Category: WELLBEING

Embracing True Devotion as a Woman and Mother

~ womeninlivingness

by Sharon, Australia

My life has been all about devotion, and many who know me would agree that I have been a devoted mother to my seven children. In addition, I have been devoted to my work both as a Birth Educator and also a Nurse, as well as being devoted to giving back to the community. In all this devotion there has been very little self-devotion and self-nurturing to myself as a woman. In fact, what I truly have been is another D word, which stands for ‘driven’, in which I have felt that I could never do enough to feel that I deserved any space in which to just be devoted to myself.

For me, the experience of growing up in a large family with a father who chose alcohol and work over family, and a mother who was barely coping with her own life, created a belief in me that when I would have a family I would do it ‘better’. Continue reading “Embracing True Devotion as a Woman and Mother” →

Nurturing According to My Body’s Rhythm

~ womeninlivingness

I have always understood ‘nurturing’ to be something very lovely and honouring that I do with myself – like having a bath with my favorite essential oils… or a bubble bath and maybe some candles and plenty of space and time to be with myself in a lovely and relaxed way, enjoying the warmth of the water around me.

Recently I went to an Esoteric Women’s Health (EWH) event presented by Natalie Benhayon: it was an inspiring presentation about Nurturing and being aware of the cycles and rhythms in one’s body. Natalie introduced something that I have never before truly heard or understood, even though it may have in the past been mentioned many times: that sometimes a bath with your favourite oils, bubbles or settings etc., may not actually be nurturing. Continue reading “Nurturing According to My Body’s Rhythm” →

Who I Am Not, Discovering more of me as a Woman

~ womeninlivingness

by Julie Ferguson, Mackay

A little while ago I attended an Esoteric Women’s Group in Mackay. This is my experience…

As I sit here, trying to support myself to write what I truly feel instead of what my head is telling me, I realise how challenging for me this is.

The me I have become is all about how I look, the house I live in, the car I drive, the friends I have, the way my children behave or any of the million other boxes I feel I have to tick to show the world I’m doing just fine.

I feel vulnerable, fragile even to go here with myself, as I realise I don’t feel fine.

I breathe gently, allowing myself to feel how afraid I’ve become to simply be myself as I, like many women and men I know, have grown up with feelings of not being enough.  Continue reading “Who I Am Not, Discovering more of me as a Woman” →

Nurturing – What it Really Means

~ womeninlivingness

I recently attended a group presentation for women (and men if they chose to come), where many things were discussed, but one thing I found really potent was; what it means to deeply nurture oneself, and how this may look.

I had heard of the idea of nurturing oneself before, and then basically I had created a list from past experiences of things that were nurturing e.g. having a bath, going to bed early, preparing a loving meal, taking time to get ready for my day, doing my hair or nails, watching a movie etc. Where I had gone wrong with this was: I saw times when I needed to deeply nurture myself because I had a bad day and required some support to come back to myself, or alternatively if I had had a brilliant day and wanted to do something nurturing to confirm this feeling. When I had felt these times arise, I would have gone to the mental list I had created in my head and just performed one of these activities without really feeling if that was what would support me in the confirming / coming back to me process. And if I had not felt like doing anything on my so-called ‘self-nurturing’ list, I would almost berate myself for not caring or wanting to support myself. Continue reading “Nurturing – What it Really Means” →

Precious Women – Frozen Behaviours

~ womeninlivingness

by Eva Rygg, Norway

Today the outside temperature in Oslo, Norway, is showing minus 18 degrees Celsius.

Now some of you might say that’s incredibly cold, however living in Norway we are used to these temperatures in periods over the winter.

I would like to share some reflections I have had around the possibility that the climate, as well as culture, does affect us.

Because – how is it that we can end up so totally disconnected from ourselves, that along the way we stop feeling how much we harm ourselves? One thing is that it happens gradually over the years, but yet another answer to it is we watch and see that this is how most people around us cope with life. Continue reading “Precious Women – Frozen Behaviours” →

Releasing Ideals and Opening up to the Natural Beauty of the True Woman within Me

~ womeninlivingness

by Nicole Serafin, Tintenbar, Australia

Growing up in a house with my two male cousins – one a little older than me, and the other a little younger – created an interesting dynamic for me as a girl, let alone when I started going through my teenage years and into puberty…

My parents treated us all equally. We went to the same school, had the same friends, went on holidays together and were all very close, wanting to do things together all the time… which in most cases was fine, but in some I found it wasn’t. Not because we didn’t want to, but because we weren’t always allowed. I began to find that the boys were treated differently to myself, often being able to go places and do things that I also wanted to do, but because I was a girl I was told it was not safe or just not ‘the done thing’. It didn’t take me long to realise this notion was the case in most situations, and also held in the world.

