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Beauty in Chaos
An Inner Journey to Restoring Love, Hope, and Freedom
By Denise Sivilay Balboa Press
Copyright © 2016 Denise Sivilay
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-0136-7
CHAPTER 1
A Thousand Spiritual Deaths
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
— Kahlil Gibran
In this fast pace and complex world, there is so much fear and uncertainty that it's hard to hear the voice of our inner self: traumatic world events, terrorist attacks, natural disaster, and of course the demands of our daily life. This leaves most of us feeling stressed, worried, distracted, and overwhelmed.
Regardless of what is happening on the outside world, we must never neglect what's happening on the inside world: our spiritual life, our vision, our calling. Navigating through the challenges of the outside world while managing our inner emotional turmoil is not a walk in the park; it's a constant fight to restore hope, vision, and control. But when our life's perspective is no longer off balance, a life of love, peace, and fulfilment is possible.
A Disease Called "Addiction"
Often when we think of an addiction, we automatically think it's drug related. An addiction is not just exclusive to drug-related issues; it can be an addiction to things like shopping, gambling, sex, negativity, etc. There is still no bigger addiction than what we have conditioned ourselves to embrace, our tendency to self-sabotage. More than often, we sabotage our own personal growth and happiness through the thoughts we have about ourselves and how we choose to respond to the outside world.
The following is a list of addictions that remain a strong barrier to our personal growth: our past and childhood wounds, playing the victim role, playing small, self-doubt, judgement of ourselves and others, blaming, wanting more, and of course the story we keep telling ourselves on why we can't live the life we want.
We have allowed our pain and disappointment from our childhood wounds to haunt us. Our broken hearts from the one who got away left us watching The Notebook a zillion times, hoping we could have the same happy ending. And of course, in reality, love does not always have a happy ending. We hide from the past like it is a ghost on a mission to haunt us, but we should embrace the past like spiritual masters embracing their students, happily imparting insight and wisdom to teach their students how to live life on the right path of peace and happiness, how to overcome obstacles in a positive way, and how to find truth and the courage to follow it.
For a very long time, I was playing the lead role as a self-absorbed neurotic drama queen in the story of my life. I had allowed my emotional self to run wild in the deep rivers of life's darkness and illusions. As Albert Einstein said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." I was too far into my self-destructive addictions to notice the miracles that surrounded me at the time. Like most addicts, I was living in total denial. I was unaware of my own self-sabotaging behaviour and how it was negatively influencing the life I had hoped to live.
My journey from living in total darkness and despair to discovering the path of God, universal truth, self-love, healing, and spirituality was never easy. The journey of the evolution of consciousness is hard, but we should never turn our backs on the gift of life. Life itself is the greatest gift, and we need to live it as truthfully, consciously, and congruently as possible. We cannot let the winter storm dictate how our summer will be. Therefore, let us learn how to make our spring fruitful and begin to rejuvenate the life of our hearts and minds.
Addiction to Fear: The Paralysis of Fear
In the movie After Earth, Will Smith's character, Cypher, says to his son, Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist ... Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice.
We had let our fear of survival, our fear of abandonment, our fear of loss of love, our fear of the future, and our fear of not being enough to overwhelm us. It has left us feeling paralysed and stuck in the quicksand of self-doubt, non-action, and helplessness.
We have approximately sixty thousand thoughts a day, and if we spent most of our thought energy on fear-based thoughts, then we will only create and attract life experiences that will reflect that thought vibration. And the same is true for the opposite. If we learn to think in positive affirmations, we will create and attract positive experiences that support the vision we have for ourselves and the life we desire.
Blast through Your Addiction to Fear
We can learn how to walk right in the heart of fear and blast it with courage. We can manage fear by choosing to focus on positive outcomes rather than investing in thoughts of unpleasant experiences and self-doubt. Thoughts like We might fail if we try, People may treat us differently if we speak up, It's better not to love again then to experience another heartbreak, I might experience shame and humiliation if I follow my dreams, and I am not good enough put a roadblock upon ourselves. It is a misguided use of our mental energy and a complete distraction to becoming the person we wish to become.
