God was never mentioned when I was growing up; not because my parents were anti-God, it’s just that they weren’t ‘believers.’ They were fairly unusual in that they got married in a registry office, again not because they could categorically say that there wasn’t a God but because they couldn’t categorically say that there was. I love the absolute integrity of my parents.
My experience with organised religion boiled down to one very boring couple of hours at Sunday school and joining in enthusiastically with the choruses of hymns at Christmas time. I remember Dad trying to ‘find God’ at one stage in his life, which constituted his going to bible classes and then promptly being asked to leave because he was asking too many probing questions. (God, I love my Dad).
But here’s the startling thing; even though I didn’t have any organised religion in my life, I can now see, looking back, that as a kid the way that I lived was truly religious. It didn’t matter that I never said His name, God was very known to me – very, very known indeed.
My intimacy with God continued until about the age of nine, at which time Dad got a promotion at work and so my family moved from our idyllic village in rural Yorkshire to what I felt was a monstrosity of a town just north of London. The move had a massive effect on me, the extent of which has only come to light in recent years. I never doubted that the move devastated me, but it’s only in the last couple of years that I have fully realised that the most significant effect that the move had on me was that I seemingly lost my connection to God.
I always knew that I missed the countryside and that the bullying at school was traumatic, but I never consciously realised that the greatest hurt by far was choosing to step away from my beloved God. But you see, because no one had ever spoken to me about what true connection to God was, I never consciously knew that God and I were one and the same and so consequently I didn’t realise that when I chose to step away from myself, I was also choosing to step away from God.
We’ve constructed so many false and misleading notions around what it is to be religious that I never considered that as a child I was deeply religious: in fact, I assumed that because my family never went to church and because I never prayed – that’s not strictly true, I do remember praying once, that if I was going to be murdered could God arrange it to happen after my cross country competition, because I really wanted to run in the race – that I wasn’t religious. How poisonous are our beliefs when they can get us to believe the exact opposite to the truth? And is that, in fact, the purpose of a belief – to deliberately steer us away from the truth?
It has taken my reunification with God to realise that as a child I knew Him intimately. If you asked me to explain who God is or how He feels, then I couldn’t, other than to say He feels like the deepest part of me.
What I can answer however, is how I have been able to get back to God, and that very simply has been to restore my body to the pristine condition that it was in as a child. Before the age of nine I lived life from my body and then when trauma hit, it changed the relationship that I had with my body. Rather than my body being the beautiful, sensitive, surrendered, interactive home that it was, my body became a means with which to protect myself from the potential attacks that I perceived were coming my way. I put up a physical barrier by hardening my body, never realising that I was also putting up a barrier to God.
God never ever walks away from any of us; it’s always us that choose to walk away from Him. Not that we can ever, in truth, walk away from Him, because God is threaded all the way through who we are, but the way that we choose to conduct ourselves ensures that we’re not able to feel His living breath deep within us.
And so my re-unification with God has been a gradual process but one that has been very physical – there has been nothing intellectual about it – it has very much taken place in my body. I have had to turf out everything that does not belong in my body: ideals about how things should be, beliefs (all of them because there is not one belief that is true), notions, ideas, images, imaginings, every thing that does not come from truth.
I have had to re-visit things that have hurt me in order to release the hold that they have had over my body. By restoring my body back to its original condition, it has enabled me to be able to feel God again and to realise that God is within us all of the time, He is never not there; it’s simply that life is set up in such a way so as to interfere with the medium through which we feel Him, and that is through our bodies.
By Alexis Stewart, a woman who at last feels that she is doing what it is that she is here to do, Sydney, Australia
Further Reading:
God’s Waiting Room
God. It’s a Science
We cannot be without God and Religion
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
Thank you for this blog Alexis I came back to read it because I feel that at last I am allowing myself to reconnect to all those feelings I had as a child; my deep knowing of God. Like you I couldn’t explain to my family or friends what it was but I knew deeply that He was my true father and that I did not belong here on this planet. I discovered that not everyone had the same understanding or feelings as me, so I locked away my knowing of God because I hated the blasphemy being spoken about something the adults seemed to know nothing about but had very strong opinions to dictate to me. We live in such utter disrespect to God and all that He is and we have allowed ignorance to blind us to our truth and our relationship to him/her.
