not the people working in the professions!
Great point Matthew in medicine putting our bodies on the line and taking care of others more than ourselves is often championed. This is an idealistic disease in itself.
Yes Matthew, to hold ideals and beliefs is really like a foreign body within us and we know how disharmonious that is. Our body works hard to rid itself of what is not natural to it. No different to ideals and beliefs which are not actually physical but affect us all the same.
That is a very important point, bernadetteglass – that the ideals and beliefs ARE something foreign to our body, and not just the choices we make because of them.
True Matthew Brown and one of the consequences is the current staffing crisis in both Health and Social Care professions. Sadly, this puts even more pressure on those amazing people who choose this line of work as their career and who would ‘do anything’ to support those in their care. We must learn and learn fast about looking after ourselves and how this impacts on the quality of what we share with others.
Great point Matthew, I worked as a carer some years ago and the system is not set up to care for the carers whilst they care for others, but then it wouldn’t be if it does not come from the carers themselves first. Now I know this but back then it never occurred to me and I just struggled through.
This is so true. Our ideals are always at the expense of our body, and yet we often do not stop to question the struggle until it is unbearable.
This is so true Matthew, ‘There are many beliefs in the caring profession that make carers forget about themselves for the betterment of others and that this is something to be congratulated’, working part time as a carer i see carers get sick all the time – hurt their backs; push themselves; working long hours; covering calls and there is so much staff sickness because there seems to be such a lack of care from the carers for themselves and also from the care companies, staff turnaround is huge. I wonder when companies will realise that looking after staff is a priority rather than working carers so hard that they get ill.
I have found the belief that you look after others first to the exclusion of how you feel, to be such a damaging and destructive belief. How can anyone truly care for another if they do not care deeply for themselves first?
Ideals and beliefs are are like an addictive substance, taken or used to prevent me from feeling and embracing the truth that my body already knows what will heal and support me. I just can’t or haven’t held enough love for myself to trust how amazingly connected I am to this deep wisdom!
This poison of ideals and beliefs is so firmly set in our bodies that it permeates every nook and cranny. Once we reconnect to our innate wisdom and love, slowly, very slowly we begin to drain out the poison and clear our system.
Another great blog Cherise. I love your sharing in this line, …’I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal …’. Only when I stop and trust this wisdom do I begin to appreciate that my body naturally knows how to return to harmony.
Thank you for highlighting that line Bernadette – it really resonated with me also, for we all carry within a wisdom far greater than anything outside of us, far greater than anything we have been taught or told. It is simply a matter of re-learning to listen to our bodies and trust ourselves once again.
This is beautiful bernadetteglass. Trusting the wisdom that is within and knowing that our body knows what is true for it is absolutely liberating. I know the best way to support myself is through supporting my body and I have the wisdom to do this when I trust.
Bernadette love what you say, ‘Only when I stop and trust this wisdom do I begin to appreciate that my body naturally knows how to return to harmony.’
Acknowledging how much the world constantly tells us how we must live up to ideals, supports me to observe where I’m taking on these ideals on so I can let them go and give my body the space to return to harmony. It’s rather like how my body does all the wonderful things it does, digest food, regrow skin etc, I can trust and support it to return to harmony by not imposing stresses on it to deal with.
Gorgeous Karin. My appreciation for my body functions is a microcosm of my bigger body that we all inhabit. Your reply here has allowed me to stop and ‘go there’ again and deeply appreciate that I am held in a much greater system of love and wonder that I can fully comprehend.
Thank you, Bernadette and Karin – a great reminder that our body is naturally in harmony when it is left on its own accord, and what it does, what we take for granted, is actually nothing short of a miracle – and it is us that gets in its way when we choose something outside of us to adhere to, instead of this amazing wisdom we are endowed with.
Yes, this line really puts the truth about ideals and beliefs into perspective doesn’t it. Well said Bernadette Glass.
Beautiful response Bernadette to an inspiring blog from Cherise. How true it is that we carry a wisdom infinitely greater than our ideals, beliefs and pictures. Being open to this divine wisdom is our responsibility and our joy.
I agree Bernadette, and it is for us to constantly confirm and appreciate such a wisdom is innate to us all so it is a normal way of living for us all.
I love this line too Bernadette and a gorgeous reminder to deeply appreciate what we already have so we can let go of the trying to live up to any ideal or belief.
Illness and disease is telling us that we are off track and our bodies are our marker of truth and how we are living. What amazing things our bodies and we are, and taking the time to appreciate all we are and to listen to all that is being shown to us is so important. As we don’t like to listen to small things, gradually we are given bigger and bigger messages, until one day we will choose to listen and change how we live to one of loving self care and so much more.
I as many others in the past when getting ill looked for someone or thing to blame. When the only person we can ever blame is our self. As you have said Trica, when you don’t listen to small messages from our body… it always has the final word to get our attention.
Cherise, I would love you to share this with other nurses – maybe a short course or something! Back injuries are so common with nurses and many just carry on with the belief, as you had, that they must get back to work. Unfortunately many organisations encourage this as well. There is no amount of fancy “Back to Work” programs that can replace the wisdom held in our bodies.
I think what you’ve shared here Cherise is super important for everyone to consider. If we feel drained by work (more than just natural tiredness) then what is it that is causing this – looking to whether we are running with an ideal or belief rather than from the truth of our body is a key thing to review.
The “right” thing to do, or what I “should” do …
These are the traps of the beliefs we assume. Upturning these and living from the simplicity of the body and its divine order is one of the most liberating gestures we can choose for ourselves, which is ultimately the greatest support for humanity.
We take on the beliefs at a very young age that we can drive and thrash our body to work and play hard, and we get away with it usually because our body is young and vital. Until such time as it doesn’t; it catches up with us and we are forced to get honest. But we don’t need to live allowing such foolishness to dominate. We can let our divine connection be our guiding light and make wise choices at any stage. We are so worth taking precious care of.
Thanks Cherise for sharing that the wisdom in our bodies is there and when choose to listen to that wisdom we can see on a deeper level how our bodies are showing us the way. Are the aches and pains just something that happens to our bodies? Or are those aches and pains there as a result of the way we have been living?
I love that you have shared and thus reminded us all that we carry and can listen to a wisdom within us that is far greater than any ideal or belief … and in doing so can be brought back to a truth we know and can live. You are living proof that there is enormous power and healing in true medicine and living from the inside out.
‘With this simple conversation, I let go of a belief that I had created and had held in my own head for a very long time, and with my renouncing of its controlling hold, I just let it go!’ This is momentous Cherise, these ‘game changers’ in our lives give reason to celebrate and appreciate ourselves for the exalted steps we choose to take.
Those precious moments we can have with ourselves when we give moment to pause and question the otherwise uninterrupted stream of ‘should’s and oughts’, mark a great moment for us to celebrate – in appreciation for choosing to stay present with what we’re feeding ourselves with.
How very revealing it is, that in our holding on to ‘where we think we were’ as to where we must get back to as soon as possible, when in actual fact our bodies lovingly let us know via the various halts to that momentum, that where that was was in truth not where we need to be. When we allow ourselves to accept that in fact our body has ‘our backs’ so to speak we will save ourselves a whole lot of pain and resistance.
I do feel that the point of ‘enough is enough’ is when the body shouts so loud that we cannot fail but too listen, being stopped in our tracks. When you are feeling intense pain seems to be the time we really listen and truly question and, review how and why, we are choosing to live in such a restricted/exhausting roller coaster of a ride that, takes us up the same old worn pathway of ideals and beliefs we set ourselves. It is a dis-ease in the body. As previously said it is time to very much look more closely at what supports us and honour our bodies and what truly serves us in our every living day, in our every living way. Such an inspirational sharing Cherise thank you.
Thank you Cherise, your article left me pondering on just how many beliefs (or probably a more apt name would be “be-lies” because they simply aren’t true!) we hold onto without considering or questioning yet they impact on how we live our lives each day, informing our choices and essentially resulting in us living lesser versions of who we are.
Learning to love and respect the communication from our bodies is something i am working on and is a real gift and something so often ignored as a way of living in society and pressures today. There is a never ending depth to this that i can now feel and is a journey of love and understanding.Thank you Cherise for presenting your story so beautifully and all your wisdom offers .
I agree Susan it is a miracle how our bodies deal with and what we put it through and that we take it for granted. It is only when we start to really listen to our bodies we realise it actually knows more than the mind, and is in fact our one true friend.
It is really amazing Julie, considering how much abuse bodies are put through, how they can regenerate when given the love and care that is needed.
I love that Julie – “our bodies are in fact our one true friend” – they are with us no matter what, despite all that we put them thru!
Your story is a great example of how when we let go of what we think our life should look like and surrender our vehicle to the divine we will know our part in the plan. I am attempting to do this at the moment as I can see that I have plenty of ideas about how my life should look, I am exposing these and the surrendering to what is actually needed.
So true Susan- it is seen as completely normal to have an ideal or belief of how you want yourself to be. I have found out how capping this actually is.
“I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.” So true Cherise. It holds us back from so many things that are true for us. Thank you for sharing this. Being able to let go and appreciate and accept where you are/what’s going on for you is an amazing feat.
It is not the thought or belief that takes me out of my natural rhythm, it is my investment in them. The world is rife with beliefs and ideals about how I should be, but which ones I choose, if any, is up to me. Allowing our bodies natural rhythm determine my quality of life is key.
There is a world of difference between what is ‘right’ and what is ‘true’. This world of difference is known through the body. As one is an activity driven by the mind that is absent of Love, absent of the connection to our body that it is contained in and as such in complete separation to what is true, functioning in dis-regard to what the body calls for. And the other is an activity of Love that is in connection to our hearts, our body where our movements are a confirmation that honor the Love that we are. Cherise you have shown us very practically how we can at any moment simply change the quality of our activity to be one that honors the Love that we all are, by bringing awareness to how we are feeling in our bodies and choosing to honor the truth that it always communicates to us.
When we live from ideals and beliefs we are caught in a paradigm of trying to fit into a mental construct that restricts the natural flow of life. This limits us in seeing and feeling the bigger picture and keeps a lid on what is our natural expansion.
So true Donna the mind and its thinking is so narrow compared to the natural flow and order of life. The felt sense takes in the whole picture while quite often the five senses just confirm a certain picture that we already hold.
You are a living evidence Cherise, I agree, that ideals and beliefs only serve to cripple us, as it is only of loveless-ness from which they stem. When we seek outside of ourselves we negate and override our truth within through which we instead are easily driven, thinking and believing it is what ‘should’ be done, to achieve an outcome at all costs, the greatest cost being our bodies. Yet when we are willing to be honest we discover that there is a liberation in connecting to our truth, and that there is a well of wisdom within our bodies ready to guide us in every moment.
Such an important sharing Cherise – applicable to any belief we hold on to. Holding tighter than the wisdom within causes a tension in the body – for me this is when the aches, pains and warning signals start. The body lets us know when our actions are out of balance to the natural flow of wisdom that we are. Listening to this and honouring this I discovered supports my body to be vital and work easily without exhaustion.
Dear Sally,
I am in the midst of a huge change in my life and am experiencing my world opening up in ways that I never imagined possible. There is one word that constantly resonates deeply in my body just now and that is AWE. I am in AWE of what I can live and in AWE of what I can now feel that I offer our world.
