By Ingrid Ward, West Auckland, New Zealand
My body began speaking to me very loudly from an early age with symptoms that included a blocked or runny nose, lots of itching in various parts of my body, and digestive disturbances like diarrhoea and bloating. But I can hardly ever remember these reactions or symptoms being put down to food, except for the hives being blamed on a certain variety of apples and the swelling of my lips and mouth on eating crayfish: when my body spoke that time it was listened to immediately, as the reaction was severe. That was the last time crayfish was eaten, as to eat it again may have had a rather scary outcome.
In the 1950’s when I was growing up, food intolerances or allergies weren’t spoken or written about very often, so there was very little information to help people know about the intricacies of their bodies, and we certainly didn’t get taught much about the body at school. You just ate the food that you were presented with and anything that the body tried to tell you by way of subtle (or not so subtle) messages was likely to be overridden, as most then didn’t understand that food could be the issue behind many of the body’s ills.
So on I went eating what I was given without question and not surprisingly the suffering, along with the messages from my body, continued. I can remember suspecting that milk was the culprit behind the runny nose and excess mucous issues, but milk, in this little country of 10,000 dairy farms, was considered to be liquid gold and essential for the strength of our bones, and to say you didn’t want to drink it was almost sacrilege. Those bottles of warm milk that waited for us at school every day were my worst nightmare with my body speaking so loudly after each one, not just with nose issues, but with headaches as well. With the continual nose issues and sore throats, my tonsils finally gave up and at age eight they were removed, but I continued to drink milk and so my body kept talking. I have a feeling that I slowly began to accept that everything I was going through was actually normal, so I stopped talking about it.
Then there was the regular Sunday afternoon headache that I know now came from the cream that was placed in huge dollops over the special Sunday dessert. The messages usually began several hours after the ingestion of this eagerly awaited delight, but it was ignored as jelly and cream was too lovely to cast aside.
The digestive issues, including regular bouts of diarrhoea, were more often than not put down to contracting a ‘bug’. The only reason for this that my very puzzled mother could come up with was that I was not washing my hands enough, but having to wash my hands every five minutes was not something that a young child wanted to do, so I didn’t. I know now from the knowledge and wisdom I have acquired over the last 17 years that this digestive reaction came from the gluten in the bread I ate, but that discovery was a long way off.
And the itching! Oh, that continuous scratching until my skin was raw from being raked by my finger nails, itching which my body was trying to tell me was from sugar! But who would want to give up the sweet stuff? After all, everyone else was consuming it so why shouldn’t I? Mind 1 – Body 0!
Looking back, I can see that there were times my body struggled under this continual abuse as I was regularly stopped in my tracks with an illness or disease. That makes sense as it would have been exhausted trying to process products that it couldn’t deal with so it had to stop me somehow to recharge, but sadly its wisdom continued to be overruled by a mind that had its own agenda; a mind with a high IQ that was considered to be a marker of intelligence.
It wasn’t as if the people around me were un-intelligent either. Just like me, they hadn’t been brought up to understand their bodies, just as those before them also hadn’t been. The doctors that I saw regularly were naturally considered to be wise and so we expected them to have all the answers to our questions, but none seemed to know how to decipher what my body was trying to say. In retrospect, that was understandable as the fact that certain foods could cause health issues probably hadn’t been a part of their training.
…
Over the years I had a moment or two when I began to get a sense of what my body was telling me and took dairy, or bread, and sometimes a little of the sugar out of my diet, but even though I started to feel a whole lot better, it didn’t take long before they found their way back in again, usually as a result of what was going on in my life. The dairy, gluten and sugar-filled food had become a comfort, a way of numbing myself and a way of filling up the emptiness that I was living with and, without the food, I didn’t know how I would be able to exist.
Then at aged 50, I finally got it; I had one of those light bulb moments that turn your life upside down. I came across a book that could have been written by me: the story of a woman’s life that totally mirrored mine, and the moment I finished it, I did not hesitate to change the way I was eating, and what I now know to be my true intelligence, the intelligence of my body, was given full reign. Out went the dairy, the wheat and the sugar, and over the next few months, up went my energy levels and the quality of my health, and slowly, but surely, down went my weight. I could almost hear my body sighing with relief! It was finally being listened to.
But although much happier than it had ever been, my body was still whispering in my ear and it wasn’t until the gluten was finally removed and I began to address the many emotional issues and the exhaustion that were behind my eating patterns that my body’s whispers became less and less. These final pieces of the puzzle were supplied when, in 2005, I began to attend presentations by Serge Benhayon, founder of Universal Medicine.
These presentations contained bucket loads of light bulb moments, as well as many confirmations, especially around the foods that my body had tried for years to tell me that it couldn’t deal with; finally I was listening to what I now know to be true intelligence, the intelligence of my body.
I know without one iota of doubt that if I had been brought up to know my body as I know it now and how to understand its messages, to respect it as the all-wise and wonderful vessel that it is, my life story would read very differently and that would have been so very welcome. But as the saying goes: “Better late than never.” Now I know that by finally acknowledging the innate wisdom of this amazing body of mine, I no longer allow myself to be led astray by my wayward mind.
With the wisdom of my body leading the way, my mind is brought into line, so that the two may work in harmony as one, allowing space for my soul to express through me as whole body intelligence.
Read more:
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
This is the part I don’t understand:
“a mind with a high IQ that was considered to be a marker of intelligence.”
Just recently I over heard a conversation by senior nurses, so they are not only very intelligent but they also know the function of the body inside out. They were discussing Christmas and alcohol and from their conversation it sounded as though it was as natural to drink alcohol as a glass of water. And yet they know the harm that alcohol has on our bodies so what is intelligence? And are we being misled when it comes to ‘true’ intelligence? Why do we for example drink something that only tastes pleasant because it has a huge amount of sugar in it, knowing that it is going to harm us, where is the intelligence in that?
Ingrid, when I read about the blocked nose, it reminded me of the years of what felt like torture, or loss of proper breathing my body deserved. All those signs and symptoms were there and like yourself, who was going to say to me what the cause of the problem was. Eventually the body continued to speak louder and louder and I had no choice but to listen to it.
It’s far from being perfect in that there are times when comfort sneaks in and if we look at the world, it’s full of this. Comfort is around us, whether in food or technology.
The body speaks to us all the time, it’s our best friend, we just need to learn to listen to it more and more, otherwise it will make you listen to it by our stop moment. See the truth of what it presents otherwise truth will make you see it.
The mind is so good at rationalizing its waywardness. The one I get caught often is “I am not perfect”. But the one thing I do know is that as I deepen the love that I hold myself in, some of the choices have become just inconceivable to be even contemplated and it’s simply no longer a part of me.
Fumiyo, it is our mind that gets in the way to connecting to our body’s intelligence. It interferes all the time. If we have a solid foundation with our body, and the relationship deepens, then the body’s intelligence takes us to another path of love and nurturing, then the path of destruction.
Shushila your comment is a pot of gold, we are taught from a very early age what is considered normal by societies standards but I have discovered that actually my body does know more than my mind and if I listen to my body then I’m actually given the answers I’m seeking it is unbelievable and true my question to myself is why didn’t I listen to my body all those years ago? It would have saved me a lot of pain and discomfort not to say a huge amount of money.
The fact we can smoke cigarettes is a perfect example of this, our lungs burn and we cough when we first inhale, but we continue smoking.
Thanks Ingrid, I really enjoyed reading this again. I remember seeing a doctor years ago with a collection of weird symptoms, it’s like she had a moment of clarity and insight and announced that I should go for allergy testing. At the time I went on a strict diet to eliminate most foods know to cause allergies or intolerances, and was tested as well for some foods and environmental things like dust mites and moulds. I remember being tested for mushrooms and feeling completely spacey and out of it. There is much more awareness now but there are still very strong beliefs about certain foods and drinks being healthy but our body may disagree.