Feeling our divine Essences, Inner-most-hearts / Souls, that one aspect that has always remained within is an amazing experience and as you have shared Alexis, and by starting to release a simple thing like ‘seeing is believing’ as seeing is touted as our first sense, by turning it around and clairsentience becomes our first sense.
I love the simplicity of your re-union with God – restoring your body to the pristine way it was when you were a child. It’s that simple. When I have complicated my re-union with God or been down on myself and feel like I don’t have that strong connection, then remembering how I was as a child and connecting to my body through posture, relaxed shoulders and back, helps enormously. In life there was a desperation to grow out of that pristine, delicate body- to become a big person, an adult who could handle life. The very opposite feels true for me now- that it is that exquisite, delicate, sensitive body that we inhabited as a child which will allow us to evolve through life and be able to accept the love that we are held in by God.
‘I remember Dad trying to ‘find God’ at one stage in his life, which constituted his going to bible classes and then promptly being asked to leave because he was asking too many probing questions.’ Interesting!! I had this the other day with a young person when they asked me why were we doing a particular activity in the workshop. I embraced their question, confirming to them how important it is for them to ask questions if they do not understand or are just challenging something. We discussed this more until they had a better understanding of why we were doing the activity and how it was supporting them. Could it be that your Dad’s questions were challenging something within them they did not either fully know, understand or were able to express themselves? It would seem so.
Vicky, I know the questions that Dad was asking, they were very practical and at the same time exposing questions for which the vicar had no good answer for, hence he was asked to leave.
“I never consciously knew that God and I were one and the same and so consequently I didn’t realise that when I chose to step away from myself, I was also choosing to step away from God.” Institutionalised religion can hold God as separate and in some belief systems superior, but isn’t it interesting that the innocence, playfulness and purity of children embrace that connection to who they are and to God so naturally – until something intrudes, and for many people that’s actually religion.
Organised religion has played and continues to play a major role in separating people from God.
Only just yesterday, I got reminded how I don’t speak to God and I felt mortified and went into a semi-panic of ‘What should I do?’ but really, He has never left me, even when I thought I did, I can never be without Him, as much as He cannot be without me. We can try convincing ourselves otherwise as we have all been doing for eons, but really, I am getting a bit bored with this pretense of being lost and finding the way again, and again, and again. What if we stay connected? That, I don’t know what would happen, and would definitely be worth giving a go.
We would be walking with the God that we are.
I have come to understand that we cannot leave God or walk away from him as he is the very air we breathe.
However there are many religious practices that would have us believe we are separated from him. This is done so that they have control over our lives. They have dictated to us over the centuries their version of God, which is a lie that we have absorbed and act out through our thoughts of being in separation. It must be our thoughts that keep us in the separation, so if we listened to our bodies would our bodies show us a different way to be with God?
If we listened to and subsequently followed our bodies then they would remind us that we and God are One and The Same. Always have been. Always will be.
We grow up with many impositions placed up on us and God plays a major factor in all of this.
I grew up thinking if I didn’t pray every day and the house stinking of incense sticks, or visiting the temple regularly, I was a bad girl. I could feel the judgment as I wouldn’t comply with this belief.
What has been shared in this blog, is a realisation that God is always within us, and yes, ‘life gets in the way’ and in a heart beat away, we can reconnect with God, if we so choose to do so. It is that simple.
God is many places then just a building, book, ceremony etc. He is everywhere, just look, feel and listen and he is there.
“God never ever walks away from any of us; it’s always us that choose to walk away from Him.” With all the distractions of society, the false eduction of God and the focus to be someone or oneself it is very easy to ‘walk away’ from God. It is also as simple to ‘walk back’ if one so chooses as He holds no judgment, however, what may appear difficult is the letting go of the investments one has made in the distractions.
