by Heather Pope, Sydney, Australia
This morning I was woken at 1:20am with a call from a work colleague who needed some help for one of our customers.
I work for a large multi-national company managing a team of people, and we have customers all over the world. The call only took a few moments but as I lay there afterwards (wishing I could fall back to sleep, but with work issues now running through my head) I began to ponder this work life I am living, and wonder if others in the world are living similarly.
Then I received a text from one of my (several) bosses about another issue which I replied to (at 1:30am). This boss lives in Singapore where it was 11:30pm, and he replied.
And so my work day had begun, and indeed I wondered, did it ever end…
My pondering went along these lines: I reflected on the amazing work the company receives from me. Few people will appreciate the dedication of a person who makes themselves available for work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. My last meeting today will finish at 6:45pm if I am lucky, and I will work solidly from 7am to then. I reflected on how I knew the answer to support the person who needed help at that time. I have been at the same company for over 10 years, as have many of my peers, and we know how to resolve issues by being a team of people working together. Then I reflected on how valuable I am to this company, but in all likelihood most of my managers will never know it. Then I had a small but delightful thought: it doesn’t matter if they know it – I know it. And for the first time in many months I felt the joy of feeling my worth in this job.
The reflections and thoughts that led to this feeling of appreciation for myself came about following an Esoteric Women’s Presentation given by Natalie Benhayon in February 2013. I have been attending and listening to Natalie’s presentations on what it is to live as a woman in today’s world for more than a year now and have found that the practical wisdom on offer there is invaluable.
At the February presentation Natalie presented many topics, but there was one sentence that stuck with me and has literally changed my experience of life. She asked if we talk to ourselves – either in our heads, or out loud. I thought about it and immediately thought “I talk to myself in my head all the time“. Over the next 48 hours this question stuck with me, and what I began to realise is that the thoughts in my head are like a ticker tape from an old telegraph machine. They are a constant stream of thoughts – about work, about meetings, about issues with friends, about what I want to eat, about what else I need to do that day… and so on and so on. My waking thoughts every morning were about whether I “did well” the day before, or about the things I should have completed but I am now behind schedule with. But do I ever really speak to me? – the answer was NO!
A couple of days later I tried an experiment on impulse – I had been to have an Esoteric Massage with Curtis Benhayon who is a practitioner offering healing sessions in Northern NSW. The session was deeply nurturing and I found myself to have a delicate stillness in me when I left. I was travelling back to the airport to catch a plane home. I really wanted to capture what we had spoken about that was showing up in my body so I could work with it in the coming weeks before my next session. Since I was alone I decided to make a recording (using my phone) of what I had learned. So I recorded a message to myself – and this was a life changing few minutes. I spoke to my-self for what felt like the first time ever. My voice was loving and caring. I could also feel a decided anxiousness, almost an embarrassment at speaking to myself. But despite that I spoke, and it was incredible. I spoke to myself of the beauty of my own voice, I spoke of the amazingness of me, I made myself nominate some of the truly extraordinary choices I have made in the last 10 years. I say “made myself” because I have found it very difficult to appreciate my own choices and accomplishments. This time I said it.
The next day I listened to the recording and it immediately reconnected me with me. Over the coming days I listened to it again, reminding myself to speak to my-self and not just allow the incessant train of thoughts to dominate. In the days that followed, I made more recordings – very simple and very short. I can feel that these steps help me to truly speak to me. They help to re-imprint the ticker tape pattern and replace it with loving messages from me to me.
Inspired by the work of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon