From the time I was a young boy, I knew my gentle and caring nature. I was also drawn to the beauty and divinity, and could really feel the beautiful essence, of women. I loved the deeply nurturing aspects of women and found that I could connect easily with them and started to develop relationships that were based on a foundation of just being together, without need or imposition. Women felt at ease around me too, and I with them. At school, I often opted to spend time playing with the girls in recess breaks at school, over the rough games that were being played by the boys.
Just as I was entering into being a teenager, things started to change. At home the tension was building between my parents, leading to them separating. At the time, I felt devastated. Yes, there was the anger and hurt around my parents separating, but also I had forgotten the beautiful connection that I had with myself. I started desperately seeking connection outside myself to try to fill this huge void I was feeling inside. I soon discovered there were many ways I could do this – from alcohol and drugs, to food and sex. The way I was using these substances was purely abusive; they were my band-aids to keep everything together to be able to function with some normality in life. They offered a numbing effect for me to forget the pain, but only for so long.
I also found comfort in being with women now as it offered a distraction from what I would otherwise have to feel. These relationships became ones based on a need from where I would want to connect with women to find that nurturing essence I felt was missing in my life. These relationships never felt satisfying for me, yet there was always a yearning to be in a relationship when I wasn’t in one; and when I was in one, I always thought it wasn’t the right one, and so would be constantly on the lookout for something I perceived as being better. I thought it would be the one thing, to find the perfect relationship that would fix everything I was feeling.
This deep dissatisfaction went on for many years and I always felt I was in a cycle of seeking fulfilment in relationships but never finding it.
Years later, after repeating this cycle many times and faced now with a marriage divorce of my own to deal with, realising that the vices I had used to patch things up were no longer working, I felt the opportunity to really have a good look at what was going on here. This was a crossroads, as I knew I couldn’t go back to the ways of the past as that had just created a misery time and time again. But where to now?
At this time I met Serge Benhayon and the practitioners from Universal Medicine. What was presented here was the possibility that I could re-develop a loving relationship with myself; that by listening and by being truly with me, this relationship with myself could be the foundation for the way I live and love.
This in the beginning was something that felt foreign to me as it had been some time since I had felt this connection, but at the same time, I had an inkling of something deep down that felt familiar. For so long I had not taken care of myself, even to the level of neglecting basic self-care. I started with small things such as the way I made my bed and how I got dressed in the morning. By starting to feel everything I was doing, I began to really feel me again. Even though I hadn’t felt this way for a long time, it started to feel familiar again. I started to feel that I was building a relationship with myself that was true. There weren’t the highs and lows of other relationships I had been in, but a more constant connection, as long as I chose to be open and make the choice to be present in this relationship with myself. From the subtle beginnings of feeling and making the smaller choices in my life, I found I was inspired to build on and to expand them into other areas of my life.
I now feel the loving commitment of the ever-developing relationship with myself… not perfect, sometimes a little wobbly as I let go of old patterns and behaviours, but a lot more honest than it’s ever been. This re-connection – a returning to my true essence – has multiple effects, one being that other relationships, such as in intimate relationships, relationships with friends, workmates and the wider community are also changing. I’m feeling more engaged in the world, being able to bring so much more of me to relationships with everyone I meet and in all I do. I feel that with the depth of intimacy lived with myself in my own life, I feel more equipped to not just cope with life, but to be able to live with joy and harmony and take these lived qualities of true relationship with me in all I do.
By Chris Vale, Bunbury, Western Australia
Further Reading:
Discovering true relationship
Building true relationships
What is a Relationship with Myself?
There are now thousands upon thousands of people around the world from all walks of life who have been introduced to Serge Benhayon and the Ageless Wisdom. To re-develop a relationship with oneself is the greatest gift humanity has been given. As we re-develop this way of being, it changes all our relationships as the love we have for ourselves is shared with everyone we meet, even as we pass by people on the street they get to feel the love that we have re-connected back to, which gives them an opportunity to reconnect back to this loving way too. Now that is amazing!
When we walk and live the Truth we already know within, everything feels enough and complete. Love having the opportunity through the work with Universal Medicine to heal what hurts us from the past and to come back to our loving and caring nature.
The separation we suffer from most is not the separation from others but from ourselves, by leaving the precious beings we really are.
Serge Benhayon supports us to re-connect with ourselves , ‘I had forgotten the beautiful connection that I had with myself.’
There is something quite remarkable about Serge Benhayon and the practitioners from Universal Medicine.
We have all been offered an opportunity to, as you say Chris, re-develop or re-connect back to this hidden Gem, this inner most love. To not live in the shadows, but to live in the full sun of life and the joy that this offers is unlike any experience so far in this life time.
As you have shared Chris, finding our Essence, Inner-most-heart/Soul, becomes so innate it becomes the Love and Non-imposing way of living we all have been searching for.
Most of our relationships with ourselves are chockers with what is not true, ideas, notions, fantasies, self recrimination, self doubt, worries, uncertainties, lack of trust, phobias, fears, anxiety, mistrust etc and we bring this whole rotten lot into every other relationship that we’re in. An absolute recipe for disaster.
Which is why it is imperative to heal and love ourselves.
What Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine offer are so foundational and very self-empowering. Once we understand the body as being key to the choices we make to love ourselves, we ourselves can change every part of our life so that it begins to hold, meet, and nurture the love we innately are.
Absolutely Melinda, Love exists in the most non-imposing way in our bodies when we align to our Souls, which is the empowering divine aspect in us all, as you have shared.
What Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine has offered to the world will not be understood for many years to come. History will show once again via hindsight the depth and quality that is on offer to reconnect back to our soul and live from that aspect and not from the touted version given to us by the astral plane that has completely debased the energy of our true origins so that for the vast majority it feels as though we have lost all connection to our soul and the stars which is where we originally come from.
Our body is so important, to be connected with, to be present with our body is key, ‘ the choices we make to love ourselves, we ourselves can change every part of our life so that it begins to hold, meet, and nurture the love we innately are.’
Having true relationships, with oneself and with others is so valuable, it can’t be overestimated. Bringing honesty and transparency allows us to reveal who we are, with all our imperfections but also with our light – if we allow ourselves to shine.
Beautiful to reread your blog Chris. I can relate to much of what you write about. To move from looking to have relationships out of need, to knowing we have everything within us and building a great relationship with oneself is so empowering and sets one up for making and maintaining great relationships with others.
Relationship with self first and foremost is foundational to all other relationships, ‘we have everything within us and building a great relationship with oneself is so empowering’.
Yes, because we know that we too can develop that relationship, that it is not about perfection, or about ‘getting there’, but about a constant deepening and developing of that relationship with ourselves.
What you share here is a perfect example of not being able to have a true relationship with another till you have a true relationship with yourself. The former is demanding and needy, even in the subtler ways. The latter is respectful and decent at the bare minimum. Thank you for sharing with us that we can choose to redevelop the relationship with ourselves at any age.
I agree Lucy,
It as taken me many years to understand that it is impossible to have a true relationship with another till you have a true relationship with yourself.
For years I was filled with self loathing and it has taken many years to take the responsibility to build a relationship with me. Having started this journey I can honestly say it is the best journey to be on because there is always so much more to discover and as I open up again to the endless possibilities, it seems that others can feel the difference in me and want this for themselves too.
A true relationship with self is foundational for all our other relationships.
‘I’m feeling more engaged in the world, being able to bring so much more of me to relationships with everyone I meet and in all I do.’ I am really starting to see this in my life. What’s so lovely is seeing there is always more to feel, more to bring. I was once so afraid to go out into the world and now life doesn’t phase me as it once did because I’m bringing more of me to everything I do.
Karin these words caught my attention
“I’m bringing more of me to everything I do.”
It is giving ourselves permission to unfold everything that we have held in protection to be seen. The fact that each and everyone of us is precious, delicate, sensitive and this is what we have all hidden away because the world doesn’t feel safe enough to express who we are in truth.
Universal Medicine is showing humanity that actually it is okay to re-connect to this inner beauty and in fact it is what the world is craving, true intimacy.
It is a win win situation when we truly cherish and love ourselves more of course we will bring this to all our other relationships and have more of a commitment in life ✨
So True Vicky, Love is an ever-expanding evolutionary experience that we take into every situation.
The more we love ourselves, the more love we have to share.
‘I soon discovered there were many ways I could do this – from alcohol and drugs, to food and sex.’ It’s crazy what we do in order not to feel. From experience we make the actual thought or experience far worse than it really is because when we are finally willing to go there and feel it, we realise that it is not bigger than us but actually our love is bigger than it.
Well stated Vicky. When I have finally found the ability to address old hurts it has always amazed me how quickly and easily they have cleared the moment I have been willing to go there. The sense of space and openness after the fact has always inspired me, and with every hurt released I have wondered how on earth I could have held on to the poison for so long…
Yes it feels trick to keep us from knowing who we truly are. I too was astonished when a long held hurt just seemed to evaporate so speedily, after holding onto it for so long. Such a feeling of freedom afterwards.
Well said! We run and we hide from situations sometimes that feel bigger than we can cope with but each time I stay and deal with it head on, I find that I have all the skills needed to deal with it and the outcome is SO much simpler!
Chris thanks for being so honest about your life
“I had forgotten the beautiful connection that I had with myself. I started desperately seeking connection outside myself to try to fill this huge void I was feeling inside. I soon discovered there were many ways I could do this – from alcohol and drugs, to food and sex. The way I was using these substances was purely abusive; they were my band-aids to keep everything together to be able to function with some normality in life. They offered a numbing effect for me to forget the pain, but only for so long.”
When we lose the connection with ourselves we do the most silly, crazy things just as you have written. I wonder why we don’t just stop and reconnect back again. We can be out for life times before we make the stop and reconnect, was it worth all the heart ache and stress? no not at all, there’s just more of the illusion we fall into to unpick.
When there are more and more people in the world who have a loving foundation and deep connection with themselves it will be far easier for others to choose this instead of seeking connection outside of themselves or not wanting to feel the void/pain within themselves that has been created (I know that one from past experience) because there will be more people in the world reflecting to others a different and true way so it will be easier for others to choose this instead ✨ #tidesareturningbacktolove
Yes, like the 100th monkey, even if we aren’t in physical connection, offering a reflection with others, the momentum of love and truth builds until a tipping point will be reached…..
We wait for someone to look after us, to save us, and abdicate responsibility for many years. I love what you share that it is never too late.
I believe Lucy these traits that we all have are held over from some religion, that we have got caught up in, in previous lives. If we look back to the ‘dark ages’ that period of history has been called that for a reason. The reason being that religion held sway over many lives. As that energy loses its grip on religion it has moved into Science and now Science is being used to control humanity. We have yet to wake up to the fact that we are controlled by an unseen energy that uses the human body for its own pleasure, we are mere puppets if we do not take back control.
When it is about us being responsible, and taking care of ourselves, ‘I started with small things such as the way I made my bed and how I got dressed in the morning. By starting to feel everything I was doing, I began to really feel me again. Even though I hadn’t felt this way for a long time, it started to feel familiar again. I started to feel that I was building a relationship with myself that was true.’
‘I thought it would be the one thing, to find the perfect relationship that would fix everything I was feeling.’ Isn’t this the thing that we are all taught from young that will bring deep contentment and fulfilment with all our fairy stories and happily ever afters? It explains, in part why we are so discontent in our relationships as the idealised picture can never be realised… and the rest is that truly, until we find contentment in ourselves we will never find contentment with another.
So true, we are taught this from young through all the Disney movies, someone will come to complete you. Yet we are then forever searching and never truly content in ourselves.
It’s a set up isn’t it? We innocently share these stories to our kids without realising what ideals we are setting them up for. If we don’t have a picture we can be real with what is in front of us.
Yes, I certainly went for the fairy tale because I didn’t want to admit I’d stopped loving myself. It seemed easier to keep searching for the one than stop to feel how I’d abandoned myself. I’d feared the pain and loneliness would be too much when actually it isn’t, Being with myself is really lovely.
Ah looking for a fairytale and thinking that it is going to come to save us. That searching always takes us further and further away from the simple knowing that it is right inside us all the time. What an evil seed to plant with children.
Lucy I remember when I was very young at infant school and looking out of the window and wishing a knight in shining armour on a dashing grey horse would come and rescue me from the classroom and the mundaneness of life I was already feeling. The painful truth is no one can rescue us, we have to rescue ourselves. This can take a while because first we have to feel and understand we are worth rescuing. This is where Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine plays such a key part in turning our lives around. We can with support change our lives completely, if we are willing to take those first steps.
Yes having idealised pictures and expectations are are killers in any real relationship. Seeking perfection – a recipe for discontent.
Pictures, beliefs, and expectations are not conducive to a healthy and loving relationship.
Most of us are so disappointed. As you say Rachel from a young age we’re fed the picture of romance and all it’s promises and then we meet someone and the adrenaline and sex filled first years often appear to confirm the image that we have that love can be delivered by another but then gradually or not so gradually ‘the rot starts to set in’ and most of us are left living in relationships of convenience which we substitute with all manner of distractions ranging from having kids to base jumping.
I see so many of my friends in a marriage they would rather not be in because the pictures and ideals they were sold when they were young about marriage and life in no way matched up to the present reality. This is the rot you speak of Alexis, when they discuss their relationships within the group of friends its as though they feel betrayed by life, they were sold something that bares no truth or reality to what they are currently living. We could say that we didn’t read the small print of life’s contract. So if we pass over in the feeling of given-up-ness and betrayal then that is what we will return to until we break the cycle this can take many life times or not depending how willing we are to admit that the lives we have lived was not it. Then the healing can take place.
Very true, ‘ truly, until we find contentment in ourselves we will never find contentment with another.’
Crossroads always offer us alternatives – we can make the choice to stay marking time where we are, we can revert to old patterns or, we can be open to new beginnings. The choice is ours.
What I can feel now is how it feels like I have just been giving lip-service to this loving-myself and deepening-the-relationship-with-myself thing, that there’s a whole other level awaiting, that this is a constant, on-going unfoldment, and I don’t even have to go anywhere for that, but just be here.
‘I don’t even have to go anywhere for that, but just be here.’ I love this Fumiyo as I can feel that I am being called to go deeper in my relationship with self, but there is some resistance. What you are sharing is so beautiful in its simplicity. Just be here. Gorgeous.
michelle819 why do we put up so much resistance to building a deeper more loving relationship with ourselves? I can definitely feel that there is a part of me that I now understand is my spirit that is in complete resistance to the return to my soul and finds anything to delay.
Beautifully and simply expressed Fumiyo.
As I read this blog again, I found another piece of gem relevant to where I am in my life, ‘nurturing essence I felt was missing in my life’ and ‘I started to feel that I was building a relationship with myself that was true’. Both of these statements are ringing to my body, as reflections of where I am with my own livingness and how I am treating my body in and with life.
There is much to ponder here, nurturing begins with you first, just like the way they say on a flight, that if oxygen is needed, put yours on first before helping another.
Have I truely built a relationship with myself first or for others first? I feel the latter is more the case for me and I am sure for many others too. It’s time to change things now.
Agreed, it has to begin with us, because one uses the truth barometer of our body to let us know what is tender, gentle and nurturing and the other waits for someone to tell us from their bodies – which is a totally different relationship and experience to our own.
The more we deepen our love for ourselves the more we can deepen our love for all others equally.
It’s tough to navigate our way through the teenage years and each generation seems to have it worse than the last in some respects. The problem lies with us not having that connection to ourselves and knowing who we are, as often we look outside of how others are coping or not in a lot of cases and then judge our way through life from there.
I agree having this foundation right at the beginning of our lives and beyond our teenage years of self-worth, self-esteem and self-love is really important. As the saying goes it takes a community to raise a child so we all have a responsibility in supporting our younger generation to be all that they truly are.
The more we deepen the relationship with ourselves the more palpable the feeling and knowing of love in our bodies and in our energetic field.
Yes, it is the only way. If we try to get someone else to do it for us, it is not felt and lived in the same way. Our body is so much more than the physical.
The more we deepen our relationship and love with ourselves the more we can bring this to another.
It’s amazing what we can learn from each other’s experiences. I can relate to this line about relationships “I thought it would be the one thing, to find the perfect relationship that would fix everything I was feeling.” This idea of “The One” right person that delivers everything missing in life is sold very pervasively worldwide. We have stepped so far away from the truth about love, we literally sit on a mountain of love within ourselves but can search our whole lives for that from someone else.
Melinda Knights I agree with you the world is set up so that humanity constantly seeks outside of itself to find the ‘one’ or our one and only soulmate etc., but as you say we are sitting on a mountain of love within ourselves but our attention is caught by the outside world and all its razzamatazz and not the depth and quality of the love that is within us. What a huge setup we have all fallen for.
We are sold so many lies, it is a blessing if we find truth and integrity in life.
“This deep dissatisfaction went on for many years and I always felt I was in a cycle of seeking fulfilment in relationships but never finding it.” I relate to this so much, its like my entire life was chasing something that was missing. I thought it was in the opposite person i.e. a women but actually, it was the connection to me that was missing.
When we commit to deepening our relationship with ourselves it is amazing how this has an effect on all our relationships as we deepen with these too.
When I was young, I too felt more comfortable with girls than with boys because of the rough and competitive games they played. But in my teenage years, I got the same experience with the teenage girls too. There were games played out that actually did not match my tender loving nature, which I was challenged with to let go to survive in this, as I can describe it now, hostile environment.
We cannot have true relationships with others if we do not have an intimate relationship with ourselves and our inner-most first.
I love the depth of your honesty Chris it is so empowering. And the beauty of what you have shared is that we all can take the same loving steps towards developing a True Relationship with Ourselves.
This was great timing to read this blog. That we can re-develop a loving relationship with ourselves, and all it takes is by listening to being with you, and that the relationship with ourselves is all it takes. Work within, then the outside doesn’t matter or can take care of itself too.
So true Shushila, something I’ve been realising more and more lately, to not get caught up in the whats happening outside, but to keep the inner connection deepening and the rest works itself out.
It is very beautfiul to read your blog Chris as it is so rare for a man particularly to be so open and honest about his innate tenderness and sensitivity. Thank you for your sharing, as it is this willingness that offers others the opportunity to appreciate these innate qualities about themselves.
I love what is highlighted here Chris, in deepening our relationship with ourselves we can feel more equipped in life.
This really does highlight the responsiblity we have as parents of our children, to honour and respect that our children feel everything that’s going on around them. To lose our own connection with ourselves has a knock on effect that is far reaching, and can have life changing consequences for those around us.
It’s amazing how we continually look to other people to define who we are when it’s our love inside that’s all powerful.
“True Relationship with Self” – when I began this path for myself I began (and continue today) to see life entirely differently.. and where I found the greatest love – the love within to propel the love outwardly.
