tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82394215621976512682024-03-13T19:11:16.592-07:00life realizedElzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-12902682712587717562023-11-04T22:39:00.005-07:002023-11-04T23:04:45.402-07:00Super Thrilled You've Stopped By!!!<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGqX1ZHCamhLivAHNe9XQkqA0v-zylWqH5GEbKeVinOUW1jd3Jk5g8JuzV_1mbKjjL38-HvpFZH1oPsCAl7xK6mn3TRZUZ_j83SAiEhG8sKUL_3MLVSga7wLQlKvrowzsdzD6-kdI8HYSfeeUFR3b-3B8Ihhqhb958zw74eQbsM-sCyJpi2nku4y1JVdXp/s1363/myblog.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="1363" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGqX1ZHCamhLivAHNe9XQkqA0v-zylWqH5GEbKeVinOUW1jd3Jk5g8JuzV_1mbKjjL38-HvpFZH1oPsCAl7xK6mn3TRZUZ_j83SAiEhG8sKUL_3MLVSga7wLQlKvrowzsdzD6-kdI8HYSfeeUFR3b-3B8Ihhqhb958zw74eQbsM-sCyJpi2nku4y1JVdXp/w640-h294/myblog.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">This is my new blog: <a href="https://fromfoodtolove.com/" style="text-align: left;">fromfoodtolove.com</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">Many of you have written to me saying that you've been enjoying reading my posts, encouraging me to continue. Sadly, I had to take quite a long break. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But now -- I'm back! I have a new website/blog in which I write about my route to recovery from chronic pain, depression, and anxiety through food. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Join me there to watch my progress as I learn how to prepare healthy, gluten-free, and mostly raw meals. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">See you there!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Elzbieta </span></p><p><br /></p>Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-65246756551656202732015-01-15T10:15:00.002-08:002023-11-04T23:27:22.812-07:00There's Nothing Wrong With You, My Dear! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QCan4vjW_lM/VTpfPUbQWTI/AAAAAAAABHk/sT0iD17FRgg/s1600/perfection.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="538" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QCan4vjW_lM/VTpfPUbQWTI/AAAAAAAABHk/sT0iD17FRgg/s1600/perfection.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You've had a rough time in your life, haven't you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Me too, by the way, if it makes you feel any better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But, what's even worse is that you haven't been able to enjoy the few things that did go right in your life because of the burden that you've been carrying in your mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You were told from the very beginning that there was something not quite right about you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You may even still recall as a kid being asked: "What's wrong with you???!"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now, as an adult you keep "raping" yourself with that same kind of inquiry...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You are hurting yourself this way and you need to stop doing that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There's absolutely nothing wrong with you, my dear!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Do I need to repeat that? OK then: YOU are PERFECT just the way you are, and the only thing that's wrong with you is that you think that there's anything wrong with you...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Your depression, your mood swings, and whatever the hell else that you think is undesirable about you - are just as perfect too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Let me tell you something: you didn't come to this world to obtain sainthood. You came already as a saint. Yes, it takes a saint person to renounce the total freedom that your Soul is made of, and to take on this enormous challenge of being trapped in a physical body!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So then give yourself a well-deserved break, would you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Stop beating yourself up with that nonsense that's been piled upon you since you were little. You are simply magnificent, and I'm here to remind you about that. You are priceless, and it's time that your outside world starts to reflect that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And yes, you ARE the center of the universe! Don't let anyone make you feel otherwise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What, do you think because you get angry, for example, that you don't "qualify" for perfection? My dear, your anger is what makes you perfect. Your anger is a beautiful emotion that's been misunderstood and therefore mistreated by pretty much everyone. Your anger is like a fire or a hot volcanic lava that burns whatever needs to be destroyed, so that new life, the new beginning can form.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">From now on stop apologizing for getting mad. </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Oh, so you think you're lazy? Can you explain to me then how is it that your entire body, including your precious mind, is working full time, 24/7? What, you doubt that it takes a lot of energy for your heart to pump that blood throughout your entire body? Or, do you think it's easy for your liver to keep sorting between the nutrients and all the other crap that needs to be expelled?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Have you ever tried cleaning your house, especially your bathroom?... When you were done, were you exhausted from it or did you feel like you were ready to take on the world...?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If your body ain't lazy (if you're reading this, I assume you're alive, so it means it didn't quit working) and you are part of your body, then why do you insist on proving to the world that you're anything but lazy?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Fire the word "laziness" from your dictionary. Or give it a new meaning...</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The list can go on and on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Stop trying to change yourself. Change your perception of who you think you are. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> A little bit about me:</b></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Now residing in Honolulu, Hawaii, Polish-born Elzbieta Pettingill is a former fashion model, author, and survivor of depression. She suffered abuse and rape in her childhood and was subsequently diagnosed with depression that followed her from childhood through to adulthood. Let down by the medical and psychological establishments, and realizing that only she could change her </span><i style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mind</i><span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, Elzbieta overcame her depression in her 30s through a process of conscious spiritual awakening, a story that forms the basis of her book: “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/life-realized-Elzbieta-Pettingill/dp/1300061812/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=spir02-20" style="color: #0071bb; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Find on Amazon.com">Life Realized</a>” – available now on Amazon.com</span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-22381307664067670222014-12-21T10:50:00.001-08:002023-11-04T23:29:30.905-07:00Don't Feel Bad When You Snap<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">People affected by depression are the most sensitive individuals you'll ever encounter. What you don't know though is that they pay a very high price for being this sensitive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Their sensitivity makes them vulnerable to the outside world built on self-serving values, which are excused with sayings like "survival of the fittest." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Depressed people are often guilty of making one of the biggest mistakes - putting others' needs before their own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">They have a tendency to keep everything bottled up until they can no longer control their justified (very much so) rage. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Then one day they finally snap...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What happens next is even worse... Immediately after "losing it" they become easy targets for unsolicited judgment and criticism coming from every direction. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Friends and family start to fire suggestions: "Maybe it's time to see a shrink?" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">At the shrink's office they learn that even though their feelings about this particular situation were valid, their response to it was not... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So what do they do? The only thing they've been allowed to do so far; is keep suppressing their emotions even further...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And so the cycle continues...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Well, isn't it time to break it? I'd say so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If you suffer from depression don't expect others to break the cycle for you. You will have to be the one who breaks that chain. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">How? Very simple. You need to make a conscious decision to allow yourself to get mad without feeling bad about it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>DON'T FEEL BAD WHEN YOU SNAP. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Do not apologize for it. Ever! Do not go over in your head, how you should have reacted differently, how you shouldn't have said what you said, and so on and on. STOP IT. Stop yourself from beating yourself up. Don't you see what that's been doing to you? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Haven't you had enough of being "pissed on" by others? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'll tell you something that might be news to you: those you've just snapped at rarely question their ways of treating others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sometimes people need to hear what they need to hear. And they need to hear it without sugar coating, without that sweetness in your tone, which they've taken for granted. Am I right? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Next time when you "lose it," take a moment to observe your thoughts closely. Do you feel the urge to reassure others that you're OK, and not mad anymore even though you know it's not true? If so, you're doing it wrong... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Be honest. Enough pretending for the sake of troubling others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Regroup yourself immediately. "To hell with it!" is a phrase that helps me to not feel guilty for finally having the courage to stand up for myself, or as others would say; "snapping." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Try it, and you'll see how good it feels. Not the snapping part, but the relief that comes from knowing you're not a bad person for expressing your true feelings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You'll also see how promptly people start showing you more respect. They'll start taking you less for granted too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is what it's called: setting healthy boundaries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Don't be afraid of rocking the boat. Would you rather that boat end up sinking, unable to sustain itself under the load of crap that's been piled on for so long? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A little bit about me:</b><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a></div>
