Live Alive: The Truth About Your Life and How to Be Your Own Master
178
Live Alive: The Truth About Your Life and How to Be Your Own Master
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504398367 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Balboa Press |
| Publication date: | 03/01/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 178 |
| File size: | 866 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
When you look back upon your life, do you feel that you have been on an emotional roller coaster, with intervals of calm (when things were approximately fine and you felt approximately balanced), inevitably followed by inexplicable emotional lows and confidence decline, when everything seemed to fall apart, for no evident reason? And in those low moments, you couldn't seem to make any sense of life, the world and your own role in this complicated movie.
You find yourself feeling so deeply vulnerable, drifting, like a leaf in a whirlpool, fighting for direction, yearning for stability and quickly losing hope and your ability to trust yourself and the life around you.
This is true for what my life was, several years back.
I used to think joy, happiness, as well as enthusiasm, are either traits we are born with, or things that happen to us, at times and during circumstances I had no control over. I was fairly good at feigning confidence and optimism, but in reality I only had some random ideas on how to feel happy. None of these ideas were reliable, though, to produce happiness or at least a feeling of safety at predictable times, or when I needed them most. Also, if I happened to run across the big H, happiness, I had no idea how to make it last a bit longer, or how to enhance it, to feel it stronger.
While I had quite long intervals of positive in my career, relationships and emotional life- and apparently everything important was going on pretty well, I wasn't always able to see, to realize, to contemplate the goodness of it all, to take it all in and to actually enjoy it consistently. I would easily allow my focus to flow towards worrisome or fearful thoughts and I would eventually find myself again in a deep pit of discouragement, low confidence, pessimism and sadness.
And every time I found myself in this state again, I would curse my bad fortune and desperately wonder what was so fundamentally wrong with me? Was I inherently damaged in some dark, inexplicable way? "Why can't I just be fine with what I have, why all this internal turmoil? Will I ever, ever be all right - for good, or at least for a long, long time?"
I secretly started to believe I was a lost cause, damaged goods. I would cry against life and whoever made it all so hard to figure out, and I would once again lose trust and hope in my ability to ever be happy.
This all seemed to be complicated furthermore by the lack of a proper life map, some sort of clearly designed and explained guidance-answers about why we are here, what is the purpose of this world and my existence in it? What is of utmost importance, in our daily interactions, as well as for our entire lifespan?
What is the best way to live our lives? In accordance to whose definition of "best"?
I didn't seem to have a framework to refer to, in so many areas of my life – or the framework I had was not enabling me to stay consistently happy and confident. Quite the contrary. And this often left me feeling frustrated, discouraged and utterly out of control. Like a lost little fish, swimming through the random waves of a river, with no vision about its destination, and no power to make its way across the troubled, unpredictable waters.
You'd expect humanity to have come up with a clear, condensed and explicit manual for living by now.
You'd expect so many billions of lives and deaths to have been enough motivation for someone to finally step up and put together the whole puzzle, to select what matters most and make it understandable to even the most unsophisticated reader. So that the next generations don't have to wander around blindly, just like their ancestors before them, starting from the same starting line, reaching for the same known finish, trying to learn roughly the same lessons, going through the same tragedies, chasing the same illusions, making the same mistakes and living in the same haze and confusion, over and over again.
In fact, the truth and the answers have always been entirely available to us at all times, some in all the amazing books out there, some come through personal experience, mentors or –most powerfully – through pure, direct inspiration.
Often, however, you just feel like it will take forever to figure it all out. When we read a book, for example, (even the holy ones), the coins finally start to drop only by the third or fourth reading (if ever!). The language and examples are no longer adequate for our times, and those who offer to interpret them for you have their own human biases, beliefs and agendas, and this could just sink you further down in fear, guilt and shame. Not what you need.
You may run across people, relationships and events that throw you far, far away from your track, and confuse you even more. Or you get busy with life and lose track of your findings. You forget how much you wanted to find these answers. Until you hit the wall again. And let's be honest, when you're deep in the dark pit you rarely feel like reading one more book.
What on Earth are we supposed to do, then?
Wouldn't you wish you had a map? A little book that spells the rules of the game of life in very simple terms? Someone to connect the dots for you - not all of them, but at least enough dots to get yourself out of the pit forever and set in the right direction, with a working, understandable, applicable, easy to decipher recipe for happy life.
I had desperately yearned for, and searched for the same. Not that I was able to even formulate this need in my mind until a later stage, but I often felt like a stranger in the wrong movie. I felt that reality as I saw it just didn't make enough sense and there were many, too many pieces of my puzzle missing.
So I kept digging and searching, ever more frustrated. This feeling of being a misfit in a weird world was only getting stronger as I was growing up and facing all the hardships of the world – this is what we are taught: you have to grow up and take in all the fear, injustice and tough times of humanity and make them all your own. Toughen up. What a bunch of nonsense! That is humanly impossible, without tearing yourself apart! This is why people get sick, depressed and die. Really.