“and where I found the greatest love – the love within to propel the love outwardly” the love that naturally is lived. As no abuse, which is living from not love, can be lived anymore.
True love is like a fountain, it pours out of us from within and it pours into us from Heaven.
Yes Alison, a deeply held secret or deliberate lie and lucrative sell of the romantic love industry. Loving relationships with others is conditional on one thing, deepening the love we have with ourselves.
We’ve been sold a lie and with whole industries built on supporting the lie of romantic love it is not surprising so many of us have been seeking another to love us. When the only true and first love is the relationship with have with ourselves. This understanding supports us to not feel lonely or less and constantly be in search of another. Thank you Serge Benhayon for presenting the truth that “We are already everything”
I often observe children and young people at their most tender and delicate yet unaware how beautiful they are and because of this (and to fit in) begin to be enticed away from their true essence and lose connection with the most precious part of themselves. At every stage of life it’s important to appreciate where we are.
When we live the love that we are, we infuse such love back into the life we are living and give up the futile quest of waiting for this love to arrive from elsewhere.
Yes, it has to start with a deepening of the relationship with ourselves at which point that becomes our normal in our relationships.
I find that my relationship with myself has to deepen all the time, because if I don’t then not only am I shallow with myself but with everyone else as well.
The outside world promises so much but delivers so little (if anything of any value actually), and the inside world (our connection to ourselves) lies there patiently with no marketing or rah rah, waiting for us to return (sends us messages from time to time as a reminder that it is there), and delivers the universe. It is our job to turn from the so-called seduction of the outside world and turn to our connection to our inner-heart, our selves if we so choose.
Sarah thank you for your comment, you sliced and diced 🙂 the whole issue when you said that our inside world “delivers the universe”. The magnitude of that truth certainly makes what’s outside of ourselves pale in comparison!
Such a beautiful blog, and surely a crossroads all men must face. Are they ready to cherish themselves, and claim their place in life? Or continue to hide and resentfully blame others behind their back? It’s a choice I face now and certainly going deeper with loving myself is the route I intend to take.
I was talking with a friend around how we can ‘lose teenagers’ for a while and this gives us great insight into what happens during those years.
A big difference in how we are able to live life. Not based on worries or complexity, but the connection of our stillness inside that is simple.
A beautiful account Chris of your re-connection back to you. When we build a true relationship with ourselves first what we can then offer all our relationships is quite magical and expansive.
True change can only occur when we re-connect with ourselves.
“From the time I was a young boy, I knew my gentle and caring nature” the same here, it was felt in every part of me and yet even though I did not like anything other than that feeling I soon let it go as I went to school only having to relearn that gentle and tender self later in life with the support of Universal Medicine.
David, I’ve observed the same ‘loss’ of self in many beautiful gentle and tender boys as they begin to attend school or reach adolescence and the consequence of this can be ugly to witness. Beautiful you have returned to that gentle and tender part of you that was always there.
Like you Chris and you David and I suspect like most children I was exactly the same, an incredibly delicate and sensitive child that hardened on seeing, hearing and feeling things that felt awful. It was a desperate attempt to protect myself. But what I have since discovered is that hardening ourselves in order to protect ourselves is as protective as hitting ourselves with a hammer.
That seeking and searching for the ‘right one’ and always looking over the shoulder just in case is a huge one. But what I too get from this is that it’s not about searching for the right one, it’s searching for the one. The one that we know we are but have never given ourselves the space to get to know, appreciate and adore. When we search inwards then things start to change and open up. Loving ourselves first and having the connection to God and the Universe is exactly what we have been craving so when we get there its like coming home.
It is empowering to realise that our waywardness is only the result of our choosing to step away from our connection to our essence, as such losing sense of who we are and seeking elsewhere for a glimmer of ‘hope’, distraction or numbness from the emptiness we feel. Yet the truth is that we can return to our connection to our essence and resurrect an honouring relationship with our essence, as such with greater connection to our Soul, wherever we are willing to say YES. This is what we all have access to.
There are so many things we can use to numb the pain we feel when we disconnect from our inner strength and loveliness. It is a huge shift in awareness to realise that’s why we use those things, not because we love them but this realisation opens the door to question a lot in life and our responsibilities in it.
If we were given the tools to stay re-connected with ourselves and our truth from young then gosh how things would be different and gosh how much money would be saved across the world in services, governments and local governments!!! There would be no trying not to feel hurts or pain as we would have such a solid foundation of self-love and self-worth this simply would not be an issue. Universal Medicine provide and have brought through such tools for humanity we now need to just be aware of them and start to use them. A good place to start is http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation/free/meditation-for-beginners/introductory-gentle-breath-meditation.html
Loving ourselves is paramount to having healthy relationships with everyone.
For that love for ourselves is the very foundations for the love we feel for all others.
Absolute honesty is required in order to have any true relationship with self. We have to be prepared to look at areas we have been blind-sided to.
A journey from lost to found. Reminds me of pictures of lost animals posted on lamp posts by owners desperate to find their missing pet. We are the same, often desperate to find that precious part of ourselves we connected to as children, but then lost in the whirl of trying to fit into life. Signalling we’ve lost our way and in need of answers, is the first step on our return journey home.
When we are deeply connected we realise that we are all one and that the relationship we are having with ourself is the relationship we have with all.
Thank you Chris for this honest sharing. The force to change and separate from who we are is strong, but as you have shared, the calling inward and confirmation that there was more is always there. Once we choose to re-connect to this everything around us blossoms.
As children we know our true natures and that love is at the heart of everything. Letting go of all the things we have adopted that interfere with this is great thing to attend to.
A true relationship with ourselves starts with a true relationship with our body. That means not overriding the body’s sensitivity and the messages it is giving us.
A dialogue that is inspiring to have; I learn so much from my body.
Yes Chris I agree it is starting with the small seemingly insignificant self-caring and self-loving choices that allows us to truly turn our life around.
As a young man I am not even sure I was aware how important the relationship with myself was! Too busy, and heavily indoctrinated in doing lots, and having taken on the role of the rescuer in relationships I was far too busy to work on me… and so I missed out on the cornerstone that makes all the rest of it make sense.
This just shows the immense and transformational power in developing a relationship with ourselves based on what we feel from within.
“True Relationship with Self” – has allowed me to truly enjoy my life. It’s that simple, and it starts with the most simplest of acts of us taking small note of ourselves in how we are/operate in life, at work, at home, in relationship and then responding to the pull of self-love.
When we go down, we bring with us all that can save us and once in there we put this in a locker and forget about it.
Chris this is gorgeous to read and deeply honest as well.
‘These relationships became ones based on a need from where I would want to connect with women to find that nurturing essence I felt was missing in my life’. When women don’t nurture themselves they too look outside for that in others whether it is other women or men and they too discover that it cannot be found exclusively in another, it has to be in us and for us. It is of course in us all the time but we may have hardened so much as we were growing up, often to protect ourselves as you did, that we lose touch with it and become almost barren in this respect. The energetic work that is practised in courses at Universal Medicine is so supportive in this regard and can have us experiencing once again the loveliness in ourselves that we have abandoned. It gives us a marker, something to go by and remind ourselves of what we have re-found and what is possible to live in our every day.
Reconnecting with ourselves and our essence more deeply brings so many benefits, but not only to ourselves. Being able to reflect a more loving way can inspire and impact others in ways we may never hear about.
And if we remember the impact that we have on others, it gives a sense of greater responsibility and greater purpose.
It’s a great freedom to realise the awkwardness I can feel when I’m hanging out with people who I am actually wanting something from, is something I can bring to myself. This frees up the relationship between me and others and allows us to be with whatever is there without a constant imposition of need. This can feel a little bit scary because it feels less structured, but the space that’s there is for us explore being with others.
I too had many “band-aids to keep everything together to be able to function with some normality in life“, but as you say they are only temporary fixes and the problem would very quickly be demanding more attention. These days its true healing I am committed to so the band-aids have been discarded with honesty taking their place.
There is so much joy in the steadiness with ourselves and this foundation is there to support us in facing all of life.
The ripple effect that committing to a deeper relationship with ourselves can have, to really know and understand ourselves, is way beyond what we could imagine. When we are more settled with ourselves, through knowing ourselves more deeply, we take that settlement with us wherever we go, into every action, every conversation, every project, and it affects the quality of everything else that follows.
If we do not love ourselves we will endlessly search for something or some-one outside of us to fill the void which can never be filled by anything outside our self, only by self.
When we deepen our relationship with ourselves we can’t help but deepen our relationship with others. I now question what the quality of my previous relationships was with others before I chose to deepen my relationship with myself.
When I look back on my past relationships now it seems like many lifetimes ago, such has been the shift. For me now some relationships deepen and some just drop right off, as they feel they are forever changing.
The relationship we build with ourselves is the foundation and framework to everything in life. In my experience it has gone from thinking I was an intensely melancholic person to a person with a not perfect but consistent level of joy.
We’ve evicted our true tenderness to ‘fit in’. Imagine a world where men were encouraged and taught to embrace their innate stillness – I feel we’d see a lot more expressions like yours Chris.
Unless we start talking about the deep yearning we hold inside us when we are constantly looking outside then we will have so many unnecessary broken relationships.
What is a true relationship with self? Is it to be honest and open, caring and nurturing? Considerate and thoughtful? Everything we want from another we can give ourselves, and we want it from others because we’re not willing to give it to ourselves.
It is amazing how much emphasis we can put on being in a relationship with another. I know for myself I always wanted a true one, one where every cell in my body said yes to without any hesitation or doubt. And I had one, in fact I married her. But then I made that my focus and let go my relationship with myself, putting other things and people first and so then was not bringing the same quality I entered into the relationship with and so something had to happen, especially as I let things slip. For me I let things get to me, stopped fully expressing what I felt and the rest was just an outplay. The main thing was I let go of my relationship with myself and so then could not offer what I was to start with. So whilst we can make it about the other person, if we first do not have that deeply loving relationship with ourselves, how can we expect to have it with another? It makes no sense.
I remember when breaking up with a partner once, they said to me ‘who is going to take such care of me now?’ I was reminded of this reading your blog today and it shows how much we out-source our well-being to other people. And if we are all really honest, we all do it in many ways. Out-source our self-worth (do you like this, do you think I am OK, did I do a good job on this ….), our health (someone else can make me fitter, skinnier, fatter….), our taking care of ourselves (cooking meals, reminders to go to the G.P.s….) the list and the examples can go on and on. And yes we are natural carers, especially women in their nurturing essence), and it is lovely to care for another, but ultimately we need to bring this to ourselves first, and then come from there. Not from a deficit and asking other people to fix it for you.
The relationship built with ourselves does not need to be dramatic and with this relationship, it builds a foundation to a relationship with others.
The greater our love for us, the simpler life tends to be. For we’ll find that all the difficulties that arose were truly a reflection of our relationship with ourselves.
Yes, Love simply is. Uncomplicated, honest and a sense of settlement.
When we’re seeking something from another, to fill us up or make us feel whole or complete it can’t work as in truth that sense of completeness is something to reconnect within ourselves first and then share with others…
Very true Fiona and as soon as we want or need something from another it feels horrible for them, as essentially they feel used which is what we are doing. Whereas come to them with absolute love and then everything gets taken care of.
We’re the absolute completeness of God and ultimately we’re here to live that completeness on earth.
Children just know what is going on don’t they? We just need to honour their knowing and then we would not have adults who do not know who they truly are because it is so buried inside them.
As long as we are not deeply connected with ourselves and hence very content, we will not be able to have the intimacy we seek to have with others. We don´t find self in others, they cannot give it to us or substitute it, but definitely they give us reflection and opportunity to come to the true you that we are.
We need to develop to deepen intimacy with our own selves, to be able to love humanity and know that without the closeness and fieriness of such intimacy, there can be no cohesion between us as a race.
We need to have a true relationship with self before self is no longer in the way of being the true self.
Love how you say that, thank you, and I find our relationship with self and what we realise as our true self is something we can eternally deepen.
As adults, we rarely consider the children when we are in the midsts of warring with our partner and things can get very ugly. We often read how children are affected by the divorce of their parents and how they struggle to cope with it but what we don’t speak about is how the hate and discontent with the parents does not stop at separation – often it continues for years.
” By starting to feel everything I was doing, I began to really feel me again…” This is key – a starting place of where to begin with taking care of ourselves, as this builds awareness and connection with our body, so that gradually and eventually, you are not simply on ‘auto-pilot’ – listening and following whatever is fed to you in our surroundings, doing things blindly – but are far more awake and aware to choose consciously, with regard of ourselves and with self love.
It is such a simple place and we re-connect the a familiarity that builds a solid foundation. From there we know who we are and can build all other relationships from there.
“Yes, there was the anger and hurt around my parents separating, but also I had forgotten the beautiful connection that I had with myself….” This shows how our emotional hurts separate or disconnect one from our innermost connection – and how important it is, at some point in our life to address our child hurts, or adult hurts, otherwise we carry them around unresolved during our adult life, seemingly looking ‘ok’ but have a knowing that something is missing… hence the look outward, the pursuit, the search for something to make our life feel complete, when what is missing was the step, the turn inward, the return to the love that is right under our nose – literally.
We must know that there is something greater to us than we have been willing to see.. And that by not seeing that it is deliberately set up all to be less and complex. Thats why bringing back simplicity in life is the key to newness and evolution.
So what are we made of truly? What is there to be found? That we already know?
When we are pre-school and maybe the first year at school or so we don’t seem to mind if we play with boys or girls which is great, but then something happens and we are sort of guided by some unspoken rule that boys must play and hang out with the boys and girls must do the same with the girls and if you don’t it is, or was when I was a kid kind of frowned upon and if you played with the girls you were called a sissy. It all seems like a bit of a set up, maybe if this segregation didn’t take place the boys could stay more connected and tender and the girls would be less mean to each other.
‘By starting to feel everything I was doing, I began to really feel me again’ … those little details are everything and as we take care of them we notice more and rather than being something to fret over in any quest for perfection it is instead another layer as we deepen in our relationship with us.
In every relationship, getting to know the other person – what they stand for, their goals, strengths, flaws et al, loving them, communicating with them, etc is essential. The first person we should have this relationship with is ourselves
If we are disconnected to ourselves we cannot connect to another and so it makes absolute sense that the quality of relationship we have with ourselves is the quality of relationship we will have with all others. There is no better reason to love ourselves to bits.
Why do we not warn and support each other to maintain that gentle, caring and delicate nature we all had when we were young, but instead allow everyone to go through the same trajectory of separation. The separation of the delicateness and innocence we all regret so much to have lost when we are an adult.
Because so many of us have shifted so far from who we started out as that we no longer consciously remember who we were and therefore don’t consciously identify with those who are still tender. Plus many of us see tenderness as being reserved for children only and so when children start to harden as teenagers we see it as a normal part of transitioning into the accepted hardness of adulthood.
The point is as we are not in relationship with ourselves first, how then would we be able to have a relationship with others. It is just not possible as this missing connection with ourselves should the foundation of any external relationship to build on. So without foundation there is nothing to build that will last.
Many of us think that women are the ones who are repressed, discriminated and worse off in our society. Yet, men are denied their most innate way of being – tenderness. Lets not play the game of who’s worse off – but accept the fact that we are hurting each other on daily basis.
And better would be if we tell each other about the hurting so it will not happen anymore, as this is absolutely not needed and simply a result of us accepting a way of living that does not belong to us in the first place.
Love this very much. A takeaway for all in this message xx
I found myself nodding and without realising saying ‘Mmm…Mmhmm…so true’ by the end! It reminded me of the journey I went on with myself (ironically after a relationship breakdown) a few years ago and having that connection with myself, as well as having a better relationship with money was key! EVERYTHING you said summed it up. And it was exactly like you said; from small things such as how you made the bed or how you got dressed…. it all added up. And I have lost my way and forgotten much of that. I felt like this post was one of THE keys I need to start over. Well said!
Deepening our relationship with self is the most beautiful and essential thing to be developing, it effects our relationship with everything.
Deeper and deeper and deeper we go, inwards and inwards and inwards until we’ve tunnelled our way back to the beginning again.
What is so lovely about this blog is that you have come back to the gentle and caring nature that is innately within you. And that this was possible because of the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Beautiful to read of your return to yourself, Chris. What you share is practical as to how to return to oneself by the simple, self-loving actions. Very inspiring.
We are human and we make mistakes, but mistakes can be our greatest learning, so is it really a mistake?
Everything either good or bad that happens to us is always an opportunity for us to grow and evolve.
For when we do make mistakes they can also be our biggest wake up call as they indicate how far off track we have got so we can correct ourselves and change that trajectory.
So often we use the obvious abusive behaviour, such as drinking, smoking, cutting etc. as a distraction to actually look at where the real pain lies…
Since attending Universal Medicine presentations, I am slowly and surely re-developing a greater honesty and deeper acceptance and appreciation of myself . This that was never ‘allowed’ as a child – it would be clamped down on as being conceited or arrogant.
It’s great how you acknowledge that life is never perfect, it’s iimportant to know that there are wobbles and mistakes that happen and things that go wrong, but everyday if we can learn from all these things then every day our steps inward can become stronger.
We are never really doing anything for ourselves alone; we are living and sharing that quality of being with everyone around us. There are so many ways we can try to fill the void we feel when we are not connected to the love we are, even though they may look ‘good’ from the outside. Whether it is drugs, alcohol, distractions or spiritual idealism, any search from outside in will always feel empty.
Having turned myself inside out to please other people, which was impossible because it seems they would always want more, or that I was never enough. Meeting Serge Benhayon challenged my beliefs around this, and it has taken me many years to realise what he says is true, that we are enough just as we are. There is nothing to do except be ourselves. Now we need to pass this on to our children, to let them know that they are enough too just as they are. I have realised no one tells us this. Serge Benhayon is the first person to say we are all enough as we are. My question has to be why hasn’t anyone told us this before?
We must build intimacy with ourselves first before we can have true intimacy with another.
Indeed we know the tenderness and sensitivity we held as children, so we can choose to heal our hurts in order to return to live who we truly are.
Life seems to be set up to keep us from the “gentle and caring nature” we all are, so is it possible to hold on to our divine connection so we can all get to a point of true evolution? Then we “feel more equipped to not just cope with life, but to be able to live with joy and harmony and take these lived qualities of true relationship with me in all I do.”
We really need to know how to build a relationship with ourselves that is true. This is so important. Even when we think or feel we have a relationship with ourselves this is just the tip of the iceberg and with thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I am discovering this more and more. Awesome sharing.
…”I started desperately seeking connection outside myself to try to fill this huge void I was feeling inside. I soon discovered there were many ways I could do this – from alcohol and drugs, to food and sex….” What you say here is so key. We often think that each one of these behaviours is a problem or an addiction in isolation to the rest of our life. But in truth they are all filling the same void. We actually choose all of these behaviours from the same energy and for the same reason. Unless we change the energy and choose a different energy to live by, we will continue to choose the behaviour of our choice that suits us best. Learning to love ourselves and live with this love on a daily basis fills the void from the inside, leaving our cravings for anything else obsolete. It’s the only way to truly heal.