Your comment is bringing tears to my eyes Leigh. As this is exactly what I’m feeling too. The Amazingness that I bring is so precious and Grand. I’ve always took it for granted, did as if it is normal, where now I choose to acknowledge the Power and a life without any struggle. It’s beautiful and very humble to feel, yet I’m still in the process of accepting it. Thank you for sharing what you’re going through.
I can relate to this Leigh and this was a word I was never able to use or even understand until Serge Benhayon brought it to my attention and from there I have been able to really connect to just how incredible we all our in our own divine way.
Wow Leigh, this is beautiful to read, and shows your dedication and committment to yourself. When we really open up to the love that we are, magic happens.
You made me smile Leigh as I remember a presentation recently where Serge Benhayon spoke about us being full of awe and I realised what a bastardisation the word ‘awful’ is because it great to be awe-full.
Thank you for this Leigh Strack – it is very inspiring.
This is beautiful Leigh. I have seen a few people around me letting go of so much lately and the transformation into who they truly are is AMAZING. Once we let go of these ideals and beliefs and anything that is not true, it is like a beautiful flower blooming.
Our body is amazing Susan, as you say, it copes with all the different ways we abuse it, from substances we consume to the way we thrash it with sport or other activities, over work, etc. But it will only take so much, and gives us gentle signs when we are pushing it too far, and if we keep ignoring these signs, they eventually get bigger and louder until we listen.
Our language of – what should I do? – and – what is the right thing to do? – show us how we hold onto ideas that there is only one way, or that the way ahead is prescribed and if we deviate we are wrong. It is much lovelier to have a more fluid approach and allow ourselves to be open to what is needed. Many of us ignore our bodies as much as we can, because they do not fit into the plan of what we want to do. We charge ahead until we can charge no more, instead of heeding the wisdom of our body.
I love that you consider every ache part of the body’s wisdom and communication with you Cherise. It is totally worth considering that these are messages and signs to be heeded.
Yes Susan. I know from personal experience that the time we are more ready to listen to the loving wisdom our body keeps offering us aaalllll the time is when our back is against the wall – figuratively – such as an accident, disease, or incident that stops us in our tracks and we have no other recourse but to look within. It would serve us well to build a loving relationship with our body so that it becomes the normal for us to pay attention and read what is being offered as we go, before it escalates to something that forces us to stop.
Our bodies are always speaking with us, from my experience it is just the listening, honouring and responding part I don’t think we have been great at doing! It was a massive revelation when I learnt through Natalie Benhayon and Universal Medicine that our periods reflect how we have been living the month before! I had no idea about this and used to feel/think that I was completely powerless when it came down to my periods and the pain I had during them. Now I share this with others whenever I get the chance to, we have a lot to learn and share and Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine and Esoteric Women’s Health are paving the way for us here with truth and love.
Very revealing to read about the stranglehold that your firm and unwavering belief had cast over you; I wonder how many times that actually happens in everyday life without us even being aware of it? It is as though we take ourselves hostage and won’t relent.
This is a great way to describe ideals and beliefs – ‘It is as though we take ourselves hostage and won’t relent.’ As we invite a force to repeatedly hold us back, imposing on our right to freely live the Love we naturally are.
Indeed beliefs and ideals hold us to a way we “should” live rather than living life from the felt sense and what is true for us.
“I wonder how many times that actually happens in everyday life without us even being aware of it?” mmm, scary to wonder about sometimes, I’m sure its a lot!
Cherise l am truly grateful for this simple description of ideals and beliefs. This blog has clarified much for me regarding how they can be a detrimental force governing our choices. “we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too. In this we contract ourselves away from the natural expression and personal rhythm that we can otherwise live our lives in and from.”
‘When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too’ – this is a really important point Cherise; we can so easily become caught up in doing the ‘right’ thing, when this could be the complete opposite of what supports us or is needed at that time. Instead of looking outside of ourselves for the answer of what this ‘right’ thing to do is (based on ideals and beliefs), we should be feeling into and pondering on how the situation is affecting our body, and how we can support others as well as ourselves. In your case, being exhausted and working long days late into the evening meant that the patients were met by someone who was tired, rather than someone who was able to support them without feeling exhausted – and thus to increase this service to patients you had to find a way to look after yourself.
Cherise, back again to read and savour this beautiful blog. Reading your words today, in particular ‘I had placed so much pressure on myself to get back to where I was that I was not listening to my own body and what it actually felt it could do.’ reminds me of this game I can play … I get to a space where I feel great in me, and then somehow things change or I don’t feel great anymore and then I beat myself up and chase that great feeling from before and all the while I’m missing connecting to me and where I’m at right now, feeling how I am (great or otherwise) and it’s exposing two things right now, how I’m attached to feeling great and to keeping great as a validation that I’m ok, and how I can go into a pattern of berating myself when I’m not.
The truth is I’m absolutely fine no matter what is going on, and that I don’t need to get attached to feeling a particular way and life is ever evolving, so that great I might have felt yesterday may not be great today, again a beautiful lesson in not getting attached. Thank you for the inspiration today which has allowed me to feel where my body is right now, and what it needs right now.
According to your phrase “It’s a disease in our bodies.” It would be a dis-ease to believe in God – this sounds crazy! But – I find it is true – as long as I believe in God I don’t know him and then anyone can tell me what God wants me to do and gain power over me. The moment I let go of the belief and put in practice what is needed to get to know God (breathing gently etc.) I can feel what God impulses me to do and rekindle my power from within.
Felix – yes. No belief ever brought me to the feeling of God I now know that comes from deep within. Surrendering to my body and allowing myself to feel God, my love from within. There is no other feeling like it.
“I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies”, so well said Cherise.
I agree Alexis. This is a powerful point Cherise has shared as it asks us to consider more deeply the possibility that the disease we see in our bodies is an end result of a quality of energy we have allowed to run our bodies, an energy that goes against our natural way of being. And so if it is us that chooses the quality of energy it is also us that can change what it is that we are choosing.
Cherise your illuminating article has been posted under the heading of medicine and indeed what you have shared is such great universal medicine. Thank you.
Whilst doing my exercises this morning, for the first time I connected with and felt the deep, strong, physically holding support that the muscles along my spine offer my body. Having ideals and beliefs around what I need to do exercise wise has kept me from feeling the support that is already present in my body.
Exercise to support, confirm and enhance what is already present is now a new understanding I will bring to my exercise routine.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too.”- Yes, Cherise this is so true and it is often very hard to let go of our ideals and beliefs because they are so ingrained, and we want to be doing the “right thing”- coming from our head, but our body is clearly saying something else.
A great reminder to look more deeply into what ideals and beliefs we are still holding onto that are creating dis-ease in our body.
Beliefs and ideals are actually quite imprisoning. They keep us locked into certain outcomes and we can become so unaware of what’s truly needed when we focus on them. What’s actually needed to nurture and care for ourselves changes day to day, and knowing what’s needed comes from listening to ourselves and to our body moment to moment. Beliefs and ideals are very rigid and are dictated from outside of ourselves, they are like set rules which simply cannot truly apply. Beliefs and ideals are static things, they are not truly connected to the moment, and they come from a thinking mind disconnected to the body, and not from feeling and knowing what is right for ourselves.
What’s wonderful to read is how, when you let go of the beliefs that had you thinking you had to return to a place of work that your body was communicating wasn’t supportive, a job that did support you was there. It’s like once we change how we are with ourselves, the world can deliver what does support us because we’re ready to support ourselves.
I agree whole heartedly with what you share here, for it has too been my experience.
Exactly Karin, ‘ye have little faith’ who believe there is not a greater plan at work awaiting our willingness to not fight it.
Karin, that is super profound what you have shared here – “once we change how we are with ourselves, the world can deliver what does support us” – we set the tone for our life, it is not something that randomly happens to us.
I’m so inspired to look at what ideals and beliefs I am still holding onto that are causing my body great stress and anxiety. So rather than be driven by them, turn them around by simply questioning them and their validity, they can be dropped and I can walk a true path.
It is all very simple when we are willing to get out of the rut we otherwise solidify and even cement.
Agreed Marika, it is another way of controlling how life should be and holding to an image like that will only go against the natural flow of our evolution and at the expense of our bodies.
Thank you Cherise, indeed our bodies hold an innate wisdom and all we have to is connect and honour them for the divinity they are regardless of age of aoccupation.
I’ve always known that my mental state affected my physical body, but allowed my mind to call the shots to override what my body was telling me. There is a term ‘mind over matter’ which basically says that you can will yourself to do or overcome anything. It’s based on positive thinking and is the total opposite from what I now know the truth to be. It is our body that holds the wisdom and the more we nurture and listen to what it is telling us, the more it can tell us by way of reading energy i.e. reading people and situations. When my body feels light and clear, I read everything. When I numb it, I’m not able to read so clearly, if at all and my mind will want to come in and take over.
I was into positive thinking in a big way for a long time in my life but what I have come to know, with the loving reflection of Serge Benhayon, is that there is a deep and true wisdom within me and in all of us. This reveals that positive thinking is a mental ‘outside in’ approach to life that creates a nice picture, but one that is unnecessary when we reconnect with that inner wisdom about how life truly is.
That’s it richardmills363, the mind creates a picture, and that picture can be based on ideals of how things should or need to be, or it can be based on a fear of what it could be (e.g. worrying/anxiety). Either way, it doesn’t connect to the wisdom held within our body.
As a young nurse, it seems that the missing piece in your ability to support people in rehabilitation Cherise, was self care – how to support your own body, nurture yourself, ensure your body is fit for the work you’re doing, etc to be able to do the job without feeling burnout at 20, and with an injury at 21. This is vital in any profession (and life generally) so that we are able to do the job we’ve signed up for, but know when we need to stop, take a break, say no to something that is beyond our physical capability or ask for support for ourselves. Self-care is a foundation we establish for ourselves so that we can offer support to others that doesn’t compromise ourselves.
The most insidious and harming ideals and beliefs are those we hold high and strive for because of their ‘goodness’, good intention, good doing. To see their harming effects usually takes time as we need to shake off the blindness that comes with ‘good’ but lacks truth.
Thank you Cherise and Alex, I agree, “good” comes with many sugar coatings that hide what is truly going on and actually rarely produce the true goods. The truth is a lived wisdom from the body that is unshakeable and it is a good thing that truth can hold in all situations!
So true Greg there is a solid consistent lived truth that the body can reflect and on the other side it holds all our ill choices as well.
This Blindness of ‘doing good’ is very heavy as you say Alex and has such a huge impact on ourselves and our bodies. I can only imagine what it would be like if you were truly blind and then start to see again and the feeling that this would be like, life changing. This too is what it is like when you start to see the truth behind ‘being nice and being good’ – life changing.
It´s a quantum leap in consciousness that rocks the very foundation of society and life as we know it for now.
Yes, the difference between being ‘good’ and being ‘true’ is a big one, although this difference is not always understood.
I love your comment Alex. It is so true that chasing the ideal of a ‘good’ life never fulfilled what I was in truth searching for. It only kept me from seeing and knowing that what I was seeking was with me all along, within.
Being ‘good’ keeps us incarcerated in a way of life that lacks truth.