I began to notice that the boys were always allowed to do more activities – such as play more sports and go out to places that I was not able to go – even when I had been the same age. Society ‘told me’ that I was a girl and “girls did not do those sorts of things”. However, when or if I ever got hurt, felt vulnerable or expressed any kind of fragility, I was expected to “get over it and toughen up” like the boys. There was never any room or time for tears or feelings. It seemed I was supposed to be able to ‘tough it out’ as they say, but also when it suited I was to be a girl. I remember feeling and finding this extremely confusing. Continue reading “Releasing Ideals and Opening up to the Natural Beauty of the True Woman within Me” →

From Russia, With Love

~ womeninlivingness

 by Elena Light, London, UK

I was contracted for so long… And I cannot be any more.

That’s what I felt for very long while reading sensible and beautiful posts of other women. I can relate to everything everyone wrote, some more than others, even though sometimes I need to keep my dictionary nearby.

I grow up in the Soviet Union with centuries old believes about women, men and relationships. In that society was absolutely normal to live with a drinking man if he doesn’t beat his wife. If he does drink and abuses but brings money and ‘loves’ her and children it still would be better than being alone. There was, and still is, saying “not the best but my own”. And being married is absolute MUST.

From my early years I saw my grandmother being very patient with her husband drinking; my mother had two husbands, both alcoholics and violent. So from this age my idea of love was patience and sacrifice. Continue reading “From Russia, With Love” →

My Hot Date

~ womeninlivingness

About a year ago it became very clear that I needed to upgrade my bed mattress and my couch. There wasn’t anything structurally or practically wrong with them, but over the last few years I had let go of a lot of hardness in my body, so both my mattress and couch now felt too hard and it was clear that it was time to step up to the next level of love that my body was calling out for.

Now, I was raised in a family that didn’t have much money and so we had very little to spend on ourselves. Watching my father was how I learnt to unashamedly bargain, so in later years when I wanted to be frugal with my money, that was easy for me. So growing up and spending money on things for me was quite new.

In my 20’s I was mad on game shows and did quite well, winning lots of great prizes. The $5,000 worth of Stanley Rogers cutlery sets was one of them that sat in my cupboard for over 10 years, because in my eyes they were just too good and expensive for my house rental. But then one day I began to question… was I not equally as precious? And finally about 2 years ago, out they came to grace my cutlery draw. Continue reading “My Hot Date” →

Lessons on Healing and Truth from Pinocchio

~ womeninlivingness

by Deborah Savran, United States

When I was a very young child my father owned a bookstore. Being in a literature-focussed family I was used to having and reading many picture books on my shelves. Of all the stories, none compared to that of Pinocchio. I wanted to read this book every day and night, and over years I drew and painted a plethora of Pinocchio-themed art, and even named my two favorite dolls Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket! I never lost my connection to this story. One of the lessons in it – that our body’s messages are never in truth ‘curse’, but instead can be blessings that help us return to truth – is something that I have finally come to understand.

Earlier this year I heard Serge Benhayon, founder of Universal Medicine, mention the story of Pinocchio and I started to feel that for me it was a story full of whole truths, and this brought me to tears. Of course! How much sense it made that as a young child I had so strongly aligned to this story – a story that talked about returning and choosing to be who we truly are; a story about taking responsibility and about how our choices transform our lives and those around us; about a person whose body would give him a big message via his nose growing when he was not being honest…   Continue reading “Lessons on Healing and Truth from Pinocchio” →

Becoming a Mother – Feeling your Way and not Losing the Woman

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by Kylie Kennedy, BA Psyc Sci and Dip Counselling, Australia

Feeling your way

Becoming a mother was something I chose two years ago when I became pregnant. But what does it mean to become a mum?

During my pregnancy I was confronted with so much literature, opinions, beliefs, morals and judgements about parenthood from books, professionals, friends, family: basically, everyone and everything had an opinion on what being a mum is all about. The amount of information that came my way was overwhelming. What I found was that there was such a force bombarding me with the ‘should’ and the ‘how to’ be a mum, at times it felt like I was drowning and gasping for air. I had to keep reminding myself to feel into what being a mum is all about. The truth is, we can give our power away to the information and the opinions of others. Continue reading “Becoming a Mother – Feeling your Way and not Losing the Woman” →