Two years in The Livingness
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Two years in The Livingness
Many people are asking me why do you sleep and wake up so early; why don’t you eat gluten or dairy and why did you stop doing the things you were doing?
It has been 2 years since August 2016 when my practitioner, Sara Williams, who I was seeing at the time to deal with my increasing levels of stress in life, told me about the ‘living-ness’.
“Livingness”, I thought, “Interesting word, but what does it even mean”?
Since I have tried everything so far to find answers in life with the intention to ‘fix me’ or ‘improve who I am’, including yoga, existentialist books, dance, all sorts of religious institutions and philosophies, I thought I would give it a go.
The first step was to change my sleeping rhythm. From going to bed at 23.00 and waking up at 7.00am I turned the clock back to going to bed at 21.00 and waking up at 4.00am, sometimes even earlier. The benefits of that were numerous. I felt more energised throughout the day, more focussed and more alive. Plus, I could get more done, including cooking for the day, housework and studying for a course while having a full time job. As I found later on, this has its scientific explanation; from 21.00 to 1.00 the body cleanses itself.
The second step was food. I was never overweight and I enjoyed eating, especially in restaurants. I was taken aback when Sara suggested I look at my diet, not with the intention to follow a specific diet but to observe how the food that I eat makes me feel. Not long after, I realised that when I was eating pasta or sandwiches at work, I could barely stay awake and focus. From that same observation I discarded dairy for making me feel bloated, sugar and coffee for raciness and alcohol for a deep sense of numbness.
Observing how food makes me feel set off a process of lovingly discarding what does not belong in my diet anymore. I managed to lose those 5 kilos that always bothered me, without any exercise. It opened up a process of being honest with myself for how I feel and understanding why I was choosing certain foods over others, especially the difference between emotional/racy eating versus eating to truly nurture myself.
People were also surprised with the fact that I stopped doing things I used to do. For those who have known me even a little, they know how much of a social butterfly I am and that I used to cram ‘things to do’ into my weekly if not daily schedule, including dancing, singing, acting, going out with friends, my regular Greek nights etc. The answer to my friends’ questions “where is all that now?” came from me asking me why was I doing all that in the first place. Is there a true deep purpose in all these social interactions and relentless activities, or are they exposing of a deep sense of loneliness?
In fact, I was missing me is the true answer. I was missing purpose. I was missing staying where I am still and not needing to do anything. How many of us do things to fill space and time with something because we cannot deal with what we feel? The things I was doing were a distraction from who I am truly and a relentless chasing of stuff and situations to not admit to myself that I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin . . . that there were things I have not dealt with in myself. And the only way through them was to face them rather than distracting myself from them.
You know this feeling when everything around you – your life, your achievements, your friends, your family – everything looks good but you feel that something is deeply missing?
It was then I realised that my choices and decisions were driven by what ‘I have to do’ and not by what I really feel like doing. It was a big stop for me to realise that most of the things I was doing, I was feeling that ‘I had to’, or I was ‘obliged to do’. I had turned into a ‘doing machine’! And there was so much hardness in that.
That was another process of discarding. I stopped everything that felt non-purposeful and I learnt how to say lovingly ‘No’. I do not miss those things anymore as they got replaced by a quality of life that I would not have imagined and I would not change anymore for anything distracting – as enticing as it looks, it would not feel as great in my body.
All these choices have been supported by 'Sacred Esoteric Healing’, a hands-on healing modality that I experienced and then was taught to practise by Serge Benhayon and I now love deeply. Sacred Esoteric Healing confirmed the fact that despite all that I have allowed in my body, there was an essence which was pure and untouched. By removing the offending energies in the body, I had the chance to feel again that essence and start expressing from and through that. This is how in truth all the changes mentioned above were made. It was a process of discarding and a sense of me ‘coming back home to me’ again.
I realized that it was all about loving myself more and more deeply and asking what do I feel, what is my truth, what is my body saying? Many people I have met changed dramatically... they lost weight, their bodies and faces changed. I didn’t change physically that much but the way I feel inside and the way I see myself has changed. I feel steadier, more still, more content, more loving, more generous, more solid.
And it doesn’t stop there. It’s a relationship with myself that I’m uncovering, unfolding and deepening every day. This relationship with myself is what I bring to others and in that quality I am in a relationship with them too.
The Way of The Livingness has inspired me to see that:
- the dissatisfaction I was feeling in life was coming from not living who I am truly. And not taking decisions based on what I feel is true but what I see around me as true.
- my stress was due to the fact of not putting myself first and foremost in life. Not the things I do, my projects and my job, but myself.
- it is not about what I do in life but how I do it and the quality it comes with.
- there was nothing to fix or improve or get better at. All is there inside us, waiting for us to become aware of this and then live from this awareness.
- it is essential to learn how to say no. No to what doesn’t belong, no to what feels abusive, no to what feels like a compromise.
Now I take a stop and I ask myself, how does that make me feel?
This is my way of living. And I love it. Deeply.
Simple, isn’t it?
Filed under
Connection, Culture, Dairy free, Livingness