I too love Alex’s comment, a way of living that I was caught up in. The pressure I used to place on myself to be good at everything (um, an impossibility) constantly left me tired, needy and lost to what I always knew was truth, but could not even begin to put a voice to. Thankfully this way of living is something that I am letting go of, and in so doing many ideals and beliefs I held around being good are being exposed for the horrendous falseness it is.
Being ‘bad’ is the evil twin of being ‘good’, and just as incarcerating.
Well said Alexis, “good” and “bad” are different sides of the same coin.
Hannah, good and bad are definitely 2 sides of the same coin, as are nice and nasty also 2 sides of the same coin. I flipped the coin of nasty to nice overnight, not realising that they both served the same purpose, which was to keep people from hurting me.
Great observation Alexis, for as long as we are still holding the coins, we are still caught in playing a game, rather than being ourselves.
Every now and then it is well worthwhile stopping and asking that question: “who says….” and check if what we are assuming to be true does actually feel true. Sometimes at such moments I realise that I already have a niggling knowing that things are not quite as I have assumed, and sometimes I find I am no longer in agreement with an old beliefs but I am still behaving as if I am, so I realise I need to look deeper in that area. It is always a valuable stock take. Serge Benhayon has been a great inspiration in posing many questions that offer a stop for me to look again.
A great point Golnaz to stop and ask ourselves the question “Who says?” Giving our power away to anything without discerning it first is widespread. We have experts, scientists, guidelines, etc, a culture of others knowing best, and an over abundance of information on every topic at our fingertips. Stopping to feel and trust ourselves, and test out the truth of things for ourselves when necessary, is essential.
I agree Golnaz, there is an innocence we hold deep within that feels so deeply true, yet as I begin to spend time with the joyful essence of my innocence, I feel so very vulnerable on one hand and on the other, so full of joy and playfulness that simply shifts anything I hold that cannot fit with this. A journey of exploration that is a joy to be living.
The essence of living, bears no comparison to the inanimate motion of existing or surviving, gorgeous Leigh thank you!
Yes I agree Golnaz, stopping to take a moment to question where a belief or ideal came from and is it true is very powerful and I love how Serge Benhayon continually supports us to quiz what so many of us take for granted. It has been fundamental in transforming my habits from ones that regularly harmed my body into choices that honour, nourish and enhance me and what I can offer the world. The most healthy question we can ask is “does this feel right for me AND my body?”
The desire to ‘get back to normal’ after an illness or injury is so common. In my own experience when I was very ill many years ago, I recall a turning point in my recovery being when I surrendered to what was going on, and I accepted that my life may never be the same again. It was in the acceptance that my body started to show me what it needed to support it. Now, many years later, my vitality is way beyond what it was before the illness, and so ‘getting back to normal’ isn’t the answer, but to surrender to the process and be very honest about the part we’ve played in the choices we’ve made that have led to the illness or injury.
So very true Sandra, I hear people all the time using that phrase of “I just want to get back to normal” after an illness. But what if what was ‘normal’ was the very thing that made them sick in the first place? As Cherise has pointed out in her blog, our so-called ‘normal’ ideals and beliefs are making us very sick. It is definitely time to look deeper at how we are living and whether it supports us or not. I have had to and it has been well worth the effort.
Major illness is really a massive stop point for us, to truly ponder on our life choices to that moment, but so often we enter into battle with our bodies because we feel we have lost something we need to fight to get back. These days I appreciate that every illness is a clearing of the old from my body and an opportunity to bring in something new to my daily rhythm and nurturing, so that my body doesn’t have to keep forcing me into a corner to contemplate my wayward choices too often!
So beautifully said Rowena, illness can bring us to a stop where we have the opportunity to contemplate how we have been living may have contributed to the current moment.
I’ve just had an operation and I’ve come out of that a completely different person. I remember the day after, realising I was profoundly changed, that many things in my life now did not fit this “new me”. My awareness had shifted and I was also seeing life anew. The operation was like the doorway between how I had lived, and how I could live so that this condition would not happen again. In my particular situation it was like there was a new level of love in my body, and living this was the opportunity presented to me when I came out of the hospital.
It is beautiful what you share here Melinda, there can be no doubt as to how supportive conventional medicine can be to our bodies when we approach medical procedures that we need with the added understanding that we had a part in the need for medical support in the first place. Your comment is very powerful.
Really awesome to feel and recognise the healing that your surgery has brought Melinda. The offer or opportunity to change is so often missed. Surgery is seen as a hindrance to their life instead of the opportunity to evolve.
We have given so much power to the idea of ‘normal’ and yet is there really any such thing in reality? Isn’t it just a mass created image that we have bought into and that we allow to control us? We can see what adherence to the norm has done for us in our lives – and yet, as you say Sandra, there is still this desire to get back to it ‘ASAP’ after we have been unwell. Doesn’t this just reveal our disconnection from the awareness that how we live is the best medicine – or the route to illness and disease?
Yes Richard, We see an illness or disease as an inconvenience, something to be gotten rid of so we can return to “normal” without even considering how or why the dis-ease is there in the first place.
That’s Amazing Sandra it would be lovely to hear more about your story and how you went from feeling ill to now feeling a vitality way beyond you have felt.
The drive to ‘get back to normal’ is very strong, but it may be the normal we were living is what got us ill in the first place. What is ‘normal’ anyway?
Precisely Debra. Normal for each of us is just what feels right in the moment.
We really have no idea just how much our way of living affects our body and its vitality until one day when our whole life support system shuts down. Actually we do know, we have always known, but ignored the stream of messages that come from our bodies. The ideals and beliefs about who we are and what we ‘should’ be doing are so deeply entrenched we are unaware of their existence, and we push ourselves just that little bit more. We simply do what we normally do, without a care. When we take care of our bodies, ironically, we can ‘do’ far more.
I love what you are sharing here Carmel Reid. “We have no real idea” but we do have the feelings that we so often ignore time and time again.
I agree Carmel that we do live with the inner knowing that our way of living is harming our body, but we choose to not listen to its continual messages. So why then are we surprised when it brings us to a grinding halt saying “now will you listen?”. It is actually very simple to take care of our body, so why then do we think it is so hard? It doesn’t make sense, when caring for it lovingly has such wondrous results.
Yes Carmel I agree, and how much the ideals often have us under control if we are not aware, how to be, how to behave and how and how much to work. If we do not listen to our bodies, we are and stay puppets of an outer world which dictates to us and this leads to unhealthy lifestyles and choices.
The expectation and holding onto an image of how we want life to be is the real disease that needs to be addressed. What if the physical symptoms were an after affect of the ideals, beliefs and emotions we so cling to? It takes the pressure off our relationship with our bodies, when we ask what is behind the illness and disease.
Cherise, you are describing an amazing amount of pain from an ideal. It reminded me how many people kill and how many more people get killed for ideals.
Yes, that is a great point Christoph – mega millions have been murdered and genocide of entire groups have all be carried out in the name of ideals. Strange how we all rant on about myths such as microwaves cause cancer, burnt food causes cancer, this or that is good or bad for you blah blah but we don’t say ideals are killers.
This is huge Christoph and Nicola, as I say that holding ideals is a disease in our bodies it is a disease and disharmony to the entire human race as one unit. When we make any such move from an ideal we are already in judgement and thus holding ourselves and others at a distance that is falsely created to keep us all as separate entities; the complete opposite to the natural way of brotherhood that we can live. To not hold ideals is to surrender to our essence where no ideal ever existed, to be free of these is to truly live.
When I tell people I feel a bit over whelmed and tired they say “it’s ok, you’re young, you can handle it”. This may be true to a point where my body will be able to regenerate more effectively than an older body, however does this mean it’s okay and I’ll be fine?
NO
This is because a younger body only has the ability to regenerate at a faster rate, not that the harmful activity is any less harmful. In our youth we should be taking care of our bodies, so when it does reach a stage when they aren’t as as fit as they once were, we will have all the good choices behind us and be better able to live life to the fullest, well into old age.
The wisdom of an elderly in the body of a young man – you know what true healing and health are. That is very inspiring and essential for shifting the consciousness that still hold ideals and beliefs like “it’s ok, you’re young, you can handle it”.
Hear, hear. Absolutely agreed. Most of us do not learn how to take care of ourselves and when our body starts deteriorating in our old age, we still do not know how to take care of ourselves and just follow the so-called experts’ opinions and start counting our remaining days.
True Luke and Alex, loving and taking care of our bodies is life-time commitment, not something we leave until chronic conditions have set in.
I agree Luke, when I was younger I would push through, feeling in my young body I was invincible. I can also see how my body was giving me messages all the time and some big stop moments to reconsider if the way I was living was really true.
So true Luke. The “you’re young” catch phrases come out so easily, but it is often looked down upon to contemplate looking after yourself at any early age. This only serves an ideal rather than a truth, what you have shared here needs to be heard by many.
Such awesome wisdom Luke, and your last sentence just oozes with common sense that needs to shared with all the youth of today. “In our youth we should be taking care of our bodies, so when it does reach a stage when they aren’t as fit as they once were, we will have all the good choices behind us and be better able to live life to the fullest, well into old age.”. I for one would have had loved to have had this shared with me when I was young, as I am sure that it would have prevented so much damage to my body, that now that I am older reminds me daily of the consequences of the unloving choice I made over the years.
And I am very fortunate to know what I know now. From the inspiration of the adults around me who have changed their lives.
Well said Luke, the more we look after our bodies, irrespective of our age, the more we will be able to. It is only when we take stuff on that we then become depleted. Yes when we are younger we can regenerate quicker, but that is largely because we have not subjected our bodies to as many years of neglect and abuse!
Agree James, so wouldn’t it be a fascinating experience to look after ourselves since day one. I would also like to add that we must not condemn ourselves for our past choices, this doesn’t serve a purpose. No matter our age, we are able to connect back to our Soul. In the end this is the most important factor of them all.
It would be awesome Luke, I know that my kids will have that opportunity and that is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children. And ditto about not blaming ourselves for our past choices – we can’t change them but we can make different ones now.
Agree James
Beautifully expressed Luke Yokota. The time to learn the rhythms of self-love and care is when we are young and so by the time we are reaching our elder years, it is a strong momentum supporting us to ‘live life to the fullest’ – as you so wisely say.
Luke, the wisdom you share here is breath taking. The care and honour and responsibility you hold your body with is inspirational.
So wise Luke. Our future is guaranteed to be a bright one in the hands of wonderful young adults like you.
I agree Luke. This is the same for many men – when they’re tired or feeling vulnerable they are often told things like, ‘you’re a man – toughen up’, and as you share men who are physically strong or active young people should be taking care of themselves equally to everyone else, be supported and be allowed to show/express how they’re feeling without criticism.
Agree Susie, the trend for the tough man is last century.
Absolutely agree Luke, in our younger years we set the foundations that will support us (or not – depending on our choices) into our older years.
Agree Hannah our younger years offer great foundation to support us in what is yet to come.
This particular belief: “It’s ok, you’re young you can handle it”, is really the wayward spirit’s way of saying “Don’t take responsibility for something I did not take responsibility for at your age, for if you do it will expose the truth of my ill choices and the fact that the quality of my physical health or lack thereof, is a choice that I made long ago.” Big ouch. Luke you, and Cherise, are a gorgeous reflection of how to live in honour of the physical body that enhouses us, and that such wisdom is not owned by any age, that’s why it is called ‘ageless wisdom’!