Reading your appreciation of women as a young child is really beautiful. I chose to hang out with the boys as I didn’t feel at ease with women, so reading this is supporting me to open up to the beauty of both being a woman and the wonderful women I do have in my life, and not impose my fears onto them or the space we share.
Taking care and building a loving relationship with ourselves first is deeply beautiful to feel and changes everything and brings a true foundation and expansion to ourselves and everyone we meet and know with true quality and love.
Honesty is the place to start, it brings clarity, and clarity is not just about seeing the rot or what we do not like, but also what is beautiful, amazing and wise.
Without the highs and lows of the dramas I can create in my life, I am better able to feel the natural flow and interdependence in life.
As I get to know who I truly am, the more settled and accepted of me I am becoming. A confidence is building on the outside but this confidence is not from doing or having to be something or someone; it is coming from developing an honest, loving and intimate relationship with myself on the inside.
By deeply caring for ourself we begin to realise that we have no self in the sense that the true self that we are is part of a grand stupendous whole that we can either work in harmony with or not.
For me the reconnection with myself was a revelation. Something which I had lost was just within me waiting to be related to again. Since then I have deepened that relationship, me with my body and the stillness within. Now I can feel when I drift off. It just stands out. I have to smile now: my best friend is me, my body and my stillness.
I am watching someone who knew how glorious they were as a child, struggle as they lose themselves in trying to fit in, numb and resist themselves. A lot needs to change in our parenting and education before kids will happily retain the glory they know as they grow up.
This is so true. A lot does need to change, else we’ll continue repeating the cycle of wanting to do our best by our children and young people, but that actually is asking them not to be the glorious person that they are. At some point we will need to heed the many signs that all is not well in society.
I love it when I am in touch with that easy joy that is available when I’m connected to my body. The challenge comes in holding that when we are with others. We can allow ourselves to get squashed, or we can stay in that joyful energy regardless of how people react. A work in progress for me.
Where I grew up there was little or no chance of keeping that connection to oneself, if you played with girls you were teased to the point of it not being worthwhile, boys played rugby and if you didn’t there must have been something wrong with you. So is it any wonder we seek stuff to numb ourselves if we lose that connection, because apart from anything else we are missing ourselves and being true to that.
Such an important reflection. Too often when we realise from our experience of life that all is not well, we look on the outside trying to find a ’cause’ and fixing it. Yet all along it is our own relationship with ourself and the quality with which we are taking into everything which is what colours every aspect of life.
Wow, your story and mine are so similar it was scary! Working on myself in order to become a mental health counselor is what allowed me to develop a relationship with myself, and now I have the honor of being able to help others do the same.
It is so lovely to start the process of reconnecting to love with small things and then to discover that there is no such thing as a small things and that everything matters.
Nicola I simply love this fact, I love how we think of small things at first as not being important, but when the small things become equal to everything. Everything matters.
Thank you Chris for sharing the way your life was for you and how you disconnected from yourself. Seeing the big picture of your life gives an insight into the lives of many human beings, the way we can begin so connected to our essence and then through an upset or trauma move away from ourselves and in that disconnection live in a way that is untrue. Welcome back to you.
We aspire for perfection, but what you’ve beautifully shared is how honesty is actually a much more important value to have in our relationships, as it allows us to grow, develop, make mistakes and learn from them.
‘I loved the deeply nurturing aspects of women and found that I could connect easily with them and started to develop relationships that were based on a foundation of just being together, without need or imposition’. This is wonderful to read because for you to recognise this at a young age would have left you with a great marker in your body.
So many have found themselves at the moment of knowing they cannot go on repeating the same old patterns, but not knowing how to change them and then met Serge Benhayon, who has opened the way to them re-connecting with their essential deeply loving, caring nature, and so able to nurture their relationship with themselves. What follows is always a true change and healing of past hurts, and ability to open up to others and embrace all that is offered in life.
Very interesting to read how we can use relationships in the same way as TV or food as a way to numb, distract or stimulate us to avoid feeling the disconnection and the discontent within.
Yes Andrew, what Chris points out here is very revealing and highlights how, if we are not constantly present with ourselves, it is easy to get ‘lost’ in our relationships.
Being presented the possibility “… that I could re-develop a loving relationship with myself…” is quite a life-line to be offered, as it initiates the potential of discovering that there is a Way of Living that is supportive, through the day-to-day events we experience in life.
Sounds like a sound foundation with ourselves is essential to build our true connection in life and with the world being responsible. Imagine, without this foundation we would be at the mercy of life and feel victimized as to why things happen. The feeling is a world of a difference.
Chris, I love the way you share how you started with the details of self-care, and that from there, everything expanded in your life. That consistency is beautiful self-responsibility.
Only when we develop an intimate relationship with our self can we have an intimate relationship with another.
From the small thing Big changes build…no need to think about failure…just get back up and commit again…all of those get ‘back ups’build a consistency, a way of being that walks us back to our true selves.
Everything start with small steps, and this is great because we can make it very detailed then. It may seem like an odd thing to start the relationship with yourself by making your bed in the morning, but it does make way for big changes which will naturally follow on one after another.
Its so important, and very inspiring as well, to be totally honest with ourselves which then allows true healing to occur.
Its amazing that we feel more of ourselves when we begin to take care of ourselves, and more more we take care of ourselves the more we feel who we are. I have come to understanding that I have spent a lot of time and effort avoiding this and still do to a certain extent. However I am committed to deepening my self-care because feeling more of who I am feels amazing.
Hi Richard, I have found that to, to be a good way to go about with disharmonious relationships and that it is in me that the disharmony can be found first and foremost.
When for whatever reason we loose that natural connection with ourselves we are bron with, we get lost into the complexity life then becomes.
I am learning not to have to experience the drama or reactions of something happening now before I have to finally work my way out of something. It is possible.. and much simpler too.. to connect to myself and discover the message earlier.. much earlier.
This is such a great point to make Richard, and the world would be a better place if we all did this.. Can you imagine how the relationships between people in all areas of life, from family to friends to international relations would look like?… It certainly would be a different world to live in!
Wouldn’t it be great if when we feel a void or gap in our life, instead of looking outside of ourselves for something to fill this, or going to alcohol and drugs to not feel anything, we instead used tools or went to practitioners that supported us in truly re-connecting with ourselves. Enter Universal Medicine who present and teach exactly this ✨
It seems that we often have to reach a crisis point before we listen or find our way to love and truth. Simpler to just go there in the first place.
‘ I was building a relationship with myself that was true. There weren’t the highs and lows of other relationships I had been in, but a more constant connection,’ well said Chris, a beautiful balance and settlement that brings true joy.
Losing this relationship with ourselves can have a great effect on our physical and mental health.
When we re-connect we can all remember that little child who was tender, precious and sacred being. Then life sets us up for a fall from the grace of who we are. Finding Serge Benhayon has lifted the vale of illusion and shared the truth, so our child-like tendency can be restored by the way we live now, no matter what our age.
Becoming honest about where we are at can feel awkward as we unpack the illusion we have been living in, but the rewards are great as we stumble along the path to truth.
We might find ourselves caught up in many relationships, looking for the answers in life that only can be found when we are in a caring and understanding relationship with ourselves first.
One can’t help but to surrender into themselves when reading this blog. It is so tender and honest in describing who us human beings so naturally are.
Trying to fix ourselves through relationships with others is not the way to go and often ends up in disappointment, resentment (unmet expectations) and/or hurt. It is very beautiful to build our relationship with ourselves so that we come into all our interactions and relationships aware, responsible and open to the learning on offer.
So true Matilda, the respect and decency we show our-selves will always be a reflection that we can live with others in the most transparent (trans-parent) way as we parent ourselves as we respond to the love on offer.
Chris how clearly you have described the demands that both men and women make on their relationships; a yearning for true intimacy that must first come from our commitment & dedication to be dearly intimate with ourselves.
What you present here Chris, should that not be taught when we are young? in our families and at school. That then will lay the foundation for having only loving relationships for the rest of our lives.
I so agree Nico. Teaching young ones to have a self-loving relationship with themselves first and foremost would be a game-changer in this world of ours.
This is a very common account of how a boy who loves and appreciates women can lose his sensitivity and start to use his ease with women as a filler – through relationships or sex. No relationship is going to work when we come into it wanting it to fill the gaps we have actually created in ourselves through holding onto hurts and burying them.
When we meet or are around someone who is tender with themselves it can have the effect of ‘rubbing off’ on you. Likewise if we are not careful and aware whilst hanging out with someone who is hard and tight and angry (for whatever reasons and due to whatever is happening for them) we too can take that way on too. And so the more we bring awareness to how we are, the more we can support ourselves and another to be simply the natural tender beings that we are. And when we do this, it can have the cascade effect all around us.
How much support men and women can be to each other when we have a close and tight relationship with ourselves.
‘At school, I often opted to spend time playing with the girls in recess breaks at school, over the rough games that were being played by the boys.’ – What is more natural than children choosing for themselves whether they prefer playing with the same gender or the opposite, however, sadly this is often not the case, they choose what they feel is being expected of them.
“From the subtle beginnings of feeling and making the smaller choices in my life, I found I was inspired to build on and to expand them into other areas of my life.” – even seemingly small changes can build a positive momentum, offering a foundation for building on and deepening our relationship with self and from that all other relationships in our life.
It is amazing the difference that simply being present with oneself makes instead of off thinking about this or that. ‘Presence’ in relationship changes everything and is especially appreciated in this day and age of people checked out on screens.
The first step after realising that we need to bring more self care into the way we live, into the relationship with ourselves, is to pick a point in our day to start, and as you shared, the everyday and simple things like making your bed, getting dressed, even brushing teeth, and having a shower, things that we often do on ‘auto-pilot’ brings a great measure of conscious presence to ourselves. This also brings awareness to our quality that then remains with us for at least the next few hours of the day… then repeated daily, until this quality and awareness becomes a quantifiable foundation we recognise about ourselves.
‘I feel that with the depth of intimacy lived with myself in my own life, I feel more equipped to not just cope with life, but to be able to live with joy and harmony and take these lived qualities of true relationship with me in all I do.’ This is so inspiring to me. To live the love that I am and know who I truly am .
The search for a relationship to fill the void is something many people relate to, and the teachings of Serge Benhayon turn that on its head, and offer us to reconnect with our inner selves. From here true relationships are possible, for we bring a whole us to the relationship, and not someone looking to be filled.
It makes all the difference to bring our true selves, as opposed to a facade or pretend, into a relationship.
“I started with small things such as the way I made my bed and how I got dressed in the morning. By starting to feel everything I was doing, I began to really feel me again…” This is a great example of where to start with beginning to take care and, develop connection with ourselves again.
Yes, Chris. The more I commit to being in a relationship with myself, the more old patterns and self-beliefs are coming up to be cleared, that held me in an unworthiness of the love we all deserve.
“I’m feeling more engaged in the world, being able to bring so much more of me to relationships with everyone I meet and in all I do.” the benefits Chris that you share here and talk about throughout your blog are deeply inspiring when we start with the most important relationship first, the one with ourself. My experience has mirrored yours.
Returning to what we knew as children is a great observation Chris, this was life with simplicity and values we knew from our true connection.
Chris, this is really lovely; ‘started to develop relationships that were based on a foundation of just being together, without need or imposition’, it feels very innocent and natural for boys and girls and men and women to have these relationships together and when children are younger there is not this division. At school this starts to change and there seems to be this accepted idea that boys play with boys and girls play with girls and for older children and adults it feels that there is often not the innocence between men and women that was so natural to us as children.
I can relate Chris to a smoothing out of the highs and lows that I used to experience in life, the more I lived in that connection to who I truly am and deepened in self love and self care.
I can relate to that feeling of “if I only had this, then“, being caught in the endless cycle of searching for happiness though deep down knowing that it was not it. And how beautiful to find then that true contentment lies in the inward journey of the relationship with oneself.
Chris, this is very beautiful to read; ‘From the time I was a young boy, I knew my gentle and caring nature’, if we still felt these qualities as adults then society would not be in the mess that it is today, appreciating these qualities in ourselves and others feels really important instead of championing mental intelligence and being strong and driven.
I agree Rebecca, it is very important to appreciate these qualities and be open to deepen and confirm them too.
This … “This deep dissatisfaction went on for many years and I always felt I was in a cycle of seeking fulfilment in relationships but never finding it” is exactly how I feel in this moment of my life. The blog I wrote discusses the relationship I’ve had with a guy for four years, and how I didn’t want him, I felt like I needed him. Wonderful post.
I’ve heard a lot of stories from people who were devastated when their parents divorced, and the pain and sadness is palpable. I wonder though, if the real devastation is from having pictures of how two people should stay together and how a family is ‘meant’ to look, and that contributes to the despair. The constant fighting and arguing in many relationships affect children and themselves more than they realise and the most loving thing is to separate. But most of us don’t talk like this or have been talked with like this and so we see it as wrong and terrible. This then affects all our relationships and we don’t ever want to feel hurt like that again, so we put up with behaviours that we naturally wouldn’t because if we did say no that could inevitably end in divorce or an end of a friendship. There is a lot more going on and being communicated in movements and actions then we realise.
I am sure that a large majority of us also get to the point where we end up “realising that the vices I had used to patch things up were no longer working” and we ask, seek and look for another way. There is after all only so long that we can go on kidding ourselves. The problem is often then, what do we do next? What happens next is we are often met with options that claim to have the answer but don’t, perhaps we try a few or we give up. In any case what I found was it was only the teachings of the ageless wisdom that meant I felt complete in myself and the relationship with myself could be re-ignited.
I love the way you describe your journey back to you Chris, thank you.
It is an enormous gift to understand and know that everything comes back to how we are with ourself and thus the power we have in determining our own life – our well-being or not.
I found comfort being with men, they were a huge distraction to not look at what was lacking in my own life. There was a recipe of drama, stimulation, issues, lows, highs etc, always the false feeling of getting somewhere and love or enlightenment. This was not really the case, I was shielding my hurts and treading water. Self-Love, and you will know true relationships, this is what I am learning.
Yes, I have seen with so many of my clients that when something major happened in their young lives they can identify a point where they shut down, as they were not supported to process their feelings and stay true to themselves. It is super important that we give each other the chance to express what is going on and support one another through challenging times.
Yes Janet, the sweeping it under the carpet can be most detrimental to children and all of us. We are sold that this is the best thing, believing that if everyone gets on with their life this means dealing with it, but as you’ve seen with clients, the most truly supportive and loving action is to listen and allow someone the space to express how they are really feeling.
Men can seek relationships from women for various reasons such as to get relief, distraction or wanting certain needs to be fullfilled, such as what Chris revealed earlier in his blog about wanting to “connect with women to find that nurturing essence I felt was missing in my life.” And women too seek relationships with men to distract themselves in various ways too, to get their needs filled such as wanting someone else to make the decisions, seeking a father figure, seeing the ‘strength’ of a man with their wide shoulders etc etc. In none of these cases does it lead to a true relationship based on harmony and love with two equals bringing their all. What if what Chris is presenting here stands true in terms of first building that true and harmonious relationship with self before it can be brought to another and hence shared as a relationship in equalness?
Chris, this seems like such a common story; ‘I had forgotten the beautiful connection that I had with myself. I started desperately seeking connection outside myself to try to fill this huge void I was feeling inside’, it feels to me, that as a society we have got something very wrong when it is the ‘norm’ for us to have this dissatisfaction with ourselves, and for us to not grow up with the gorgeous connection with ourselves that we felt as children.
I also was a little surprised and confused once I attended the presentations by Serge Benhayon, only in the fact that why I had not been told this before, that we have a choice in how we are going to live and that if we develop our relationship with ourselves and connect with our Soul, life can be extremely different to they way I had been living. At the same time it all made complete sense and I had been looking for this, but everything that I had come across just didn’t make sense or feel right. Today I know my Soul and keep choosing to deepen my connection with it.
The understanding you bring to yourself in this article Chris is inspiring. There is no aberration or self-critique, but the tenderness of you observing what you chose and why. It is this tender holding of ourselves that enables the true healing to take place.
The level of intimacy we can bring into relationships will be always equal to the intimacy of the inner relationship with ourselves that is at the base of all of our outer relationships.
“True Relationship with Self” – is the start of true life and living.
Yes Zofia, very well said. As from this relationship we connect too with our inner essence, the divine essence and shall one day be lived again by all – true life and living.
A true and honest relationship we have with ourselves is the foundation for all relationship we have with others
Great blog Chris, a call for us all to reconnect to our tender loving selves.
Thank you, Chris, for sharing your gradual process of coming back into relationship with yourself, as an example for everyone but men in particular.
I love this!!! Great read. I am so happy that you were able to recognize that you needed to develop a healthy intrapersonal relationship so that you could have great interpersonal relationships. So many relationships would be so much better if people would take the time to discover their true self.
‘From the time I was a young boy, I knew my gentle and caring nature.’ – This beautiful statement will encourage many men to re-connect to their own childhood feeling and inner knowing.
After reading your blog, it has become far more obvious and easier to identify and feel tenderness in men everywhere. I am seeing and then meeting this tenderness and sensitivity first and foremost, which quite un-expectantly, enables me as a woman, to drop any guard or protection. Its quite amazing then, as from this openness, a natural harmony is met by both.
We all know somewhere within us that being caring and gentle are our natural way that our bodies know so well, so when we start treasuring and treating our body respectfully, listening to its messages, it really responds, and likewise when we show no care for it at all- a humbling and ever present reflection of our choices.
A beautiful blog offering us the truth of the caring and tenderness we all are and our foundation of this love for ourselves firstly to be with everyone and that cherishes our preciousness and love.
Our relationship with ourselves sets the precedence for all other relationships.
The fact that many of us would relate to this blog and the feeling or sense of a purity, innocence and clarity when we were young shows that we are born with everything we are and a strong connection to our natural divinity and then other things come in later that cover this up. So this for me blows away the idea that we are fundamentally flawed or broken as human beings and will never attain divinity. We are already everything it is simply a process of discarding the things we have collected along the way that are not us.
As young children we are naturally gentle and caring, we know within us the beauty of nature and it’s divinity. It’s an innate knowing that resides in all of us.
This is such a beautiful blog Chris – really shows the absolute delicateness and tenderness of all of us and how precious that is, and in that, we are all the same. Thank you.
I love how the natural nurturing of women is felt and something that boys and men actually love and look for. It makes the atrocities that happen to women in our world today seem so totally alien to the natural way that men and women can be and live together, if those feelings felt as a child are again connected with and allowed to be.
