I am a student of life: I know and feel the truth that there is always much to learn in life every day. To me, life is always presenting the opportunity to learn – as it challenges and inspires me constantly, in every moment.
Being a student of life means that every day I have the choice as to how I live and move within my life. I know within my deepest heart that I am the master of my life and how I choose to live it… I can feel the many opportunities that present for me to grow and deepen my ability to be myself in full. For instance, there are many behaviours that I have taken on over time that really don’t support me – in fact I can clearly see that these behaviours really don’t support anyone else around me either. Like getting angry and reacting to things in life I get triggered by because I’m not seeing what’s really going on in situations, by choosing to withdraw from life when I am confronted by the intensity of things I don’t think I can face (or don’t want to), allowing abusive thoughts to dictate my life or not listening to what my body is telling me it needs – such as not moving in a way that supports it, or eating foods it tells me don’t nourish it.
I’ve noticed lately that when I’m breathing in a really controlled, stuffy, shallow way I can’t feel my body and instead I stay stuck in my head, distracted by my thoughts. Once I notice this I realise that I can take full stock of the fact that I can breathe, open my chest and feel my whole body with a very real connection to and appreciation of this precious vehicle that carries me through my day. The importance of being a student of life, I have realised, is the enormous responsibility I have in my everyday choices in how I live this life, and how it affects myself and others in either a harming or healing way.
The teachings of Universal Medicine have offered me a chance to really have a look at how I live, and how we live as a society. It’s my choices every day that are the living open book I am writing of my life and the others I share life with… I now realise that how I live profoundly affects not only me, but others around me as well. We are not living as isolated beings from each other as we may wish to believe. It is an illusion to see it any other way. Each of us are intrinsically, simply together on this planet – sharing this space in us and around us.
I now consider every day as an opportunity to take stock and actually look at what is going on in my life so that I can bring more of myself to the world and this has allowed me to begin to heal that which does not and could never work for me or others. This also in turn inspires another to be themselves in the very same way – instead of being ‘victims’ of life – being on the backfoot of life. This is evident in how many of us live; with the increase in illnesses and disease we currently have: the mental, emotional and physical disharmony, due to accepting a lesser state than the truly loving divine and joyful beings we are.
I deeply appreciate the opportunity I now give myself to be on the front foot with life. To live and be open to seeing the things that are there every day – although they at times may be very challenging – as opportunities to learn and grow. In being a student of life, I am developing more truthful and loving relationships, healing behaviours that no longer support me or others, and accepting that it is my responsibility to live in such a way.
By Carmen Iredale, Home Cleaner, Swimming Teacher, lover of people and being the love that I am, NSW
Further Reading:
Tools for Life
The classroom of life
Reaction versus response
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
Being able to understand the knock on effect of all we do has become important for our evolution.
Carmen like you I have found
‘The teachings of Universal Medicine have offered me a chance to really have a look at how I live, and how we live as a society.’
It’s my choices that I make moment to moment, that will affect how I am feeling and I now know that the energy I chose will affect not only myself but everyone else too.
To be a student of life is to be open to every offer to learn a deeper truth of living life with love.
Learning and sharing about life opens the door to us so we can be transparent in all our wayward ways and this is what came up, it was the feeling of soccer and the training and how soccer, felt, and the ensuing celebration about simply being a part of a team but what was the cost? Losing the connection to our innate essence was the cost that can be felt when we have reconnected to our essences!
Spending lifetimes looking for the connection, that undeniable feeling we have as a child of being connected to our essence, and it will return when we learn to deepen our understanding about our essence as presented by Universal Medicine, this connected feeling is miles away from what being involved in a soccer match brings to our bodies.
Feeling from my essence opened the door to being transparent to what was happening all those years ago when soccer was part of our lives, so in reconnection to my Essence, Inner-most-heart, Soul or Esoteric (all one and the same) and this realignment allows my body to feel how disconnect sports made me feel.
I really appreciate what you are sharing here Greg about soccer, we can say this about most sport in fact the whole world is set up in such a way that from the very day we are born, we are not supported to live within our essence. Everything is set up for us to live in the complete opposite which we then believe is normal. It is not until we do reconnect back to our essence that we can start to appreciate just how much and deeply we are lied to.
Absolutely Mary, we live in a pressure cooker that places us in a compressed way of living that shields us from the truth about our origins and what/who we are.
“reacting to things in life I get triggered by because I’m not seeing what’s really going on in situations” – This makes so much sense. If I want a situation to be different, I am not seeing it for what it really is. When I do see it for what it really is, there’s less/zero reaction.