Spot on Liane, you nailed what runs behind that belief of ““It’s ok, you’re young you can handle it” – it is indeed the result of denying our own connection to the “ageless wisdom”.
Being ‘young’ is not an excuse to be any less responsible for our choices. What you share here Luke about building and supporting the momentum of true healthy choices to be lived and thus be alive and continuously built upon throughout our entire lives is the method for true vitality and a love of ourselves that is worth it because we are worth it.
Thank you for sharing Cherise and well said.
I agree Luke. Self-care should be on school curriculums world-wide and have the same importance if not greater than maths and English. The amount of preventable diseases we are suffering with as a society due to a lack of self-care is shocking.
Thank you, Cherise, you have revealed a truth that we all need to know and that is that a held belief is a disease in our body and will make us ill. Our body is a wonderful vehicle that seeks harmony and when we drive it from a belief that we should do this or not it protests. This is in fact how the body loves us because it is telling us we are off track.
Elizabeth the words that you shared that stood out to me were “when we DRIVE it from a belief”, it highlighted to me that when we drive the body from any place at all then it is hugely harming. Our bodies are designed to navigate themselves from within, not to be driven from the outside.
Lovely comment Elizabeth Dolan exposing the disharmonious nature of belief systems in our bodies. Thank you.
‘A held belief is a disease in our body.’ That sounded pretty radical Elizabeth when I first heard it but actually it is completely true and as Cherise has spelled out our body will show us just how unnatural it is to hold a belief.
Beautifully put Dean and this is very true and should we allow for our relationship with our bodies to develop we would be surprised on how detailed it actually is.
Really if we all stop and connect for a moment, we know beliefs and emotions bring dis-ease followed by more established and ingrained disease to our bodies, and yet for some reason most of us choose to ignore this simple fact, pretend we don’t know this is the case and override our bodies. You only have to look at the health statistics in the world to know that if we don’t choose to listen, then our bodies have to speak louder and louder until we have to listen or at least stop. Better to be respectful and listen to and appreciate our bodies in the first place.
Exactly Nicole, the more we don’t listen the louder our body gets… cancer, heart disease, mental illness… it keeps trying to tell us and it never stops until we listen. The body doesn’t know how to lie, the body is what it is – a part of nature that responds to common sense and the laws of nature.
Beautifully expressed Elizabeth – “a held belief is a disease in our body and will make us ill” – to hold anything requires a tension, a hardening – in total contra to the natural flow of our bodies.
Wow Elizabeth I love what you have written: “Our body is a wonderful vehicle that seeks harmony and when we drive it from a belief that we should do this or not it protests.” I did not learn this from my parents at all so I was used to override my body as my parents did as well. It is such a wonderful inspiration to read Cherise wonderful blog and your powerful comment.
When you listen to an interview by someone who has suffered a great physical tragedy, you often here those words that you once spoke Cherise….the burning need to get back to where they were before (as much as physically possible). It’s like that accident or series of events are not going to stop them being who they are or living the life they want to. And this is often applauded as people going on speaking circuits around the world. But what I got from what you have written here is that ideal/belief can actually stop you from going in the new direction. It feels like trying to push a moving train back the other way onto the same track is was on before when the train has switched tracks. The time forcing the train back onto the original track is a lot of time and effort when there is an opportunity to surrender to the new track and see which direction it is going in. Thanks for sharing this.
Sarah, this is a beautiful analogy concerning the train. I experience what you have shared here everyday anew, that people want to get back to their usual functioning manner, because they are so scared of the new and of the responsibility this requires. Unfortunately this does not bring any healing, it either buries the symptoms deeper into the body for a while or the body gets even more ill, and I observe that physical pain and illness can be together with mental illness symptoms, when the anxiety seems to be too strong to be able to deal with. How powerful can the healing be when we are able to surrender and make other choices, which are self-loving.
This is so true. We know as a society in general we hate change on a personal level, yet all we are searching for outside of ourselves is change, or a so called advancement. We want one but not the other. We are caught and are trapping ourselves by not surrendering to the natural flow of life around, and within, us.
It is so true Sarah, our beliefs and pictures of what is right can overide what our bodies are actually communicating.to us. In this state, there is no surrender or acceptance of what actually is.
A wonderful blog Cherise and one that demonstrates how expansive and healing it can be for us when we let go of ideals and beliefs and honour what our body is communicating to us.
I was just reading another blog about the effects of emotion on our bodies and how taking on other people’s stuff is totally exhausting us – it’s because it is not our stuff, it is poison in our body – and so the body is not able to deal with well it or heal it easily. The same would therefore go for beliefs and ideals…they are not ours! They are taken on from the outside and so are an un-natural and exhausting thing for us to live with.
Yes rosannabianchin, emotions, ideals and beliefs are all poison to our body … emotions are our reaction to what we feel, and the ideals and beliefs are pictures we’ve taken on as to how things need to be.
Although at the other end of my life to you when you had your moment of truth – I am also finding that having back pain has brought me to a greater understanding of myself. That maybe I don’t I need to get back to where I was – I just need to look after myself today and not allow the pain to make me a victim. By listening to my body more attentively, I can see how fear was holding me back from returning to living life fully and that maybe I may have some pain as I get older – but there are simple ways to alleviate this by having a 10 minute rest on my back – and then resuming whatever I was doing, so long as I am not over riding the signals my beautiful body sends me. I need to listen to my body and not allow ideals and beliefs to rule the way I live – otherwise why else would I be experiencing pain – it is only the body’s way of letting us know that all is not well.
I love how you are honouring your body Susan, it is inspirational. When we listen and honour what our bodies are telling us we feel empowered, we evolve, and we are open to our own healing.
What a beautiful way to put it Samanthaengland, that to listen to our body opens us up to our own healing. Listening to our body is therefore a way of self-healing.
For a long time I held the belief that going to bed early was ‘not done’, very un-sociable and not to the liking of many around me. But then I started to let go of this belief and listened to my body. Nowaways I love going to bed early and my body loves me for it.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too.” As your back was testament to this so was mine, it is amazing the harm that is done in investing in an ideal or belief.
It is curious how the ideals and beliefs we have rule our lives so much so that we do not even fathom that there is another way to live. Universal Medicine helps people to break through these set ideals and beliefs and with that support we have the opportunity to make different choices – how freeing is that?
It’s great that you have broken down what ideals and beliefs can do to the body Cherise. When I was around 23 I had a nervous breakdown because I had been fighting and pushing myself hard, but not able to match up to what I thought I should be or should be doing. Like you, because of this my self worth was at an all time low, but the irony is it was self imposed and created!! In letting go of the need for recognition and lightening up, accepting where I was at made a huge difference and ultimately led me in a direction that was true!
I have huge admiration for the role carers take on, it is also ridiculous how little we value this role in our societies where the pay is not commensurate with the value of the service, in much the same way that cleaning is viewed as manual unskilled labour, this in-spite of the fact that both the roles require dedication and are invaluable to the workings of our communities and or businesses. This blog just highlights why carers such as Cherise require much better support and to be looked after with much greater care by our systems, to ensure that the body of a carer does not so easily break down and each carer feels valued and inspired to deliver this service. This comes back to the distribution of wealth in society which has seen more and more of the profits in the hands of fewer and fewer people, only when we address this will the money be available for fair rewards and reasonable working hours for all the types of work that make our societies function.
Absolutely Stephen, ‘I have huge admiration for the role carers take on, it is also ridiculous how little we value this role in our societies where the pay is not commensurate with the value of the service,’ working part time for a care company I can feel how there is very little respect for care staff, staff often leave because they do not feel valued and because it is hard to live on the low wages that carers are paid and yet the job they do is vital, this really needs to change as there is a huge shortage of carers.
Your comment about the controlling hold we allow ourselves to be controlled by is unlimited. Smoking and drinking are not diseases… they are choices we make to keep us from feeling, and leave us getting stuck in a groove. I, as you, had a conversation with my self years ago, just choose one day to stop two things I no longer needed in my life – smoking and drinking. I can now feel what my body is telling me… work in progress.
There is a propensity for us to give credence to the saying “mind over matter”, without really considering the implications of what that means. It would be much healthier to say “mind in harmony with matter”, for if we lived by this creed, we would find our overall relationship with our body and thus our health would be all the greater.
Absolutely – “It would be much healthier to say mind in harmony with matter…” and surely more intelligent too.
We always have a choice. Change a ‘should’ to a ‘could’ and there you have it. Space to feel the difference ✨
Cherise, so wise and so important what you’ve shared here. I can feel the hold beliefs have, and while many have gone, there are many lurking and your question to yourself which stopped you, reminded me of how much we are set on how things should be and look (how I am in this) and when you ask ‘Are you really letting anyone (including yourself) down by moving on?’ you have me feeling a belief I hold (still) very strongly that I need to push through and to walk away is giving up, and yet that’s not it, there are times when we are done and it’s time to move on, and the most gracious thing to do is let go and move.
It is essential that, whatever work we do, be it physical or just sitting at a desk, we need to ensure that our bodies are fit, well rested, gently exercised and kept flexible.
It’s amazing what the body will cope and put up with when we align to such imposing beliefs. But over time no one really gets away with anything. What is not of our true making at some point will have to come up and out how ever that may be.
Thank you Cherise and your blog highlights the immense struggle that we put our bodies through in order to attain the beliefs and ideals we have become ensnared by. I know in the past I struggled on doing a very demanding job that really taxed my petite frame and I only gave up after giving myself a really serious head injury. Looking back now, there is no way I would ever consider such a job for myself now, as thanks to Universal Medicine, I have come to appreciate the fact that all of life is my medicine and taking care of me and my body is an essential part of my career and working day. We are worth taking immense care of, so that we may be of true service to others in all our amazingness.
Yes this is true Rowena. We are worth caring for and nurturing and deeply appreciating. The more we do this the clearer our choices become.
” I have come to appreciate the fact that all of life is my medicine and taking care of me and my body is an essential part of my career and working day.” I am so with you Rowena. Allowing myself to be so much more gentle with the way that I move and do things, it’s as if my body is celebrating this and appreciative, it feels so good. And absolutely I see this reflected in the choices I am making in life and how that affects others, the service that I can be by living my amazingness.
This is amazing Cherise – I remember having that feeling as well, the ‘why am I holding onto this?’, and it actually is the most amazing thing to realise that I did not have to hang onto struggle. It had to do with a lack of self-worth, that I felt I had to prove myself by doing something in a certain way, most of the times a hard way when I could feel there was a much easier way to go. With studying with Universal Medicine I have been inspired to live so much more lovingly with myself that the need to prove my worth through living up to my ideals and beliefs has slowly lessened.
Yes Lieke. The struggle we impose on ourselves definitely comes from a lack of self worth and then the need for recognition to come from the outside to confirm us, which of course either doesn’t come or is very short lived. I know this only too well from experience! Appreciation is an awesome antidote to lack of self worth, as is acceptance of where we are at and feeling into honestly what is actually needed by the body.
Holding onto ideals and beliefs about how something should be, can physically feel like I am spinning out of control it is as if my body is ready for something new and mind is trying to hold onto something that does not support what is needed any more.