“God never ever walks away from any of us; it’s always us that choose to walk away from Him. Not that we can ever, in truth, walk away from Him, because God is threaded all the way through who we are, but the way that we choose to conduct ourselves ensures that we’re not able to feel His living breath deep within us.” – just like the poem of the 2 footsteps in the sand… the one where we always see God’s footsteps next to ours, but when we see only one set of footsteps, it is because God is carrying us and not because he has abandoned us.
When we feel a loss, no matter what is happening around us, we are feeling the devastation of our loss of connection to our deepest essence which is our link to God. For our greatest asset and greatest strength to handle all that happens around us in our physical world, is our connection to God. And from this connection comes all the ways for us to handle that which life unfolds for us to work with.
Yes Ariana, it is all a matter of choice, a choice to say yes to God, or to say no. It has always been our freedom of choice which has manifested in the separation to, or the separation from God. I certainly have come to know which is the most loving choice of the two; it is the choice of the truth that I know within every particle of my being.
It is very humbling to come to know that “God never ever walks away from any of us”, especially when I remember the times, I walked away from the people in my life who, as far as I was concerned, had hurt me; God didn’t walk away from them. I even walked away from myself and in the process hurt me immeasurably. But God didn’t walk away from me, he just waited patiently until I finally came to realise that the truth of him I knew as a child had never left me, I had simply chosen to bury it. How lovely it is to be re-united with God once again, and I know I won’t be walking away from him, or me, ever again.
‘Before the age of nine I lived life from my body and then when trauma hit, it changed the relationship that I had with my body.’ If I’m honest I can remember hating my body from a very young age. When I connected with it I felt the energy I’d absorbed and felt that, even in my own body there was no refuge from the horridness I felt in the world. I felt my body had betrayed me and I set about getting rid of this heaviness by overeating and then starving and over exercising. I wanted out, I didn’t want to feel because everytime I did I had no escape and I wanted relief from feeling all that wasn’t love.
It’s been a while for me to realise the yuckiness I felt in me isn’t me – not just theoretically but something I feel in my body. I keep have to coming back to feeling the beauty I am beneath what I’ve taken on and then what I’ve taken on I can let go of. The ways I thought helped me cope with the world worked to numb myself but I have to accept I polluted my body in doing so and now, if I want to live from a body that is able to feel God in every cell, I have to keep on feeling and releasing what doesn’t belong. It’s a process that’s worth it for sure.
This just goes to show the personal relationship we each have with God and how it has nothing to do with a picture or others ideals and beliefs including religions. It is a connection within.
‘I remember Dad trying to ‘find God’ at one stage in his life, which constituted his going to bible classes and then promptly being asked to leave because he was asking too many probing questions.’ Classic!!!! shouldn’t these type of classes welcome questions to explore and discuss what people feel? Obviously not! 😶
The questions Dad was asking were very revealing and difficult questions for the people of the church to answer, and so rather than be exposed by my Dad’s probing questions it was much easier to ask him to leave.
‘Re-united with God’ – so grand and amazing and also so super simple in that it is in our relationship with ourselves that we get to meet and know God.
I love the simplicity of your comment and how by reading it I’m able to give myself full permission to have that relationship with myself and not keep looking outwards for what only lies within, and then goes out.
Our relationship with God is totally natural and innate. This fact highlights how much effort over so long has gone into messing with this.
God is who we are.
Re-connecting to our love for God is magical because it is something that we are returning to that was forgotten.
‘God was very known to me – very, very known indeed.’ I was wondering if it is possible that God is deeply known by us as children, but through the indoctrination of fixed ideals and beliefs around religion we dismiss what we know deep down?
Wonder no more Rachel, what you have shared is a statement of fact.
Yep I agree we have to claim what we know and feel is true ✨
I don’t have any recollection of living religiously as a child like you did Alexis, but I know it is very well possible to live with God now, experience him as part of my life.
God is always with us, whether we connect with that fact or not. All that is required then is for us to re-connect with ourselves and then we are re-connected with God.
