The unveiling of the true woman within
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The unveiling of the true woman within
In my teens I always knew I would be an amazing and beautiful woman when in my sixties. I just knew and saw myself at that age and sensed how that would feel. This feeling stayed with me always, but boy oh boy did I take detours. Not that I am sixty now, but what has unfolded since my teens is quite remarkable.
Growing up in a highly dysfunctional and abusive environment with an alcoholic dad and deep unsettlement and sadness throughout the family, I had a lot of angst to learn to cope with. I managed it to the best of my ability, mainly through putting up walls, by becoming super-efficient and being very good at doing a lot of things. By being very self-sufficient from an early age I could ensure that I depended as little as possible on anybody else.
I lived like this throughout my life, even in moments where there was no threat or abuse. I developed the perfect facade so no one would ask me to come out and be just me – they never got me, the real me I now know myself to be. I created the perfect set-up to cope with all that was happening around me.
But living like this meant I hardened up from a very early age, trying to hide and manage the deep desolation and sadness that was written all over me. Under the motto “tough it out ’til you move out” I had my very own customised survival plan. But it all came at a high price. Buried was the delicate tenderness of the very young girl, and with it vanished the ability to connect deeply with others, or myself for that matter – all of which was not to be rediscovered and reconnected to until much later in life.
My body showed the effect of living in this hardness and protection. I had developed the body of a bodybuilder without once touching any weights or visiting a fitness studio; sport was the last thing on my mind. Yet I had physical strength to no end. You could think that’s a good thing, no? No need to exercise and you look fitter than most. Not so.
Age 15 – deeply saddened and discontent with my life.
Age 16 – putting on a brave face.
Age 18 – thought that sitting on the back of a bike racing on the autobahn at speeds up to 230 km/h was a good idea.
The troubles at home kept feeding deep hurts I carried with me as I ventured out into my unfolding life. It was clear that the scars and hurts moved out with me. Having never dealt with them, they kept fostering a similar behaviour where, at one point, as I was seeking out a very abusive partner, I just looked at my life and went "What the heck am I doing? I am going out with a carbon copy of my dad, except he is even more volatile!!"
After leaving this abusive relationship I still kept seeking love and connection. More moderate relationships followed, but nothing was based on true love and respect – what I now know are fundamental for a relationship worth developing, may that be in an intimate relationship or a friendship.
From my teens to mid-thirties I knew no other way to be with myself than to harshly criticise my body. You know the kind where you mentally cut your body into pieces and you like this part but you hate that, and if only this part was like that etc., etc. . . At twenty years I went onto a strict exercise and diet regime to lose 10kgs in three months, not because I was overweight, but because I felt I didn’t measure up to the pictures in glossy magazines. This resulted in an even harder body – and the ensuing disappointment when the weight was right back on once I stopped going to the gym six days a week and normalised my diet again. At the peak of my lack of self-worth I contemplated having plastic surgery, based on a comment made to me by a then boyfriend.
Throughout my life I have copped a lot of criticism on how I looked or how I didn’t measure up to expectations on how I should look. Due to the lack of connection with myself I gobbled it all up and had become very fixed on the external, and the ensuing comparison poisoned my life extensively. It was lived and experienced both ways, with other women comparing with me and me with them ... which is a very toxic and loveless way to be with each other. Unfortunately, this is a way women engage in on a mass scale across the world and it’s frequently promoted as being a normal behaviour – when in fact it is anything but that.
As you can read from the above, my self-regard was devastatingly low when it came to my body and appearance and I was deeply unhappy due to not having built a relationship with myself. Having never had a deep sense of who I am in essence and pretty much defining myself by what I did, I basically never connected to the beauty in me waiting to be tapped into and lived.
Despite this deep level of disregard for myself, I did a lot of things very, very well throughout my life. I had a very successful functioning career many would have envied. I was always very creative and expressed this through many mediums. I appeared as very confident and assured ... a facade that I projected successfully to the unsuspecting observer. But look into my eyes and let them tell the truth . . .
Age 24 – just made it to be the art director of a multimillion-dollar international account.
Age 27 – right in the glamour of it all.