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<span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Now residing in Honolulu, Hawaii, Polish-born Elzbieta Pettingill is a former fashion model, author, and survivor of depression. She suffered abuse and rape in her childhood and was subsequently diagnosed with depression that followed her from childhood through to adulthood. Let down by the medical and psychological establishments, and realizing that only she could change her </span><i style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mind</i><span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, Elzbieta overcame her depression in her 30s through a process of conscious spiritual awakening, a story that forms the basis of her book: “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/life-realized-Elzbieta-Pettingill/dp/1300061812/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=spir02-20" style="color: #0071bb; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Find on Amazon.com">Life Realized</a>” – available now on Amazon.com</span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-56216662664163430032014-12-18T11:11:00.002-08:002023-11-04T23:41:41.834-07:00Being Too Nice Contributes to Depression<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T4M1Faxj3tw/VRB1Aj_riMI/AAAAAAAABF0/erqyqCh0aqQ/s1600/happiness.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T4M1Faxj3tw/VRB1Aj_riMI/AAAAAAAABF0/erqyqCh0aqQ/s1600/happiness.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There is such a thing as being<b><i> too </i></b>nice, too giving, and too caring.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To overcome depression you must stop the habit of bending over to gain people's approval. I know, it's easier said than done. But no one said it'd be easy...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Those who are affected by depression tend to be people-pleasers. And yet, ironically, quite often they are viewed by others as selfish and self-centered... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">For over three decades I believed in that crap myself. I believed I was selfish and self-involved. I was convinced I had nothing to offer. I also thought that it didn't matter what I thought. That my opinion was less important than anyone else's. </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It seemed as if I was always living someone else's life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Finally, after two major brain seizures caused by a suicide attempt, </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I stopped living someone else's life and looked deep within...</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><b>Someone Else's Life</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I was the child who was "too young to understand things" and therefore to make decisions. My life was run by the grown-ups, who weren't able to see the serious damage caused by primitive beliefs such as; "children should be seen but not heard."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Then later, I became a young adult, clinging to any guy who'd find anything whatsoever appealing in me. At that time my looks seemed to have the only value in the eyes of others. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I wasn't myself. I wasn't who I am. I was a "slave" to anyone willing to have me in their life. The fear of rejection always steered my thoughts in the direction that led others to benefit from it more than I did. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">How tiring was that! How exhausting it is having to constantly put others before your own self! And how little reward you get at the end of it...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">All this, so you can keep deluding yourself that someone cares about you, at least enough to stick around. For a while, at least.... 'till they get tired of it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Then what do you do when the inevitable happens and when they leave? You blame yourself, of course. Consciously, or subconsciously, your already low self-esteem gets reinforced. It spirals downward at lightning speed and you get even more depressed, thinking that there is no tomorrow for you...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Well, there is. And it's a bright one, too! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You've heard the phrase: "You teach people how to treat you" but you've ignored it so far. Maybe because when you did try to stand up for yourself it always seemed to have backfired. You might even have finally snapped and told others to fuck off, which they deserved to hear, only to find yourself being labeled as too aggressive and not "lady-like." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Well dear, who the fuck gives a damn? Who cares what others think and, or say? Let me just remind you - it shouldn't be you. There is only one person in this entire world whose opinion should matter to you, and that is YOU and you ONLY. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There is only one person in this entire Universe who needs your pleasing, and that person is you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There is only one person who needs your caring the most, and yes, you've guessed it - it's you again. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Just remember this: if you care too much - others will care too little... If you remain too available - others will always remain too busy for you. Without even being apologetic about it, people will always make you wait for them, making you feel as if your time is not nearly as valuable as theirs. You get the picture...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You will encounter resistance from those around you when you start making those long-overdue changes, but that's OK. Have fun with it. See that sense of amusement on their faces and that sense of disbelief... Stare back at them without blinking. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Be prepared to deal with the consequences of having the courage to do what's right for <b>you</b>. In your mind let go of the fear of not having that job in case your boss decides to fire you. Maybe it means it's time to do something else for a living. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Be ready to let go of your significant other if s/he continues to refuse to treat you in a new, more loving, and respectful way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Make yourself OK with being alone for now. Make yourself comfortable with being with... YOU. Get to know yourself. Find out exactly what your needs and desires are and then become unstoppable in fulfilling them! Be selfish. They've accused you of it so many times before, now it's time for you to show others how selfish you can really be! Show them that you mean business... :) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Renounce the guilt. Let go of it. Completely. It's time to release it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Be your number one. Be bold. Be spontaneous. Learn to be yourself in every situation and around everyone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is how you start to love yourself... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><b style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">A little bit about me:</b></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Now residing in Honolulu, Hawaii, Polish-born Elzbieta Pettingill is a former fashion model, author, and survivor of depression. She suffered abuse and rape in her childhood and was subsequently diagnosed with depression that followed her from childhood through to adulthood. Let down by the medical and psychological establishments, and realizing that only she could change her </span><i style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mind</i><span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, Elzbieta overcame her depression in her 30s through a process of conscious spiritual awakening, a story that forms the basis of her book: “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/life-realized-Elzbieta-Pettingill/dp/1300061812/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=spir02-20" style="color: #0071bb; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Find on Amazon.com">Life Realized</a>” – available now on Amazon.com</span><br />
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Top picture taken by<a href="http://hawaiipetphotos.com/" target="_blank"> Deb McGuire</a><br />
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com42tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-28583735612125609122014-09-24T11:06:00.001-07:002023-11-04T23:49:29.241-07:00Developing Psychic Abilities is Actually Easy <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Recently I've noticed that at times I'm able to "sense" otherwise unknown information about strangers I encounter. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The first time this happened to me I was in a car with a woman whom I just met literally a few minutes before. While chatting with her I almost immediately began to have a feeling that I was in the "presence" of diabetes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The strange sensation and my persistent thoughts "confirming" it weren't simply going away. So I finally changed the topic of our conversation with a direct question:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Do you have a diabetes?" I asked. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The woman squinted her eyes while looking straight at me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Yes, I do." She answered. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I explained to her the reason why I asked such a personal question. She seemed more intrigued than surprised. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">About a week later, I met a guy who within the time frame of introduction, before he even got the chance to speak, gave me a feeling that he was from New York City. It was that same strong sensation I had when conversing with the woman who had diabetes. Curious to know whether, in fact, my intuition has been sharpening lately, I asked him:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Are you from New York City?" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">He turned his head around to look, I guess, for the possible source of my information. I laughed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"How did you know?" He asked me in reply. I explained to him what has been happening to me lately. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"This is freaking me out!" He said half-jokingly, half-seriously. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I know, this stuff is pretty new to me too, but I have some ideas as to what could be responsible for my ability to know things in such an intuitive way. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Reason number 1: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I believe that a while ago when I made a conscious decision to always follow my heart and to never ignore my gut feeling, was when I started to enhance my psychic abilities. I am convinced that every single one of us is born with such skills. While growing up we lose this incredibly useful tool since we are taught at an early age to ignore (suppress) our feelings. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the society that we live in, being well-educated, and being smart and clever is more important than being intuitive. If you think about it; almost everyone seems to value more the level of IQ over the inner wisdom. And that's what sharpened intuition (psychic abilities) is -- an inner wisdom we all possess, and which sadly only a few seem to be able to access. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It only makes sense that unless we use something on a regular basis, we run into a risk of losing it....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So, if we continue to keep giving all the importance to our minds, and our brains, while ignoring our feelings, chances are we'll never know how <b>truly</b> intelligent we are! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Reason number 2:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I have a good reason to suspect that my decision to become a vegan had also something to do with this phenomenon. Since my assumption of this drastic change in my dietary habits, I've noticed that my mind has been a lot sharper as well. I tend to "pick up" on people's energy a lot faster, and with more accuracy than I used to when eating "regular" food. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">No matter what I am being told, and no matter what body language the person I'm conversing with is assuming, I can sense whether I'm hearing the truth, or not. It does get very interesting. I admit, I've been having some fun with it... :) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This "phenomenon" (I feel like not being able to do this is more phenomenal-like, actually) continues to amuse me. It seems to be not limited to space, for example. I can have those sensations while conversing with someone online who's distant from me as well. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The "funny" part is that all this hasn't been freaking me out at all. It seems perfectly natural. I feel as if we're all able to do so. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Finally, reason number 3:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I've got a feeling that my decision to consciously forgive and accept everything, including myself, had a lot to do with this recent development. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It's almost as if forgiveness and acceptance had cleared whatever negative energies I've been surrounding myself with for so long. Forgiveness, as well as gratitude and positive thinking, allowed me to access, what some might call; a higher level of energy. Hence, it's very probable that my recent experiences are "sponsored" by higher vibrations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Visualizing what I desire, (as opposed to focusing on what I hate) as well as acting as if I already have everything I want, may have also a lot to do with all this. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Obviously, all those observations are simply my conclusions, not some scientific facts, which I really don't care too much about. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If you've enjoyed this article share your opinion (experience) below in the comments section. :) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Have a great day everyone! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-7876812374228534902014-08-12T17:40:00.003-07:002023-11-04T23:51:21.984-07:00How I Intend to Re-Revolutionize the Entire Mental Health Care System<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Someone had asked me today: "Why do you want to re-revolutionize the entire mental health care system, and how exactly do you plan to accomplish that?" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The question made me realize how confused we've all been when it comes to this topic. The phenomena of depression and suicide particularly have been misunderstood greatly, for ages. We've made some baby steps when it comes to talking openly about those issues, but we still have a long way ahead of us.