The more I love myself the less I need another, and the more another wants to be in my company. It really is true, no one wants bits and pieces of a person, which is what we allow out when we don’t love ourselves enough to be ourselves in full.
Good point Leigh, it does seem as though we shortchange ourselves and others when we live fragmented.
So true, hence we owe it to ourselves and each other to love ourselves in full.
There is no limit to our relationship with ourselves… I love this unfathomable-ness… that for every revelation and depth we go to with tenderness, understanding, love, care, respect… there is always more.
I know, I have also been stunned by the fact of the limitlessness in deepening the relationship with myself and the affects of it.
Yes, Chris. Building a loving relationship with ourselves supports us to trust what we feel so we can live with confidence in our choices, which then helps us to be more open and transparent with others.
Loving ourselves deeply allows us to open up and be that love with everyone.
Chris it is beautiful to hear a man speak so tenderly and preciously about himself and others. So often men think they have to be all tough and hard and impress others which is devoid of love and tenderness. It is so exquisite when we drop this act and simply be ourselves with ourselves and also with others.
I love the fact that you have chosen to share this journey openly in a blog like this Chris – allowing yourself to be open and tender for all to see.
The beauty and joy of building a deeper relation with oneself is so inspiring to read in it’s simplicity and self loving caring ways of being that makes all the difference to the honouring and love of who we are naturally and our lives in every aspect.
Having a true, honouring and respectful relationship with ourselves is a marker and foundation for all our interactions and relationships with others and life. A gorgeous, simple and inspiring sharing. Thank you, Chris.
The intimacy and harmony felt with yourself is the foundation to all other relationships and the change must be enormous.
It is as simple as that which we can at times find it hard to accept and instead look for a more complex answer but the truth simply lies within and with our relationship with all that we are.
‘I now feel the loving commitment of the ever-developing relationship with myself… not perfect, sometimes a little wobbly as I let go of old patterns and behaviours, but a lot more honest than it’s ever been.’ – This is gold – no need to be perfect, honesty well and truly does the job.
Taking the first step of return to true self also changes the direction of so much more in our lives and so we notice this as ripple effects through all our relationships.
Something I’ve come to appreciate is my investment in me, in my body and in being me. That is an investment I had not made growing up, I felt something was missing and was confused thinking it was relationships with others, when in reality I can now say with certainty it was my relationship with me.
“True Relationship with Self” – through my body’s wisdom brings an understanding of life and people. To me this is everything and without it I am lost.
I cannot remember my childhood at all, but I get a sense that I was a very delicate, all knowing, deeply sensitive baby that came in very protected from the womb (I weighted 11lbs at birth ) as I had already read that my mother was not going to cope with another child, as she already had 2 little ones under 3. I hardened from a very early age thinking that this was the only way to get through life unscathed. I now simply connect to my breath and my being and know that I cannot get hurt as long as I am connected.
People tend to forget that genuine self-love is very essential. Once a person loves themselves they would make better life choices solely for themselves. They know what is good for that and what is not and how to respond effectively without hurting themselves in these cases. But when one has gone through pain, self-love is difficult. Thank you for sharing.
I agree. The impact of self-love is remarkable. And what you share about pain being a barrier is very real. I have found that as I incrementally build respect, care and love back into my relationship with myself, the pain very naturally diminishes; I reckon it’s because I am not in it’s grip anymore as I feel the impact of developing and expanding love.
“I now feel the loving commitment of the ever-developing relationship with myself” Since making that commitment myself, it’s made a huge difference in my life, the tenderness and care and quality I am is something that I am treasuring more and more.
Your sharing is a beautiful confirmation that men are equally as sensitive and naturally tender as women.
Chris, this seems like such a common thing that we do as we get older; ‘I had forgotten the beautiful connection that I had with myself. I started desperately seeking connection outside myself to try to fill this huge void I was feeling inside’, I am finding that it is the reconnection with myself that allows me to feel confident in myself and to feel content again, like I did when I was a young girl, it seems that this is key – to nurture this inner connection.
So simple and straightforward but it works every time: the more we are ‘with ourselves’ paying attention to what we’re doing, the more we feel that feeling – a knowing, contentment and joy – at just being with ourselves. It’s a steadiness and solidness that comes from within, and nothing I’ve ever found from the outside has matched this level of deep contentment and ease with myself. Not perfectly consistent, but a loving work in progress and one that keeps deepening.
I couldn’t agree more Bryony – being aware of such things as our posture, breathing or even the way we close and open our eyes when we blink, can support us to develop a consistent awareness of being with ourselves in our body. No perfection needed, just return to such a point when we become aware of them.
Very openly and humbly expressed Chris – a healing in itself for so many.
Reconnecting to and developing the relationship we have with ourselves is like starting a chain reaction which travels out through our lives and effects and influences everything else.
How to honour self? Be true to yourself and express your truth and move in a way that is connected with your body.
When we do not appreciate our true and natural qualities, we abandon ourselves and settle for other qualities that are much less to who we truly are.
‘…I felt the opportunity to really have a good look at what was going on here. This was a crossroads…’ there is something to be deeply appreciated in these moments when we are faced with new choices in the clear knowledge of what has and has not worked, which has been shown to us clearly through a cycle of repetition.
The more solid and content I feel within myself, the more equipped I am to deal with negativity, stress and criticism.
The cycles of life are so interesting as we start out in a true relationship with ourself and then we stray away in the name of protection, that can never truly protect ,and then we realise this and we return to who we were in the first place but this time by our own free will. Great sharing Chris.
Choosing to reconnect with ourselves, and then consistently staying there has a profound impact, not only on ourselves, but on everyone around us.
A lovely sharing of the beauty and love from building a true and real relationship with ourselves first and the expansion and contentment that comes from this. Returning to our own love within allows the true joy and expression of this with others. This beautiful simplicity of life offering us a real reflection
What strikes me most, is how the quality and tender expression of a man has such a loving and sensitive feel that you would assume this quality of expression was from a woman. It shows to me how similar both men and women are, that the expression is from the same source of love but expressed in a different way. That beneath society’s veneer of pictures of what and how a man ‘should’ act like, or ‘be’ like, is polar opposite to the natural expression of a man if he is not bombarded by these stereotype ‘pictures’. Interestingly, when the tenderness is expressed from a man it actually exposes how women in general, have buried their way of being tender by hardening up, becoming ‘tough’ or ‘I can do anything a man does’ – perhaps as a way to cope or attain recognition of equality in society. Ironically, the Women’s Movement of the 1960’s sought to bring equalness and balance between man and woman, yet the natural equality is already there, its just that this same inbuilt quality, tenderness in man, Sacredness in woman has completely been overlooked.
Yes, interesting about the hardness in women Jo, for a long time I felt out of place as I knew deeply what I felt and who I was but this tenderness was shunned by society. What we need is more role models, not afraid to be tender, vunerable and fragile, then all will be able to see that we are all the same in essence.
‘The way I was using these substances was purely abusive; they were my band-aids to keep everything together to be able to function with some normality in life. They offered a numbing effect for me to forget the pain, but only for so long.’ – This is such a great expose of how we choose to medicate our hurts with anything that draws our attention and focus away from the hurt.
I agree Eva and to dull down or avoid our natural sensitivity to those things which we feel trigger the hurts.
“These relationships never felt satisfying for me, yet there was always a yearning to be in a relationship when I wasn’t in one” I know this feeling well, from my teens onwards I was in relationships, I always wanted to be in them yet felt dissatisfied. It was only when I started a true relationship with myself did that change.
Everything in life is so much easier to deal with when you genuinely enjoy yourself.
We are far more connected to God as children, it is naturally expressed in us because it is just there bubbling away. However it seems that this effervescence is not welcome and for the majority of us gets crushed. But we do remember the feeling and so is it possible that’s why we go looking for this effervescence in another because we feel the loss of it in ourselves?
So true Mary. We can gaze at babies for hours and revel in the joy of children. Is this because we have lost this divine bubbling joy within ourselves? And can we dare allow it within ourselves as an adult?
Life is very simple, it is only us from our thinking mind, that have complicated life and so too our relationships.
Chris I love how you grew your tender and loving relationship with yourself in simple and practical ways, I do love simplicity!
I strongly second the context of the blog! Loved how you have framed it so well. More power to you:)
I agree… there is so much in this blog that is so inspiring and it is all really understandable and relatable to life.
I too know very well how it feels to lose that connection to self, the gentleness and the tenderness, but I feel for me it happened even earlier for I hardly remember. As a boy it was expected to be all rough and tumble and I was playing rugby with my older brothers as early as I can recall and I remember from day one at school that boys just did not play with girls, you got teased if you even thought about it.
Its such a set up, Isnt it Kev, with a cycle of exterior toughness and hardness to keep us away from our beautiful tender qualities as boys.
Connection to ourselves is the first building stone to true connection with all.
and connection to self is the threshold to God.
Chris, first of all I just want to say how gorgeous it was to read your blog. You can could feel your tenderness which each word. In a world that leaves no space for such tenderness you are leading the way. Thank you.
I agree – a man expressisng his tenderness is an absolute gift to the world.
I have been quietly blown away by the power of committing to a deeper and intimate relationship with myself and how this then has a massive ripple effect with all others. What I have been noticing is it really doesn’t matter what I am doing or what needs doing, this is happening anyway but it is the quality of the relationships that I am having with people that matters most.
Yes Natalie, I do recognise what you say. Especially that the relationship with people matters most, and are of high value to me too, something I am not yet always willing to acknowledge in full.
Our relationship with ourselves is the foundation of our lives and determines everything that follows.
Yes, I have felt this too Paula. I can now really feel and see how important it is to build a strong and loving relationship with ourselves and how this supports all our relationships in life.
And it is the quality of this relationship with self that goes everywhere with us and impacts every other relationship… which exposes just how important the quality of this relationship is.
When we are true with ourselves, we are true with others.
It is incredible how simple this is Paula, what you’ve shared is like a maths equation.
True relationships start within ourselves, learning to love and care for ourselves first, and then we can take our true selves out into the world, into all our relationships and share ourselves with others.
A steady commitment back to self with a willingness to be open and honest brings a sense of worth and a constant connection that brings a deeper, richer and more fulfilling relationship… with myself too.
I love this very beautiful blog Chris – finding the ‘womanliness’ in us all regardless of gender.
The cycle of emptiness is so devastating for all involved and equally the cycle of connection is evolving for all.
“that by listening and by being truly with me, this relationship with myself could be the foundation for the way I live and love.” this is what I also come to appreciate with myself, when I built a level of care and love for myself I realised that my relationship with myself is key.
And everything is a reflection of the quality of that relationship.
For some reason this made me think about wedding vows and how denying of our self-honouring they were. And then I was thinking – we should get married to ourselves before we are allowed to marry anyone else! Joking aside, if we do not truly love ourselves we are not able to truly love another. It’s a pretty sobering thought this and exposes all the arrangements that I have made in my life with any of my relationships (including the platonic ones). Now, as I deepen my own self-love, those relationships either deepen also, or fall by the way-side – exposed as the non-serving, unsupportive, involutionary arrangements that they were.
It’s true Otto. If we are not committed to honouring ourselves first, we are simply lying in relationships with others. Even in a relationship with our best friend or our beloved partner, if we do not speak the truth of what we feel or what is best for us it is a sure way to destruct an otherwise loving connection. If we have not put the work in to discover how to stay true to ourselves, we are more likely to give ourselves away or agree to things just to keep the peace. This is not a relationship, it is an arrangement and an agreement to stay small. I know this one very well.
I love hearing people express like this. It’s inspiring, it’s fun, it makes me see the point to life – which for thirty-five years, I often couldn’t see.
What I realised when reading your comment is that so many of us get married and do exactly the opposite. We give ourselves over to that relationship, commit to that relationship, invest in that relationship…and, in that process, abandon ourselves…and then, when and if things start to go wayward, we, of course, point the finger at that in which we have invested so much. If we committed deeper to ourselves first – perhaps the relationship would be truer..and perhaps we’d also have the humility and wisdom to realise that all relationship issues start with ourselves first?
So very true Otto, where if at first the commitment of our relationship with ourselves isnt first honoured, then what of the quality of relationships with others? With relationships, it seems as though most of us have put the cart before the horse, so to say, I certainly did, hoping that a relationship with another would would fill the gap of the ache for relationship with myself and God.
This level of transparency is what the world desperately needs – giving permission to so many to express the hurts that so many of us feel – without judgement. Thank you.
Chris – it is a huge blessing for us all to read the words of man written with such honesty, delicacy and lack of judgement of themselves. Words that melt us.
Isn’t it crazy all the things we do to hide the essence of who we naturally are, imagine that much energy put into letting everything we are out, to committing to life, to staying focused, to taking our next step forwards. It seems to me a choice of what you truly want in life.
‘I now feel the loving commitment of the ever-developing relationship with myself… ‘ so beautiful to feel and to appreciate the strength in this.
We get to choose how ‘well equipped’ we are going to be for life and all that it brings, and a defining factor in this is our morning routine… Do we prepare in full for the day ahead by looking after our body, choosing our clothes and getting dressed with space and making sure we have everything we need to have an outstanding day with no compromises?
A great point – with what quality are we preparing ourselves for the day ahead, to ensure that we are equipped in a truly honouring way.
“I also found comfort in being with women now as it offered a distraction from what I would otherwise have to feel”, Chris, I sought the company of men for exactly the same reason. I was never without either a boyfriend or someone that I was chasing because had it just been me and myself, then God forbid, I might have had to take a look inside and there was no way that I wanted to do that, because what was inside was incredibly uncomfortable. But because the discomfort was inside of me, there was absolutely no escaping it, it was simply a matter of when I was prepared to stop all the running away and take a look. Having looked inside and sorted it out, then the sense of freedom and expansion that I now feel is priceless.
“To just cope with life” is our new disease as so many people are living like this – if they are aware of it or not. What if this way of living is one of the root causes of our high illness and disease rates? Perhaps this is something to ponder on more deeply.
When we don’t take it with us we are wide open to another energy being with us…..now we do not want that…….much better to be filled with our own energy.
I had lost connection with my delicate nature, so much so that I became the opposite…… loud, obnoxious and hard as. Returning to my delicateness and expressing who I innately am is is such a relief and feels so good and it is a relief for others as well!!
How beautiful we interact as children, when no pictures and ideals are governing us. It is then not about gender or any expectations/ needs that need to be fulfilled. It is just pure innocent connection in transparency. What beautiful role models children can be for us adults who lost this way of connecting.
When I severed the connection with myself, I looked everywhere for connection. Nothing could substitute this connection with myself but I was, and still can be very stubborn in admitting this truth. But I need to be honest about this or else I’ll continue the foray into dead ends that don’t work and are not loving no matter how hard I try to make them be. Much simpler to admit I’ve wasted a lot of time and effort and can just come back to me from this connection then be with others and live life.
I was watching some children and how gentle they were with each other especially their baby sister. This showed me that we all have this natural instinct to be gentle and caring as children, it is part of who we are and it is obvious that we as a society do not nurture this quality. As our children grow older the pressures are put on them to conform to a society that to me feels out of control. So my question is… why are we doggedly perusing a way of life that is not working? Just looking at the rates in illness and disease alone is enough to tell us there is a fundamental flaw in the way we are living.
Me too Jane, I love observing how children move, play and interact. They remind me that the qualities of delicateness, gentleness and tenderness never leaves us, and we can access this at any age.
This is very beautiful to read and feel and know the gift and importance of our foundational love of building a deeply honest and true relationship with ourselves and the choice and changes this brings.Simplicity joy and a true way of living and very inspiring.
What has stood out for me today is how very few of us actually have ‘true relationships’ with anyone, let alone ourselves. It’s funny how that is sorely lacking in society, yet how amazing it feels when we first re-build that connection and relationship with ourselves.
Its interesting that things started to change around teenage years and it is easy to say this is due to outside factors such as parents, however we start to face things in our own life during this time too that are not down to anyone else but us and so whilst we may look to support from those around us at this time, the issues we face are ours not theirs.
It is the relationship that we have with ourselves that holds us steady in a world which is full of turbulence.
Yes our relationship with ourselves determines how we are in life, whether we react or respond, and how life reflects back to us.
If we have a strong and loving relationship with ourselves relating to others from our own authority becomes easier. I am experiencing this at the moment as I build more love in my life. It works like magic.
Meeting Serge Benhayon has brought about an incredible and very welcome shift in my interpersonal relationship, one I have longed for all my life. What a gift to be given, the power to return to who we are, a gift that is appreciated on a daily basis as I learn how to embrace and express my enormous love.
It is a such bummer that we have to waste so many circles around the sun because we are set up to lose ourselves and bury that essence as deep as possible before coming full circle to reconnect again.
True relationship with self is never ending.
I love the knowing you have returned to knowing because you never actually lost it, simply reconnected to what you knew as a child. We come full circle with humility.
Very true, Jane. It’s interesting how fiercely we can resist acknowledging let alone accepting how tender, gentle and loving we truely are, as though we are protecting ourselves from getting hurt. Yet the reverse is true, we have already been hurt, hence ‘the hatches’ have been well and truly pulled down to prevent further attacks. In so doing we cut ourselves off from our bodies, from feeling the absolute wisdom held within and how deliciously delicate, sensitive and tender we actually are. Feeling these innate qualities is, contrary to what we may ‘believe’, very powerful, as it’s the truth of who we are and when lived, the beautiful quality of our livingness is felt by everyone. In this livingness of our truth we get to feel how simple it can be to deal with our hurts and let go of anything that doesn’t belong, making space for us to be more of the love that we innately are.
It is interesting to read how your relationship with women changed the more you shut down towards yourself, Chris. You went from knowing the essence of yourself and women, to see them as a form of relief as you got through life. This shows that if we choose to heal ourselves, then we develop a relationship that is true and honest and then we can also see others for who they truly are.
Yes it does really start with ourselves doesn’t it? And as we allow ourselves to focus our attention, care and love on ourselves we begin to feel that love filling us up from the inside and we resonate with that in others, others resonate with that in us. AS this foundation of love builds in us we have more confidence and engage in the world more fully also.
‘Years later, after repeating this cycle many times and faced now with a marriage divorce of my own to deal with, realising that the vices I had used to patch things up were no longer working, I felt the opportunity to really have a good look at what was going on here.’ – whilst the lessons that are there for us to learn may present in slightly different ways, the patterns repeat until we are prepared to be honest and look at the route cause as to why something continues to happen. Our bandaid solutions are just that, they allow us to think we have done something to address the situation, when in fact we have just stemmed the flow of what we are feeling, the issue is still the same and getting worse until we choose to stop and address what is truly going on.