Age 29 – still in the same rut however now totally disillusioned by my professional industry …
Parallel to having this ‘successful’ career, more and more desperately looking for a fulfilling life, I started to dabble in the new age spectrum. Attending courses, using coloured water and essences to "clear the aura", training and practising in several forms of pranic healing and reciting mantras for one hour a day, to then eventually succumb to what I thought was an ‘exotic’ life in an ashram in the Himalayas.
All this effort in an attempt to relieve the pains of the buried hurts, yet all the while setting myself up for more and more hurt and pain. Looking back I can see how desperately I was looking for connection and thus Love in its true expression in all the wrong places. Namely – outside of myself, where it can never ever be found.
Age 31 – one year into the spiritual quest ... totally allured by it.
Age 33 – in the midst of the enthral a fog is clouding my eyes and face.
Age 34 – the longer I indulged in the spiritual quest the more depleted my body became.
It took until I met Serge Benhayon in 2001 for things to slowly but surely un-crust and take a 180 degree turn. In my first session, I felt a deep connection to the awareness offered to me, and the healing I received.
Meeting Serge Benhayon has been the single most important event in my life to-date. It was the stop, the wake-up, the Aha and a finally-it-all-makes-sense moment all in one. I was not going to ever give up what I just reconnected to – myself.
Age 37 – dawn of a new era, just before going to one of my first events with Serge Benhayon.
Age 45 – joy is now starting to be an everyday experience. Gone are the days of permanent sadness.
Age 46 – layers of hardness are melting and revealing slowly the true beauty within. But there is so much more …
And so it began. Re-connecting to myself was only the initiating point, as the real healing was to re-establish my life in all parts based on the essence of who I truly am, and not the hurts of the past.
This has been, and continues to be, a deepening unfoldment . . .
Since the first session I have come to embrace myself as a very delicate and tender woman – no longer needing protection to get through life. I have no desire left in me to diminish myself with my own criticism and the last strings of the ever-crippling perfectionism are leaving the house as we speak. I enjoy the ever-deepening understanding of who I am – the delicate unfolding and blossoming as a woman. I feel love and I feel loved – how precious is that!
I have healed my relationships with men to the point where I adore their absolute tenderness and generosity at heart. Their exquisite beauty in expression and the support they offer, which I have finally let in and thus have the pleasure to receive these days. And I can see in every man that all this is there, waiting to be claimed and expressed. In meeting them in this understanding I have the pleasure to experience every day interactions previously completely lacking in my life.
My relationships with women – well, where do I start? I was disillusioned way back in 2000. Little did I know that meeting Serge would completely and utterly transform the way I connect and interact with women. Having now many, many connections with women in my life is enriching, nourishing and supportive; something I previously only dreamt of having and something I would never want to miss again. I love women and their unique expression of their essence.
There is yet a bit of a way to go for society at large to embrace what women so obviously have to share with the world and so far we only have scratched the surface of what is there on offer for us all. I have the great pleasure to be connected to a huge group of women who are revolutionising the way women are with themselves, how they view themselves and share themselves and their wisdom with their communities far and wide.
I particularly cherish the teachings and presentations on women’s health by Serge, as well as by Natalie Benhayon, Serge’s daughter and the founder of Esoteric Women’s Health. They have brought back to us all the permission to reclaim what I deep inside always knew about myself – but hadn’t dared to claim and live. There is on offer a pouring forth of wisdom that empowers us all, men and women, to re-evaluate how we live and how we relate. They bring minute detail into our everyday – a responsibility that is worth living because it is the most fulfilling way to share ourselves in life.
By having made the choices to reclaim my life completely, my whole body has reconfigured. Looking at old photos now, people can’t believe the enormous refinement that has and is taking place, an on-going process never to be limited by where we think we can get to . . .
Overall, gone are the apprehensions and holding back. I live life with an inner strength and not a put-on confidence. I know now with all of me that I will be living exactly as that wise beauty-full woman I saw myself to be in my sixties, which actually was always present deep inside waiting to be reconnected to and is now forever unfolding and forever deepening.
Filed under
Abuse, Alcohol, Hardness, Career, Healthy relationships, Self-love, Universal Medicine, Women's health, Relationship problems
