Perhaps Life Is . . . . .

Introduction My goal for writing this book was to get a chance to look back at my life and to write about the process of awakening and the transformation of my consciousness; an opportunity that I hardly had the time for, ever before. I wanted to visit the past and stay with its pain long enough to receive the blessings I needed for healing and the tools that could help me manifest a better future. As a child I was separated from my own mother who was replaced by my step mother when I was two years old. As a result, I felt violated, abused and abandoned. The road of growing up was a challenging one too and part of my response to the situation was learning to stay away from people and keeping my fears and feelings to myself. I never talked about any of it, almost as though it never happened, and I never grieved it either. This also affected my relationships in my adult life and yet I wouldn’t confront my wounds. I would escape my thoughts and therefore was rarely present to myself or those around me. I was clearly protecting myself by denial and dissociation but at the same time remaining at the mercy of my traumatic childhood. As a mother I raised a family with no support from anyone because the father of my children was absent, and yet, I was successful in accomplishing my goals as a provider and as a mother to the best of my abilities. At the same time I was also aware that I am still sitting with my traumatized inner child and I needed to go through a healing process as soon as I could. I needed to address, process and resolve my emotional problems and to find out how do I get stuck and how things go wrong from time to time. That’s why I stepped into a long path of getting professional help for healing which enabled me to live with memories of the past, talk about my childhood trauma and be compassionate to my inner child. I now have the social support that I need and I am mindful of my automatic defensive habits and attitudes. As a result, I don’t succumb to those habits as often as I did before. According to David Richo: We know we face the challenge of becoming adults who can hold opposites with equanimity. We cannot unlive our painful history, but we do not have to relive it. We can’t let go of it, but we do not have to hold on to it. There is a path to love among the ruins. An important lesson for me in this process was realizing that the deepest part of me has always been engaged in doing things and providing for others instead of being there emotionally and being consciously present. In fact, doing what I had to do was my only saving grace in life because it kept me busy and helped me cope as well. What I am learning now is to shift from “doing” to “being” which means to be present to myself and others and to keep opening my own heart to more connection. This will lead to having more compassion for myself and will give me the courage to face and embrace my fears and to successfully move through the healing process. Looking back I can also see that my life has always been devoted to awakening the awareness in myself and others, however, every now and then I felt a sense of emptiness, missing something and loneliness which has yet to be filled. I often thought to myself that I am here to carry on and do the tasks that are needed to be done and the suffering and loneliness I encounter are doorways to my awareness in order to learn from and to become selfless. As I worked with courage in the most difficult life situations across the world, I also learned to pay attention to the things that I could cherish and appreciate instead of only seeing the sorrow and sadness. I had my heart set on using my creativity and allowing myself to be who I am. I trusted the universe and I let my intentions guide me. I also empowered myself by continuing to read and learn from those who shared their wisdom by writing about their life experiences. My focus and goals moving forward are to continue increasing my awareness and sharing what I learn with others.