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Overall, the media still seems to prefer discussing some frivolous topics over serious ones, and there is nothing more serious than death through suicide...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">You don't see that many guest speakers on late-night TV shows talking extensively about depression. I guess when it comes to programs on TV, the same rule applies here as in everyday life - Let's all stay away from the negativity!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Depression and suicide are obviously viewed that way. Bringing the painful subject up in a conversation is considered to be such a buzz-killer. If you happened to be the brave one, and you try mentioning it, watch how fast everyone around you just starts to remember that they had something else to do, that they had to be someplace else...</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">With the world losing yesterday Robin Williams due to depression and suicide, suddenly there seems to be panic spreading around. Suddenly, more and more people realize that a positive attitude, lots of laughter, being admired by millions, and a lifestyle to be dreamed of - is not enough to keep anyone safe from depression. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Suddenly, it becomes unmistakably obvious that even the best rehab centers do not necessarily know what they are doing... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Now, who am I to dare to even suggest that I know what it takes to successfully overcome depression? I don't have PhD in psychology (and thank God for that,) nor am I any type of doctor. But I have my experience. For over three decades I've battled with depression and suicidal tendencies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I was able to overcome my life's biggest challenge when I finally, after numerous suicide attempts, decided to dig for the answers within myself. My website describes this inner journey that I took, and what I've discovered. My book describes my journey around the world, which eventually led me to look within myself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So to answer the previous question: I intend to re-revolutionize the entire mental health care system by doing what I've been doing here. By sharing with the world my experience, and yes, my knowledge too. By encouraging others to look within themselves. By inspiring others to talk openly about their depression without feeling embarrassment, or any kind of discomfort. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">By serving as a poster child for depression and suicide, if you will. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">By living my life to its fullest... By reminding anyone who's in the dark right now, that there is indeed a light at the end of this tunnel called depression... </span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Little bit about me:</b></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a></div>
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<span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Now residing in Honolulu, Hawaii, Polish-born Elzbieta Pettingill is a former fashion model, author and survivor of depression. She suffered abuse and rape in her childhood, and was subsequently diagnosed with a depression that followed her from childhood through to adulthood. Let down by the medical and psychological establishments, and realizing that only she could change her </span><i style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mind</i><span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, Elzbieta overcame her depression in her 30’s through a process of conscious spiritual awakening, a story that forms the basis of her book: “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/life-realized-Elzbieta-Pettingill/dp/1300061812/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=spir02-20" style="color: #0071bb; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Find on Amazon.com">Life Realized</a>” – available now on Amazon.com</span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-61604759572477880912014-07-17T16:45:00.003-07:002023-11-04T23:53:24.372-07:00Don't Be Afraid of Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When I was depressed and suicidal people always seemed to shy away from me. Even my own family appeared to be intimidated by me and my condition. No one knew how to talk to me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I could see the fear in everyone's eyes and in their body language. I could sense it in the energy coming from them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It hurt like hell. It made me feel rejected, unwanted, and overall gross. Sometimes I even wondered if I smelled bad... I used to keep checking my breath by blowing the air into the palm of my hand in an attempt to figure out whether my bad breath was the reason for the apparent discomfort I was causing others. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I used to wonder: "Am I talking too much? Am I too self-involved? Am I too self-centered? Why is everyone in such a hurry to walk away from me?" </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But nothing I had ever tried made any difference. The more I continued trying to please others, the more annoyed everyone seemed to be with me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In school, no one wanted to sit next to me. At home wasn't that much different. Everyone was involved with their own existence. Mine had way too much darkness around it and no one was eager to have their energy sucked by it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Loneliness and the sense of being a burden to others were the closest "friends" I had. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was overwhelmed with a sense of feeling ashamed. Ashamed of not having real friends. Ashamed of always having to be by myself. When I finally got married in my mid-thirties, I remember thinking to myself: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"I finally met someone who's not afraid of being around me. Well now everyone will know that there is nothing wrong with me. People won't be afraid of me anymore. The women won't have to picture in their heads me going after their husbands. I won't pose any threat to them anymore. Everyone will know that I am normal. Everyone will know that I am acceptable."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Luckily for me, when I finally started the process of my 'inner healing,' I began to see my old way of thinking for what it was -- pure nonsense. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I stopped caring about what others thought of me. I released the fear of being not approved. In order to do that, I forced myself to accept everything completely. I forced myself to forgive and accept the rejection. It was the only way for me in which I was able to heal this old emotional wound that I made myself carry around for so long. I finally embraced myself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And so here I am today, doing everything I can to assist others with doing the same. I'm grateful for having allowed myself the change from within me to finally take place. I'm grateful for the possibility of encouraging positive change in the world around me as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I want to see people not being afraid of anyone anymore. I want this world to be a place where judgment and bad stigmas derived from it are considered to be totally uncool. I want to see people hugging each other more often. I wanna live in a neighborhood where neighbors view each other as extended family. Where no one is forced to lock their doors, or their hearts for that matter. Where children are being raised with love by the entire "village" as opposed to being left alone in front of the big TVs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Where resources are being gladly shared. Where the diversities are being cherished, celebrated, and utilized as an exciting way of learning new things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I wanna find myself living in a new world in which indifference, intolerance, and hatred are just something that we can all barely recall...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Consciously or subconsciously -- this is what every depressed person wishes for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is <b>why</b> we get depressed in the first place...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If you're reading this and you're depressed, I challenge you to help heal this world by starting to forgive and accept yourself, others, and everything around you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If on the other hand, you've never had the privilege of going through prolonged depression in your life, I challenge you to renounce the fear of depression and people affected by it. I challenge you to make their journey of recovery a lot less bumpy by showing them that even though you can't fully understand them, you support them. Just keep in mind that a depressed person is a human being desperately attempting to break free from the limiting boundaries created by our human minds. </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" style="cursor: move;" /></a></div>
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<span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Now residing in Honolulu, Hawaii, Polish-born Elzbieta Pettingill is a former fashion model, author and survivor of depression. She suffered abuse and rape in her childhood, and was subsequently diagnosed with a depression that followed her from childhood through to adulthood. Let down by the medical and psychological establishments, and realizing that only she could change her </span><i style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, "MS Sans Serif", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mind</i><span face="'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif" style="color: #4e4e4e; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, Elzbieta overcame her depression in her 30’s through a process of conscious spiritual awakening, a story that forms the basis of her book: “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/life-realized-Elzbieta-Pettingill/dp/1300061812/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=spir02-20" style="color: #0071bb; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Find on Amazon.com">Life Realized</a>” – available now on Amazon.com</span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-64237893117331602322014-06-22T19:28:00.002-07:002023-11-04T23:57:49.487-07:00Depression: Birth of a Healer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Have you been affected by prolonged depression, or any other "mental disorder" for that matter? If the answer is yes, then you, my dear are a very, very special person. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It's time for you to know what an incredible gift you are to this world. You didn't come here by chance. You weren't born in this particular physical body, with those particular genes that made you predisposed to depression or some other mental "issues" without a reason. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You came here to heal yourself and to assist others with healing. You were not born to lose this battle -- you were born to win it! YOU were born to HEAL. Your existence is absolutely crucial in the healing of this crazy world we find ourselves living in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It may sound overwhelming but it really isn't. Besides, if anyone can tackle well the feeling of being overwhelmed, it would definitely be you! A person that deals on a daily basis with depression, suicidal thoughts, and all kinds of other mental disturbances, becomes more than proficient in enduring adversities. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You my dear, are that person, aren't you? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Your life, and whatever circumstances you found yourself in (created by you, although mostly subconsciously) had prepared you very well for your job. Nothing that happened to you, or with you -- was ever an accident. There is no such a thing as "accident" in the language of the Universe and you, above all other things are not, nor ever had been an "accident". You were never a mistake even though there may have been times when you were made to believe so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In fact, you were made to believe a bunch of things that were just crap, nothing else but pure crap. For example, you were made to believe that you were insignificant and that you didn't matter, but nothing could be any farther from the truth! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Chances are that when you were little, the good people that took care of you then, always seemed to you to be too busy, and too preoccupied with fighting with their own issues. Consequently, they never took the time to listen to you, to REALLY listen to what you had to say and to hear you out. By doing so, unknowingly they inserted a message directly into your subconscious that said -- y o u d o n ' t m a t t e r. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But this isn't a time to blame anyone for anything. Your parents, your grandparents, or any other guardians and significant role models from your childhood, all did their absolute best considering the understanding and the awareness they had at that time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now it's the time to alter your beliefs. The time has come when your entire belief system has to be re-examined, and this self-examination has to be done thoroughly. I won't sugarcoat things for you: this WILL hurt. In fact, it will hurt like hell! But you, my dear, have been to hell so many times already, you probably can't even recall when was the last time you weren't in hell... Am I right?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The only way that I know of (that worked for me) and which leads out of this mental hell is by going THROUGH that hell all over again but with a different set of mind this time. This time you will be armed with proper tools. That's why I'm here, to share with you the tools I've used in the process of healing myself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There is no doubt in my mind that this is gonna be the hardest thing you'll ever have to do, but guess what, if you don't, things are not gonna get any easier anytime soon. In fact, things will continue to get worse until you reach the breaking point and you won't be able to resist any longer the necessary shift that has to occur within you. That's exactly what happened to me. This is what I would tell myself: "If the only way out of this storm is by powering through the very center of this tornado, then no matter how much it's gonna hurt or how scary it will get, let's just walk through it and be done with it once and for all! I'm done with living in this constant fear and I'm done with this constant misery!" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This storm, this tornado is within you. Some religions may refer to these things as demons or devils. But all those scary "monsters" are nothing else but your own unwanted, undesirable emotions that have been waiting forever to be validated. They've been waiting to be accepted, in other words, to be loved. And you are the only one who can do that. You are the one who has what it takes to feed those hungry "monsters," in other words those painful emotions that refuse to leave you in peace. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You start by acknowledging them. To do so, you need to learn to observe your emotions very closely. Chances are that you will need to stop numbing your feelings first. More likely than not, in order to survive, you've learned how to avoid emotional pain. You distract yourself from it by engaging in different self-destructive habits such as overeating, drinking excessively, watching too much TV, or even working too much and too many hours, always trying to stay busy, you name it. The habits that are usually considered to be the "good habits" such as working out, working many hours to catch up with the bills, or even constantly doing things for others are the most dangerous of all because they are the hardest to acknowledge. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now you will need to stop trying to run away from all your emotional pains and you will need to learn to face them instead. Next time you feel depressed, ask yourself: "What kind of emotional pain is responsible for bringing me down in this particular moment?" Then examine the answer very closely. Are you angry, for example, because of what someone did or failed to do? Watch the anger and try to remember whether this feeling seems very familiar to you. Have you experienced the same kind of rage when you were little? If so, who were the people who brought such emotion in you at such an early age? In your mind, revisit them. Let yourself feel the intensity of your anger directed towards them, as much as you can. Exaggerate if you need to. Feel the pain without looking for a way to alleviate it. Allow yourself to feel the intensity of the hatred that's in you towards these people that hurt you. Allow yourself to cry, and perhaps even to scream at them, but do it in the privacy of your own room. Don't start picking up the phone and don't start calling your parents or your ex, to let them know how much they've hurt you. With this inner work you are starting to heal yourself from within and the outside world needs to be left alone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Take as much time as you need to go through this process, just remember not to remain stuck in this step, and to move forward whenever you're ready. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The next step is even harder than the first one. Now you will need to consciously forgive that person who upset you in the present moment, as well as the people in the past who caused this particular pain in you when you were little. Force yourself if you have to. I had to. You will encounter resistance, which it's very normal, but don't get discouraged. In some instances it took me days, in others it took me months before I was ready to forgive a particular pain. Just remember, the sooner you'll forgive -- the sooner your healing will be completed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A very important thing to remember is that true forgiveness comes with total acceptance. You can't forgive if you can't accept whatever it is that you're trying to forgive. You absolutely must stop trying to change things outside of yourself. For example, if your significant other reminds you of one of your parents, and keeps driving you nuts, -- stop nagging him or her, hoping it will force a change. Keep reminding yourself that your spouse is acting the way he or she does only to show you your old unresolved issues. Be grateful then for this reminder and have faith that once you heal and let go of that hurt, the situation in your marriage will get resolved on its own. It will. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Also, remember this; forgiveness takes time. You can't just snap your fingers and declare that you forgive everything and everyone. It doesn't work that way. Be prepared to be tested because you will be. As a matter of fact, as you begin this process you will start noticing that things are getting even worse. And that's a good sign; it means you are doing it correctly! It means you are not slacking on your homework. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Reminding myself that all this pain was temporary and keeping faith that whatever issue I was facing as well as the emotional pain that it was bring in me, would go away soon enough, was absolutely crucial to me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When you start experiencing deep sadness, be very glad. No, don't try replacing your sadness with being joyful, or anything. Feel that sadness with all your heart. Be glad -- because that deep sadness you are starting to feel is the very first sign indicating that the forgiveness in you has started to take place. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">One of the most useful tools that helped me with forgiveness was having compassion and trying to put myself in "other people's shoes". We've all done things that have been done to us. The fact is that more than often when we fail to forgive someone, and when we judge that person harshly, we become just like that person. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If you struggle with letting go of something that seems too big to forgive, remember not to try to find any kind of explanation for what happened. If you were abused or neglected like I was, you will never find a good reason that would explain why it happened. You will never be able to make any sense of it, and that's OK. Make peace with that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The more you'll forgive -- the more understanding you'll have. You don't need to understand everything while forgiving. The understanding and the clarity come after forgiveness is completed. And with this new understanding, it will be very easy for you to see your own set of beliefs, how it got there in the first place, and most importantly how to replace it with a new one that will serve you, and not against you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Finally, while going through this painful but also very rewarding process, it's very useful to start teaching our minds to generate visualizations of how we want things to be. At some point, you will need to stop focusing on what you hate, dislike, and how you wish it was different, and you will need to make the effort to focus on things that you desire, and your focus will have to remain on those things only. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I wanna share with you an article I read this morning: <a href="http://thespiritscience.net/2014/06/16/what-a-shaman-sees-in-a-mental-hospital/" target="_blank">What a Shaman Sees in a Mental Hospital</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As always, thank you for being here. Enjoy the video I made a while ago in which I talk about my experience with overcoming painful past experiences: </span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-47570056417771114962014-02-05T15:21:00.000-08:002014-07-16T21:00:37.361-07:00How to Reach Enlighten Joy <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 1.5em;">You said you want to be happy. You said you want to feel peaceful and full of joy and that you want to feel this way all the time, not just from time to time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As a Child of God, you were born with the right to such lasting happiness. But the question is: "Are you READY for it?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Is this really something that you want more than anything else? Is peace more important to you than conflict? Is experiencing joy more important to you than being trapped by sorrow? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If so, are you ready to let go of things that do not serve you at all, such as ego, which actually stands in your way of reaching true happiness? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ego is not what you might think it is, at least not entirely. Then what is it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ego is nothing else but a part of your mind that believes in separation, which doesn't exist. Ego, therefore, is completely delusional and entirely insane. But YOU are NOT your ego. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ego is no more than a pure fabrication of your mind. It's a fantasy, if you will. It does not exist in the Real World. You, on the other hand, are real, and so is your existence. Besides the loving God, or Universe (whichever is easier for you to believe in) -- you are in fact, <b>the only real thing</b> in this world! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You are the only real thing that God (the Central Power of the Universe) created. Everything else is an illusion, which part of your mind (ego) had made you believe in. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You are magnificent, but your ego made you believe that you are not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You are indestructible, timeless and your existence is assured for Eternity. Your ego, on the other hand, made you believe that you are vulnerable. It made you think that the possibility of being harmed exists, and that you, as well as your existence can be threatened. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You are one with God, just as you are one with everyone else you encounter. Your ego fooled you into believing that you were separated from God, that you were separated from love, and from everything else. It convinced you that separation is real. It made you chase after everything you've ever wanted by trying to hide from you the fact that everything you've ever wanted -- you already have! Since you are one with everything, how could it be otherwise? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The ego had used the biggest lie there is -- the lie of separation -- to accomplish its task of keeping you in the darkness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But darkness, just like the ego, isn't even real. The darkness, and the fear caused by it, is nothing else but a fairy tail, narrated to you by the ego. In a desperate attempt to convince you that the ego was indeed real, it made you rationalize: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"I am in the dark right now and I can't see things clearly, therefore my beliefs of separation must be true." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But it was exactly <i>because</i> of those beliefs that you weren't able to see! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You are a Light that shines for infinity, so how could you be in the dark? Everyone knows that the light dispels the darkness, and that it does it completely effortlessly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And so, as long as you'll continue to believe in separation -- you WILL remain in the dark.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As long as you'll continue to listen to your ego -- you WILL remain enslaved by it, and you'll continue to believe in its lies about who you are and what you're here for.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">To believe that separation isn't real, and that's it's just an illusion, is the first step that you need to take to free yourself. Freedom is essential, for without it neither love, peace, joy or any type of true sense of happiness could be truly experienced.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The second step, which anyone who is eager to be truly happy has to take, is to <b>live</b> accordingly to this new belief. You have to keep doing what you believe in, otherwise you won't believe in it. And you must believe in it, in order to experience it!