Great sharing Cherise – it is so important to understand the causes and effects of ideas and beliefs. They can have such a power over us, so much, that we get sick and exhausted. Once we start to renounce all the ideas and beiliefs, as you say, a true communication between us and our body can start. And the relationship to our body we can always refine.
This is an awesome blog Cherise, as you show how the way we live can be our true medicine.
Cherise, this is a great article and sharing. It is to truly observe and become aware of the reactions we have, to understand what kind of ideal and belief lies under those reactions.
There are some very powerful ideals that we may have which we may not realise are ideals or beliefs at all:
I am stupid. I will always, in the end, end up with nothing. I am a failure. I am not good enough. Nobody loves me, and many others.
Many of us are very much invested in ideals and beliefs that have been drummed into us or we have adopted for ourselves, so being able to see through them and let them go and really listen to the truth our bodies have to offer is a great gift we can give ourselves.
I fully agree with you Kevin. Men were meant to be hard and the breadwinners and take care of the family, whereas women were to be stay home mothers cooks and cleaners. How long has the world been trapped in this rubbish. By letting go of what others felt we should be is, as you said, the greatest gift we all can ever give ourselves.
Absolutely Kevin we are surrounded by ideals and beliefs so it’s no wonder that we are so thickly entrenched in them. Even just asking ourselves the question is that truly what we believe, is there another possibility, is starting the process of bringing awareness to them so we can let go of what is not truly us.
A beautiful truth that we all ought to be brought up with.
Thank you Cherise, this is a very honest blog that brings about the importance of caring for our own bodies. I do hairdressing and this entails very long hours being on your feet and it is very active, so I have discovers that there is a balance in taking true care of my body and making sure that I exercise to support my body strength which I now very much enjoy and could not live without.
Cherise this comes with such wisdom and support for so many in understanding about beliefs and how they affect us and are to the detriment of our bodies our health and our whole being and “most importantly, It’s a disease in our bodies.” Listening to our bodies and appreciating ourselves really does offer us a true and beautiful way of being and allows for true medicine in our lives.
I’m struck by how a hospital could have a rota and schedules detrimental to health! The shift pattern you describe is punishing, yet you were experiencing this way of working at such a young age. Work environments can be abusive and toxic and we have to select those conducive to our health and well-being, as you did following your back injuries. Thank you for showing us the consequences of being stuck in old cycles, ideals and beliefs that no longer serve us and that we can instead at anytime choose another way or work that that best supports us.
This is such a brilliant parable for how ‘not honoring ourselves’ lead us to ‘not in service for the all’. Taking responsibility is key for service. In our society we turned it around and made it about giving up on our own and make it all about the other or become selfish and make it all about me, me, me. But both is not true serving.
Well put Sandra. Taking care of ourselves is not a selfish act, but a loving one that not only supports us, but serves everyone we come into contact with too!
We seem to have such a distorted view in society that being in service means being selfless and putting others first, often at the expense of our own bodies.
Lovely blog to read just before starting another new working week. I agree, we become beholden to beliefs and ideals that do not always serve us and it seems we place great importance on them, rather than listening to our bodies. I can particularly relate to the belief in ‘letting people down by moving on’ and can feel how in truth the opposite may well be true – that we let people down when we override the wisdom of our body and stay in a job or a relationship out of duty or to serve an ideal.
“I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.” – this is incredible! The ideas and beliefs we created (!) keep us in a state of being that holds us back from moving on and developing. And the body shows! Our moving in fact becomes restricted. Fettered by our ideas and beliefs. And what great and lovely reflection and reminder our body is – really to honor.
Yes, Jeanette, we are setting our children up for years of stress and exhaustion, with the hectic schedules and pressures that are now being put on them in the present education system. From a very young age, children are being put through stressful testing and assessments that go on from year to year, right through school, and then of course, they are encouraged and often pushed to continue through further education such as at university. The pressure never stops, and of course continues on in most work places nowadays. It all feels so cruel and unrealistic to me, this is not the only way for us to be doing things. It means that so many now suffer breakdowns, or they just check out, drop out from life, Unfortunately it drives some to the point of suicide. It is just not right for us to treat anyone that way. There comes a breaking point.
The body has an innate wisdom and should we listen to it, it indeed will tell us a story or two about the choices we are making and how we are living.
Such a moment of grace when one takes the time to stop and listen to the body’s communication. For me this has to do with will, the will to listen. It is there when I choose it.
It is revealing how the doctors and nurses like yourself Cherise are seemingly having to override their body’s communication and suffer great ill to cope with their day jobs, when they themselves are the ones we seek to heal and mend us!
Reading your comment Joshua made me remember of a GP who sometimes follows his heart rather thnn the instructions, system. He says that often (if not always) he’s proven afterwards to have made the right decision. It is showing us that we know so much more than what meets the eye. In every situation we know exactly how to act (or not). All the ideals and beliefs actually take us away from that knowing. Imagine how hard we have ourselves to make to override all the impulses that we naturally receive. It’s quite incredible how damaging and rigid our systems are. Our health system, our educational system, our political system, etc. There’s much to be exposed. And the only ones who can do it, are the ones that raise above and share their Truths. That’s the only way to get it True – once again.
Wow so beautifully and powerfully said Floris. There is no doubt something is not right with our world today and as you say the key to all the craziness is the lack of living from our inner-hearts, the love inside us all.
Beautifully said Floris, we have this innate knowing from the inner heart which we dismiss and over ride, all to maintain the picture we have of something or a belief or ideal of how it should be.
And how Amazing is it Joshua to be able to share this Love and Understanding as we do here. Together and with so many other people commenting on this blog. There’s indeed a Living Wisdom and Power inside that’s forever waiting to be connected to. It’s worth exploring it, simply because we’re worth it. Apart from the fact that I’d love to spend time with the Love that people are, rather than spending time with people not being themselves. Our Love is Grand and so yummy, cheeky and playful.
Yes Jenny, isn’t that amazing… Or maybe better said, incredible? That we’re dismissing the part that we actually miss most… It’s so so lovely to really be in and with our hearts. The Tenderness, Sweetness, Delicateness, Wisdom, Knowing, Absoluteness are just a few qualities that we’ll find inside.
This is so true Joshua, your comment reminded me of a visit to my local GP who looked very ill and I said to him you look in more need of a doctor than I do. We did the usual had a laugh and he shrugged it off and said he was ok.
Indeed Joshua I really look to others who know how to care for themselves to deepen my own self care and self love. It seems crazy to being caring for others but not look after ourselves at the same time, but there is great pressure in life to get through or get things done.
Absolutely JennyM. And if we are not caring for ourselves we will be craving such care from others. Does this not set up a complicated web of expectation and control? This is not loving at all.
An awesome, honest blog Cherise, exposing how ideals and beliefs can and do create dis-ease in our body if we do not listen to it. Wonderful to know that by listening to your body you healed. This shows the power of our livingness as being great medicine.
Wow – drained at an early age of 20 with severe back pain is unimaginable to me.
However, this is becoming more common these days, as more people are pushing themselves to pay the bills, get a career, and become successful according to an ideal or image, at the expense of their bodies.
Beautiful what you present here Cherise, the freedom that letting go of the held on ideals and believes brings us if we are honest enough to reconnect yo our bodies again and listen to the enormous wisdom that lives in there. We are that much more than our ideals and beliefs, as you have so clearly portrayed, as these being extremely detrimental to our health and our overall being if we hold on to them in our stubbornness.
It’s so true Nico, all ideals and beliefs do is create a box or a cage around us that serve to keep us feeling small, less than or held in complication and also seeking recognition. Our acceptance and way of living knowing that we are so much more grand than we can even fathom is paramount if we are to see and feel ourselves as greater than any thought or belief; and we begin to live this way the beliefs expose themselves for the ridiculousness they really are.
Yes Cherise, ridiculous they are, the ideals and beliefs we use to keep ourselves in a lesser state that what we truly are. The grandness we can live if we let go of these ideals and beliefs is unfathomable for us, because of our held ideals and beliefs. You can say that we actually only use these as an excuse to not live that grandness we innately are.
How many of us still consider that exhaustion and body break-down is something inevitable that happens when we are aged? What you share shows us Cherise, that it has nothing to do with our years on this planet but everything to do with the energy and patterns we live out of habit. Every body young and old has equal access to the truth. We are innately loving beings who deserve care, grace and harmony in each and every move and gesture.
The willingness to observe and build awareness is something that will expose our habitual ways. Wisdom is Universal and the choices are always there to be made – it is up to us.
With all these insidious ideals and beliefs we have, it is no wonder we all seem to have so much to let go of and heal from. Many lives I suspect have been the same. I am grateful for the connection to Universal Medicine and the Presentations of Serge Benhayon that have opened my eyes to so many of these detrimental ways of being, and offer the opportunity this time round to let go of these.
Feeling drained at 20 years old is a really unfathomable concept when you think about it, but you are not alone. We have set life up to drain and exhaust us, and this is happening at younger and younger ages all the time by imposing hectic schedules on children from 2 years onwards and not letting up through school, through uni and at work. I think Serge Benahyon is on the money when we he talks about “the way we live being the best medicine” and it is evident from the fact that lifestyle risk factors contribute to all chronic diseases that this is true.
Jeannette these worrying situations we find ourselves in are all of our own making and as you say are pretty unfathomable. How did we let it get this far? Do we really truly feel it is ok for kids to be pushed and tested, ranked and streamed, from such an early age? Or any age at all? It seems we are all too easy to criticise the systems without realising we are asking them for the results that they are producing.
Great questions Jenny Hayes and one thing for sure that I know from my experience working with families is that the kids do not feel ok about being ” … pushed and tested, ranked and streamed, from such an early age?” And great point about the system delivering to the demands of our own ideals and beliefs – time for re-prioritising our values and goals.
The concept itself appears unfathomable and doesn’t make sense to societies views of ‘being young, fit and healthy’ but the reality of life is that kids and teenagers are becoming exhausted from very early on so to experience this is actually our created normal. But is it normal? and why do we accept it so? I agree with you Jeannette, ‘life is medicine’ and has the potential to be good medicine for us or not; the choices come down to us.
I think it is not normal at all Cherise and not aligned with our natural rhythms and impulses. That is why it is exhausting. As the song goes. “Time to make every little choice loving.”
Its up to us how we choose to live. Do we choose to live by honouring our bodies and doing whats best for them, or do we choose to live in a way that is harming.
I agree with what you have written Jeannette, my son is 5 years old and has a very long day at school every day, there are then after schools clubs, many different activities that the other children go to and so they are having a really long day and often at weekends are not resting but have more activities – this is common for very young children, I now make sure my son comes home and rests after school and find than any extra activities is too much for him.
It would be great to know how long he rests for, what he does during a rest period, and what the differences actually are. Time to share with other parents who are also concerned about the pressure on their kids and how to extract themselves from keeping up with the ‘done extra curricula activities thing’.
Great sharing Cherise, our body is certainly our most loyal ally. It is always taking care of us and it never lets us down on this front. We need to truly celebrate and appreciate it. In a session I had recently a very wise young man told me that our body holds our past, our present and our future and furthermore our own body is the best parent we could ever have.