When we start a relationship with another, and feel incomplete within ourselves, then there is a seeking of fullfillment (that incidentally, instantly imposes on another), and in this way of being, we only ever get fleeting moments of satisfaction that are never lasting. This is not true relationship as we are not bringing all of who we are, but instead are seeking another to complete us. And yet in truth, we are complete as we are, and what is needed is to connect to this depth within ourselves and to bring this to the fore…a work in process for us all as it is a forever deepening exercise in life!
Thank you for your sharing Chris, and a timely re-read of your blog this morning as I sit here appreciating more and more how our relationship with ourselves is really the foundation for all relationships around us.
It certainly is – building a true relationship with ourselves it is a strong foundation to walk forward with.
I love how you describe your appreciation of having female qualities in your life and how you were naturally seeking these delicate and nurturing qualities in your relationships from a young age.
“This deep dissatisfaction went on for many years and I always felt I was in a cycle of seeking fulfilment in relationships but never finding it.” now this is the cycle that I have been part of for all of my life before coming to the understanding via the teachings of Universal medicine that my relationship with myself is what is most important and a foundation for everything else.
Really beautiful, Chris – ‘that by listening and by being truly with me, this relationship with myself could be the foundation for the way I live and love.’ Truly being with ourselves and the offering the space and grace to learn without self-judgement is a relationship of great potential.
It sounds like you met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine at the perfect time .. when we ask for true change, true support will be there and from my experience Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have been this enormous support and guiding light in aiding me to start the return back to who I truly am and back to love. No perfection and this is always unfolding and I am always learning. But really what would be most amazing is if we had this true support right from birth all the way through our childhood and life .. then we would not look to numb ourselves or look outside for love. Now if we all got to this point that would be pretty amazing ✨
It just goes to show how judgmental we are when it comes to relationships, as I remember seeing certain boys who preferred hanging out with the girls and not being laddish, but it was seen as a bad thing and often they would get flack from the other boys at school.
In my experience there is no better man walking this earth to meet at the proverbial crossroads, than Serge Benhayon for I too like so many were at these crossroads and was gently and lovingly nudged onto the right road, back to learning who I really am again.
and now Kev, you too are reflecting to others the way back to themselves.
I whole-heartedly agree Kev. There is so much to appreciate about this man.
When we look at what we have or do desire in our relationships with others it exposes what is missing in our relationship with our self first. I know this is the case for me too, especially looking back at what has happened in my own life when I was growing up. I left the relationship with me because I felt that I was losing something from others and went to seek some form of this rather than knowing there was no real need for this from anyone else in the first place.
It is amazing to reflect back to the natural open-ness and innate qualities we have as young children and to see the incremental chipping away at this if we do not hold steady and confident with who we are. It is also inspiring to hear that returning to this steadiness and sureness is absolutely a choice. Thank you, Chris.
Spot on Matilda – as children we have so many less constructs that seem to come in to mould us, and then as we grow up it is like we take on board layers of an onion, only to learn to shed them one at a time so that we can return to how we were and allow this to simply be.
I like the picture of the onion Henrietta 😀 Imagine, we would not protect us with onion layers and instead staying in the fullness of our essence and expressing this?! How much pain, disease and suffering gets created by leaving the pureness of our being. Should it not be the number one focus in our society to keep that innocence whilst growing up, instead of inventing more and more methods to rehabilitate from too many onionlayers, when we are grown ups?!
What I am becoming aware of more and more is how much parents need guidance and support with their children so they (the children) can be all that they truly are and know that they are deeply cherished. Today in a shopping centre I became really aware of a father and young daughter in front of me. The dad was focused on what he had to do and where he had to go, not connecting or being with his daughter and the girl felt so sweet and open just walking by her dad but longing for a connection with him.
The simplicity of connecting back to ourselves is deeply impactful, it changes all relationships. And yet, we miss this simplicity most of our lives and go for what is more complicated.
Adele this is so very true.
My relationship with myself has turned into a love affair.
I’m in a course at the moment and observing all sensitive and tender men that have been presenting. i was reflecting on your experiences and how you went to drugs and alcohol to numb what you were feeling, This may be perceived as ‘bad’ but looking at these highly intelligent men that I am with and realised that they could have gone to their intelligence and capacity to build knowledge for exactly the same reasons as you went to drugs and alcohol and yet being intelligent and building knowledge is deemed to be a ‘good’ thing. Its not that its not but when its done without the qualities you were sharing of who you were as a young boy and without the connection of knowing who you are and as a way to develop a way of protecting yourself from the world, we need to question the quality of what we call intelligence.
‘This in the beginning was something that felt foreign to me as it had been some time since I had felt this connection, but at the same time, I had an inkling of something deep down that felt familiar.’ it is amazing how this unfolds from the slight feeling of unease to something which is known to be more natural than anything else we have tried to adopt in its place.
In a world that celebrates being ‘cool’ sometimes it is difficult to honour and celebrate our tender and delicate nature. If we adapt so we appear ‘cool’ we give ourselves away and lose our connection to the beautiful essence that we can otherwise feel within. It is our choice to decide what holds more value to us.
Chris, thank you for sharing this; ‘I now feel the loving commitment of the ever-developing relationship with myself… not perfect, sometimes a little wobbly as I let go of old patterns and behaviours, but a lot more honest than it’s ever been’, I can very much relate to this as I too build my relationship with myself, it feels great to be learning, making changes, trusting myself more and honouring myself more and I look forward to forever deepening this precious relationship with myself.
It is quite something when we as men start to realize how less we are who we are when trying to be the kind of man we are expected to be. It was a real key and still is today when understanding that it is not about knowing what it means to be a man but much more to be who I am as the man that I am.
A wonderful sharing Chris that highlights how the quality of connection we have with ourselves impacts on all of our other relationships.
Our relationship with ourselves, our innermost, is key to the quality of relationships with others.
Yes Chris and the more we realise the deep love that we are, the more we let that love shine out and the more open we are to letting others in. But the best thing is that we fall in love with everyone we meet . . . everyone is like a hidden gem that you feel like you are just dis-covering and this is all because you have not an ounce of neediness in you any longer.
Nothing beats being your own best friend, well.. except maybe sharing this with others.
When we lose our true connection we enter relationships with a great neediness that nothing can fulfil and we blame the relationship, the partner, everything to avoid looking within at the true cause. When we reconnect everything changes and we can find true love because it is already within.
It is a gorgeous reflection that you knew who you were from very young Chris, the wisdom of small children is quite remarkable. I have viewed that incorrectly in the past, so when a child conforms to the world, I used to think they were growing up, and fitting in and it was a good thing, but actually they were losing their awareness and connection to themselves.
Up until recently I was always jealous of people who I could feel had a loving relationship with themselves, as this was something I felt I did not and could not have for some reason. By challenging this belief I have started to shift what gets in the way of this most important and precious relationship.
No amount of searching for intimacy in the many distractions we cook up for selves can ever equal the immense fulfilment we experience when we finally surrender to our very own divine essence within. Once realised, it becomes the one and only essential ingredient in all our relationships and activities, our very own intimate friend who knows us inside out, quite literally, and is a joy to share with everyone.
‘There weren’t the highs and lows of other relationships I had been in, but a more constant connection, as long as I chose to be open and make the choice to be present in this relationship with myself.’ I’m seeing this in my relationship with myself – it’s started as little glimpses into what could be and now is becoming more solid and so much less idealistic.I’m becoming much more honest about what’s going on with myself and it’s revelatory. Even when I’m feeling an internal tantrum it’s great because I’m feeling it but holding myself in love at the same time. I’m also finding things that once I got into a righteous rage about, I now sometimes can see the ridiculousness of and laugh about it.
It is one of the greatest gifts of life that we have cycles. In this way our patterns keep coming round again and again giving us the opportunity to feel the true impact of them. Until we are ready to say “enough” and in that moment start returning to the way of our Soul.
“I now feel the loving commitment of the ever-developing relationship with myself… not perfect, sometimes a little wobbly as I let go of old patterns and behaviours, but a lot more honest than it’s ever been.” From this space it feels much easier to let go of the old patterns because of the loving commitment and the intimacy of the ever-developing relationship you have with yourself.
A true relationship with self is knowing we are all from the stars, and designed to live connected to our Soul. Anything less than this is a reduced down version of the beautiful being we are. Thank you Chris.
No matter how long we seek things in life to fill a void the truth and Love we are of wait patiently for us to look within once again.
Yes, Michael, our searching far and wide will always eventually bring us back home.
So beautiful how when we begin to connect more to the essence of who we are and our qualities, and appreciate and live those, we become so much less dependent and needy on what the outside world can offer us – Yet at the same time, we enjoy being in life more, enjoy all of our relationships more, because we’re allowing ourselves to be more real, more in life (but without the attachment and neediness) than ever before.
There are many ways that we find ‘band aids’. Most of us think it is normal to over eat, drink alcohol or have a ‘treat’, while not really being willing to feel what it is that truly brings that feeling of the need for reward or comfort…
And then justify and defend our band aids as being, not so bad compared to….. Its interesting and beautiful to see how the deeper and more honest we are prepared to go with ourselves, how the crutches we have put in place are no longer needed and gracefully drop away
There is a whole relationship within that is waiting to be in relation with the outside world. This relationship within is the missing piece that allows all relationships on the outside to feel joyous and complete. Without it we will forever search for the missing piece in a place (outside) that can never offer what we seek.
How lovely that relationships here are based on the true quality held within another and the appreciation of this and without any need or imposition. This is the model of relationships we should all be using ‘I was also drawn to the beauty and divinity, and could really feel the beautiful essence, of women. I loved the deeply nurturing aspects of women and found that I could connect easily with them and started to develop relationships that were based on a foundation of just being together, without need or imposition.’
We do boys an inordinate disservice when we do not allow them to be and to express the natural tenderness and sweetness they are. From an early age, they are either told directly or subliminally that this is not allowed. The damage this does for the boy growing into the man and for society at large is enormous… from an inability to express love and emotions to a partner to greater violence and… on the extreme side, the propensity for war?
I like how you describe your deepening relationship with yourself now and how it can be wobbly, this is definitely my experience too. It’s amazing discovering who you are and what you can really bring to the world, but there are also really bad days, and wobbly days and days where you forget everything you’ve been learning, and I think it’s important to know we’re not designed to be perfect – just always learning and always preparing to take the next step.
Yes, Chris, through the little details of self care we can remember what it is like to be in relationship with ourselves and the exquisiteness we have inside.
Chris, this is really lovely to read; ‘that by listening and by being truly with me, this relationship with myself could be the foundation for the way I live and love.’ I have been developing a similar relationship with myself recently, I have found that my relationship with myself becomes stronger when I listen to what I am feeling and when I honour this, this can be in the smallest details, in any way that is loving to myself. This self loving relationship feels like the most important of all relationships that I have because it is the foundation for how I am in all of my other relationships.
That is true foundation “building a relationship with myself that was true” that is the key and absoulte gold.
It is so simple really. We are in relationship all of the time with everything and everyone, so a true relationship with our self is paramount. This is a fact, for as we deepen the relationship we have with ourselves, so too do all our relationships deepen.
Absolutely ” true relationship with our self is paramount” as we are in relationship with everything and everyone.
‘I started with small things such as the way I made my bed and how I got dressed in the morning.’ Yes indeed small things can make a difference, like tidying away clothes at the end of the day, cleaning the table of clutter, washing up before going to bed so the kitchen is clear for the next day. These might be labelled household tasks but they show a level of self care in keeping our environment tidy and supportive.
Agreed Carmel it can feel overwhelming if we try to make huge difference and want immediate changes. To build a true and solid foundation where we get to know ourselves from every angle takes time, as we unravel all the areas of our life where we have not been caring or loving with ourselves
I agree Carmel, these so cynically labelled ‘chores’ are our life support.
The small things are about developing and deepening our commitment to ourselves. We start small and build and create a very strong foundation that becomes unshakable. So not really small at all.
When we truly meet ourselves first the quality with which we meet another is free of all the entanglements of our own needs.
When we are willing to be honest with ourselves we are then open to seeing beneath the hurts and behaviours that can be running us, as you share Chris. Meeting ourselves on the inside is a joy, the love and steady essence that is always present.
‘There weren’t the highs and lows of other relationships I had been in, but a more constant connection, as long as I chose to be open and make the choice to be present in this relationship with myself.’ – beautiful confirmation of how our relationship with ourselves lays the foundation for all our other relationships. The more we deepen our love for ourself, we are then able to bring this depth of love to everyone else.
‘The way I was using these substances was purely abusive; they were my band-aids to keep everything together to be able to function with some normality in life. They offered a numbing effect for me to forget the pain, but only for so long.’ – this ‘self-medication’ is such a strong pattern for us as a society, our resistance to ‘letting go’ of the control and being honest about what is truly going on for us, re-connecting with our selves, is holding us back from evolving and keeping us as puppets in the game of life.
We tend to seek outside ourselves to fix any relationship issues (or lack of ‘the’ relationship) we think we may have, when in truth the answer is within us … it is all about our relationship with ourselves first and foremost, and how that then impacts all other relationships.
I remember when I stopped experiencing the highs and lows in relationship, I thought there was something wrong with me but all that was happening was that I was experiencing a truer form of relating without emotions but with feeling. There is a vast difference between the two.
So beautiful to read your account of yourself returning to the childhood innocent expression that is full of intelligence and love.
Your sharing is Gold Chris. You show how the innermost qualities of men are not so dis-similar to that of women.. underneath what women may see as ‘bravado’ or toughness lays tenderness, nurturing and loving essence complimenting her innermost essence of preciousness and Sacredness.
Instead of filling our heads with romantic nonsense and leading us astray with novels,, films, and plays about finding ‘one true love’ and ideal partner’, time to shift shift emphasis and write about the beauty and depth of developing a relationship and falling in love with self.
Sure is “time to shift emphasis and write about the beauty and depth of developing a relationship and falling in love with self.”
Is it any wonder so many relationships flounder and fail when the foundational aspect, our relationship with self, has not been established. Looking back, I can see that problems in my own relationships, whether with family or partners, stemmed from my own lack of self-worth and love.
I agree Kehinde. I too can see that all my relationship issues were actually stemming from a very insecure relationship with myself. When our inner relationship is built on sand, expecting it to support another one on top of it is a rather ambitious request. The more I appreciate my self worth, self respect and understand who I am, the more open, honest and loving all my other relationships are naturally becoming.
What a wealth of wisdom, joy and beauty resides inside and all we need to do is reach inside us to re-connect to it all. And when we do, all those things we used to fill the void, the ‘drugs, sex and rock’n’roll’, affairs, obsessions, hobbies and so on, lose their appeal, as nothing compares to the richness of embracing our delicate essence again.
All our relationships are underpinned by the type and quality of relation we have with ourselves. Changing our relationship with self-first, being based on love and truth, will therefore mean that all our relationships will also change and the type of relationship which we develop in our lives will also be different with a truer purpose.
It is such a conditioned way to not be taught or shown how to deal with our hurts and then the snow ball effect of this is a society that is dis-connected and abusing themselves and each other.
And yet once applied becomes increasingly easier to do. In learning to nominate honestly how I feel or to nominate the hurts as they come up to feel has supported me not to be afraid or ashamed of those feelings and in that nomination, they are made lighter and in many instances vanish with nothing else needed to resolve them.
Our relationship with ourselves is the foundation of every other relationship we ever have.
This is so true, with out this there is not true foundation.
True connections with others can only be when we have a true connection with ourselves.
There was a time when I too wasn’t aware of what a relationship with myself meant. But it was actually just bringing attention back to myself, how I am with myself, the quality I do things with myself. These things seem so ingrained almost automatic, sometimes from a lack of care, and thus bringing back this care to me, I started to feel my own preciousness again. It was very simple and I was startled how I never felt this in the past.
‘Yes, there was the anger and hurt around my parents separating, but also I had forgotten the beautiful connection that I had with myself.’ …. when we lose the connection with our precious self, we look outside ourselves to not only find a way to feel ‘better’ inside, but also to find reasons why we feel the way we do, blaming others or situations for the dis-ease we feel inside, rather than acknowledging the real the reason, that it’s our choice to dis-connect that has created the void within.
Nothing can replace our connection to Love. It’s just a matter of time before we admit, that all the substitutes don’t work and although we may fall down and slip the only true way forward is to connect back to us. The rest is just a complete waste of time and. Big fuss. Thanks Chris, for sharing your story back.
Our everyday lives are lived in such opposition to our true tenderness. What a joy to reclaim it and begin to resurrect a true relationship with your self that restores your sense of what normal, loving and respectful relationships are all about, no neediness in sight.
When we take care of ourselves we are able to truly care for another, when we develop an intimate relationship with our self we are able to be intimate with another. Our relationship with ourselves is first and foremost and is the foundation that then filters out to all others.
It is from our relationship with self that our relationship with life unfolds. The truer we are with ourselves the truer will be our relationships with others.
If we create a ‘hole’ in the fabric of our being, then we will continually seek to fill it. True repair comes from the restoration of our true self and relinquishing the hold we have over that which we have created.
I love how we instantly recognize the truth when it is presented to us. We may not always choose to change our behaviour in favor of it, but our whole body can’t deny what it feels and can instantly make the first step.
So true, Monika. We feel the energy of truth before we hear the words. Every cell in our body is attuned to recognising truth when it is felt.
It is these small and simple things that we are willing to take more care over when it comes to looking after ourselves, and everything that we do, that will eventually lead to much bigger and more significant changes in our lives and whereby our relationship with God becomes part of our everyday.
Chris I too have found the more intimate I am with myself and the qualities I bring, the more intimate I am with others and how much I enjoy this.
I did know a sense of my true self when I was younger however felt I could not be this. What I am finding now though however is through the esoteric modalities, such as Esoteric Yoga I am starting to surrender to even more of who I am. We are only currently living at the very tip of the iceberg!
I can relate to that yearning to be in a relationship when I was in one, and the dissatisfaction when I was! All because I’d not made the relationship with me a constant, loving connection.
When we are ‘needing’ to be in a relationship, to make ourselves feel better, more complete, there is already an expectation of something very specific that we need from the other person. The relationship is doomed to fail before it even begins as we are not allowing the other person the space to be their self and accepting them for who they are, rather we are demanding something from them.
What kind of world are we living in, if we accept each other’s self-abuse and disregard as the norm? Where is the love? Thank heavens Universal Medicine is turning the tide on lovelessness once and for all.
Having enjoyed reading so many of the blogs on this site it is very clear that what you also discovered “I could re-develop a loving relationship with myself”, is truly fundamental to changing the way we live and therefore how we feel, the quality of health and wellbeing we afford ourselves and the effect that then also has on our relationship with every one and everything else.
deepening our relationship with ourselves can be challenging but well worth it because the outside influences no longer affect us
The more I live and honour myself, the more I feel the love for myself, which has knock on effects for my relationships which everyone else. The more I deepen within myself the more I deepen with others, not because of anything they have done differently, but simply because of my choices. Which shows the responsibility I have for all of my choices and actions which effects everyone around me not just myself.
