When I first started practicing Optometry 20 years ago, and for many years thereafter, I felt like I was an actor on a stage, but seldom the true me.

My approach was to ‘mimic my patient’ or ‘to follow their lead’. I was never taught this explicitly at the time, but just recently I attended a Customer Services workshop where this was recommended as a way to ‘wow’ your client.

I reflected back to a time when I was constantly measuring how another person was from the minute they walked through the door. If they were friendly and jovial, I would be too. If they were quietly spoken, I would drop my voice. I have always seen a lot of paediatric clients, many with ADD: when they were in my chair, I would rush around in a frantic spin trying to get everything done that I needed to do in as quick a time as possible.

At the end of every working day I was exhausted. Not because of the physical aspects of my job, but because of the energy I put into being what I thought everyone wanted me to be, and my constant measuring of everyone else. I thought, though not consciously, that I was meeting each person where they were at.

When I look back now, and if I think of the ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) child, what reflection did they get from me? Did they get a gentle person who could calmly work, being present with each task in every moment, without judgement? No! Did they get a reflection that there could be another way? Definitely not!

Since coming to the work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, I have been presented with another way; a true way that supports not only me but everyone who walks through my door.

The reflection I have received from Serge Benhayon is that he is always the same, with everyone in every moment. He meets everyone with his full presence and attention. He never tries to be ‘nice’ or ‘polite’ or play social games. He is just himself, consistently – he ‘breathes his own breath’ and never holds back his truth and love.

From attending Universal Medicine events I have learned to support myself at work. To approach each person and task with my full presence. To work and move gently throughout the day and to honour what I feel in every moment.

I have learned to connect to me, to feel the true me and to express from there (without perfection, as I still have ‘wobbles’). I am naturally a friendly person who loves people: I love to chat, to listen and to share. Some days I feel tender and delicate, and I honour that too. Because I can now feel the loving essence inside of me, I am able to truly meet another. In other words, connect to that loving essence in everyone else and allow them to express however they so choose.

Now when you walk through the door, instead of the exhausted, racy actor, you get the true me!

By Carmin Hall, B.Optom  Grad.Cert.Ocular Therapeutics

Further Reading:
That Monday Morning Feeling – Not Living the True Me