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So when you look at someone else, don't listen to your ego that tells you that the two of you are in any way whatsoever separated, or different. Look at him, or her, as if you were looking in the mirror at your own reflection, because that is exactly what you're looking at! Then ask yourself: "Now that I know that I'm looking at myself, and not someone else, how do I wish to treat this part of me that's standing in front of me?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If you chose love and kindness, that same love and kindness will return to you, only multiplied!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Same way, if you chose to act with fear and scarcity, for example, that same fear and scarcity will return to you, only multiplied!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And so on and on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Don't limit your new belief and your approach to other human beings only. Since you are one with everything, and everything includes everything, you must include everything as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When you look at the tree, remember that you are looking at yourself. You are the tree, and the tree is you. You are the sky above you, and the sky is you. You are that homeless kitten that is searching for a warm shelter and something to eat, and that homeless kitten is you!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Now act accordingly. Do you wish to stay cold, abandoned and hungry, or do you wish to feel safe, warm and cozy?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sometimes when you look at "someone else," you become overwhelmed with negative emotions such as anger, for example. It is because you believe that this person, whether in the past, present or future, is going to, or had already hurt you somehow. You feel like you have to protect yourself, and you use your anger as a weapon. But anger doesn't protect you, it imprisons you. It makes you its slave. The only real way of protecting yourself is to be willing, and therefore able to forgive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When you forgive, you remember that the illusion, in which the person who hurt you believes in, is just that; an illusion. The real person - the Child of God, which he or she is, is not capable of anything else but love. When you remember that, you remember who you really are: a Child of God incapable of being anything else than love in its purest form. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">When you forgive, you renounce your ego. You are literally telling it: "I don't believe in you. You don't exist."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If you don't forgive, you are telling yourself that the ego is right, and therefore it must exist, it must be real. Simultaneously you lose the sight; the understanding of who you really are. You lose yourself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So by forgiving you do the opposite -- you gain yourself! What you do lose through forgiveness is the false understanding of who you are, that was provided to you by the ego.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;">The more you practice forgiveness, the more you realize that there is nothing that needs to be forgiven! You start to understand that everything, which you thought was wrong was nothing real but an illusion. Your awakening begins, and through your compassion (forgiveness) you begin to awaken others. Just as if you woke up from a nightmare, you would not try to </span><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28.5px;">retaliate in the real world against anyone who hurt you in the dream. It would make completely no sense if you tried. It wouldn't matter whatsoever that the dream seemed very real to you. </span><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Without forgiveness you cannot experience a sense of peace that can last. When you're angry, can you feel completely peaceful at the same time? You can't. So if peace is what you're after, then forgiveness and full acceptance is your path to it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If joy, in other words -- love, is also what you're after, then gratitude will help you reach it. When you are grateful for something, you are grateful because you appreciate it. To appreciate is to express love. When you express love -- you cannot help but to feel love! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">True forgiveness and true gratitude go hand in hand with acceptance. You can't forgive anything or anyone without fully accepting it for whatever it is. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;">Acceptance and love are </span><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28.5px;">interchangeable</span><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;">. If you withdraw acceptance from anyone or anything, you withdraw your love from them. Since you are one with everything -- when you withdraw your love from anyone else -- you withdraw that love from yourself. Hence, without acceptance you cannot experience love. Without love, you cannot experience joy. Without joy, you cannot be truly happy! </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;">When you accept everything and everyone, you express your love for everything and everyone, yourself including. Love becomes your reality. Since you are nothing else but never ending love -- when love becomes your reality -- you start remembering who you really are. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;">When you remember who you <b>really</b> are, you remind others who they <b>really</b> are as well. The more you remind others, the more you remember. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;">The real you and the real reality is only within you. Everything outside you -- the external world you see -- is an illusion. It's </span><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28.5px;">merely</span><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;"> a reflection of what's within you. To believe that the physical world you see is real is equivalent to looking at the mirror and believing that what's reflected in it exists inside the mirror. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;">In order for you to know who you really are you must renounce the ego (part of your mind which believes in separation). You also must renounce the illusion of the external world. Only when you stop believing that everything your eyes see is real, will you be able to see the real world -- the real reality that's within you. When you know the real reality that's within you -- you know yourself. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;">When you truly know yourself, you know that you are one with God and one with everything. You know that you are loved and that it could not be otherwise. When you feel one with everything, neither </span><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28.5px;">suffering</span><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;"> or scarcity can have any power over you. How could you be anything less than ever lasting </span><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28.5px;">abundance if you are one with it? How could you be anything less than never ending joy and love if you are one with it? How could you be anything else than a magnificent Light created by a magnificent God, if you are one with it? </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28.5px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 28.5px;">You are always nothing less than ever lasting abundance, never ending love and joy, and a magnificent Light that shines. If you don't know it yet is because the illusion in which you believe in keeps you unaware of it. Renounce the illusion, and you WILL know who you really are. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.5em;">At first, it may seem to you that giving up the illusion of the external world (the only familiar world until now) feels like too big of a loss. But keep reminding yourself that what you are gaining instead is a lot more than what you're giving up. Stay focus on not what you are losing but on what you are gaining. You will reach it faster this way. </span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-91193784127875755912014-01-14T20:29:00.000-08:002014-01-16T19:29:18.071-08:00Interviewing Vironika Tugaleva, the Author of ‘The Love Mindset’<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I8Ht7bKxkAE/Utc6l1Z1xJI/AAAAAAAAAys/e748rbRZuUw/s1600/Vironika+Tugaleva.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I8Ht7bKxkAE/Utc6l1Z1xJI/AAAAAAAAAys/e748rbRZuUw/s1600/Vironika+Tugaleva.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Today’s
post is slightly different. I had the privilege to interview <a href="http://www.vironika.org/" target="_blank">Vironika Tugaleva</a>
-- the author of the book called “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Unconventional-Guide-Healing-Happiness/dp/0992046807" target="_blank">The Love Mindset</a>,” and which only a month
from being published hit the Amazon’s bestseller list!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Since
one of my posts called “<a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/2013/08/overcoming-being-raped.html">Overcoming Rape</a>” has been getting many views, one of
the questions I asked Vironika was; how did she manage to overcome such
tragic event? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I hope her answers will be very helpful to anyone who needs
guidance with overcoming such trauma. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So,
here it is: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>Question:</b></u> Vironika, your, obviously God –given talent
for writing, isn’t the only thing I admire about you. You strike me as the kind
of person who’s very profound and wise, and I believe it’s because of your
ability to see the connections between things. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">For
example, in a different interview you stated: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 17.35pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“At the end of the day, I
realized that I didn’t need to quit smoking. I needed to quit hating myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 17.35pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I didn’t need to start
exercising. I needed to start respecting my body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 17.35pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I didn’t need to stop drinking.
I needed to stop numbing my emotions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 17.35pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I didn’t need to watch my
calories. I needed to watch my thoughts.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> <span style="text-align: left;">How did you learn to see
those “links,” those connections?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>Vironika:</b></u> First of all, thank you. Those are very kind words.
And secondly, I am not sure that I learned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In school, I was excellent at
exceeding the requirements of a rubric. It was a lovely skill in school, but it
didn’t get me very far in life. All I really knew how to do was search out the
expectations and then surpass them. There was no creativity in it. There was no
passion. I was the model classroom student, but I was not a model life student.
I was a performer, not a learner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When I broke down a few years
ago, it was like something had let loose inside of me. Suddenly, I began to see
more than I’d ever seen before. I saw, first, the connection between myself and
others. This exploded inside my mind, linking together tangled memories and
disembodied pieces of understanding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">All I knew my whole life was
will power and here was this inner power awakening inside of me. It needed no
pushing or replenishing. It was spilling out of me faster than I could get a
hold on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I began to read more and
more. I watched an obscene amount of TED talks and spoke to people about things
I was passionate about. I stopped wasting my time with things that didn’t
interest me, and I consumed myself in things that made me come alive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In that state, I began to see
connections everywhere. In reading my work, you’ll find many metaphors. I see
metaphors all around me. When I go to an art gallery, I see the lives of my
clients on the paper. When I listen to a song, I hear the beating of the
patterns of civilization reverberating throughout its melody. I don’t try to
and I didn’t learn to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Most importantly, I think we all
can. All I am is inspired. The word “inspiration” comes from the latin <i>spiro</i>, which means spirit. I’m simply
guided by a part of me that is already connected to everything in infinite
oneness. I see connections because things are connected. If anything, I don’t
see enough of them. Life, to me, is a giant kaleidoscope of patterns.
Discovering patterns sets me on fire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>Question:</b></u> You are a
vegetarian. Can you describe why you chose this life style, and what impact, if
any, this had on your spiritual awakening? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>Vironika:</b></u> I’ve actually
been a vegetarian since I was 14. At the time, it was a peer pressure thing.