Chris, when I read the title of you article; ‘True Relationship with Self’, I reflect on whether my relationship with myself is true or not, I can feel that when I express honestly what I am feeling to others and when I am gentle and honouring of myself, for instance putting a coat on if I feel cold and not overeating then this feels like a true relationship, thank you for this article and for the inspiration to make the relationship with myself honouring, loving and true.
In the lack of confirmation we get as children we soon learn to distrust ourselves. We start to doubt what we are feeling because the love we know to be true isn’t mirrored back. Not having any reference points for the love we know to be true, we start to believe there is something wrong with us and then it is the slippery slope into repeating the patterns of the older generation. The good news is that it is very simple to re-connect back to the love we are and it doesn’t have to take too long to heal all those hurts that keep us in contraction.
I am finding that the relationship with self is absolutely fundamental to all I do in life. When I have a loving relationship with me, I tend to have loving relationships with others, enjoy my work, feel well, productive and purposeful in life. For may years this was not the case but I know in my heart and in my whole being that this change rests on how I relate to myself first.
By looking and thinking that being in a relationship with a partner will solve everything, which I too have fallen for, we keep ourselves at the mercy of another… this is not true love. To live true love, our lives are not dependent on another but from a connection to the love that is at the core within ourselves.
It really is that simple to just start connecting to our true essence via little things like feeling our body picking up something gently, opening the car door, placing a glass down with gentleness, speaking with consideration and openness to others, etc. and then allowing that dedication to slowly spread to other areas of our life without really trying.
So true, Ariana, it’s a game we all play together, everyone knows, but no one tells, it only works if we are all complicit. Once someone starts exposing the truth, they may be ostracised or ridiculed but when they hold true, as many now are, it allows people to feel the choice that we all have in life, a choice to live true to who we are, or not.
The relationship we have with ourselves sets the quality of relationship that we have with everyone else. Therefore, it follows that in the absence of a loving relationship with ourselves first, we will feel there is something missing in our other relationships – the very relationship that is at the foundation of all our relationships – the one with our self.
We believe being honest is this big deal, but in truth it is very simple – owning up, and realising we stuffed up… and right now is an opportunity to make a different choice.
It is time we were all very honest with ourselves… no more checking out, hiding or numbing ourselves, but being very honest… and what you present here Chris is refreshingly honest.
Underneath our skin we are all the same… so why do we treat males differently to females, and females differently to males? We are all loving, sensitive, caring, joyful beings.
“this relationship with myself could be the foundation for the way I live and love..” This is so true. During the growing up years, we are erroneously led to believe life is about having a relationship with everything other than ourselves. At no point are we told ‘Hey don’t forget you!’ – so we may be ‘grown up’ in adult age yet, not feel that fullness like we did when we were a child. The thing is, we only ‘grow-up’ once we develop that foundation of relationship with ourselves, which offers the stability, the love, the understanding, the purpose, the acceptance, the observation, the ability to observe rather than react, the ease, the reassurance we unconsciously look or crave for in the growing-up phase – an age that may be young, middle aged, or elder.
It can be easier for us to appreciate one gender more than the other. An expansion happens when we are able to appreciate both genders and members from each.
In the place where we meet in love we are in truth gender-less. Our vehicles may look different though the equal essence remains the same.
“I’m feeling more engaged in the world, being able to bring so much more of me to relationships with everyone I meet and in all I do.” Here, here Chris me too. The unequivocal result of attending Universal Medicine and studying the Ageless Wisdom, a result that is commonplace amongst those who study along side us.
Yes Doug I agree there is always deeper to go and more to discover and learn about ourselves and life.
Amazing to consider that the relationship we have with ourselves determines the quality of relationships we have with all others and that it all begins with simple initial steps towards self-care.
It is tragic how far we travel from our selves – once known and lived with ease as a small child. Thank God we have been shown the way back.
The familiarity that I feel in my relationship with myself is the same familiarity that I feel in my relationship with God. We bump along very nicely together, no fanfare, no fireworks, just the totherness that I knew as a child.
Doug I can relate to all you’ve shared here. I played with all sorts of personas and ways I thought I had to act. But there’d be times when I did feel who I was, it may have been fleeting but it was when I dropped the masks and the pretense, I always knew what was true even when I didn’t live it. I tried to capture those moments, recreate them by repeating what I thought made them, not understanding it wasn’t anything to do with outside circumstance. It was all to do with reconnecting with me, a truth of the Ageless Wisdom.
I too knew my gentle and caring nature when I was a young girl but at about the age of nine I disfigured who I was to such an extent that I literally lost sight of who I truly was and came to believe that I was a hard and sarcastic young woman. Some thirty years later it actually came as quite a shock to hear someone describe me as ‘sensitive’. It has been a revelation and an absolute joy to drop my hard, sarcastic ways and to discover that the gentle and tender qualities that are inherent within us all are still there, totally unblemished.
Whatever any self-help book or relationships advice book or counselor may say until we first build a relationship with ourselves nothing else really is possible. What I came to understand was the depth and quality of relationships with others are always limited to the depth I will go with myself.
‘At school, I often opted to spend time playing with the girls in recess breaks at school, over the rough games that were being played by the boys.’ This gentleness really isn’t honoured in society with the whole ‘boys will be boys’ mentality whereby it’s expected boys will be both rough and unaware to the needs of others. This makes me cringe and I wonder how many boys would like to hang with the girls but felt they couldn’t for fear of being bullied and called a girl. We so can do with returning to who we truly are whatever our gender or how we identify.
Great comment Karina and I am sure that even those boys who may say that they do not want to ‘hang’ with the girls would feel differently if they were allowed to express their true nature rather than being caught up in patterns of protection to avoid hurts so young.
We are the constant that we take from relationship to relationship and therefore building a relationship with ourselves is the only foundation to build any relationship from.
This cannot be denied Lucy! I love the simplicity here.
Ironically we have gotten lost in looking for ourselves, trying to find who we are by ‘asking’ the world to tell us. Once we eventually turn towards inside ourselves the whole shenanigan is exposed and comes to an end.
There comes a point for us all when we are faced with the clear understanding of what we have been doing is not working and in the moment we can choose to start a conscious path of return as is the case here.
Yes, Ariana, when we re-connect to ourselves and the grandness of our soul, we realise that this is what we were craving all along.
Thanks, Chris. I notice often with the young people I work with that it feels foreign for them too, to connect to themselves in a real and physical way. How far removed have we become from the natural fullness of being ourselves? Great to hear about your process of coming back to you.
You have covered a lot of issues that many men face growing up. A sensitivity inside and the contrasting toughness they are expected to live to be ‘a real man’. Your honesty around why you went into relationships and how you felt in them was refreshing. It always comes back to our relationship with ourselves first.
Where have I been my whole life? and who have I been being if it wasn’t my true self?
I love this sharing and knowing of the beauty a true relationship with oneself brings, with an honesty and expansion that allows a freedom and joy in our lives . Something to really appreciate and build for ourselves, an acceptance and livingness of the beauty we truly are. This can be life changing and world changing.
“True Relationship with Self” – brings real enjoyment to life and to living!
And to our relationship with others. Exactly.
It sure does – I have found literally the way I am completely alters/changes the way I see orhers and the world around me.
It’s so important to appreciate the value of what we bring. If we do not do this we can allow ourselves to be over shadowed by other people’s ideals and expectations. Appreciation is the key to holding ourselves strong amidst the forces that can come at us from the outside. Without appreciation of our own qualities we can so easily go into self-doubt.
If one is not in true relationship with oneself then whom is one presenting to others?
Well said Chris, from the way we men believe we have to be in the world, what we have to live up to it’s no surprise we are seeking relief in many forms, because we simply don’t feel at ease within our own bodies.
Hi Chris, you remind me of the fact that I too preferred to play with girls opposed to engage myself in the hard and tough games some boys where playing when I was young. Later on I do now recognise that I have conformed myself to these games because I wanted to belong to being a boy with all the others, but looking back it actually never truly satisfied me the way it did when I was still playing with the girls or with boys that also had chosen to not conform.
When my son was 7 he noticed how hard most of the girls were getting. He told me if this is how the girls are then the boys have no hope! We all have a responsibility to stay connected to our essence no matter what gender, as we all impact on each other all of the time.
We all know from deep within how life should be, but how is it that children can choose from young to become hard in opposite to the tender and gentle nature we all are from nature? We all see it and know it but what do we do? As you say Michelle, we all impact on one another but it feels like as a society we do now want that responsibility and to make a change. Possibly there is a comfort in this way of living together too, the comfort of the idea that we know life and can predict its behaviour opposed to when we are going to make a change of which we do not know where that will lead us to. Therefore it is important that we have pioneers who try this out and can show to the world that there are other models to live to, models that have proven to work and are successful.
Jane, your comment proves for me once again that we all know that hard and tough is not it. But where do you go if most people behave in this hard way? It feels that we have arranged life as such that we have made it quite difficult to stay with that love we can feel inside while we are in this tough environment. But still it is important to see that you found tenderness in some boys, I found it with some girls, that means it was still there when we where young. The question now arises in me, why did we not stay with that and use one another as support in this to have that reflection back of who we truly are, but instead walked away from this and conformed to the majority?
Interesting to hear Jane. At the end of the day, none of us really like hanging out with others who are hard and many of us as kids especially are not too overtly aware that the signals we may be putting out are equally as hard from our protective shell, but it is done from a fear of getting hurt or stomped on and so we keep repelling each other compounding the insecurities and the masks.
“These relationships became ones based on a need from where I would want to connect with women to find that nurturing essence I felt was missing in my life.” This can equally be applied to both sexes, seeking attention and nurturing from each, a seeking that creates a constant tension to find that perfect person to fill the void that is by rights ours and ours alone to take care of.
“I started to feel that I was building a relationship with myself that was true.” Simply awesome Chris and such simplicity and expansion is felt from our bodies when we make different movements to not only nurture oneself but see the ripple effect even the simplest things make to shift the paradigm from needs and disconnection to love and connection. Thank you.
‘ I started to feel that I was building a relationship with myself that was true.’ just reading this brings a settled feeling to my body – no more running away from myself.
It is a common expectation that relationships will fix everything about our lives and ourselves we don’t like… and yet we are the only ones who can give us what we refuse to give ourselves. We have to take responsibility for loving and nurturing ourselves… and all other relationships follow from there.
“I knew my gentle and caring nature.” I fully relate to this as it’s how I felt as a boy, how I felt in a world that seemed anything but this, and in that how I could not understand how I fitted in. From there I ended up leaving that gentle and caring nature and although it remained under the surface, it was only through the inspiration of Universal Medicine and the choices I made to try some ways of looking after myself, did I rediscover as an adult what I felt as a kid.
There is an ease in how and what you share here Chris which is truly inspirational for men everywhere.
I recognise what you say Paula and can sense there is an ease because it is written in the quality that unites man instead of separating them.
So true Chris… our relationship with ourselves is our true foundation.
Consistency, self-care, a lot less highs and lows, yes, and I remember being very chaotic and high and low, this was my normal. A true relationship that you write of in this blog, is about a quality of care and love for ourselves. It seems obvious, but so few of us are making space to build, nurture and develop a relationship of quality with ourselves, and this of course has an impact on all our other relationships.
Staggering the difference between the younger days and the recent times when you were at ease with yourself and therefore with life, and the period in the middle when you instead were looking to other people to fulfil you, distraught and dissatisfied. Really shows how vital it is to support people in honouring and deepening their relationship with themselves.
This is great Chris, as we can, we can all; ‘feel that with the depth of intimacy lived with myself in my own life, I feel more equipped to not just cope with life, but to be able to live with joy and harmony and take these lived qualities of true relationship with me in all I do.’ And may I add to the discussion that life can have its band-aids but are they true? As we all have our ‘band-aids’ it is how we apply them, the different brand names, how long we leave them on for, what we put on as cure or salve and then what we cover it with. So could we apply everything with Love? Lovingly choose the best brand? Feel from the body how much energy we can give to them? To understand that we can truly heal and that a cure may not be the answer? Allow ourselves to be transparent and be open to all that life shares for us to evolve.
Every detail of my relationship with myself that isn’t true is being exposed in the relationship with my partner. Any expectation, investment, need is being highlighted and none of these work. So a super opportunity for me to deepen the relationship with myself.
As you say Chris , everything starts with us having that honest, true and evolving relationship with ourselves.
The funny thing is, by continually committing to our relationship with self, eventually the self all but disappears.
reconnecting to our tenderness as men is such a heart-warming process.
Chris, I love your honest open sharing here, a true inspiration for other men.
What I am discovering is that I can’t expect anyone else to appreciate my qualities if I am not fully appreciating them myself. This takes any blame away and brings the responsibility back to me. In doing so I get to feel how amazing my own qualities are, and as a result everyone else gets to feel this too.
It is so common for us to seek relationships that we hope are going to fix everything, and then feeling disillusioned when they don’t. This can be a perpetual cycle, until we come back into a true and loving relationship with ourselves, thereby ending the search once and for all.
It seems to me that we are at the mercy of thinking we are what the world wants us to think we are until we take charge and learn who we are from the inside out – and from my experience who I am is very different to who I thought I was.
The absence of highs and lows made me question at first. But then I really felt and connected with the absolute consistency of ‘beingness’ within – and a sense of joy started to emerge. This felt like confirmation…my body saying ‘yes’ with all that it is. I find this bodily response a true marker now. When I am on the ‘track of truth’, my body let’s me know.
Being honest with ourselves, that is being willing to face ourselves and not blame others, allows us to take the dark shades off, literally step out of the illusion we have been in and take responsibility for our lives, everything starts to change.
Chris, this is really lovely; ‘By starting to feel everything I was doing, I began to really feel me again. Even though I hadn’t felt this way for a long time, it started to feel familiar again. I started to feel that I was building a relationship with myself that was true.’ It is gorgeous how simple the steps were to start building a relationship with you again, it feels very practical for people to read this and be inspired by what you are sharing.
The feeling of unfolding here is gorgeous Chris. For me too I experienced tension in home life as a child as I’m sure many people do and I also sought to deal with my reaction to this and feelings of need by making choices that were not based on being loving toward myself. Returning to a way of life based on this as presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine feels like truly coming home.
There seems to be a transition phase between child and adult that the connection with one’s innermost, seems to be challenged by events, experiences and interactions with people, making this phase like walking on thin ice. When on this ‘thin ice’ there is enticement to step outwardly to substitute the loss of feeling absolute and solid in one’s connection, with substances that lead us down a tangent path.
I can relate. Self care used to be something non existent for me. I did stuff for myself but there was no quality to it and it was always rushed. But when I feel into myself I am precious and I want to treat myself with this preciousness.
When we disconnect from ourselves, it’s like losing our best friend who has always been there, supporting us to feel into what is true and what is not. So, it’s very easy to get sucked into all sorts of things that ‘ sound’ like they are filling whatever need/void we have at the time. However, in connection with our selves, we know that we are already everything we need to be. There is nothing else needed, we are it. When we step away from ourselves, the only thing missing is us, fortunately, as easy as it is to step away, it’s just as easy to step back.
The other thing we often have as the young child you describe Chris is no emotional issues. No problems, no worries, no vendettas or beliefs. The beautiful thing is, the same can be true for us now, if we just choose the truth.
It is interesting, I noticed how we tend to search for a deeper connection and love outside ourselves and from others, leaving us feeling a bit lost at times because we have forgotten about building the connection and love with ourselves first.
The importance of building a relationship with ourselves that is true cannot be ignored. We are brought up to put others first but that ends up making us ill. Developing a deeper awareness of everything we feel in our bodies is key and we can do that through our movements, by being very gentle and tender and allowing ourselves to be still inside, the whispers we usually ignore from within can be heard.
Spot on Carmel, this is what I did, I put all others before myself, and it took me to get ill, which was the stop I needed to reassess my life and make different choices. One of the first choices I made was to put myself first and to take care of me, from this choice, I found so much support available to me.
When faced with an uncomfortable or confrontational reflection, we can choose to indulge in the self blame or self pity that is so enticing at the time, or look at the bigger picture and realise that we are still going to go to work the next day, engage in relationships with hundreds of people, walk, eat, sleep and repeat the cycle again. There is a lot we can learn from every so called ‘mishap’ that we can take into the next step of our journey!
I love this and how the connection of who we truly are never goes away, even if we take a thousand steps away from it, we don’t actually leave our innate inner being which is what we are craving all a long.
What is so beautifully expressed here Chris, is the compassionate relationship you are developing here within yourself, which requires an ongoing responsibility and commitment.
This blog is super relevant to me (and I would confidently guess to almost all men in the world). My relationships with girls and women were akin to me abusing drugs. They were a crutch, an addiction. I was a committed and long-term monogamist – always having to have someone to fill the void, supply the intimacy, compensate for my lack of self-love. They were arrangements and I was a master at it. Since committing to a different way of living, to nurturing my relationship with self and re-building that connection to my soul – as inspired and supported by Universal Medicine – I have dramatically changed my relationships. I could talk for hours about this, but, ultimately, if there is no ‘need’, then this gigantic space opens up into which the true and equal appreciation of the divinity and sacredness of myself AND a woman (wife, friend or colleague) expands. And it continues to do so….
Absolutely gorgeous Otto. You are amazing, our world is blessed to have men like you who are willing to love and be loved. Wow!
“if there is no ‘need’, then this gigantic space opens up into which the true and equal appreciation of the divinity and sacredness of myself AND a woman (wife, friend or colleague) expands…” Totally agree… the space that opens up once the need is dissolved continually redefines and pulls-up ‘relationships’ taking the understanding of what ‘love’ is to greater awareness and depth.
Agree. There is a giant difference between purpose and need
The truth, as you have put it so well in your excellent blog Chris, is that we choose to walk away from love and a connection with ourselves and therefore nobody can ever bring us the love, connection and intimacy that we all miss and crave – we can only bring it to ourselves by choosing to reconnect to who we are which we once walked away from.
So very beautifully expressed, Andrew. It’s absolutely gorgeous to read this blog and all the comments here, particularly those from all the men. I’m so appreciating feeling the complete open-ness in your expression and the tender sensitivity in your words. Thank you all.
What is so strong to read in this blog is the lack of judgement, ego, agenda or drive in what you were discovering. A simple combination of observations, actions, slip-ups, re-observations, re-actions etc…To walk the path of a true student of life we have to rid ourselves of judgement and embrace ourselves with appreciation.
As I was reading this blog I suddenly thought of all the stores, fairy-tales, legends and myths that we circulate through generations and generations. And where have they got us? How have they supported us? And then you read a blog like this. POW! This is one of the great stories that needs to be told. Beautiful, simple, true stories like this are what will evolve, support and heal the mess that humanity is. Chris, this is spectacular and amazing and I thank you for sharing it with us. If you ask me, this is a true blockbuster of a story!