Bingo !
To have a relationship to the being that is your Soul is to have a relationship with God. A HUGE thank-you to Universal Medicine because it was not until I reawakened this connection that I became aware that there was both a spirit and a Soul. Growing up with the catholic religion did not bring a connection to my Soul nor did anything else — AND there was nothing to explain the difference between the two either besides Universal Medicine. I now live with much more clarity and joy thanks to my re-connection.
The last paragraph of this article is so exquisitely beautiful, simple and natural. The fact that God is within us all the time, that he is never not there and that it is in connection with our bodies that we know this fact.
God is in the detail. And that means everything in our lives. Appreciate the small things and you can appreciate a God.
Agreed Nick, there isn’t a detail that isn’t God.
To feel God’s ‘living breath deep within us’ is the most amazing feeling of surrender and undeniable support – understanding and acceptance alongside great inspiration and purpose.
I always love the fact that no matter how horrid the experience, there is still love to be re-found in ourselves.
Important to remember that it is we who leave God and the re-unite. He just waits patiently, always there, always just around the corner / walking alongside / within earshot if we should ever need him.
There is neither waiting nor patience in God because in his eyes we are never not Him.
I feel the point that God may not have been talked about when we were kids but we knew what it felt like to be with God. I feel we need to foster this in kids so they know and treasure that feeling so we do not have to wait decades to be reunited with him (and ourselves).
We are able to feel God through our bodies, by being in our bodies and releasing everything that prevents us from feeling Him.
Well said Willem and in truth there is no other way to access God, other than through our bodies.
God also was always very known to me. It feels great to express ‘ I know God very well’.
To not hide the truth, to stand for truth.
Thank you Alexis, for such a beautiful sharing on your re-connection back to God. I know I felt lost and miserable when I walked away from God, I didn’t want to be responsible for my situation so I blamed God for all my woes. To make the choice to work through this hurt allowed the space for me to re-connect to God and to feel how I was always held in his love constantly, and this love has only continued to grow and expand since.
It is so true, God never walks away from us as we sometimes believe, but we do walk away from God.
There are so many beliefs and systems to render our connection with God, all of these serve as a sieve through which we can perhaps get glimpses of what God truly is but until we get rid of them we will never get the whole picture.
Re-connecting to God through our divine essence is becoming simpler as we stay true to the way we live, or our Livingness that keeps us aware of how each moment counts to stay connected. As our essence has always stayed divine, then it is such a joy to return to that which is absolutely known as a forever deepening Love.
Our divinity is there, no doubt about it, we just need to be consistent in re-connecting to it.
So our movements-replicate our divinity in every aspect and we accept nothing less!
While reading this article I feel a tension leaving my body, as truth does. It softens me. God is with me all the time, it is only up to me to allow me feeling Him. The allowing is already a big step.
Gorgeously felt and expressed Willem.
A Great reminder that everything we put as a protection is a more disconnection from ourselves and God.
This line touched me each time I revisit it, Alexis – ‘If you asked me to explain who God is or how He feels, then I couldn’t, other than to say He feels like the deepest part of me.’ The last bit describes my feeling too of God within me, a constancy of being held and at home.
This is a beautiful way of expressing what a relationship with God feels like. Yes, it is like the deepest part of me, a constancy of being held and being at home and I would add; a quiet, absolute knowing of the more that we come from and the vastness that exists beyond our human experience… all felt in my cells and deep within, but not necessarily shown on my exterior, or much talked about.
And if we follow through with that reasoning, we get to know God more as we deepen more… a fathomless lake with no bottom as the offering just goes on and on and as far as we will allow it.
Super great article Alexis. Our stories may be different but in the end it is more or less the same: somehow, as a child, we choose to separate ourselves from God. And what gave me great confidence is what you say “God is threaded all the way through who we are”. It is not that we have to work our way back to God, or even worse, do things that make that we deserve his love. His love is always there, it is up to us allowing it, and discarding anything what is in between.