All my friends were going vegetarian. Wondering what all the fuss was about, I
watched a few PETA videos. Horrified, I dropped meat and fish right then and
there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was an unbelievably
hypocritical and incongruent person for many years. I was a vegetarian. I
worked out regularly. I did yoga. And I also smoked a pack a day and abused all
sorts of substances. I was trying to destroy myself and sustain myself
simultaneously. I would have a smoke after yoga. It was quite bizarre, now that
I look back on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In all my time of being
vegetarian, there was a four month gap. A few months before the break down, I
started eating meat again. I was in extremely rough shape at the time. My
physical, mental, and emotional health was appalling. I didn’t care about my
body at all. The drive to sustain myself had faded. I was self-destructing at
an alarming rate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">After my awakening, I
continued to eat meat. After a few months of self-love, authenticity, and
sobriety, I relapsed. I began to think negative thoughts again. I started
smoking again. I started drinking again. And then I wound up in the hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Lying in that room with an IV
coming out of my arm, too weak to move, I knew I’d done it to myself. In that
lonely white room, I very suddenly understood the link between my self-love and
my quality of life. As soon as I got out, I made plans to move into a new
place, live my passion, quit smoking, and re-embrace vegetarianism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">That was November in 2012. I
haven’t looked back since. It hasn’t been difficult at all. To embrace myself
in love, I embraced my body and the body of the earth. Once I understood the
source of my suffering, I knew it was also the suffering of the world. By turning
to compassion for myself, I effortlessly turned to compassion for all living
things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>Question:</b></u> Part of your
painful past was the experience of being raped. If it’s OK to ask, could you please
share with the readers how you were able to heal this wound? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>Vironika:</b></u> It was trying
to stitch up this wound that led to my breaking down in the first place. After
the end of a long and unsatisfying relationship, I began to feel strange. I
began to remember strange things from ten years prior. I began to see things in
my dreams that would haunt me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My solution, at first, was to
destroy myself and run from the pain. I didn’t know what to do or where to go.
I didn’t know how to make the images go away or how to ever feel like I wasn’t
irreparably filthy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As soon as I broke down, I
went celibate. It was the easiest decision I ever made. I was tired of allowing
my body to be used, again and again. The truth was – I felt nothing. I’d been
numb down there for pretty much my whole life. I didn’t feel sex like other
people, like the people I had sex with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I still remember looking up
into a pair of eyes once and thinking “God, you’re really enjoying this aren’t
you? How can I enjoy myself like that?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I couldn’t do it anymore. I
couldn’t stare into the corners of the ceiling while I let my body be taken
advantage of anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I promised myself that I
wouldn’t ever have sex with anyone unless it was pure and true love. I was
tired of being uncomfortable. I wanted a man that I felt safe with. I wanted
someone who shared my passion for knowledge, learning, and thinking. I wanted a
man who could sit on the other end of a pitch-dark cave with me and we could
have the best time of our lives. I wanted someone I could talk to, someone who
would stimulate my mind and keep safe my heart. I wanted someone who wanted me
for me, not for my body.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To be honest, I didn’t think
such men existed at the time. I pretty much resigned myself to a lifetime of
celibacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And then I met my partner,
Jamie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Without him, I don’t know if
I could have healed so quickly, or at all. I don’t know where I would be
without his caring, compassion, and understanding. We would get intimate and I
would back off suddenly, time after time, for months. Each time, he would allow
me the space I needed. I don’t know how he did it, but he kept me safe when I
was the most vulnerable I’d ever been.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It took a long time before I
could be intimate. It took me going into deep, dark places in my mind and body.
It took crawling into recesses of my psyche that had been locked away for years
in a desperate attempt at self-protection. And he was there with me every step
of the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You know, I meet many women
who are trying to heal this very wound and they just end up with a deeper
wound. They show their vulnerability to someone who takes advantage of it
again. It’s tragic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I don’t think we can do it
alone. We need someone there to help us heal, someone who is strong enough to
not take it personally and who believes in us enough to persevere when it gets
tough. I don’t think it has to be a romantic partner or necessarily a man, but
we can’t do it alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There were times, in healing
those wounds, that I didn’t know who I was or where I was. All I could see was
pain. All I could feel was degrading, empty darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When you’re in that space,
you just need someone to love you and hold you. You need someone who knows how
vulnerable you are and who will protect your body and heart, not take further
advantage of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I’d love to say that it was
my power of forgiveness or my compassion or my wisdom that healed me. But it
wasn’t. Ultimately, what saved me was my decision to heal, my decision to have
my body be treated with the respect it deserves or never be touched again. I
think that kind of decision really does something to a person. It changes your
mind. It makes you filter out the ones who will hurt you more from the one who
is strong enough to help you heal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>Question:</b></u> The word
ACCEPTANCE seems to be not as popular in today’s world as it should be. Not
everyone seems to understand that acceptance, forgiveness, and love are the
same thing -- just expressed in a different manner. How would you make someone
fall in love with acceptance? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u><b>Vironika:</b></u> That’s a
lovely concept – falling in love with love. I like to think that this is exactly
what I do, and it’s quite simple. It comes down to realizing that it’s what
we’re all looking for. A lack of acceptance lies at the heart of all suffering,
and aren’t we all out to decrease suffering? Acceptance is the first step on
the staircase towards joy, and aren’t we all out to increase our joy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My favorite metaphor here is
the escalator. When we are not in touch with our true selves (and therefore not
in touch with life, love, or other people) then we use willpower. This power
enables us to run down the up escalator, really quickly! We can run the wrong
way so quickly that we do not realize we’re going against the flow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To stop this madness, we must
surrender. We must relinquish control and trust that there are larger forces at
play. We must stop running for a moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is, I think, where most
people feel uncomfortable. Standing on the escalator? How boring! What of our
willpower? What of our twiddling, idle hands?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This is where it gets good.
You see, surrender is simply the first step. You must, of course, stop running
down the up escalator. The beautiful thing, however, is that we do not need to
stop for long. We can run up instead of down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When we run with the flow of
life instead of directly against it, we find a completely different kind of
existence. We find everything we’ve ever been looking for, and then some.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-35815805942235784582014-01-12T15:40:00.001-08:002014-01-16T19:25:29.427-08:0051 Reasons why Falling in Love with Acceptance is the Right Move<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I used to think that accepting something we cannot change meant giving up. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was convinced that acceptance and forgiveness were for losers. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I believed that if I stopped resisting my reality, things would never change. That it was my job to hate my life, and everything in it, including myself, since nothing was the way it was supposed to be. That it was my responsibility to get angry at everything, especially at God, for if I didn't, I'd be letting everyone know (God including) that it was OK to treat me like shit. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The anger gave me a false sense of empowerment. I had the right to get upset, and no one could take that away from me. Only I could decide whether or not to get pissed off. Only I had control over it, no one else did. That was the ONLY thing I was in charge of... Everything else seemed to be in someone else's hands. It was up to God, whether I lived or not. It was up to the government, whether the minimum wage I've earned was going to be 6 dollars and 55 cents, or $7.25 per hour. It was up to my landlord to fix the broken pipes. It was up to whomever I ended up living with, to make sure I didn't feel alone. And so on and on. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Then why would I want to let go of the anger, if it was the only thing in which I had the final say? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Why would I even try to forgive and to accept my reality, or myself for that matter? What for? And let's say, even if I did, could such drastic change of mind deliver real benefits to me?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Well, as it turned out later, it actually did....</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Here's the list of some of the effects that <b>forgiveness</b> and <b>acceptance</b>, which I eventually decided to apply, have had on me and my life: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It gave me peace of mind</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It solved my sleeping problems</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It scared my reoccurring nightmares away and it replaced them with more peaceful dreams </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It made me less irritable</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It cured my overactive bladder</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It took away my anxiety, along with my worries</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It put a smile on my face</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It made me laugh more often</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It took away my depression</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It took away my seriousness and my sadness</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was rejuvenated by it</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was re-energized by it</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My life became revitalized </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It reconnected me with my 'inner child'</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It reconnected me with my 'higher self'</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It made me more compassionate</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It rekindled my passion </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It rekindled my love for life</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It rearranged my beliefs</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It soothed my neurotic, always traveling over the speed limit thoughts</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It put me in touch with all my feelings and emotions</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It healed my past and my old wounds, and prevented me from being affected by the new ones </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It introduced me to the person that had changed my life for ever; it introduced me to my 'authentic self'</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It took my loneliness away</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It brightened my world</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It brought me joy</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It gave me a new sense of appreciation towards my own self especially</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It released me from the grip that forming judgment had on me</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was freed from the prison called '<i>what will people<b> think</b> of me</i>' by it</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">All the "charges" against my own self and the old resentments were dropped, because of it</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Universe begun to guide me through my dreams and signs with a higher frequency</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The people in my life started to show me respect and love, without me trying to force it </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It gave me an authentic sense of being in charge</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It took away my destructive need of being controlling, something which my husband appreciates the most</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It improved all my relationships; with myself, my family, and my friends</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It made me more present</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It made me more grateful</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It sharpened my mind</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It made me more beautiful</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It made me who I always wanted to be! </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It made me write again</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It opened my heart that was previously not only closed, completely out of order, but shattered into pieces</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It opened and balanced all 7 of my chakras; it made me capable of not only feeling the energy flowing through me freely, but even capable of seeing the aura sometimes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It sharpened my instinct</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It gave me a sense of unity for which I've been longing (what it felt like) for ever!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It gave me a sense of belonging</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It helped me to turn my pain and suffering into my wisdom</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It showed me new possibilities that I could not even dare to imagine that did exist</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It showed me what I am really made of -- an everlasting energy that creates everything, including my physical body, through a process known as thinking</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It showed me what love really is</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To summarize; it had changed me, and with that -- it changed my life! </span></li>
</ul>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-86928806887205332332014-01-03T20:49:00.002-08:002014-07-15T21:17:35.689-07:00Here's What I did that Changed my Life for Better<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZeQ2wv8vzXc/U8X78Zm0w8I/AAAAAAAAA8A/jJdL_lm7TU4/s1600/German+shephered+reading+life+realized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZeQ2wv8vzXc/U8X78Zm0w8I/AAAAAAAAA8A/jJdL_lm7TU4/s1600/German+shephered+reading+life+realized.jpg" height="252" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">(An excerpt from </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">my book '</span><a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/p/books-about-depression.html" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Life Realized</a><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">')</span></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 141.75pt; text-align: center;">
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 141.75pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><b>To Make
Dreams Come True</b></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Page 298)</span><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"> </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">..... I was at the airport dreading the
thought of embarking the plane. This wasn’t because I was afraid of flying.