There's a line in Bob Marley's song "Redemption" that really resonated with me. "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds." We unconsciously compromise so much of who we can become and what we can achieve when we let our fear-based thoughts become the driving force in our lives. When we are afraid of something, we tend to imagine the worst outcome possible. There's no greater challenge than conquering the self.
There's always going to be the unfiltered voice inside your mind telling you to give up even before you try. The ego voice inside your mind says, "It is not possible." If we allow ourselves to tap into the courage that exists within, our perception of life will also change. We will soon see the possible in the impossible. And life will begin to attract new and more fulfilling experiences. The fabric of illusions seamed together by our limited thoughts can only be torn apart by the one who put it there in the first place: us.
There is a universal truth in a form of law that says, "To every cause, there is an effect." The law can also be applied in the physical sense, through the reflection of Sir Isaac Newton's third law of motion which states, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." If, for example, you were to hold your hand over a candle's flame (the cause), the effect would be that your hand would burn and hurt! While this is an extreme example, it serves to illustrate the point very well. Most people go through life at the effect of their external influences. They seem to let themselves roll around freely in self-sabotaging behaviours, blame, and powerlessness. They have become stuck in their inner fear and non-action by becoming addicted to being a victim (the effect) rather than choosing to be in control of their lives by taking the responsibilities (the cause) required, accepting their role in their lives, and managing their emotions effectively.
Every cause has an effect; every thought attracts a physical experience in our lives. Lao Tzu said, "Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny". Therefore, thoughts of fear will only attract more fearful experiences, as loving thoughts will only attract more loving experiences. I was unaware of the thoughts I was investing in at the time and how they played a major part in shaping my life for a very long time. Unfortunately, some of us are still living in that mental space and refusing to take the time to examine our consciousness and personal patterns.
There was a difficult time in my life when anything that could go wrong seemed like it did. It was hard to face the day, to get out of bed, to function. I was physically out of shape; I felt lethargic most of the time. I had neglected my health and fed it with too much alcohol, drugs, and fatty and sugary foods. I was constantly feeding my body with food that had no nutritional value whatsoever.
I've always had a job but found myself financially broke most of the time, just trying to survive from week to week and struggling to pay the bills. I found myself in fear of picking up my phone, as I was constantly getting reminder calls for overdue bills. Calls from debt collectors as a result of being impractical with money and not paying attention to the choices I was making in life, both personally and financially.
When we choose to live life on the effect side, we are disempowered, and unconsciously, we have allowed external forces to write the script of our lives. This is where we blame our parents, our childhood, our bosses, or our failed relationships for the mountain of stress, frustration, disappointment, and misery we feel.
But no personal struggles were harder than dealing with spiritual bankruptcy. This was the toughest fight I had to face. Emotionally I was like train wreck. Like many of us facing life's challenges and adversity, my emotional life was off balance, my mind was scattered and easily distracted, I drank, and I cried every chance I had. I felt like I was the character Bridget Jones in Bridget Jones's Diary, feeling hopeless and listening to the song "all by myself" over and over again. That was probably not the best song choice, given the circumstances. A more inspiring, upbeat, uplifting song like "I Believe I Can Fly" would have been a better choice to break the sad, lifeless state I was living in at that time. I can tell you that a negative state of mind mixed with alcohol and replays of sad love songs was a recipe for an inner emotional disaster.
Out of my awareness, I was having all these unpleasant experiences because I was being the victim in my life, until I came to a realisation that I had a choice to continue to play the victim role or participate in my own rescue and become the star of my own life rather than a slave to my circumstances. And there is definitely another way, a healthier way, a better way to live. You just have to pay attention to your life and be willing to open up to letting go of your old life so that the vision of the life you want can come to pass.
Addiction to Fear of Change
The fear of change is phenomenal. Since when have we allowed our fear of change to become an excuse for abandoning our dreams of living at greater heights? Mahatma Gandhi said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." We're all searching for something — some kind of increase, more love, more happiness, more peace, and more financial abundance.
Our comfort zone has become the chains that are tied around our ankles, keeping us stagnated from advancing towards our true destiny. I had allowed my need to feel the illusion of having emotional safety to keep me stuck in the old patterns of my mind. A friend of mine once told me I had to change the way I was living if I wanted my life to change for the better. The ego defence mechanisms would have me believe otherwise. The comment felt like it was a personal attack. The ego mind at that time was yelling to me, "I am fine the way I am. There's nothing wrong with me or the way I am living." The ego is full of tricks. It would have us believe we are doing well, but really we are going nowhere.