We are like pin-ball-machines we are getting constantly triggered to go into an emotional reaction rather than stopping to read what is truly happening with any situation presented to us. That stop moment makes all the difference because there is a possibility to see the energy at play and decide not to play the same game. It’s very freeing.
Appreciation of the energy we are in and thus opening up to others and letting them in, which is being intimate with others allows us to feel True-purpose in life as we evolve as students of our-selves.
“! I know within my deepest heart that I am the master of my life and how I choose to live it…” Yes we all need to take more responsibility for our choices. We cant blame anyone else.
Sometimes, like today, I feel the day has passed in its busyness and it is when I get home and have time to reflect I can feel and see there are many times I could have been with me more and done things differently. A great reminder that we are always students of life and Universal Medicine are the absolute best educators in the world for this … educators of truth ✨
Sometimes I don’t even need to get home at the end of the day and reflect that I could have been more with myself, today I knew that I wasn’t with myself when I disappeared into frustration but still couldn’t pull myself out. It actually felt like I was enjoying the drama of it all and so maybe I didn’t truly want to come out.
I people watch as I go about my day, and more and more I’m noticing how dull people are as they walk along, how fed up and checked out, meaning with every step it’s as though they do not want to be here in this life.
We seem to have forgotten that we can make choices about every aspect of our lives because it seems to have become too much, just a daily grind where we use force to push through the day to get to the end of it.
So what you are presenting to the world is very different Carmen, how we can with some support to start with, be on the front foot of life so that it is a joy to be alive.
When I take my evening walk, and as I walk to work from the station, I see many runners. I have never seen one that looked happy and never joyful. Could this be the new self-flagellation of old?
To be able to set aside things being right and wrong; to be open to learning, making mistakes, learning some more; affording ourselves the care and space to be students of life, makes for things being a whole lot more interesting, gentle, inspiring and developmental.
Right and wrong sets us on a hiding to nowhere. Being open to learn from any situation puts a completely different slant on life. An ‘oops’ moment – learn and move on……
Reblogged this on and commented:
To live and be open to seeing the things that are there every day – although they at times may be very challenging – as opportunities to learn and grow.
I love what you share about us being the ‘living open book’ of our choices and I get that this is the most important book that we will ever ‘write’. A living reflection for others always.
‘living open book” love this Matilda, also ‘the most important book that we will ever ‘write’. A living reflection for others always’. Inspiring to know life as an open book and one we write ourselves.
When we decide to take responsibility and begin to heal our hurts it can set us up for a very different path through life. Relationships can blossom and life can begin to flow.
We are students of life before anything else, but currently we are not aware of this or utilise this as much as we could do. What I would love to see is schools for this, where we get to learn about our livingness (how we live), the truth about energy, the truth about the Universe, our role within this, our true purpose and coming back to a life of vitality and joy. That is true education to me.
So much attention given to students of academia and knowledge, that the true school of life is ignored. As a student of the Way of Livingness, this education I value above all others. ‘True education’ supports us to evolve as human beings, not simply acquire paper qualifications that don’t prepare us for life.
Exactly Kehinde. I totally agree with you that the true school of life is ignored
‘True education’ supports us to evolve as human beings, not simply acquire paper qualifications that don’t prepare us for life’.
You mention the word profound in how you live profoundly affects not just you but those around you. Coming to acknowledge this is something that brings with it a realisation of our responsibility to ourselves and each other that was initially very scary for me, but now is more of an appreciation of what we can bring to the world. We are not immaterial players but hold great significance in how our world evolves or doesn’t.
Thanks Karin. Yes I agree when I think about the responsibility I can also get scared at times thinking I’m not doing it correctly or it’s too much, though I like that you made it about appreciating what we are bringing and to see that as our responsibility to live that. Much more joyful that way.
carmeniredale I agree with what you have shared. I can look back at something I have done and think to myself I could have done it differently. I am beginning to realise that life is a constant learning and the moment we go into right and wrong we have lost ourselves, because there is no right or wrong just the learning.
When we are a true student of life there is no room for arrogance.
Well said Vicky. Arrogance is very misplaced in our world. With humility we can begin to be open to learning, working alongside one another as equals and sharing a common purpose to develop and evolve.
Arrogance keeps us stuck in a hard place of our own making, unable to move forward. Humility opens the way to more understanding of why things are as they are and teaches us truer ways to be with self and others.
Being a student of life is a life long vocation and free; We don’t have to leave our front doors, the school of life is where-ever we are and encompasses everyone we meet. No fees. no written examinations, but there are tests, many of them and we, our own invigilators. Rewards are not found in paper qualifications, but loving qualities when fully embraced to be freely shared and the deepening of our relationships with self and others.
Kekinde2012 what you have written feels very beautiful and true, this is an amazing way to live and to express.