Wow, Kathleen, that was certainly a very wise young man who told you that “our body holds our past, our present and our future and furthermore our own body is the best parent we could ever have.” And our body is the best medicine that we could have, it lets us know when we are not looking after it, it helps and guides us to choose the foods that we eat, if we choose to listen to it. It is the most true guide that we have for how we are to live in this world of ours. It certainly lets us know when we are not living responsibly.
So true Beverly and as you say, “our body is the best medicine that we could have”. What an amazing difference the world would be if we were all taking it.
I love this too Beverley, our bodies let us know what feels supportive, true and evolutionary for us and what does not and I am coming to discover more and more that my body holds a natural ability to expand within a space as opposed to feeling contracted or constricted within my own skin. One way feels like true beauty, heaven on earth when I move and when I walk or express in anyway and the other is a controlled way of living that always leaves me feeling complicated, heavy or unwell. We have the power to choose the way we want to live – all of the time.
That’s one to remind ourselves of; ‘our body holds our past, our present and our future and furthermore our own body is the best parent we could ever have.’ It is time to appreciate our bodies from head to toe.
I love that kathleenbaldwin, “our body holds our past, our present and our future ” and “and furthermore our own body is the best parent we could ever have.” For me both phrases deserve space of their own to truly appreciate them.
Beautifully said Kathleen – this also speaks heaps about listening to the body even when we don’t want to listen – listening to our parents was a little like that. The difference here is the profound wisdom of lived experience which is clear of any ‘self’ – coming to us offering truth.
This is gold Kathleen because such an understanding arms us with a deeper awareness and thus appreciation of what an amazingly, unwaveringly, committed ally we do have in our bodies. It responds to the natural order of the universe and supports us to recognise and feel anything of disharmony that is not us and thus does not (ever) belong inside us. Holding our bodies as our greatest parent or teacher is a very self-empowering thing.
Yes Cherise our body is also our best friend. If we ever wanted to know how to be a great parent or what was required to be a great best friend, all we need do is look to how our body is constantly letting us know what is true for us and what is not.
Great comment Kathleen and yes so true. We are walking around in this most amazing creation that can, if we really choose to tune in and take notice, inform us of so many things and guide us through life with deep care. It’s really up to us then as to how much notice we decide to take and how much care and love we wish to give back.
Yes Rowena when you look at it like this you can see that we monitor the amount of awareness we are willing to allow ourselves to have. We mostly opt for what we are comfortable with and do not really want to give anything back but the reward of more comfort.
Cherise how inspiring to many this blog is and will be. To know at such a young age that you needed to listen to your body and let go of the ideals and beliefs you held on the way you ” should” be in your job. Our bodies are precious,for without them we are not able to help anyone, including ourselves.
I agree Roslyn, to become aware at such a young age to listen to one’s body, and not buy into the ideals and beliefs that abound that have been drilled into us, is a sign that we are seeing through the lies. We are re-awakening slowly to who we truly are.
Yes Roslyn, I am 55 years old working as a nurse and to listen to my body, although I know it is the only way, can be a challenge. There is always an ideal or a belief in the background and pleasing others is a big one too that keeps me going. It is very inspiring to read how you at a young age started to listen to your body Cherise, thank you for sharing your experiences.
Yes, the big advantage to coming to this insight when young, is that the damage may not be permanent and can often be undone in full!
Our bodies talk to us all the time – and more often than not it takes a pain or an illness for us to truly listen. As you say – the blessing here is that we can feel this at any age – we don’t have to wait until we are very old to slow down or take care – it can be communicated to us at any moment and we have the choice to listen or not. We have one body – and to take care of it means to connect to it, to appreciate it and to listen above and beyond just getting caught in our heads.
So true Roslyn ‘Our bodies are precious,for without them we are not able to help anyone, including ourselves’.
Hi Roslyn I agree we can see our bodies as getting in the way of life rather than our bodies and the quality being what life is about.
This is the truest statement Roslyn: “Our bodies are precious”, so how sad is it that we are not taught to care deeply for them from an early age. What a massive difference this lesson would have on the way we treat ourselves and in turn our quality of life.
I agree Ingrid, and what a blessing it is (as it is now our responsibility) to share this education with our young ones and each other from a new and true understanding of just how imperative it is to our health and wellness.
I agree Roslyn Mahony. To come to this realisation earlier in your career has supported the quality of care you can bring for many in years to come.
Another great example of how the body will always let us know if we are stuck in old ways and aren’t being true to ourselves.Being a nurse is such an amazing vocation and nurses should be respected for the true service they do without having to kill themselves in the process.
I agree Kev, as the work they do is much needed and can support so many men and women to feel what it is to be truly cared for. Hence those that are carers like Cherise must take care of their own bodies, so that they can support themselves in their long, physical days.
Absolutely Kev, expecting anyone to work such long hours is very short sighted, the hospitals must be constantly recruiting staff as it is unsustainable for any nurse to be able to keep up this pattern of late nights and early mornings.
I agree Kevin. Nurses do such an amazing job! Where would we be without them? Much respect is needed for the work that they do and yes we should not be pushing them to their limits so that they end up compromising themselves through their work.
Thank you kevmchardy, I can feel the loving respect and care in your words. Being a nurse myself I can see that sometimes I haven’t valued or cared for myself enough in the work that I do and this lack of valuing and truly caring for ourselves first in our profession also contributes to the breakdown. As they say,” to truly care for another you must care for yourself first”.
I love the way Cherise wrote this blog and came to this understanding with herself through listening to and respecting her body.
I so agree Kevmchardy nurses play such a vital role in supporting their patients, and I have such deep respect for the service which they offer. As you say why should they be choosing to or asked to override their own bodies to offer healing and support to others, the answer is they shouldn’t. I feel as a society we have much to learn from what Cherise shares as listening to our body rather than buying into ideals and beliefs of what we feel we should do, allows us to live in a way where we don’t compromise our self but instead can bring so much more to the table. That being our true authentic and loving self.
It is so true kevmchardy that our body does tell us, we just have to listen and respond … and if we don’t … it speaks up louder!
Very much agree Kevin, our bodies show loud and clear when old ways are done and when we’re not being true. And our job is to listen, something I’m still very much learning. And it’s amazing the conditions we expect our health staff to work in, we ask them to take care of us when we’re sick, and yet our health system working conditions are not set up to support them in how they work and by extension it affects us all. Definitely something for us all to look at and consider. We’ve been happy to get the care and service, but have not always considered if it’s to the detriment of the staff.
I agree Kev, having worked myself as a carer for the elderly in the past, I found the system did not support the workers enough, and as a result many genuinely caring people only stayed for a short time.
This is absurd but true Adele about becoming part of the statistic and in a similar vein many fitness instructors are exhausted and suffering from chronic pain. It is certainly Universal Medicine’s students who are getting on with living and expressing the wisdom being studied in these professions and many others all around the world that are leading the way.
Thanks Cherise for another great blog that applies to us all. I have definitely turned a corner in terms of caring for my own body, but over the years I’ve lost count of the ways and times I have pushed my body due to various ideals and beliefs and generally wanting to prove myself. The sad part about it is that this is mostly what I also see playing out around me, day in, day out. No wonder obesity and other chronic conditions are on the rise, as it’s so easy to get locked into a mindset and think that we have no other choices. It would be very welcome to have more health professionals also start to question what else is going on for so many people to be virtually giving up their responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.
I love how my body is so willing to tell me exactly what it feels about my choices – both supportive and ill.
Every ideal and belief is at the expense of the body – a constant drain and constant source of pain. They are deliberately designed to limit our awareness of who we are, our connection to God and our oneness. Now that is pure evil.
Thank you Cherise for exposing how a stubbornly held belief can be every bit as harming as physical disease. The shift you made when you recognised this, then allowed you to return to a supportive workplace and contribute to the recovery of your patients through the skill of your nursing care but also in the way you reflect true self care. With the current debate in England about cutting benefits to the disabled to force them back to work, I feel that exploring the limiting ideals and beliefs so many have about their inability to cope with work would be far more beneficial than punitive measures, and would increase self worth and health and mental wellbeing.
Helen, I agree with you fully – self worth and mental wellbeing would be great topics to address as ideals and beliefs are so well entrenched, it is hard to see there is another way to be until it is explored with someone who has already the benefit of seeing them for what they are – often outdated ideas from centuries past that are totally non-serving several generations down the line. Forcing people to do things, does not address the causes.
“With the current debate in England about cutting benefits to the disabled to force them back to work, I feel that exploring the limiting ideals and beliefs so many have about their inability to cope with work would be far more beneficial than punitive measures, and would increase self worth and health and mental wellbeing”.
Cherise, this is brilliant ‘ I let go of a belief that I had created and had held in my own head for a very long time, and with my renouncing of its controlling hold, I just let it go!’, it is so harmful for us holding onto these beliefs that we have, they can be so limiting and stop us from moving on, it’s wonderful that you let it go and are now in job that is much more suitable and self-loving.
It is quite comical how so much of our life we run around trying to gather information and know-how so that when we make choices we are making the right choices. Yet we keep obstinately ignoring the one place that does and has always given us the most astute answers we may ever want – 24/7 – our own body. Very likely because we rarely want to hear the true answers.
Cherise this is a real eye-opener of the way holding onto ideals and beliefs can play out. It reminds me of when I was in my early 30’s and I was putting so much pressure on myself to have children and then one day I realised that I did not have to, and that as a woman it was not a pre-requisite to have children. My life started to open up from that day and I felt so much lighter!
Cherise I loved reading your blog and the part where you express how much you appreciate your back and body with how it communicates with you. It shows a way to have a really healthy relationship with your body, knowing just what a difference it makes to listen to your body and be reminded to listen when we don’t. Thank you for sharing this and also as an example of how we hold onto how things need to be, putting pressure on ourselves when it may be time to move on.
“how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.” – Now this is science and revelation in its purest form…
Cherise this is a great blog. Over the years I’ve realised how many ideals and beliefs I hold onto, which only do me harm. Even now I still get caught out by thinking I should be doing this or that, a real sense of right or wrong, but they are still all thoughts which enslave me and keep me away from living the simplicity and beauty which actually is.
…’they are still all thoughts which enslave me and keep me away from living the simplicity and beauty which actually is’. Love that Jenny… they absolutely do… and at great cost to what is possible.
When I have thoughts like that, thoughts that make no sense and that cause(d) me a great deal of harm, I find it useful to find the root of these thoughts. Once I cut the root, they are gone. Sometimes it takes a long time to find the root but when I do everything is very simple.
An awesome blog Cherise exposing how we limit and harm ourselves through ideals and beliefs, that we don’t even realise are just that – imposed and well ingrained ideals and beliefs that we have held as true to live by, that are in fact, seriously detrimental to our own health and relationships with others.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too. In this we contract ourselves away from the natural expression and personal rhythm that we can otherwise live our lives in and from”.
Brilliant Cherise, as this tells us so much more then we have currently been told or learned ourselves to believe. As you say; when looking after our body and listening to it, we do not fall for the ideals and beliefs. As you said: .. “but most importantly I began to uncover just how detrimental and stunting a held belief really can be! It’s a disease in our bodies.”
Now that is a powerful message to our medicine world. Let’s awaken and be open to everything that causes illness and disease. As without clear vision, we are unable to see what there is to heal.
