by Anna Karam, Goonellabah, Australia
Before Universal Medicine, life for me was just a game of recognition. There were good days, there were bad, and this depended always on how much or how little I was recognised or accepted by others. The good days saw me loved, appreciated and valued, but this love, appreciation and value never came from within me, it always stemmed from the outside world – my family, peers or work colleagues. My relationship with life and with myself was totally dependent upon the amount of recognition I received. I was very much a product of what life dealt me!I spent many years fooling myself that I could get through life this way; in fact I couldn’t see any other way. I used the recognition I got as a way to confirm within myself that I was a good person – someone of worth, yet in truth I had so little self-worth that most of the time this false recognition I was getting couldn’t cover the deep ache and emptiness I was feeling in my heart, and forever trying to run from.
Looking back now I can see that I set myself up perfectly: I was the favourite child, my sisters always considered me the most attractive, most liked, most intelligent, best at sport – I couldn’t go wrong – yet the ache remained. While growing up I remember how much attention I got for being all the above, and how much it riled my sisters; they were riddled with jealousy, and even though this felt awful in my relationship with them, I needed to play this game otherwise I would have to feel my ache, and that to me felt all too much. I can now say none of the behaviour designed to get this attention felt right, yet there was no way I was giving it up.
By the time I was 15 I had developed a serious case of bulimia – a physical and mental torture that would go on into my 30’s and my life as a mother and wife. I hid all this very well and from the outside I had everyone fooled – at least I thought so. The recognition kept coming and I continued to use this as my way to get through life, but in truth I was a mess – with very little true regard for myself. At 30 a friend introduced me to a book titled ‘The Way It Is’, written by Serge Benhayon. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time and she had been having dreams about me and had the impulse to get back in touch – how grateful I am that she trusted this, for this was my first introduction to Universal Medicine. In the years between, have no doubt about it, I sought out every modality possible in a search for true healing. From western medicine and psychology, to a long list of alternative therapies including homeopathy, various schools of yoga, naturopathy, Buddhism, theosophy, reiki, a zillion different styles of meditation; you name it, I tried it. I was determined to find something of truth in this world, yet every direction I turned felt as if it was lacking. Somehow, I knew all of these modalities weren’t the answer; perhaps the greatest evidence for this was in the fact that nothing was truly changing in my life – the bulimia continued, as did all the physical self-abuse and mental torment that came with it.
True change for me came about through my association with Universal Medicine. In the beginning what was being presented wasn’t so easy for me to hear, but I couldn’t deny that what I felt was so different and so refreshing – it was music to my ears. I was so used to being recognised and validated for all the things that I did, or the way that I looked. But here there was none of that. Instead I was met with love, and at first I didn’t even recognise this love because it had been so long since I had truly felt it from another; it felt completely different from all the recognition, pandering and niceness that I was so used to. From here I had to feel just how much my life was void of this love, yet in truth I was feeling this all along anyway; the ache and the emptiness were simply there because I wasn’t connecting to the love within myself – instead I had replaced it with another version that forever kept me longing for more, and never feeling complete or content within myself.
After living for so long without love, I wondered how it could be possible for me to feel love in my life. I came to realise that other individuals holding themselves in such love, in such regard and stillness, were in fact holding me in the same way (and all others they came in contact with); and whilst this was not something I could give to myself at that point, I could still feel this from them.
Because I could feel this love, I knew now I had a choice; this same love was within me – as it is equally within all – and it was up to me to feel this for myself, and to learn once again to bring this love to my daily life and expression. At first I found this difficult, there was so much self-doubt, self-criticism, and such a momentum of choosing to put myself as lesser and from there crave the old recognition I had for so long relied upon. But slowly, and with my commitment building to myself, things started to change. The bulimia I had once thought to be my lot in life is no more (yes – WOW!!), I am far more loving with myself and able to express this love more with others. My confidence is building; not the confidence I once had as a result of others recognising me, but a true confidence that comes from within. I am learning how simple and practical it is to be with myself and to love myself deeply, and from here how I feel towards others is naturally changing also. I no longer feel to cower or hide or protect myself, because I can feel that same love in them.
Universal Medicine has supported me in transforming a life of emptiness and craving recognition into a life that is more deeply and truly loving each day, and for this my appreciation has no end.
To list the ways in which Universal Medicine has supported me in all the above to be where I am today would take too long, and so I will say simply this: it has supported me to re-connect to the truth of who I am and the truth of who we all are – the truth of love. I have seen that there is another way to live and that I can change this at any time – in my own time – and that life is indeed a result of my own choosing, and not what others have done to me, as I was taught and thought. I have felt the importance of patience in learning to be loving with self, and to let go of judgment towards myself and others. I have felt the true meaning of responsibility and compassion – and of which my understanding is constantly deepening. And above all, I have felt that there is no end to how truly amazing we are, and how truly amazingly we are able to live if we simply allow ourselves to be… and stop trying to live up to all the expectations and demands that we, and the world at large, place on us.