This book doesn't claim to have placed the whole puzzle together. But for my life and the lives of many friends it does seem to connect the most important parts of it, to build your better understanding, to take the leap from being a passive, insecure victim, to a powerful master of your own amazing destiny. And isn't this what we all crave for?
Overall my life had always been good. I had faced some challenges big and small, but I have almost always had love, health, and much more than my basic needs covered. Indeed, I would often look around at the less fortunate people, and beat myself down further for not being able to enjoy the happy life I had all reasons to live.
If I wasn't happy, I blamed myself for being unable to appreciate and live life fully.
If I found myself in those rare moments of happiness or peace, I quickly poisoned it myself with (useless) pieces of "wisdom", such as: nothing is supposed to last, and how could it last, since there are many others out there who are still suffering? This would normally suffice to immediately tone down my enthusiasm and bring me "down to earth" and "back to normal". Down to fear, sadness and grief, back into the pit.
It was as if an invisible force was determined to make sure I stay down. Play small. Fly low. Never allow me to fully live.
I felt like I was fighting a hopeless fight, against invisible cruel and powerful enemies I could neither see, nor understand.
It wasn't until much later that I realized I was fighting a mirror. There was no enemy outside.
It had been me, doing this to myself, all along.
Another thing I didn't realize for very long was that all my extensive education, my multiple degrees, my speaking several languages – our conventional education up to this point– were no matching tools for my quest, and could never provide all the keys to understanding what you are going to understand here and now. They never taught me how to take control of my reality and how to harness happiness like a master.
I strongly believe in the power of education, and especially self-education. And I know that, as we speak, this knowledge and understanding becomes part of conventional education now. Great reason to celebrate already!
While life and our surrounding reality do provide us with challenges and good times as well, with ups and downs, I learnt there is a bulletproof way to increase your number of ups tremendously, and bounce back up from your downs in little or no time.
There is a sure, tested, older-than-the-worlds way to tune into this newfound power, build steam and gather momentum until you own it and it owns you. You become one and it becomes your dominant nature. And then there is no way back.
A precious golden tip that you will find repeated in this book: throughout the process, the key to getting the most out of it is in being very gentle with yourself: give yourself the time, the patience and kindness you would allow a five year old child, or your best friend. Give this newfound understanding the chance to sink in and permeate your consciousness, and as it does, you will start seeing tremendous changes in your external world as well.
Because this book is about you, and getting you to become the fully confident person you were born to be, let us start with a short and very powerful exercise. You will keep getting these along the way, as we know now that only information that you act upon is real power, and knowledge is no use unless you can remember it. Best way to remember things is by doing them, right?
Who do you think you are?
Who are you? Please answer this question in as many words as you want.
* No clues provided for very good reasons, so bear with me and plunge into the answer: who are you?
I am
CHAPTER 2YOUR PRIMARY IDENTITY
Do you remember the times when you were thirteen or fourteen, a teenager just blooming and getting a glimpse of "grown up life"? The roller coaster of emotions, the hopes, the insecurity and self-doubt, the ever-changing and challenging environment of your life, your feelings, your relations?
They all say the teenage years are tough, and that it all gets better as you grow older. And it does. Or so it should.
Yet once in a while, even in your life as a "mature, responsible, knowledgeable, grown up", you find yourself falling back into that state of raw, vulnerable, bewildered, confused, tear-filled eyed, trembling voice, completely soul-bare state of total uncertainty. AGAIN. Not a simple, short lived, fugitive sadness, but the kind of all-crushing pain that starves your heart and mind until you just forget who you are, and what a normal day looks like.
You feel like you are once again in the middle of nowhere, feeling like a nobody, a damaged life, bound to fail. A lost cause. A worthless shape with no essence.
And you cry out loud in the lonely depths of your mind "Ohhh, please, not again! I thought I was over all that! Oh, the horror of it all. Does it ever, ever go away for good? Am I ever going to be normal, confident and stay confident?!"
Yes, dear friend, I have been there too. I've been down, and up, and deep, deep down again, just like you.
So in the light of this apparent everlasting instability, how can you ever rely and trust that confidence is there to stay, yours to keep?
Whom and what can you actually ever count on being there to support you, at any time and forever?
Confidence comes from the certainty of knowing who you are and staying grounded in that, every day, every hour.
And who are you really? Why are you here? What is the purpose of it all? Why all the struggle and the hustle and the hard work, if all seems bound to crash once in a while anyway, all heading for a finish line we all know too well?
Stay with me while we explore this, I promise it lays the most solid ground for the rest of your life, once and for all.
You are an infinite divine joyful presence in a beautifully working human body. You and universal intelligence are not separated, but existing in a continuum. Solidity is only a matter of perception – science backs it up and every ancient wisdom and holy scripture confirms it, we will explore this too, shortly (I come with scientific proof, so stay with me please).