The light bulb moments and confirmations that Ingrid writes about here has been my experience too, listening and participating in the presentations and workshops led by Serge Benhayon and they continue, a breath of fresh air exposing and revealing truth; my body saying ‘yes’ aligning, supporting me in every way to deepen in the knowing of the truth of who I am and my purpose here on this plane of life.
Food gets blamed for a lot but it’s the underlying why we do what we do. The energy we live in leads to the food we eat.
Beautifully summed up Ingrid: “With the wisdom of my body leading the way, my mind is brought into line, so that the two may work in harmony as one, allowing space for my soul to express through me as whole body intelligence.” Our responsibility is to treat our body with the greatest honour and respect so that this is indeed possible.
A great idea Doug. As parents we can pass onto our children of course but what about teachers at school…there is so much that we could enlighten children about and I do know some teachers who are doing just that, however it is not general practice and more could be communicated on this subject.
Every day we are each of us bathed in a richness of wisdom unsurpassed by any measure of seeming wisdom we may adopt in its place. That we insist on moving in a way that shuts us off from this wisdom is not the fault of the wisdom itself but the very deliberate mechanisations we put into place to have us live the reduced form of intelligence we have accepted as our norm because it offers us a certain level of comfort and security, albeit at the expense of us fully appreciating, feeling and accessing that which we are already bathed in.
When I read this blog I hear the voice of a very wise woman and a very wise body!
Gosh, the reminder of school milk and that intense feeling of nausea at having to drink it and even worse after drinking it, and equally after having clotted cream piled over desserts and having a similar feeling is a pretty intense memory. But I can remember encouraging my own children to eat certain foods they didn’t like thinking that they were good for them. We do know as children what our bodies want and dont want – how honouring it would be if we listened to their feelings and accepted that they did indeed know what they were telling us.
I remember when I was at school and about 9 years old, there was a girl who did not eat chocolate. We just could not understand how someone would not eat chocolate. She said she would get a headache if she had one and we just thought she was the most unlucky person on earth. Eventually she ‘overcame’ that ‘problem’ and joined the rest of the chocolate eating population. I wonder how she is doing now.
I get that thing where people project onto me that I am missing out because I don’t eat this or that. I am not unlucky or missing out if it makes me ill. If anything the world misses out on me while I am out of action being ill from eating something that doesn’t agree with me.
The wonderful thing is Ingrid, that you eventually did listen. For so many people this doorway never even opens in this life.
Every day I celebrate the choice I finally made to listen as if I hadn’t I know that I would have been extremely unwell by now. I have proved to myself that the quality of our lives can change by making different choices, but all around me I see so many choosing to stay with the choices they have always made and as a result the ‘doorway’ you mention, stays firmly stuck shut as well.
Many times we blame a cold for our runny nose but in truth it is the food we have been eating, Likewise I realise now there is a sugar hangover, we don’t have to drink alcohol to suffer from this, a few pieces of cake, biscuits desserts or even sometimes a large helping of sweetened fruit salad is all it takes.
Regardless of a mind with a high IQ it is the body that has all the answers. The wisdom of the body knows what supports it and what does not and although I have reacted badly to those that have given credence to the mind over the body I now understand energy, how it works and the bigger picture. It sometimes amazes me what can come through another to try and disturb the truth of what I am presenting!
To me this is huge and shows just how much work needs to be done as you were not taught as a child to listen to your body (because the adults had not been taught that .. no blame here) but years later this is still happening, If not getting worse around the globe. ‘I know without one iota of doubt that if I had been brought up to know my body as I know it now and how to understand its messages, to respect it as the all-wise and wonderful vessel that it is, my life story would read very differently and that would have been so very welcome. But as the saying goes: “Better late than never.’ We need to all work towards a point where ‘better late than never’ will never be used again regarding our health, wellbeing, understanding, awareness or anything in fact because we are so connected to our awareness from day one and are truly supported by others with this throughout our life.