When we really stop and question where we could go with this as we don’t want to continue like we did before, there is always a possibility waiting for us, we only have to say yes to it and give it a go.
It is often something outside of us the makes us give up our connection with our self. Somehow we are not used to staying in the connection with our self no matter what happens around us. Actually it is one of the most important things to share with our children: no matter what, stay connected to you.
Beautiful sharing Chris, I can relate to a lot of what you were saying growing up with girls – I always had very close friends who were girls and did not want to take it further in case things changed as I saw happened in most relationships. What you shared ‘this relationship with myself could be the foundation for the way I live and love’ is so true and the essential component to any relationship after all if we 1st are not with ourselves then what are we bringing to another?
“I now feel the loving commitment of the ever-developing relationship with myself” today after over 12 years of being involved in Universal Medicine, I realized I can take for granted the miracles that have taken place in my life, it has truly been transformed through testing and applying different things that have been presented over the years. All of this comes back to my relationship with myself.
I know that too Chris, – coming to understand that there is no other way than to first build the relationship with myself, to get to know our true self, that it becomes the foundation to feeling fulfilled.
Yes indeed, Chris. When we develop an intimate and loving relationship with ourselves, we cannot help but be more open and honouring of others as well.
It is so wonderful that you remember your true connection to your gentle and caring nature from a child Chris. Returning back to that feels like you are coming home, back to your original essence with commitment and purpose to live your life from that, it is simply gorgeous to feel.
What a stupendous crossroads to come to having Serge there to show you which way to go.
Me too Jane, that would be amazing. Chris’ blog is so inspiring and imagine a book filled with this kind of inspiration? It will touch many people’s lives and hearts.
“True Relationship with Self” – is the breath of life and living… because, and as i have found myself, when you start to relate truly lovingly with yourself, you start to breathe you; breathe life back into yourself…there is nothing better than breathing the real you in life.
“There weren’t the highs and lows of other relationships I had been in, but a more constant connection” And so we meet our joy again, a constant tender expression that rekindles a steady confidence and sunny deposition that irons out all those relationship’s highs and lows that have become our rocky norm.
The quality we make our bed in, is the quality we return to when we are tired at the end of the day and it feels lovely to be met with a lovingly made bed.
Love is very practical and worldly and as you say equips us for life and in fact delivers us and everyone else everything we could ever want or need.
Funny (not) how much we choose function over love. How we often end up abusing and eventually killing ourselves in order to function better.
And (ironically) a world without love therefore does not work (try as we may to make it ‘function’).
As a child I always felt myself to be very tall even though I am small in stature. This was because I was connected with the vastness of where I come from, which is so grand that it cannot be contained in this physical body. We all know the truth of who we are, even if we forget it temporarily in a world that does not support us to know the magnificence of who we are.
It’s quite incredible the extent of our collective amnesia when it comes to remembering who we are; we have fundamentally forgotten the truth of who we are, in such large numbers that there are very, very few people around to jog our memories and wake us up from our self imposed comas. But Serge Benhayon is wide awake and totally primed and committed to waking the rest of humanity up and there are now a significant number of others who are sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of our eyes and joining the call.
That is so true, he is primed ready, committed and loving us so much that if we then still choose to stay asleep, he is quite at ease with that decision and loves and commits no less! There is so much to learn about being asleep in our own lives and what commitment to a greater plan looks like. I love that I am forever a student of life.
I like it Susan, that you call it a trap we set up for ourselves, from which we perceive life as coming from the outside to us, but in truth is completely of our own making. A trap it is indeed, as for a long time I was not able to see my traps until I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, which helped me to untangle all these patterns that did keep me trapped in a way of life that was not me.
When we reconnect to our true selves again we might feel the same as we were as a child, not only very connected and caring with oneself, but borderlesly connected with all people, nature and the universe too.
Life becomes so much more simple once we begin to realise that all relationship issues stem from the relationship we have with ourselves first and formost.
So many men (or should I say all men?) are truly tender deep inside and any kind of abuse from a partner can cause them to retreat. Relationships based on anger and judgement are not conducive to tender loving communications, but we can get so locked into our reactions, we think that is normal. It isn’t. We can all learn to express with love, but that requires a certain amount of self love first.
‘I thought it would be the one thing, to find the perfect relationship that would fix everything I was feeling.’ I have chased this dream for most of my life. I completely abdicated my power and lived in the hope of meeting ‘the one’ that would save me. All that time was spent looking outward, wanting to be enough to attract whoever this person was. It dismissed the wonderful people that were around me supporting me, and I dismissed my own beauty. I still have remnants of this way of being in that I wonder if I am loveable but that’s only because, whilst looking out to the horizon for whoever to come along, I wasn’t appreciating or taking notice of myself and so was drinking in the poison that is the ‘am I good enough?’. So when I came to feel my body it didn’t feel lovely. Now I’m looking at caring for myself, knowing that if I go to the self-doubt of ‘am I ok or not’?, I’m inadvertently taking on poison.
What you share, Chris, exposes so clearly how life is set up to lure us away from our divinity from a very early age and the mayhem that follows when we do disconnect. Like a ship loosing it’s rudder, we flounder around looking for answers outside ourselves, leading to more chaos, for we already have all the answers we seek – to live the truth of who we are. Only we know the truth of how things are for us. We have the ability to read what is going on in life, to see through the illusion and be impulsed by our soul to live the love that we are.
Thank you for such an honest sharing – we are often encouraged from a young age to seek outside, to find our soul mate, our other half, a close connection, love – anything to fulfill us and make us whole and complete. And many approach relationships with this need, the need to be fulfilled and made whole by another’s love, to not be hurt and have their needs meet – it becomes a messy entangled arrangement! But what you’re presenting is how clean and simple and supportive it is when the first relationship we develop is with ourselves. Then we can step out into every other interaction and connection free to truly be ourselves, and at ease, because we need nothing from anyone else.
A big statement from a man at this point and one so many would be able to relate to. I did and still do get that sense of going around and around in circles in relationships where it would seem the only point is for you to have the opportunity to deal with things another way.
Chris, I love this innocence between young boys and girls that you write about; ‘started to develop relationships that were based on a foundation of just being together, without need or imposition.’ it is very gorgeous to see and feel the innocence and respect that can naturally be there between boys and girls – without the sexual impositions and ideals and beliefs about how boys and girls should be together, just each enjoying their own and the others qualities.
This is such a beautiful account how returning to ourselves and simply honouring and nurturing the relationship with ourselves brings us the deep connection we have always yearned for, through ourselves with everybody else.
What a beautiful open sharing. I love about your connection with girls and women at a young age and how you choose to listen to what you felt and not what society told you to do: play with the other boys and toughen up.
Great point and I would imagine there would be a few thoughts about this. For me it was the same from a young age, seeing the connection to girls and women as being a relationship I enjoyed and felt very settled in. We give over to all manner of ideals as we grow about how we should be and what we should do and yet more and more we are seeing how these don’t actually support us.
The relationship with ourselves defines our relationship with life, it is the base for everything else.
A loving commitment to ourselves is what makes the difference, we are worth it.
Chris, you show how the tender young boy can well and truly be alive and living in the adult man. Feeling and seeing this quality expressed and lived in a man is absolute gold for women and for children. Awesome sharing, thank you.
It is a commonly presented fallacy that we need to be with someone special in order to feel whole or fulfilled but what if, like you share, we are already whole and that by re-connecting with our essence and nurturing it in the way we are with ourself, we then have so much more to bring to everyone we meet.
In relationships I have always enjoyed treating another equally or with more respect and decency than the last. This is only achievable by going deeper with how you treat yourself.
There is something about the tenderness in men that is purposely shut down by society… I wonder what our world would look like if the men on this planet were given the space to be as tender as the 2 year old boy is.
You clearly show the two options Chris, we can base our relationships on distraction and need or on a basis of self honesty and our true essence.
It is only by having a true relationship with ourselves that the truth can be known.
Thank you, Chris. I can relate to the seeking outside of oneself in relationship and other substances or spiritual quests to find the one thing that resides within. When we start to truly love ourselves, those cravings no longer dominate our lives.
‘By starting to feel everything I was doing, I began to really feel me again.’ We spend so long looking outside of ourselves for answers when all along they are within us and focusing on feeling every action is a beautiful way to reconnect with our inner essence.
“I knew I couldn’t go back to the ways of the past as that had just created a misery time and time again”. This is an enormous point of evolution, the realisation that something needs to change internally because the coping mechanisms are clearly not an effective or responsible way forward anymore. I for one am hugely appreciative of the way Universal Medicine has enabled me to heal the hurts underneath, hence making the
coping mechanism completely redundant and reveal in its place the true potential to build loving relationships.
When I focus on my relationship with myself every other relationship I am in gets equally the same quality. Doing it the other way around hasn’t worked.
The science of relationships; as brought to us by Universal Medicine and as you have reflected back so perfectly.
When we feel more equipped to deal with life, we begin to trust that everything we need is already there, we just have to stay open and keep listening to our bodies and our hearts.
I am beginning to see the beauty in every relationship no matter how it is unfolding. This would not have been possible without the reflections I now have in my life inspiring me to have a loving relationship with myself.
Relationship with ourselves is the gateway to heaven.
Gorgeous Nico, I am going to take that into my day.
We are set up from a very young age to constantly look for connection outside of ourselves and get so lost, when all we have to do is re-connect within and all is available.
Yes this looking outside is completely ridiculous isn’t it and a dis-ease we all suffer or have suffered one way or another.
Yes we get it in the neck when we do this.
‘I now feel the loving commitment of the ever-developing relationship with myself… not perfect, sometimes a little wobbly as I let go of old patterns and behaviours, but a lot more honest than it’s ever been.’ Yes, we feel we need to be perfect as we change, but it feels great to allow those wobbles as we let go of old ways of being that no longer serve.
Chris your tale can be told by many men around the world, to tools of distraction and the dosage of self-selected medication may vary but the hiding and the looking outside ourselves is the same. Thanks for sharing this story
Joel as you say men around the world, including myself look for everything to validate who we are, its a great reflection of what is possible when we make the focus ourselves.
A much needed conversation that has to be brought forward at every available opportunity. The statistics around mental health and suicide in men are stark proof of the fact that men need gigantic support to recalibrate the way they are living.
I really appreciate the way you express Chris. It supports men everywhere to connect back to that naturally caring young boy in them and understand they don’t have to cut this out ‘just because they’re a man’. And you illustrate to women too that there are tender guys out there like you. Thank you.
From my own lived experience and from the sharing of others, it has become obvious that the more we look outside of ourselves for answers to the questions that rise up regularly for us, the more we become disconnected from ourselves and the truth that we all have inside. And in doing so, our focus is no longer on the relationship we have with ourselves but with the outside world. Learning to stop and take the time to build a relationship with ourselves, offers us the key to understanding not only ourselves but every single person we are in relationship with.
Yes Ingrid, when we deeply know ourselves we are also connecting to the universal truths of us all.
Very beautiful Ingrid, I love what you’ve shared. I never considered building a relationship with myself prior to meeting Serge Benhayon because I used to think having a relationship was only with other people. Now, I realise how important it is to build a strong and loving relationship with myself first and this will naturally support all my relationships.
It has been one of the most powerful relationship supporting revelations I have come across offered by Universal Medicine, that you can not look out to another person to give you what you are not living for yourself. If you are not loving or honouring of yourself, no one can ever change your experience of lack of these, whatever their behaviour. And likewise if you are missing openness, intimacy, playfulness, it is up to you to start living it. This is so profound and has the potential to completely eradicate the blaming of others for the tension and discomfort we may be facing.
This is really beautiful and as you spoke of the practical things you started to do to re-connecting again to you from within, like making you bed and getting ready in the morning, I could feel just how much of a truth this was for you. I feel this is where we all fall down in life, looking on the outside for what we are not feeling or connecting to within (our love), whether we try and do this with relationships, food, TV, sport ….. this will never and does not ever work. Really inspiring and loved your honesty too.
Welcome back Chris, its good to have you returning to us all.
It’s blogs like this, the honest and open sharing of our truth, that offer inspiration to so many who may be struggling to find their way back to themselves, or may not even realise how far away they have strayed from their true essence felt as a child. The true expression of one touches us all and continues to do so, as the love and insight shared negates the false ideals and beliefs that can only exist if we allow them to.
When we are willing to re-connect to our bodies, to feeling what is truly going on and the wisdom being offered by our bodies, then life, and how we are in it, starts to truly transform.
It is true that the depth of intimacy we are prepared to have within our relationship with ourselves is the depth of intimacy we will have with others.
‘I feel that with the depth of intimacy lived with myself in my own life, I feel more equipped to not just cope with life, but to be able to live with joy and harmony and take these lived qualities of true relationship with me in all I do.’ – what a shining light you are to all those around you. It’s this lived quality that is deeply felt by all, offering a reflection that there is another way to live, another way to be with each other that invites us to be the loving, gentle, caring beings that we are.
The depth of honesty Chris is beautiful and I so relate to much of what you have shared. So you are not alone, and my feeling is many, many men have had similar experiences. So returning to ourself or essence is the key and I totally agree when we do, our ”intimate relationships” develop left, right, centre, above and below in the most natural way!!
We can only save ourselves by our true mind, meaning an intelligence that is in connection with our body in full. For us to no longer deny our body and stand clear in what we know is true and loving for us and everyone around us equally so.
Chris, I love this, thank you for sharing with such simplicity and beauty. I find it very inspiring about how you talk about ways you started to feel you and connect with you, such as the way you made your bed in the mornings – gorgeously simple.
Yes Rebecca, returning to love is not complicated. It is as you say – gorgeously simple and for some, sometimes too simple to accept.
The beautiful connection we have with ourselves is so lovely that when it is not there, it’s no wonder we try to fill the void with food, TV, drugs whatever. This then takes us further from ourselves which doesn’t help. Coming back to who we are and not being perturbed by any choices we made whilst disconnected is gold.
I’ve quite often heard it said that women and men can’t be close friends without there being some kind of sexual dynamic, but that’s just not true in my experience. Like you share, it’s very natural for us to appreciate each others qualities as friends, without there having to be a need there…
Yes, there is a deep love and care we hold for everybody.
I like the agenda you are pointing out here Jane, it is like we need a category for everything in life to handle it, all the while there is another way, simply living by what we deep down feel and live from there.
Letting got of the sex drugs and rock n roll lifestyle can be simple when one is inspired to open up, face and feel everything that was otherwise being avoided by the drug taking and other forms of abuse.
We are always taught to look outside ourselves to our relationships with others when seeking love or to feel better – be it friendships or partners, but we are never supported to look within or develop our own relationship with ourselves, so we have a steady and solid foundation with who we are, before developing relationships with others.
“I knew my gentle and caring nature.” I too knew this and and so warmed to be reacquainted with it now after dropping it and doing my best to put up the ‘tough guy’ image.
What I feel deeply is that the more I respect, honor and cherish me as a being then life flows and unfolds, relationships open up and simplicity is in front of me. That is all down to me testing out the teachings of Universal Medicine and seeing which ones work for me, putting them into practice and going – wow this feels great. That all started from building my relationship with myself.
“From the subtle beginnings of feeling and making the smaller choices in my life, I found I was inspired to build on and to expand them into other areas of my life.” How beautiful it is to enjoy the simplicity and the detail of our day to day lives and how fruitful it can be for our loving foundation with self, to not only make space to feel our every movement, but to truly appreciate them too. Thank you Chris.
Fantastic Chris, we sound like twins..
I’m enjoying taking the time to love myself up and watching the reflection it gives off.
Looking forward to meeting you one day
This is such a beautiful transformation for a man to express and to openly writ about. It feels very touching that we have men open to sharing and expressing their true essence with the world. A true blessing for everyone.
It seems to me that no relationship will feel like it is the ‘right one’ unless we have a true and loving relationship with ourselves first. If we seek in another, that which we need to ‘give’ ourselves, we are doomed to fail.
How gorgeous it is to read that you recognised the essence of women and had a clear marker of what that felt like.
It’s important to evaluate if we’ve made our relationships into ‘safety nets’ and comfortable arrangements in order to avoid reflections that pull us forward, and how we can bring a deeper quality into these relationships so that they are purposeful and evolutionary.
“This deep dissatisfaction went on for many years and I always felt I was in a cycle of seeking fulfilment in relationships but never finding it.” This one was a big distraction for me, and for many, this is one of lifes greatest and most enticing distractions.
Once again it is such a shame that that tenderness, gentleness and delicateness isn’t fully appreciated and nurtured from the day we are born, so we don’t have to go down so many wrong tracks to get back on the right path.
When we deepen our relationship with ourselves the results can be life altering, from how we are with all our other relationships to how we thrive at work and how we subsequently see the world.
“True Relationship with Self” – everyone wants to know how to have this, or likes to think they already have it i.e. a relationship with self. The defining factor as you share with us Chris and that makes this relationship a true one is honesty, connection and self-love. Without all these the relationship is bereft of any loving, and without love’s quality there is no real relating or relationship.
“that by listening and by being truly with me, this relationship with myself could be the foundation for the way I live and love.” A simple but very accessible approach for anyone of us. Building our lives on such a foundation offers a confidence and solidity that is unshakeable in comparison to not having it there.
The more honest I am with myself in my every day the more loving the relationship with self is becoming. Honesty is key and there are never ending opportunities coming my way to bring a deeper level of honesty in my living. The question is ‘am I willing to observe, receive more and deepen my honesty?’
I love the way you knew yourself as a young boy. This is the knowing we can carry within ourselves if we do not allow life to take over or for our hurts to go unchecked. Having the courage to be vulnerable without building up protection or going into abusive behaviours is very rare. I love how you clocked this and have brought yourself back. A beautiful story.
“I feel that with the depth of intimacy lived with myself in my own life, I feel more equipped to not just cope with life, but to be able to live with joy and harmony and take these lived qualities of true relationship with me in all I do.” We are so conditioned in our upbringing to develop skills, knowledge, etc. upon which to rely for confidence yet true confidence comes from being at ease with oneself, to be intimate with oneself as expressed so well here. The irony is that we are born innately with this intimacy.
How many of us are living life covered in invisible Band-Aids trying to cover up that fact that life as we know it is not working and we are as a race of human beings very sick indeed. I wonder how long we would survive if we did not have modern medicine to prop our failing bodies. Just imagine if the whole world stopped taking any form of medication for a month and that included alcohol and recreational drugs. I wonder how many people would be able to cope?
I remember well my emptiest years late in my teens, where I discovered all these great distractions in alcohol, drugs and sex and totally lost sight of who I was. It was a bumpy ride and I thought I was a grown up at the time! But the reality was being completely lost and it took quite some time to reorient myself and start rediscovering where both the problem and the solution really lay – with me.