I agree, now that is what I call being a true student and true learning ✨ A student of how we live each and every day. Beautifully expressed and inspiring too.
I love this Kehinde. So true too. ‘Rewards are not found in paper qualifications…. but loving qualities……. ” Free to share and embrace, as you say.
Beautifully said Kehinde. it’s who we are and our quality that we express in every moment – regardless of whether anyone else is around – that’s important.
We’re both student and teacher at the same time, learning and teaching ourselves (and others) as we go. We’ve learned to live fully, responsibly and purposefully, to be self reflecting and inspired by the many students of The Way of the Livingness.
Kehinde2012 I find the Students of The way of The livingness to be very inspiring, we live all around the world in a way that is as harmless as possible to ourselves and others. If we take a look at the rise in abuse around the world this way of life is something to be celebrated.
Being a student of life means one accepting that life is always evolving and hence brings purpose to life.
Really embracing that we are students of life is one of the most humbling, inspiring and developmental things we can do. When I am in full studentship there is a beautiful willingness to learn that I really love.
Every interaction with another is an offering from heaven to deepen, observe and learn. The school of life is our greatest teacher.
I agree Kehinde but we are blinkered to that offering by our own behaviours, reactions and beliefs. We go into almost every situation already loaded and that load interferes with our ability to learn and deepen from it. The load closes us down to being open to what’s on offer, therefore the most important thing for all of us to do is to clear our load so that we can go into situations ready and able to see and feel what’s truly on offer for us. Universal Medicine has supported me immeasurably to clear my load.
What is important is to remember the offering is always there. We are called to respond or react, nothing more. ‘…the highest form of love is in fact free-will, the allowing of another to choose as one pleases, so to speak, yet still hold them with and in the absoluteness of love with not a single ounce of judgement of what one does or not with what is being given `(Impulsed).'(i) Where-ever we are, whatever we come with, we are loved.
(i) Serge Benhayon The Way of the Livingness Sermons 18-30 paragraph 21.6 pag81
The starting point to holding another in love is to hold ourselves in love and that is why judgement is so rife, we have so little love for ourselves, in fact most of us don’t even have regard for ourselves let alone love and that’s not a judgement, it’s simply a fact.
Alexis totally agree with all that is being shared, it’s an entrapment that we do not even know that we are entrapped in, until someone who can read the energy of entrapment supports us to let go of what we ‘think’ we know, or sometimes the energy is released and then it is possible to feel just how much we were entrapped by it, by the expansion our body receives. Then it is up to the individual whether they take the energy back on again or are free of it by making different choices and moving in a way that the invading energy has nothing hang on to, so passes through the body.
I love this Kehinde. Heaven offering us so many opportunities to learn all the time and deepen.
It’s simply beautiful to see how it is unfolding for us to be more and bring more of the amazingness that’s deep within us.
The beautiful thing about being willing to learn in life is that it allows you to grow.
It allows something I feel many of us don’t give ourselves ~ which is grace – the opportunity to be open to see life and how we live as a school of sorts – to teach us how to live our natural love and sensitive selves in this world and discard the behaviours that don’t support us or others.
We are way more loving than we let ourselves show this world or allow of ourselves, and also it is not the norm or made normal in this world to show our real fragility, delicateness and to be a ‘student of life’ to grow and actually support each other.
We live in a world where it is acceptable to be tough, be hard, struggle, compete with each other and be a ‘success’ at the expense of others. It can be easy to hide behind the mask of our behaviours and ideals and beliefs and what ‘we’ want in life. From what I am learning these behaviours if we continue, are harmful to ourselves and harm others around us. Being a student reminds me that I can learn in life and it lets me unfold to discover the truth of how I am in life and also how life is for others.
The greatest gift I have at the moment is understanding that I am learning, so that when things come up that I can see aren’t loving in the way I live, that I have the power to stop, take a moment and give myself grace and understanding and feel what I am doing that is harming and to change it without the harsh self berating and critiscism which does not allow me to change anything.
It gives me grace to see – like all of us, we are but students of life each on our path back to living love and truth.
Grace and understanding. Two of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and others. Loving being a student of life takes all the pressure off and exposes the lie of seeing to achieve a certain something before we are worthy or acceptable.
Reading you comment carmeniredale I came to a deeper understanding of ‘what we want’ in life, we have made life all about our wants and desires which keeps us in the separation from each other, as we try to outcompete each other in everything we do. From being competitive at school, bringing that to the work place, raising children, it’s a cycle that entraps us and for many of us we don’t even realise we are in it up to our necks.
The beautiful thing about being willing to learn in life is that it allows you to grow.