This is your first identity, your true nature. Free, joyful, peaceful, a powerful creator playfully at work, constantly expanding reality.
Everything else is secondary and temporary. Your roles as a son or daughter, sister or brother, wife or husband, girlfriend, mother, father, friend, career man or woman, artist, and so on are all just that: roles, beautiful and challenging and fun in themselves, but in continuous change and transformation.
Bare with me for a few minutes, this is really hot stuff and totally life-changing when you grasp its importance. I say, without any shadow of a doubt: if you understand this, everything else is implementation detail!
The ultimate goal and meaning of our lives is to create in a state of joy, love, gratitude, peace, excitement, resourcefulness, tolerance and inspiration, while experimenting with the challenges and wonders of various life situations, growing our full potential, developing and enjoying our talents and what the ancients called "virtues".
Really?
YES, yes and again yes.
Joy, freedom and a sense of perfect fulfillment define our natural state, the state that we are born in, one that we do not need to earn, nor deserve. A state where we feel powerful, generous and loving. The place from where we own the universal creative forces, the way we want it.
Love is the force that keeps the universe together, the essence of life. This is the reason why we always, always crave for love one way or another: this is the true nature of our being, and we are permanently drawn to it. If you dig deep down behind all our actions, even behind the darkest and most evil, at the bottom of them all there is an overwhelming need to be loved, connected, acknowledged, seen, validated, accepted, recognized, appreciated, wanted, admired and treasured. By ourselves, by others, by what we consider a higher power.
How comfortable are you with the concept of a universal intelligence that runs all things, a higher power, divine force, God, the good, the one that beats your heart and operates your trillions of cells – each a universe on its own? The all-pervasive force that made the Sun, the Universe, our astounding, infinitely diverse and ever-changing world. Call it what you like. I will call it God sometimes because it's shorter, but you can call it whatever you like (just call it!)
I do not aim to make you a believer, and I do not represent any religious affiliation in particular (they all lead to the same source).
What I deeply yearn for, my dearest wish is for you to claim and take the power and the life of abundance that are rightfully yours. For you to stand in full ownership of who you truly are. The stunning master of your faith and of your world.
These days more and more people have become familiar with the idea of the 'God within', an idea that is thousands of years old, but we are only understanding it literally now. Some of us know it with our logic and interpret it to be a metaphor of some sort. And some of us live it as a reality, in our hearts and minds and bodies and relationships with ourselves and others.
The Bible repeatedly tells us that we are a temple for God's spirit, and both ourselves and our bodies are sacred.
I am not preaching and I do not belong to a sect, as I said, neither do I aim to establish one. But I do know for a fact, however, that when you understand exactly who you are, in relation to this higher power and our world, there is no way you can go back to living in fear and doubt again. Never. You will know a different reality and you will own it once and for all.
In Hinduism's principal holy text the Bhagavad Gita we have the Krishna within, while the Koran tells us that Allah is closer than our jugular vein. The Buddhist scriptures talk about the Buddha within and correspondingly the Adi Granth, the Sikh holy text, describes that the one God is all pervading and alone dwells in the Mind.
Although many spiritual people are familiar with the idea that God is to be found within them, too, they often imagine that this is just symbolism, or some sort of small, divided piece of Divinity, or perhaps just some aspect of it reflected within us.
A fuller understanding often comes with experience. When you have lived this, nothing and nobody can take it away from you. When you acknowledge the infinity of power, the Creator within, you have made the ultimate and most important breakthrough.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Live Alive"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Alina Haiduc Sukumaran.
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.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction, ix,
Chapter 1 Who Do You Think You Are?, 1,
Chapter 2 Your Primary Identity, 8,
Chapter 3 Science: Your Thoughts And Your Emotions, The Powerful Connectors, 26,
Chapter 4 What Are You Doing Here? Your Purpose And Life Mission, 34,
Chapter 5 What Do You Want?, 42,
Chapter 6 Objections, Your Honor!, 50,
Chapter 7 Your Unapologetic, Confident Life, 60,
Chapter 8 The Hidden "Enemies", 73,
Chapter 9 Fears, 82,
Chapter 10 More Fears, 89,
Chapter 11 Your Life Compass Direction: Values, 94,
Chapter 12 Values Versus Needs. Knowing Where You Want To Go, And Where You Never Want To Go, No Matter What, 101,
Chapter 13 Habits: Your Powerful Allies For A Confident, Joyful Life, 108,
Chapter 14 Your People, One Of The Most Powerful Forces In Your Life, 115,
Chapter 15 Fun Time - Let's Create Your Life, The Way YOU Want It, 126,
Chapter 16 Live Alive Through Your Life Calling, 144,
Chapter 17 Growing Or Going Down?, 149,
Chapter 18 It Is All In Your Hands, Really, 154,
The Essence Of Living Alive, 159,
About The Author, 163,