We often feel emotionally safe with what we know, and because of that, we stay unconsciously committed to the old daily patterns of life. We'd rather stay in the dark storm of our thinking than make the necessary positive change that will propel us forward into the life we desire.
Our fear of change has kept us working in mediocre jobs that we don't believe in, stuck in abusive relationships, and clinging onto our old self-destructive patterns, because at some deep level, we'd rather stick to what we know, paralysed in fear than move into the unknown territory of our own minds. We must be willing to break the patterns and start anew.
Viktor Frankl said, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves". We must be willing to change for the better — better than we were yesterday, better than we were in the last hour. We must be willing to shift from the disempowered place into personal empowerment. We don't need to seek permission to be our best self, to live our best life; we only need the burning desire to do so and the willingness to make it happen.
The person you want to be is calling you to let go of the world you're holding onto, so you can step into the world you want.
Erica Jong said, "I have accepted fear as part of life — specifically the fear of change ... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says, turn back".
Many times in my life when I wanted to try something new, more than often, it felt really uncomfortable. And I used to ask myself, "Why?" You see, when we are trying something new, we often question our own ability. "Can I really do this? Will I make a fool out of myself? What will other people think?"
Facing a new experience in life requires us to step outside of what we know and let go of our old patterns of fear, whether it was changing my mindset about my life and my own ability. I swung from negative to positive, kicking my addictions to drugs and alcohol, having hard conversations with friends and family, and attending a professional speaking boot camp, despite not having spoken in public before.
Those were the moments that caused my heart to pound, but despite the pounding, I too choose not to turn back and move through my fear of change, because my desire to become a better person and live a more authentic life that is aligned to my true values was stronger than my need to stay in fear. It was more painful to live in that place of incongruence. Personal change was necessary, despite the inner battle and resistance that came up again and again. Do not give up!
Resistance to Change
We compromise the person we can become when we allow our resistance to demotivate us. Why do we found ourselves resisting change instead of surrendering to the divine process?
Change opens the doors to new possibilities in our lives; it helps us heal the past and therefore change the present and create a new future. Resisting change has become a personal roadblock to so many people because we have become set and rigid in our old ways that we cannot even think to embrace change. Our emotional safety and comfort lie in the same mental and emotional patterns that we have conditioned ourselves with.
Most people would rather stay stuck in their misery and frustrations than head towards uncertainty, because it offers them a false sense of security and control. We can learn to overcome our resistance to change by being open to it and willing to see through our personal fear into new possibilities.
Addiction to Fear of Failure
A lot of people have become addicted to their fears rather than their resolutions. And the only way to interrupt our addictions and patterns to fears is to refocus our thoughts and energy towards a positive outcome. If we learn to see the situation from a different standpoint, a vantage point that will offer hope, encouragement, and a new way of thinking and being, then we would be better equipped to overcome the things that are holding us back. We have nothing to lose but our dream.
Focusing on what can go wrong will only attract similar circumstances of the thought's original nature, and people that will validate that. And by the same token, focusing on positive outcome will allow us to feel more confident in our pursuit of personal peace and happiness. Remember: how you start is not going to dictate how you finish, and you always get what you focus on.
A Life of Quiet Desperation
If we don't have love and peace inside ourselves, we can't expect to find it in others. Trying to find love to fill the missing pieces in my life was my main motivator. This would reflect into Maslow's hierarchy of need — the need to feel love and a sense of belonging. We have allowed our minds to become filled with fear and doubt. The inner wounds and emotional struggles I was experiencing were caused by my beliefs in the things I thought were lacking in my life. My lack of understanding and wrong perception of love and life had set me on the wrong path to finding the gifts of life in all the wrong places. Our thoughts are powerful; they play a big part in creating our reality, but I didn't realise it at the time that my perceptions of life was off balance. The real obstacles are not out there but are inside our minds. It is the voice inside our minds that tells us that we are never good enough.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Beauty in Chaos by Denise Sivilay. Copyright © 2016 Denise Sivilay. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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