I know this one well. I stayed in an abusive situation at work far too long because I had a belief that I should stay and stick it out, and believed that I should be able to deal with it. I thought I would be running away if I left. Someone close to me said to me ‘ If you have any respect for yourself at all you will remove yourself from the abusive situation’. This was my light bulb moment, and it made so much sense which I hadn’t been able to see because of my belief. I found a new job very easily and realised that I could have left way sooner than I did. Yes, beliefs can hold us prisoner.
Amen to that Rebecca! I did exactly the same thing and it is taking me many months to recover from the abuse aimed at me and that I hurled at myself.
Great sharing Rebecca Turner. Yes, the idea that we should be grateful to have a job and need to stick it out is a strong one isn’t it. But we are not just ‘human resources’ we are human beings and abuse is not ok at work or anywhere else. Wonderful that you claimed yourself and moved away from that situation.
“We are not just ‘human resources’ we are human beings”. This is a great point to remember for anyone who manages people. All too often employees are treated simply as a way to achieve targets and are not respected or appreciated as people first. If you treat people well they will work well and the profits will follow, it’s a no brainer, but sadly this is not the way that many companies operate.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if business leaders understood that to truly appreciate their staff has a direct impact on the balance sheet too. Not that this should be the only reason for doing so, but the fact is that it does.
…and apart from treating people well so they work well and therefore contribute to profit, how about treating people well simply because they are people. It is so outrageous that any form of abuse happens at work. No matter how the company is doing, no matter how much stress the management are under, there is never a valid excuse to treat people in an abusive way.
The more I feel into the term ‘human resources’ the more I feel how it was created to objectify people and treat them just like any other ‘resource’…disposable. Perhaps a more accurate term would be ‘inhuman resources’.
This is a practical and loving gem Rebecca – it exposes how shut down and numbed out we are when we unable to feel something abusive and think we are unable to do something about it.
“If you have any respect for yourself at all you will remove yourself from the abusive situation”.
Your sharing Cherise is a great example of how we can let ideals and beliefs rule us compared with what feels a true and innate impulse of where we need to be and what we need to do in any given situation.
It never ceases to amaze me just how awesome our bodies are – they constantly share exactly how we are living. A beautiful example given by you Cherise as to the wisdom of our bodies – its how we listen and work alongside this wisdom that allows us to truly take those steps forward to bring out ‘all’ that life offers us – each and every day with miracles along the way.
If our body should break down it is always worth stopping and reflecting on what our role may have been, it was heartening to see you had the wisdom Cherise to address this and let go of the idea that you had to push on through. It does offer a wider stop moment for us all, if we have an ailment, pain or ill health, then how have we been living that has brought us to this moment.
Our wisdom is far greater than any ideal or belief. I love that. And our bodies have all this wisdom of the world and beyond the stars. We don’t need anything from outside to tell us what choices are true or not as our body is letting us know in every single moment.
Absolutely Mariette we just have to make the choice to listen.
When we have a mental image of how we think we should be working and what job we are working in, it can limit our potential, because we are unable to see what’s truly out there for us to be doing. Allowing our bodies to guide us is a different way of being but one that makes absolute sense.
Great to feel that when we do not hold on to ideals and beliefs our body is able to move in our natural rythm.
Absolutely Kerstin for they infect and configure our movements to be a bastardized version of our true rhythm, imprisoning us in a lesser version of the magnificience we actually are.
Imprisoning is a great word to use, because this is exactly what happens when we hold ourselves out of connection to there being more to life and something greater; and thus are left in the smallest box to see only what we think we can see. It’s like wearing glasses, that you don’t know are even on your face, that paint a picture of a situation, of life or another human being instead of actually being connected and open with them.
Absolutely, Marika, but if we connect to our own body and let it be the intelligence that we need, how magical then is the flow in life and all that the body needs for its health and well-being is provided if we continue to listen to its messages.
So great to have articles about ideals and beliefs like yours, Cherise. Ideals and believes control such a big part of our lifes, it’s really time to become more aware of their imprisoning ways.
When we begin to look closely, ideals, beliefs, images and pictures are behind absolutely everything that happens in life.. everything! and when we look to another person or a situation through the veil of these, we are already tainting the beauty that will be reflected back to us and thus missing out on a true way of ‘just being’, in simplicity and pure loveliness, in life.
I have recently become aware of how poisonous an ideal can be in the body. We think we catch flu or a virus or suddenly become ill but there are many prior choices, expectation needs and beliefs that we impose on ourselves which can lead to the body having to clear these impositions from our system. It is so easy to get caught into believing we are doing the right thing, but if our body is telling us loud and clear otherwise, with pain or illness and we don’t listen, then we suffer the consequences. What I love from your blog Cherise is that once you let go of the need to be in that job, everything opened up for you and your life started to heal and flow again.
We do indeed ‘suffer the consequences’ when we don’t listen to our body. The irresponsibility of this is breath-taking.
Absolutely Lucy, it is deeply irresponsible to not listen to our bodies and suffer the consequences of this… for in living less than what is possible, we only offer less to others.
We all suffer when we hold back from living the fullness of who we are, with all of our unwavering authority and absoluteness. When this is our responsibility in life and from here to give back to others by way of presenting a life that has learnt and unfolded so much, we continue to increase our awareness, evolution and thus earn more responsibility. This is a great, wonderful and beautiful thing, never to be afraid of or to shy away from, as this is what actually delivers us with all the tools that we could ever need to be in life, to learn more, to enjoy, to be vital and to be the absolute divinity that we are.
Well said Alison, the poison in the form of ideals, thoughts, movements, foods, etc. we let go through our body is massive and we have to assume the responsibility for the consequences of poisoning our body. I just experienced this by becoming sick and my body had to go through this extreme state and I could feel the irresponsibility of having taken myself there. It was my choices that lead to my body having to stop and to clear what I put into it.
The same with me Rachel, I have recently been sick and in fact am still recovering. Once I could feel my choices, I could actually feel the poison in my body, it felt like flu but I could feel the underlying poison that was flowing through my body and making me feel absolutely drained and feverish and this was what was dragging my body down. Living anything less than love is not worth it – the poison I felt was a real lesson to me.
When our bodies live naturally, a very clear science, they are unable to lie and even though we may be able to deny what we feel or the consequences of our choices for sometimes a very long time; everything always comes out in the wash, so-to-speak! The greater our awareness of the choices that we make and the effects they have on our bodies, the more deeply we must choose to honour our bodies and likewise accept and embrace the clearing of energy that they need to do to support their own healing and thus their returning back to the harmony, flow and the natural order of their universal particles.
Beautiful blog Cherise, it shows the way we are with our bodies, and life, deeply effects our abillity to serve in whatever way is needed. I feel that letting go of the believes brings a freedom to our body to express that what we truly are.
Gorgeous sharing Cherise. I have lost track of the amount of times I have ‘stuck at something’ that simply was not for me. It is incredibly freeing to let go and move on to where I am truly needed.
You raise so many points to ponder on here, Cherise. Where I live, work is something a lot of us think we have to endure because we feel there is no other option, and that it is normal to feel stressed and exhausted, as if to say we are very undeserving; and we hold so many ideals and beliefs associated with our own profession and it can feel devastating to betray that picture because we are so identified with that job title and what that represents and means to us in and outside the job, consequently earning us what we perceive as a rightful place to be in the world. A very grim picture of life we are painting here. I totally agree it is very harming to let ideals and beliefs dictate our life.
I agree Susan, it’s a beautiful sentence that confirms that because our body tells us the truth, which we may react to, but if we remain open the understand that our body provides can be life changing.
When we embrace our body as the amazing marker of truth that it is, we start living in a way that is determined by our awareness and we start truly living. We realize how blinded we have been and how we have settled for a reduced version of life on earth and that our true grandness is not to be found on earth, but can be lived on earth.
That’s exquisitely beautiful Rachel “Our true grandness is not to be found on earth, but can be lived on earth”…
We have to stop believing that earth life is where we evolve and reach our higher meaning. We are already everything and our wayward will has chosen physicality and now we have to return to who we are going through all the mess we created here on earth. We are not from earth, but on earth as presented by the Ageless Wisdom.
We can stubbornly hold onto those ideals and beliefs that hook us, but when we begin to question them, we can start to see through the hold they have.
It is so true. How often have I felt trapped and had no choice – only because I could not see beyond my stubbornly held belief.
The beliefs and images are so ingrained in the way we move that we cannot look beyond them if we do not change the movement that build them in the first place.
Thank you for bringing in how crucial our movements are in how we view and experience life. It’s such a simple thing, but I have found it to be absolutely true, that if we change our position, or the way we are moving to being more present and gentle with ourselves, our thoughts and everything change. It’s magic of the highest magnitude that every one of us is a Master at the moment we consciously wave our magic wands.
Yes, very true. We often hold on to beliefs like holding onto a safety ring not wanting to accept that we can actually swim.
What we choose to see and address is absolutely a choice… making us the masters of our joy… or our sorrow.
Cherise this is a great blog. Lately I’ve been noticing how much my mind can override my body, and when I check in there is usually an old belief or ideal lurking, quietly running the show and causing unnecessary complication in my life. I am also drawn to work in areas where the focus is on helping people, and have had to address many self-imposed expectations fed by held ideals. Thank goodness our bodies simply reflect the truth to us so that we may correct these mistakes.
Yes hartanne60, those pesty old beliefs are always lurking, and as you expressed so succinctly, quietly running the show if we are not onto them. And we shouldn’t really wait until we can no longer walk or work before we address our situation, but this seems to be case for many. It was for me anyway. I am now learning to pay constant attention to my body so can catch it early and make the changes necessary before the damage becomes extreme.
Agree Anne and Kathleen we are just run by the quality we let our body be ruled with and that is what is draining our body and bringing us to exhaustion. When we truly embody that we are mere puppets in a world of energy we will be much more humbled to the fact that our main responsibility is to choose the energy we are run with. And our body as the marker of truth would be our most treasured instrument of expression.
Thank you Cherise – the body holds the truth and is constantly reflecting back to us the outcome of the choices we make. You have confirmed that by taking a moment and checking in with the body on the origins of a choice that we have made, supports us a at a much deeper level than we realise. Holding on to old beliefs, even though you sense they don’t feel right harms our wellbeing, harms our body and harms others around us. Thank for sharing.
Yes Marika, fixed or routine is regimentation causing restriction; rhythm is flow allowing space.
Wow what’s interesting Cherise is the back or spine is what holds our body/physical structure, the backbone of bodily support, and so when your back issue came up it brought attention to the support of yourself – at work, for work, and that because of a belief you had about work, it made you press eject from committing back to work and receiving the great support that works gives a person, instead of looking at the way of work and how unsupportive it was being to result in pain. It shows the limiting force of images, beliefs or ideals that invert the very thing that truly supports and grows us. It’s like ‘what’s the issue?’… and then going to its direct opposite to find the answer.
The trouble is, which we might not like to admit, is these ideals and beliefs are like gold medals we hang on to, prizes we polish, admire, frame and protect. But these comforting lies actually fill the space where true love is designed to live. How beautiful it is then that our bodies, like yours Cherise, keep coming back to show us the simple truth underneath.
This is so correct Joseph, in those early days if I was able to get myself back to a point that I had expected myself to be (with whatever state my body was in) a part of me would have deemed this as success.. but at what expense to who I am?