Terrorists’ attacks had never intimidated me either. The real terror I’ve been
trying to avoid for so long was in finding myself back home. Facing my family
after all these years, completely broke financially, and after all still pregnant, could not
be easy. I didn’t want to go there and yet I was headed that direction. Nobody
was really forcing me, and yet, I chose to go there. I wasn’t expecting for
anyone to welcome me with understanding since I wasn’t even understanding
myself, or my actions. Total defeat and total surrender was the state I was in.
Embarrassment, interlaced with the highest sense of insecurity was governing my mood. At the
same time I was excited about the thought of seeing my family for the first
time in ten years. Some new family members I had to yet meet. Being in such a
vulnerable state I was hoping I would find some moral support. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My youngest sisters came with my
brother in law to pick me up from the airport. Magdalena and Monika weren’t the
two little girls I remembered. They were all dressed sexy and they kept
giggling at the sight of my amusement with them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“So, you thought we’d stay little
forever?” They were teasing me on our long drive back home. The road was
covered with snow and my brother in law; Marta’s husband had to drive real
slow. While chatting with my family, I observed my mother land. The cold weather, so characteristic to this part of the world was taking me into my past.
Everything else was different; the new beautiful homes everywhere, the new
businesses, new cars on the road and even people were less gray than I used to
remember. The new population, armed with their cell phones, was giving me an
impression of more uplifted country, more in a hurry of gaining what had been
lost in the past under the Russian regime. There was no sight left of the
Communism from the old days, and it looked like the nation was doing everything
possible to make sure that the history would not repeat itself. Also traveling
had been made so easy since Poland became part of European Union. You could
almost smell a sense of freedom in the air, a freedom that was denied for so
long and for which “my” people had to fight for. The fear that used to dominate
the atmosphere and the people in the old days was nowhere to be found. It felt
good to see all this change. For the first time in my life I didn’t mind at all
to be Polish. I was no longer embarrassed of my roots, and that felt well too. I
was actually appreciating my origins and this was new to me. I was feeling
little bit guilty for not having faith in my country and for judging it so
harshly before. I felt very humble.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> My family welcomed me the best way
they knew how. It felt like they were shocked and concerned with my new situation.
It felt as if they weren’t allowing themselves to be too affectionate with me.
I didn’t feel understood, and if it wasn’t for my youngest siblings, I would have
felt completely lost. In the eyes of my older siblings, I was messing up my life
and I needed tough love for a wake-up-call. Everybody had their lives put
together somehow and according to my family it was my turn to do the same. I
was different, I was making them worry and my selfish way of living life was
bringing me misery. Being seen this way was like visiting my childhood, like
reliving my worst nightmares. I loved my family and I hated how I was never
able to feel part of it for real. In attempt not to hurt anybody’s feelings, so
I wouldn’t have to regret that later, I decided to keep my disappointment inside
me. I was afraid to say anything just like I was afraid not to say anything.
The level of discomfort kept rising, until two weeks later, I bought a one way
ticket to Athens to visit the rest of my family and to see if things would be
different there, but they weren’t. Still pregnant, knowing that slowly, but
surely my baby was leaving my body, I was at the edge of losing my mind. The
accumulation of emotional pains I was feeling was more than I felt I could
handle. I kept calling Ahmed on regular basis. It felt humiliating how
desperate I was. He would always limit himself to reassuring me that Rex and
Nel were doing fine. He’d make them whine by talking to them in baby voice so I
could hear it for myself that they were fine. He seemed to enjoy the
empowerment he felt due to a total sense of control he now had over me. He had my
precious dogs and now my heart too in his hands. There was nothing good about
being in such vulnerable position and not knowing how to get out of it. Hearing
from everyone around that I was the one responsible and the one to be blamed
for everything was not giving me wings either. I wanted so bad not to exist but
not bad enough to pollute my mind with harmful thoughts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> I needed some trace of hope. Going
to Africa was the only thing that made any sense to me. To help even if only
few small children and to change their lives forever were going to be my
medicine and solution for my broken life and my broken heart. I found nothing
noble in my decision; it was simply a matter of business. In my understanding, the Law of the Universe said that whenever we want something we can get it the
fastest way if we provide such thing to someone else that needs the same thing.
So, if we want to be happy -- we need to make someone else happy. If we want more
money -- we need to give some to those who need money as well. I tried this
approach in the past few times with Teddy and almost immediately it brought me
quite astonishing results. I was now so determined to create a better life that
I made myself believe that this was the only way for me to go about things. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What exactly did I want now the most? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I wanted not to have to struggle anymore.
I wanted desperately for my life to change for better and for good this time. I
needed to have a sense of security. By now, I seemed to have embraced the fact
that true happiness did not depend on anything or anybody that was outside of
me. At the same time I didn’t believe that renouncing everything and living in
a cave on a mountain would bring me closer to such state of Self-Realization
that I’ve been longing for. It was a confusing matter to me; no doubt. Could I
do everything that was in my power to make my dreams come true, and at the same
time, could I remain detached from the expectations of the outcome that I
desired? And what exactly was in my power? Certainly the numerous attempts of
changing my own life, no matter what approach I assumed, had failed, right? So
what was the point of keeping on going in that direction? Why would I keep on
slamming my head against the wall and keep expecting different results? I sure
didn’t like the thought of waking up one day, old and all wrinkly, and having no
other choice but to accept the fact that my methods did not produce the results
I had in mind. So what exactly could I do differently this time? What was it
that I haven’t done yet? If I’ve failed at changing my own life in a definite
way, did I have what it takes to change someone else’s life in such way? Could
I make somebody else’s dreams come true? Somebody’s who needs it real bad and
who’s not in a position of obtaining it on its own. <b>Could I give up and reject
completely the so popular, and so much believed in conviction, that in order to
be able to help others we MUST help ourselves FIRST?</b> I could… Maybe it was time
to change. Maybe it was time to say to myself: '<i><b>Fuck the fear caused by the lack of
conformity from around'!</b> </i>Maybe it was time for me to go to Africa; find some
children that were living on the street, and buy them that damn house somehow! It could
be a group of children, perhaps siblings, where the oldest of them being a
teenager, would be able to take care of the new household. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"> <b style="font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 15pt;">The Children</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 48px;">
<i style="background-color: white; line-height: 15pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Page 330)</span></i><br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> ..... “They found
them.” Fan translated to me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“What do you
mean? They found the kids? Where are they?” I asked. I leaned towards the door
and I saw four small children. The two girls and the two boys looked scared and
insecure. They stared at me with their mouths open. The clothes they were
wearing were better suited for rags. All four of them were barefoot. Their
small bodies were as dirty and as neglected as their wardrobe. Their coarse
hair was way pass due for hair cut, which was distinguishing them from the rest of the population. Their dark skin was very
dried and overall they looked exhausted and dehydrated. The women tried to
express their gratitude while I was unlocking the door of the room designated as our kitchen. I was still pretty much in shock. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Oh my
goodness.” My famous phrase was the only thing I could really say. I was in
disbelief how happy I was feeling. I had in my hands the lives of four precious
and innocent children. I had the power to shape their destiny. I had the power
to take their struggle away. I had what was needed to make a difference. In
that moment I felt enormous gratitude towards Elisha and Fan particularly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The women dispensed the candies we
bought. Fan made some modest sandwiches and everybody ate in a hurry. Without
wasting time we started to prepare the children for their baths. Fan kept
boiling the water in a single pan. There was no stove so she had to do it on a
borrowed from our neighbor coal operated kettle. The eagerness in which the
children formed the line to take the bath in the small plastic mixing bowl
surprised me. The women were laughing out loud at my amusement. Children’s
street-learned confidence was now erasing the fear from their faces. They
looked fully engaged and a little bit still in disbelief. Watching them you
could see what full appreciation meant. I had never seen children whose desire
to be scrubbed was so vividly written on their faces! Their heart touching way of
checking if all the dirty spots were gone was amazing to me. The athlete-boy
from the shed kept videotaping all this so I could post it online. It was quite
a commotion taking place in our barrack. Later in the evening, when everybody
else left, things calmed down a little bit, but the excitement stayed present.