The current common image of God is so far from the truth, we seem to have humanise Him. We have reduced God to such a level that no longer makes sense and we label Him with human traits that he is judgemental, condemning, angry, and loveless. We are responsible to undo what we have created and set the record straight and share with humanity who God really is.
To realise my greatest hurt was when I walked away from God, this was a deeply healing process. It was from this realisation that I know I am greater than my hurts and that God is always with us no matter how far we have stepped away.
It’s an awesome feeling isn’t in chanly88, that God never judges and God never leaves us, it is us who choose to step away from God. It is heart warming to know that one day we will all re-connect with that aspect of us that we call God that lives deep inside our Inner Heart.
We know God through our bodies. Hence we have been polluting our bodies immensely that we almost have no aware recollection of who God is, not meaning it is not there, just that we have allowed many layers to protect us and hide away this truth.
If God is within, which He is, then our layers of protection are in fact layers of attack.
What a good question “And is that, in fact, the purpose of a belief – to deliberately steer us away from the truth?” My head tells me surely not but my body tells me yes… knowing that my body is the one likely to be not hooked by a belief I can see this is an unravelling moment.
It is the divine truth that we are not encouraged to explore as children, that we are Sons of God and through our connection to our Soul our inseparable relationship with God is known. This is how we live the power of who we are, and so as you shared here ‘…when I chose to step away from myself, I was also choosing to step away from God.’ It has been shared by many world teachers of the Ageless Wisdom that our purpose is to ‘know thy self’ as in knowing who we are in essence we can live the power of who we are, as such restoring the light of God in this world through the lives we live.
So well said Carola “Restoring the light of God in this world through the lives that we live”. We will resurrect God through our living way.
We all have the opportunity to return to God because as a child we all knew Him intimately, so true Alexis. I was watching the ease of a small child’s movements yesterday, and could feel that she had God within her, getting that re-connection for ourselves is very profound, as you say, it is in the deepest part of us.
Just imagine if we went around squinting our eyes so that they are almost closed and spend the whole day or even days doing that. Of course during all of this time everything would look kind of dark and fuzzy. Then what would happen when we stop that and let our eyelids open as they want to – do we start marvelling at how clever we are to have got ourself to see the brightness of the sun, or do we consider what a waste of time it was choosing to squint our eyes for all of that time in the first place?
Yes we go around thinking we are and act as if we are separate to ourself, to one another and to God. This is just like manufacturing a whole story about not being able to see when all that is needed is for us to stop making it seem as if we cant.
An awareness of the love of God flowing through us at all times reunites us with the Divinity of the Universe.
It seems most religions try to sever our true connection to God and have done right throughout the ages, but if we do reconnect with ourselves the bond between us and God cannot be broken, because as you say we are one and the same.
It is weird how the more established religions almost want to own that connection themselves (‘only through me’) when it can be felt to clearly be within each and every person.
and by attempting to own that connection with God, many religions contribute to people’s belief that they dont already have permanent and ready access to God.
That God isn’t a great figure up in the sky- one who we ask to help and save us- has been a challenge to the ideals and beliefs that I have had since young. Absolute equality and that our relationship with God is that we are made from the very matter that he is, being a part of God in every cell of ours is also not what we are taught. There isn’t anything to establish or any sign to wait for or the voice of God to listen to. When I try to theorise or conceptualise God, I feel a distance in my relationship with myself and God. Conversely when I am with my body rather than distracted by my mind, when I am still and connected to my body, then I feel the connection with God. In other words when I allow myself to be connected to myself, is when I really feel my relationship with God. Indeed it is through our bodies that we feel this connection. As you have intricately and beautifully described, the body is a ‘beautiful, sensitive, surrendered, interactive home’ which houses our connection to ourselves and God.
‘Restoring my body to its original condition’, that feels so lovely and very inspiring to live in such a way that you are healing your body back to how it used to be. This is quite miraculous as it is almost unheard of for someone’s body to improve condition as it ages, it is normal and very much accepted as the way it is that as we age our bodies deteriorate too but what you are presenting goes completely against the grain.