It allows something I feel many of us don’t give ourselves ~ which is grace – the opportunity to be open to see life and how we live as a school of sorts – to teach us how to live our natural love and sensitive selves in this world and discard the behaviours that don’t support us or others.
We are way more loving than we let ourselves show this world or allow of ourselves, and also it is not the norm or made normal in this world to show our real fragility, delicateness and to be a ‘student of life’ to grow and actually support each other.
We live in a world where it is acceptable to be tough, be hard, struggle, compete with each other and be a ‘success’ at the expense of others. It can be easy to hide behind the mask of our behaviours and ideals and beliefs and what ‘we’ want in life. From what I am learning these behaviours if we continue, are harmful to ourselves and harm others around us. Being a student reminds me that I can learn in life and it lets me unfold to discover the truth of how I am in life and also how life is for others.
The greatest gift I have at the moment is understanding that I am learning, so that when things come up that I can see aren’t loving in the way I live, that I have the power to stop, take a moment and give myself grace and understanding and feel what I am doing that is harming and to change it without the harsh self berating and critiscism which does not allow me to change anything.
It gives me grace to see – like all of us, we are but students of life each on our path back to love and truth.
We can be so quick to condemn ourselves. but reluctant to appreciate. Something to work on for me……..
I read your comment today Carmen Iredale and I agree with you that we do not give ourselves the grace to make mistakes and grow from them.
Wow! Understating and living as master of our own life. How important is it to claim this level of responsibility. Thank you Carmen.
‘It’s my choices every day that are the living open book I am writing of my life and the others I share life with’ I have not really seen our life in such a way, a kind of living documentary but that is exactly what it is because whether someone knows how we live or not everything we do is recorded energetically and comes back to us. So yes absolutely worth living responsibly for even just that reason but it would be even greater to live our lives responsibility because we deeply care for ourselves and others equally.
Everything gets registered because nothing is separate from life, we are the One United Mass of God and so everything is known by Him. We can’t even have a single thought that is not felt by His body.
This is true Alexis
“We can’t even have a single thought that is not felt by His body.”
because we live inside his atma which is space, and so the space all around us is the body of God. We breathe the space of God. So there is never a time that we are not in relationship with him. How wonder-full it is to come back to this understanding.
Incredible isn’t it that we can feel so desperate and isolated when all along God is closer to us than our own breath.
I just love the outlook of seeing everything as an opportunity to grow, especially great for me to get over my imagined hurdle of thinking I can’t handle something when actually I can, or I can when I accept support.
Like the other day I really saw how far we live from the love we naturally are and I felt disturbed. I can feel how much I care, that the choice to be open and loving with all people really matters, in the same way on that same day I had the most lovely interactions with people.
Karin, we do care deeply about humanity and the mess we are all in, that we are all searching for the love that seems to elude us because we have been fed for eons that love is an emotion when it is not. That lie has led us all down a rabbit hole that we still haven’t climbed out of.
“…getting angry and reacting to things in life I get triggered by because I’m not seeing what’s really going on in situations….” So often we get triggered. It is because we are not seeing the whole picture as we are viewing the situation from a pre-judged perspective, a picture of how things should be. Pictures and expectations keep us bound within our own bubble, limiting our access to our multi-dimensionality and the wonders of the Universe.
” I can feel the many opportunities that present for me to grow and deepen my ability to be myself in full.” Thank you Carmen, this has been great to read again, very real and relatable. I see my own life like this, that we have opportunities every day to honour ourselves and live our fullness, to make choices that are or are not supportive and learn, and to love and appreciate ourselves and others as we grow each day.
Beautiful Melinda. Thank you. I agree it is great to allow ourselves to be learners and expand.
‘I know within my deepest heart that I am the master of my life and how I choose to live it…’ This is true. We all are. And there is nothing to attain, try or reach as everything is within. Instead it is a process of letting go of all that we are not.
How true, yet so different to how we are brought up to believe.
“I now consider every day as an opportunity to take stock and actually look at what is going on in my life …..” This is an enriching way to live life.
Being conscious and aware of one’s breath is a true support to identify when we are either on ‘the front or the back foot’.
Love this jstewart. Simply beautiful to be aware of our breathing to let us know how we are truly going.
Yes, I find it a great support in my daily life to keep me present with what I am doing rather than going off on a daydream by regularly checking to see how my breath is.
‘ I know within my deepest heart that I am a master of my life and I choose to love it.’ Beautiful Carmin and I so agree.
‘I am developing more truthful and loving relationships ‘. This phrase jumped out at me today, as I realize I too am doing this. I’m a chameleon no longer. Feels great!
Thats really gorgeous to hear ❤️