Yes I would love to see the words “better late than never” become obsolete, for the simple fact that our children are raised to know the beauty and the fragility of their bodies from day one. It may take a while but I am sure that with a commitment to heal ourselves first the ripple effects will be huge and so very welcome.
I hear ya on this one. My body has told me far more than a doctor has in terms of what it needs and more importantly, what it doesn’t need. And that’s frustrating sometimes because many of the foods I love just don’t make me feel good. And it keeps changing too – things like crisps or sweet potato that I could eat a few years ago do not have a good effect on me. On the one hand annoying, but on the other it’s amazing – and the fact that I respond to the latter makes me amazing too.
I love the realness you share with here Nick; the frustrations and annoyances, as your food choices change, but at the same time your awareness that it’s actually amazing that you are finally listening to your wonderfully wise body. And yes, I can feel your amazingness from here!
We have been on this planet now for a very long time, longer than most people think and you would think we would all be by now in tune with our bodies and know exactly what we can and can’t eat and why we would want to eat to harm ourselves or consume alcohol etc, but the mind is a powerful thing if left unchecked and our spirits revel in tricking us into what keeps us from connecting with our souls, so we do need to look behind our cravings if we do want true quality in our later years.
When we get into the energetic root causes, the emotions that are held in the body to be healed, then our lifestyle choices can change and stick. It’s then not a struggle or requiring of willpower but naturally we make healthier, more loving choices.
The messages from the media of our body are a very strong advertisement for how it calls to be cared for and it is our own responsibility to listen.
The thing is we aren’t brought up to understand our bodies as the author has stated, so it’s not so much as us being unintelligent but there is an element of common sense missing these days.
The body holds a great wisdom within, and is constantly communicating with us, the problem is we choose not to listen or ignore it, yet there is something magical being offered to us, and it pays to be all ears.
Imagine having a conversation with someone where you shared the answer they were after, but they just ignored it and blathered on for 20 years or so while you just stood there! This is in effect how we tend to be with our body. But it’s never to late to stop and hear in full what it has to say.
I love the analogy Joseph, it simply makes sense, but at the same time it almost makes me cringe for that is exactly what I did, what so many of us do. When I think of the time I spent ignoring my body it doesn’t make any sense at all but to have finally come to understand how it is endlessly ‘talking’ to me and that I can actually do something about the messages brings common sense firmly back into my health equation.
Great analogy Joseph … Even though we may not listen, it – Our Soul, Our love never ceases to give up on us… and when we do stop and take a step towards it, this quality of love takes 10 steps towards you.
Even after years and years of abuse our bodies never stop communicating with us, lovingly guiding us home.
Once we start listening to our body, we begin to notice that it does not stop showing us that there is always more and more self-love to discover…
The power of what is seen to be ‘normal’ and healthy in the best interests of society oozes here. There is a quiet force that comes at you when something that is part of the beliefs of society are challenged. The wisdom of the body holds all we are as precious and with its wisdom will support us toward whole health. I love what you have written here Ingrid and how you have exposed the ‘accepted’ ways of the past.
And it is that “power of what is seen to be ‘normal’” in society that comes straight at you when choosing to make a change in the way you are eating, drinking and living. And for me it came from those closest to me which at the time really puzzled me as I was making the changes to improve my health and well-being. Looking back now I can see that they were simply being challenged, uncomfortably so, as to how they were living.
Our bodies are the wisest and most wonderful friends we will ever have. They are so very worth listening to for what they have to say is priceless beyond measure.
Yes Ingrid, the presentations of Serge Benhayon offer many light bulb moments and confirmations, I too have experienced them and they are literally life changing.
‘ My mind is brought into line’ so the soul can come through.
There the true intelligence is lived.
‘ My body spoke, but I didn’t listen… for a very long time ‘ yet it is incredible how when we do start to listen the body soon responds and says thank you.. I have found.
I love how you say how the presentations of Universal Medicine contained bucket loads of light bulb moments, these presentations are gold and always deeply honouring of the wisdom of our body.