Great point Joseph. The ideals and beliefs keep us so identified – a badge of honour in a way. To let go, we let go of a sense of self. And then what . . . we make way for our soul to deliver what is truly needed.
I agree Vicky, we can be very identified with doing things a certain way but as Cherise has shared our body is an amazing marker of what is really true for us all.
The more we listen to our bodies the more we get to be aware of the impact that holding so tightly onto these lies are. To avoid how my body feels I have in the past supposedly found comfort in thinking about situations outside of my current one (previous conversations going on a loop, thinking about the future events etc) but now more and more I can feel in my body how dizzy these thoughts make me feel. The body is always there to show us what is true and what is not and that there is a true way to live and what the untrue way truly feels like.
I like what you point out here Leigh about the body showing us “what the untrue way truly feels like.” This is how we build our awareness about how we are living, we realize more and more how our supposed normal is exhausting and draining us and how small choices make a big difference.
This awareness is showing me how no choice is a ‘small choice’ – every choice is a big choice, whether we are aware of it or not. It’s not just in the ‘big bang’ or flashy results that make a choice big or not, because when the small ones build up they are equally as powerful.
Yes Leigh, a wise young man told me recently that our body is a genius as it knows exactly what is needed for our well being. All we have to do is listen, take heed to what it is relaying to us on a moment to moment basis.
Well said Leigh, the body is the marker of our choices if we are honest we know the ways we have lived are not true and the we need to let go of old ideals and beliefs that have kept us away from the love that we are.
‘But these comforting lies actually fill the space where true love is designed to live’ – very wise and deep truth Joseph Barker, well said – and our bodies will continue reflecting the fact which is an act of love in itself.
Great point Leigh, there is not such a thing as a “small choice”. Not being love in a moderate dose is the same as the obvious unloving choice, as everything builds up and the energy we are run by is either love or not love, there is no in between.
There is something seriously wrong with our workforce and the way we approach work if at 21 years of age, we become debilitated and unable to work. I’m sure this is very common in many types of jobs. I know from experience, Nurses place a lot of expectations on themselves and play a lot of roles when it comes to looking after patients and doing their clinical work. As much as Nurses need knowledge, they also need nurturing, if there is no foundation of nurturing there is no care.
This is absolutely true harryjwhite, without a way of living that truly nurtures who we are as nurses the toll that living otherwise will take, does not take very long at all.. Unfortunately when we are truly caring and loving people (as we all are) but use our bodies to not live this way and instead opt for a lesser version of ourselves; where we take on others emotions, hurts and experiences without bringing true understanding, compassion and understanding we are hurting ourselves and our bodies greatly.
Indeed Harry it does occur across every profession, I see this in my job of Recruiting, and the issue being that work is founded by the way of study — if study is crammed with ideal and belief, so too will entry into the workforce. There is no point in having a strong or hard work ethic that is without the care of love first.
Yes Harry, it highlights the absolute need for nurses to be tutored in true self-care, which must address unrealistic expectations of the individual and the system. Cherise’s point is that it was her own held ideals & beliefs that were the real obstruction, as they lead her to override the signs that her body was unable to sustain the workload that was being demanded of her.
It’s quite shocking Harry considering that Cherise said she finished work at 11pm and then back at 630am. In nursing this is termed a late-early. I know I struggled with these even more than working night duty. But we continue to work them because of a belief that is present of getting 2 shifts over and done with quickly. But the question here is, at what cost to our own bodies? and how long does it take to recover? much longer…
I agree Harry, this is what I felt from reading this blog by Cherise. When the trained nursing staff are under such strain from the system of work then it is the system that needs to change so that both the patients and the nursing staff are nurtured and cared for.
I agree Mary – the systems are not geared to support anyone or anything but the system itself and number crunching results with patients etc.
If the employers took greater care of their staff, so the employees know they are not just a statistic, but real people who matter to the bosses, the whole workforce would have a completely different attitude to work and be more supportive of each other in many ways during the day.
Well said Harry and Doug, we need nurturing in all work places, thats the missing link. Everybody is big on capacity building, training and knowledge gaining, but it is the wisdom from our bodies we have to connect to and then we truly live in our fullness. The wisdom we are seeking is within us and not outside of us.
Wow Cherise, this is a sign that more Nurses are needed in the workforce! I was shocked to hear that just after one year of working that this can happen to us. It makes sense when we consider the enormous pressure that nurses work under and the enormous pressure they place on themselves.
Yes it can happen, but why is it happening? We definitely need to work shift work and we need to care for sick people, this will never change. But certainly how we care for ourselves and how we care for each other in nursing can evolve, if we are willing.
When we come to realise that our bodies are the best barometer we have in letting us know if we are not being mindful of how we are treating it on either an emotional or on a physical level, then we have a responsibility to self-care and nurture ourselves. It’s crazy how we hold onto these ideals and beliefs at the expense of our bodies.
This is our greatest responsibility Deidre, to take responsibility for ourselves, including self-care, self-honour and living to a rhythm and movement that is ours; without this we are giving ourselves over to the mercy of outside influence and not claiming the authority that we innately hold inside us – the wisdom to walk who we are and care from another from that place only.
Yes Cherise and the more we do this the more we have a deeper understanding and knowing of who we truly are. We have to know ourselves before we can even begin to really understand and offer true service to another.
Such an important message here, Cherise, reminding us that we each carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal and that ignoring our wisdom will always have an impact on the body.
Yes Cathy, ignoring our truth will ultimately and inevitably catch up with us sooner or later; but why wait for a crisis of any kind to truly tap in to our sense of self and knowingness when it lives with us and is on hand at every moment, all the time and can guide us to live truthfully in everything that we do.
That is very true Cathy – our bodies know exactly what we need, we just have to listen to our body. Our head will never know.
How often is the medical industry taking care of the illness and diseases in the world and then becoming a part of this statistic and accepting it to be normal? This industry leads the way in health, and what can carry more weight but with people working in the medical industry living the walk they talk and embodying this in their movements?
This happens all of the time Adele, without healing oneself we can never truly offer healing to another and without living in a way that at the very least respects our own bodies we are always going to require such corrections as illness and disease to foster the stops and healing that we need to restore true harmony within ourselves.
I agree Adele. There is nothing more powerful than someone with a medical background ‘walking their talk’ and leading the way by example.
Very well asked Adele, our health industry is our leading example indeed, as we all are a leading example to our health industry. It is a bit of the same question as; who was born first, the chicken or the egg?.
SO we have to stop accepting things that are not right, and open ourselves up to new possibilities that offer healing and true evolution.
Well said Adele, if the people taking care of the ill an sick are themselves getting sick, exhausted or burned out by their own system how can this be then truly supporting to heal? It is the quality of our health system that brings true health and the quality is how we are with people and how we care for ourselves and for others.
True in social care too. There are many who are great at caring for others but when it comes to looking after themselves they struggle. Walking the talk and embodying true self-care is a level of integrity that truly serves.
Being in the medical industry yourself, the way you live Cherise is a living testimonial to the system and to your patients. The quality of expressing yourself from letting go of these ideals is what is then reflected to every person you encounter, a deepening of true self-care and nurturing.
Cherise is a nurse who is living the future of medicine. Very inspiring.
“When we invest in ideals and beliefs, we are seeking outside of ourselves for the right or should thing to do, and we can get caught up in pleasing others too. In this we contract ourselves away from the natural expression and personal rhythm that we can otherwise live our lives in and from.” You have shown here in your great sharing, Cherise, the huge change that come about in our lives when we let go of those ideals and beliefs that hold us back so much from living our lives in a true and self loving way. The key is to listen carefully to the messages that our bodies give us, and live our lives according to how our body tells us how to do things. Isn’t it wonderful, the intelligence that our own bodies hold, when we learn to truly listen to them. The particles in our body come from the Divine, that is the utmost intelligence.
Work and life as such does not need to be hard and enduring but we are somewhat stuck in the belief that that is life so we often keep going instead of stopping and questioning what we belief in and or what is presented to us.
Very true Esther, autopilot life towards the illusionary goal of perfectionism is debilitating and unhealthy, questioning what lies underneath this, is very wise and vital for the body in both meanings of the word (‘essentiality’ and ‘vitality’)
True Esther. I feel that many people make work much harder than it needs to be due a belief that work must be hard. It is such a change to be joyful and light in our work and if we can’t be, then this is something for us to look at.
It’s true that many people make work hard, and if it is not, then somehow it can’t be ‘work’. To be joyful and light in work means that it is you enjoying yourself, doing what you do. Now that doesn’t sound like hard work – even if you’re working hard!
Very true Esther Andras. Work does not have to be a test of endurance but can instead be a joy. Well said.
You remind me on the great “tool STOP and FEEL”. To stop at the right time and to check what is right for me or not, is so crucial.
True Esther, working in corporate there always seems to be more and more work, and less resources + more deadlines. I see the stress continually rising then sickness the stop, then they do it all again and get stuck in the illusion that things are moving forward. I like creating my own stops either to confirm my work or to step it up and change these stuck ways for the office – thus is the power we have within…
This is a great example how stubbornly we can hold onto something that is so obviously not right for us.
Gorgeously shared here Cherise. Our bodies are so there to be listened to and truly honoured.
Having set ideals or beliefs around one particular area of our life creates a tension and control within us and doesn’t allow us to be open to the potential and magic of what is constantly being shown and offered to us. Just as you were set on returning to a specific place Cherise, this didn’t allow you to be open to the potential of other workplaces – that in fact worked out far better for you. Love the magic that constellates when we let go and trust 🙂
Love that magic too Paula and the wonderful thing is, it is available for us in every moment if we trust and let go of the need to control. If we try to control our lives we create complication and in that complication we lose the magic.
Yes Paula, it is crazy to control our destiny then if we allow it all is possible through the magic of constellations when we embrace what is there in full.
“…I carry a wisdom far greater than any ideal…” I love this line Cherise. It reminds me that we do know what is and is not true for us and when we trust this knowing we are always supported.
Agree Lee this is a beautiful line that appreciates the grandness we are and demystifies the images we are following and making our reality.
Yes a lovely line and yours too, Lee, “…. and when trust this knowing we are always supported” and the we that is awakened when we do is so awesome.
Beautifully expressed Lee. It is so important that we remind ourselves all the time, that we know everything. Everything what we need is inside us.
Yes, and with that everything we are presented with we are equipped to handle.
Agree Lee trusting on the wisdom within us allows a greater level of acceptance of who we are which also allows to surrender to what’s there with no need to subscribe to ideals and beliefs at all.
Totally Lee Poole, trusting in this knowing is a movement towards this knowing.
I love this Cherise, what you write makes so much sense.
So true Cherise… ideals and beliefs held in our bodies only creates tension which results in disharmony and consequently dis-ease. By letting go of all these ideals and beliefs so much healing can occur before we even get to our doctor.
Love this point about the healing that can occur ‘before’ we get to the doctor. It feels like when we take responsibility for the ideals and beliefs we take on and addressing these, we can then engage with our health professionals at a totally different level which can be far more supportive for our health and well-being.
Yes, ideas and beliefs create tension in the body. Now I don’t wonder any more, why my body was so contracted in the last years. I’m still busy identifying and renouncing all my beliefs.