“… that by listening and by being truly with me, this relationship with myself could be the foundation for the way I live and love.” Essential education for life, currently provided by Universal Medicine, that when applied inwardly establishes a unshakeable foundation for all relationships based on an awareness and appreciation that enables us to really understand and care for one another.
Not until I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, did I understand that my first relationship and commitment was with self and from this all others flow. From the moment I began to stay present with and re-build my relationship with myself my life changed. I lived it more from the inside and in connection with myself than ever before. It was a revelation to find how expansive and beautiful life is when we live this way.
I love this blog Chris for its simplicity and honesty. We can get lost seeking to be fulfilled by another or build a deep connection with ourselves which is the foundation of forming healthy relationships with others.
What we search for most in others is that which we have withdrawn away from within ourselves – love. Reinstating this love as the founding stone on which to stand, paves the way for the true life to unfold unto us.
Beautifully said Liane, as always. To find the motivation for withdrawing and then reinstating is a lifelong journey, and well worth it. As we do this, joy comes flooding back into our lives.
The relationship I have with myself is the marker for the other relationships I have in my life.
When we let go of our self, that loving connection that holds and supports us wherever we go or whatever comes to us in life, we cannot but then feel uncomfortable and unsettled. As that is what our body constantly will show us because our body is love, the love we always can return to if we choose so.
Thank you for your honesty and openness here – nothing on the outside can ever fulfil the hunger we have to connect to ourselves and ultimately our divinity.
That line that touched me most was when you said you are more engaged with Life. When we are in a deeper relationship with ourselves we engage in and commit more to life rather than being distant and aloof or only in a partnership, we open up and life becomes more expansive, as we have expanded.
Gorgeous Chris – I feel you speak for all men here. What a relief it is to live rollercoaster free. We either have connection to ourselves or we don’t.
Intimate relationships tend to highlight any lack of connection we have with ourselves, so if there is an issue in our relationships the first place we have to look is inwards at ourselves and our own connection. It has taken me a while to get this fact, as fact it is.
“I started to feel that I was building a relationship with myself that was true.” This really is the key to true health. Once we begin to re build our true connection to who we are, we start to understand and feel the ease and simplicity that is there to support us to live a life that is true.
I love how in this blog it is shown that all change starts with little steps, simple small changes leading to a life changed entirely.
Chris it feels from your blog that you are coming full circle, back to the sensitive open and caring boy you were now as a sensitive, open and caring man.
I love how you know your ‘gentle and caring nature’ as a man now and as a boy. As I read your experience of the women in your life as a child this really helped me to reflect on the innate qualities women have and men too, and how we can support and care and nurture one another without any combat that I grew up seeing between the sexes.
Life is often constructed by playing a role of how we think we should be and this can be influenced by our hurts and to avoid being hurt. In this we hide our vulnerability from each other. Allowing ourselves to be seen in full is a great healing for all.
‘I thought it would be the one thing, to find the perfect relationship that would fix everything I was feeling.’ … a very familiar feeling which we have probably all experienced at some stage or other, I certainly have. In dis-connection from our selves we will always feel that something very precious missing and, yes, when we choose to re-connect, it feels amazing – not in the sense of fixing everything, but in terms of us feeling the solid platform of love from which we can build our relationship with ourselves. The livingness of this relationship is what we take to everyone and everything we encounter in life and it’s from here that the ‘fixing’ is felt.
Thank you Chris, it’s very beautiful to feel your return to you, the sweet, tender sensitivity you had as a boy and still are as a man.
How we are with ourself really is foundational to how we then relate, interact and engage with everyone else. This I have certainly found to be true in my experience and that relationships are eternally evolving, always with more to see, learn, realise and put into practice…
We are all born gentle and caring – this is an undeniable quality that we all come in with, and so the truth lies in the fact that it is a natural and innate quality that we all hold. However, the choices we make in life can then change the way we are with things, in other words we can ‘forget’ this tenderness within and begin to live from the outside demands, and this of course changes the game. But the real blessing is when we finally stop and realise what we have left behind or buried underneath certain layers, or simply forgotten that it exists deep within – and then that blessing is activated when we return to that tenderness and begin to live it again.
A true relationship with self is the gateway to everything.
Indeed Alexis, while it might be found selfish to emphasis on the relationship with oneself, the truth is that this relationship is the gateway to true relationships with everybody and everything in life.
The deeper into having a true relationship with myself I go, the more myself disappears.
Beautiful and tender sharing Chris – what a blessing to be able to look back and appreciate those times in life when you knew and lived the truth, but also recognising when you strayed. This is something very valuable for us all to be able to do and it is not about regretting things, but rather about learning from life so that we can truly keep growing.
Chris your fullness flows off the page and as a ‘reader’ I really got to feel ‘you’ and these things are only possible because of the fact that you are in a ‘true relationship with yourself’. This offers so much to everyone that you come into contact with as it reminds others what a ‘true relationship with ‘self’ looks and feels like, which in itself is absolute dynamite because it is by having a true relationship with ourself that we get to change anything and everything.
Thank you Chris, your clear explanation of the devastation you experienced, and subsequent self harming behaviours to cope with what was too hard to feel, gives insight into all human beings. With this basis of understanding we can be gentle with ourselves as we make our way back to reconnecting to our essence.
Yes gentle with ourselves and understanding of others, as we may not like a behaviour we see, but when we see the bigger picture we naturally bring understanding and patience.
Beautiful honesty. When we look at how we are and have been in relationships it can pave the way and allow for true relationships. Even current relationships that have needs or other hooks and yucky things can be re-imprinted and based on a foundation of love.
A very beautiful sharing Chris. Its super lovely to feel the delicacy and tenderness in a man, which is clearly felt in your writing. It’s amazing that it’s that, that allows us to be more willing, prepared and open to live life, which is against what the popular or mainstream belief is. So its worthwhile questioning then.
We are born already connected to ourselves, but somewhere along the journey of growing up, we tend to slip out of this divine connection with ourselves and into a fog like space, where we forget we were once deeply connected to ourselves and therefore to God. The way I can describe this experience, is like we fall into this panic state where we search high and low, and everywhere outside ourselves, to re-connect while moving in this thick invisible fog, that leads us to go round and round in circles. So, when I met Serge Benhayon, he simply reminded where I came from, who I am, how to reconnect to my essence, and how I can step out of this state and back into the light and clear space again.
I am finding as I embrace more of my sensitive delicate nature, letting my guard down and and letting others in, I am having more richer and deeper connections with all others too.
Absolutely Joshua – once we have an experience of this we realise where the true gold is, and start to bring attention to our relationship with our self, the world around us melts and we realise the love has always been there just waiting for us to let it in!
Yes I agree Joshua, this is true fro me too. The more open and honest we can be with ourselves the more we can also be in our relationships.
Me too Joshua, totally agreed. It can be so easy to look out 1st but as you and Chris have shared we 1st need to connect inward and then bring all of us out and naturally our connections with others deepen as a result.
How much you love yourself will be reflected while being with another. There is no bigger pull towards another person, than when they truly honour and love themselves. You love how much they love themselves.
The relationship in need of nurturing and healing, is the one we have with ourselves. No other relationship can fix or heal what we have not resolved within ourselves. Serge Benhayon has presented this and offered me a deeper sense of what love is, and I know that the relationship with my husband can only grow and deepen if I am willing to do that with myself.
For most of my life I have wanted a relationship and do the typical get married and have kids thing, but realised that I wanted those things as a distraction and out of a neediness, so not to feel the emptiness inside. But for the last few years, I have realised that what was really missing in my life was a true relationship with myself. Which since committing to myself, is something that keeps deepening and unfolding. And now when I feel that desire to meet a special someone, I clock how it is actually just a reaction to being out of connection, or in some kind of reaction.
” I feel more equipped to not just cope with life, but to be able to live with joy and harmony and take these lived qualities of true relationship with me in all I do.” Beautiful to read about your unfolding Chris – and being open to who you truly are.
Gorgeous blog Chris, so great that you have come back to your gentle and caring nature. The world needs as many gentle caring sensitive men to find their way back to themselves as possible.
Chris we should definitely hang out, reading this blog was like reading my biography! Just goes to show that we think we are all individuals with our own issues to deal with but in reality there are so many that go through the exact same stuff whom can support or be supported.
A beautiful blog about becoming re-aquainted with oneself, it brings home the fact that getting to know ourselves intimately is to be able to share that intimacy with everyone else.
You’ve raised an excellent question Chris in the end of your blog about how we equip ourselves for life… Do we have a tool kit of ‘go to’s’ that make us feel supported, grand, refreshed and inspired to have an amazing relationship to ourselves and to life? And what does this look like in everyday life, in our rhythm, diet, exercise routine, relationships and so forth?
Learning how to be true in relationships is a development that happen over many years, if not many lifetimes, You explain a part of that learning by developing your relationship back to yourself first Chris, so wonderful for everyone to read and feel when we are in the same process.
“By starting to feel everything I was doing, I began to really feel me again.” that is such a beautiful line and so true. It is in those things we think are unimportant in life, like making our bed, brushing our teeth, even cooking, that when we are present with ourselves we can feel that connection. This then becomes a foundation for all else we do in life, going out to work, being with our family and so on.
“I thought it would be the one thing, to find the perfect relationship that would fix everything I was feeling.” Thank you Chris for exposing the traps we fall into because of the lack of true relationship with our selves. Up until meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, I too put all my hopes on the ‘perfect relationship’ being the thing to rescue me. Applying the wisdoms shared by Serge has brought me home to building a deeply loving relationship with myself, caring for my body and getting to know who I am. Consequently the turbulent relationship that I was in with my now, very gorgeous husband, has been transmuted beyond all expectation into a genuinely loving relationship of mutual care, respect and discovery. The grass is no longer greener on the other side of the fence it is now growing very lushly on this side too. Shared with the permission of my husband.
I can relate so well to the cycle of yearning to be in a relationship when not in one, yet when in one it not feeling fulfilled so constantly looking outside of the relationship for next best one. Prior to meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I was attempting to break this cycle with my partner by looking within the relationship. However, in doing this the result was, we would come up against our unresolved hurts and go into mutual defense. This was becoming increasingly painful as we had no way to resolve the hurts, only solutions that never solved anything in the long-term. Then we met Serge and the journey of true healing commenced and my partner, Rowena, and I have now been together 20 years, married and our relationship continues to deepen and evolve. Written with the permission of my gloriously gorgeous wife.
“With the depth of intimacy lived with myself in my own life, I feel more equipped to not just cope with life, but to be able to live with joy and harmony and take these lived qualities of true relationship with me in all I do” – beautifully said, and I am finding this to be very true. Like, how could I ever think that I could have harmonious relationships with others when I was in complete disregard of myself?
How common is that story with people having one relationship after another and it never being enough. We have even developed the myth of ‘the one’ and we can blame it on the other person as not being ‘the one’. Yet what this story beautifully reflects is that it always starts with a loving relationship with ourselves and a commitment to life.
Coming home … to myself. By Chris Vale and beautifully written.
It is such a tragedy we can so easily lose that inner connection to ourselves, suppressing our sensitivity only to make the same mistakes our parents did and affect the next generation in turn. Returning to the acceptance and joy of that innate yumminess is a story that needs to be told. Thank you.
“From the subtle beginnings of feeling and making the smaller choices in my life, I found I was inspired to build on and to expand them into other areas of my life.”
What’s so beautiful about these small steps is that they open up an infinite potential that keeps presenting itself through every area of our day to day lives.
Thank you for sharing your journey or reconnection with yourself and demonstrating that however many wrong turnings we may have taken, we always have the choice to come back to ourselves and commit to building a loving relationship which then reflects on all our other relationships. We spend so much time searching outside of ourselves when all along the key is within us.
Your blog has me pondering just how common it is to be hoping for something better when we are in a relationship. This can be as subtle as wishing your partner was different, or as overt as an affair, but all of it squashes any chance of intimacy flat.
The beauty in what you share Chris is that when we build a relationship with ourselves and thus feeling the connection with our essence again, it changes how we live and how we connect with other people, with the world. It is never only about ourselves, everyone is included because we are one.
Chris I agree with you when you say
“The way I was using these substances was purely abusive; they were my band-aids to keep everything together to be able to function with some normality in life. They offered a numbing effect for me to forget the pain, but only for so long.”
We can only forget the pain for so long, then it is right back with us again, only worse because now we have to deal with say the hangover. To be honest, having tried many different ‘New Age’ and not so ‘New Age’ Modalities out there, the only one that has really supported me to look at what is truly going on and heal my hurts are the Modalities of Universal Medicine. This unique set of modalities have helped countless people get their life back on track, not by offering Band-Aids, but getting to the bottom of the situation which is usually a hurt not dealt with, unpacking the hurt until there is no hurt left, then the body can heal itself.
A most wondrous and powerful piece about relationship with yourself, a relationship that is unending in its beauty and light, should this beauty and light be given the space to be expressed
Chris like you I found the building of a relationship with myself to be life-changing, in fact, it was one of the things that I now wonder why we don’t have this as the foundation of raising our children.
Beautiful Chris. How wonderful that you are returning to the tenderness and love that you knew when you were younger. Very inspiring.
On reading this it offered me a moment to reflect on working in a child care centre. The children mostly all played together, there was no gender specific games or activities and the children all happily and mostly joyfully spent their day together. There is something deeply wrong in our society that begins with equalness and then becomes a society where the strength of a man can be used all to frequently to abuse a woman.
An article that brings a deep humbleness. In feeling the tenderness and essence is of a young boy so clearly in how it has been written.
A beautiful sharing of the turn-around in your life Chris by choosing to bring more awareness to being more present with yourself and in the smallest details everyday.
Beautifully expressed Chris, thank you. The whole dynamic of relationships shifts when founded on a loving relationship with self. I have found this to be the ‘missing link’ in my life too. The more I deepen the love I am inside, the more love I am able to be in relationship with others. I used to live a life of ‘putting others first’ but now I see that this means neglecting myself. In order to bring anything of true value to the relationship ‘table’, I have to know it in me first, embrace it and live it. Then I am bringing myself to the relationship, rather than seeking myself in it.
I can remember the days of craving for a relationship and then when I found myself in one was usually quite quickly disappointed. It was as if I simply didn’t know how to be in a relationship and many years later realised that was actually true. From this realisation I made the choice to commit to building a relationship with me and as a result I have not only got to know me so very deeply but I have also come to understand that I am always in relationship with everyone and everything around me, not just one person.
A truly honest look at where you have come from, to where you have returned to and that journey that so many of us take leads us off the track for awhile. An inspiring sharing Chris!
Building a true relationship with oneself is the only way to have real love, truth and honouring in other relationships consistently, and it is something deeply beautiful to treasure and becomes the steadiness and deep connection within we all crave and miss. A beautiful sharing of the joy and harmony we come from and deserve, with the wisdom of learning and life.
We miss two things in life-our connection with God and our connection with ourselves. When we re-connect with ourselves we also re-connect with God. This is why it feels so wonderful because life suddenly makes sense.
Chris what a great read…what was interesting was the smallest detail like making your bed, or rather the quality you started to make your bed in actually led to more and further self-caring choices in your life.. where you found yourself back on track to being with yourself and with others too in a more connected (less distracted) way. It confirms how the smallest acts lead to the greatest change.. that change is love.
I hear you Chris and I too loved the company of Girls when at school because I didn’t fit with the rough sports playing – but I noticed something strange as I grew up, In early teenage years I remember hanging around young women and I can not ever remember them ‘letting me in’ or being truly included – I felt shut out at a certain level and it is only in retrospect I can see it was because I still held on to a level of honouring and sensitivity these young women had far let go of and didn’t want to acknowledge.
I hear you Chris and I too loved the company of Girls when at school because I didn’t fit with the rough sports playing – but I noticed something strange as I grew up, In early teenage years I remember hanging around young women and I can not ever remember them ‘letting me in’ or being truly included – I felt shut out at a certain level and it is only in retrospect I can see it was because I still held on to a level of honouring and sensitivity these young women had far let go of and didn’t want to acknowledge.
That´s a very interesting retrospect Harrison. How important it is then, to reflect to young boys your shared experience so they get supported to not shy away from their own sensitivity?! We need more true support out there for the youth, so that more of them stick to their essence and not get drawn into that same shut down state, like almost everyone else is.
Wow Harrison, that’s quite something to share! That you, as a young man were more in touch with your sensitivity and more honouring of that, than the young women you hung out with. It really does show just how far women have also left themselves to be in protection and a hardness.
Harrison the girls were only able to shut you out because they had already shut themselves out.
Wow Harrison, your comment here has unlocked a mystery I have not understood about my relationship with girls in school until now. I was also a very sensitive boy who loved to be around girls and played with them more than boys when I was in elementary school. I also felt more comfortable around them than many of the boys. But during high school it seemed like this relationship shifted and felt more awkward, as if I was locked and not allowed to be close to them. I realise now how it may have been similar to your experience Harrison, but also based on my own lack of intimacy with myself as I bought into the recognition gained through playing sports and disconnecting from my body in doing so.
How many of us look to another to have our needs met, to enter into a relationship with another in the belief that they will make our life better and all our worries or issues will disappear. Sadly, this does not happen because if we have issues and hurts, these will eventually surface in the relationship, and we soon discover that it is only ourselves that can heal our hurts and in doing so, we begin to meet all our own needs. But relationships bring great learnings and reflections of where we are at and what we need to work on.
There is only one way out of this mess most of us are in and you are right, all these things we use to numb ourselves are only band-aids that never stay on. The only way out is to develop the love we have for ourselves so that any other relationship we enter into isn’t out of need.
“I began to really feel me again” A powerful first step in knowing who you are and all you bring to others.
A beautiful blog Chris, absolutely lovely to read about the changes you have made and continue to make. Honouring for all men, thank you.
Yes, a beautiful read and one that is very honouring and confirming of men. Thank you, Chris.
Any relationship based on need is uncomfortable and it feels sticky with attachment. In the past I thought this was my only choice to now discover when I began a relationship with myself, it need not be this way, there is another way that is free, clear, joyful and empowering.
Yes, sticky and inviting resentment, even the relationship with ourselves.
Beautiful Adele, I too am discovering how gorgeous, joyful and empowering it is to build a relationship with myself and letting go of neediness and expectations in relationships. And, I find letting go of expectations and pictures of how a relationship should be, feels deeply freeing and I have many layers of this to let go of. But, sometimes I cling onto a layer so tightly, I don’t realise what I am holding onto and how damaging this is, until I am honest and open to see what I have held onto is no longer serving or loving.
Well said Adele, because of how many relationships we see around us that are based on ‘need’, we often fall for this thinking it is the norm, but thankfully when we realise that it does not have to be like this, we are then free to choose to continue down that track, or begin the true relationship with self so that we do not then impose needs upon another, nor allow that for ourselves.
Wow!!