The children dressed in my old clothes were jumping and bouncing of their new
mattresses that were still wrapped around with the plastic packaging. They were
trying to stand on their heads while kicking their feet in the air. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“What are they
saying?” I kept asking Fan to translate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Denis is saying
that this is his mattress and they are not allowed to come near his area.” She
informed me and we laughed. Denis and Joan were siblings and they looked the
part. Denis was a strong and loud boy and you could immediately tell that he
served as pack leader until now. He was what we estimated about nine years old, but because of lack of nutrients all these children’s heights didn’t exceed the
height of a five year old. While picking my clothes Denis made sure that he got
the jacket that had “Fire Department” written on the back. He practically
ripped it out of my hand when I pointed it at him. His sister Joan was more
reserved. She had incredibly piercing look in her eyes. Even though I was going
to treat all children equally, I could sense that this girl was going to have a
special place in my heart. It wasn’t because of her left hand being deprived of
few fingers. It was how smart she appeared to be and how serious she was about
the role she assumed of protecting her “street” family. She was about eight
years old. The other two kids were also a couple of siblings. Elizabeth was
Joan’s age, and Laban might have been six years old. The boy smiled a lot and he
liked acting silly. At the time I still didn’t know that blood-sucking
parasites were responsible for the round shape of his pronounced stomach.
Elizabeth looked like she was afraid to fully trust anyone and she acted as if
her job description was to be on a constant look out for the bad things. She
was constantly alert. I could not describe the emotions I felt while observing
those children finally falling asleep from exhaustion. Joan’s eye-lids were
only half way closed, even though she was sound asleep! It was as if she wasn’t
convinced quite yet that they were all completely safe. Or perhaps her mind was
resisting the idea of going to sleep, too afraid to discover that all this
was nothing but a dream. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Oh my God.
That’s how they’ve learned how to sleep on the street, isn’t it?” I whispered
to Fan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Must be. Can
you imagine?” She was as touched as I was. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> Furniture-wise
our bedroom was empty except for the mattresses that we placed directly on the
pavement. The mattresses itself were single size and they were very thin. The
thicker mattresses cost twice as much and that was something I didn’t feel like
we could afford. Each of us had one new blanket that wasn’t generating enough
heat in this raining season that began to cool the air at night. We had the lights
though. What a treat that was!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“What do you
think their life looked like until now?” I asked my friend. We were lying down
while enjoying the view of the children sound asleep. Despite the chilly rain
pounding against the roof loudly there was warmth and coziness inside the
bedroom. Fan had left the kettle that still had reddish coals in it. Sensitive
to cold, I was still wearing my jacket in bed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“They had a
rough life. That’s for sure.” She stated. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“I mean I had no
home and I had to face some harsh reality of being on my own, but I was like
fifteen then, not nine or six years old. How on earth were these kids able to
take care of themselves?” I tried to imagine being in their position. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Not just that.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Joan and Elizabeth had to protect themselves from
the advances some older homeless boys were probably making on them. It‘s
unfortunate but these kind of things happen.” She said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Gee. I don’t
even wanna think about it.” I looked around the room. The kids were sleeping on
their stomachs completely immersed under the blankets. Through them I was
feeling the deepest appreciation a human being can experience. By imagining
being one of them I could sense the relief that comes from knowing that you are
safe. The knowing that you are loved and that you are not forgotten, that your
life matters, that YOU matter. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“They’re really
happy Elzbieta. They’re really happy.” Fan smiled. She looked just as content
and just as peaceful. This woman’s dedication and her big heart were very
inspiring. She had mastered her own ways of handling everyday tasks with very
little resources. She was very strong minded, yet she knew how to remain
flexible and diplomatic. She was a born leader. She had a clear vision of how
she wanted to make changes, and boy, was she faithful to that vision. She
wasn’t showing any discouragement caused by her position, as she was convinced
that I was the answer to her prayers. She was prepared to do anything it took,
including soothing my sometimes neurotic character, and she wasn’t afraid of
taking the load of pressure onto her shoulders. Her strong belief that anything
could be accomplished if desired bad enough and her expectations for success
were responsible for her driven attitude. In her mind there were no limiting
boundaries or challenges big enough that couldn’t be overcome. In many ways the
two of us had a similar way of thinking. We both were extremely motivated with
our new project and we both kept motivating each other. It was nice for a
change to work with someone who had similar goals/intentions and similar
attitude. Honest care from the heart, readiness to go extra mile, willingness
to sacrifice, willingness to do whatever it takes, as well as “never give up”
attitude were the pillars of the foundation we were forming. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: 18pt; font-style: italic;"><b>The Forgotten One</b></span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-style: italic;"> (Page 335)</span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The following
day started almost as regular as any day would start in a regular home.
Children woke up excited. Their faces had that cute expression that said: “What
is today going to be all about?” They kept jumping on their mattresses while
Fan was preparing breakfast. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“What are they
arguing about?” I inquired.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Oh, the girls
are getting mad at boys for messing up their new clothes.” Fan laughed. I
watched Joan and Elizabeth folding the few skirts and shirts that I once wore. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“You better be
niiiiiicccce!” I shook my index finger towards the boys. The kids giggled and
then went back to their new routine of jumping, giggling and arguing. I went
back to editing our new videos. The portable internet we purchased wasn’t fast
enough to upload the movies to youtube, so I decided to put them all on disc, and
mailed it to Marek. He agreed that he would handle that for me from Holland.
While working with my laptop, I’d paused from time to time in order to feed
children’s curiosity. They’d form a circle around me to see the images of
themselves in movies we shot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">They continued
to laugh while commenting out loud. From the pointing of fingers followed by giggles
and soft punching, I could tell they were making fun among themselves. Based
on the direction of those index fingers and the looks, I could tell that I was
not safe from the comments either. I kept smiling while enjoying their
reactions. Later on Elizabeth started to pull softly on my long hair. Seeing no
objection coming from me, Joan joined her immediately in their new play. Denis
and Laban giggled shyly from the safe distance as though not sure if their
sisters weren’t crossing some boundary line. The soft touch of girls’ small
fingers was having a soothing effect on me. Even though I didn’t speak Swahili, I could tell that they were talking about my hair. They had a dreamy look in
their eyes while feeling the soft texture of it. They argued about the length
of it while pressing the ends towards my back. Elizabeth playfully placed the
pony tail she made over her own head. Everybody laughed at her new look. The
kids kept investigating my head with Columbus-like curiosity. They were
pressing hard on my skull to see better the dark roots of my bleached hair. I
wished I could understand the explanations for my multi-colored look that they
were giving to each other. The girls were doing the talking and the boys sat
there with open mouths, while playing with their toes. Filled with affection;
Joan’s and Elizabeth’s caresses felt like sincere expressions of deepest
gratitude. I could also tell that I was being an important role-model in their
eyes. While still remaining very respectful, the children were feeling
comfortable around me. I was enjoying their presence and the ongoing
discoveries of their personalities. They were making me smile, rarely without
laughing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the afternoon
Fan and I headed towards town again. Between Juliana, her oldest daughter and
our athlete-boy, we didn’t have to worry about children being left alone. On the
way back home we noticed that there was a commotion going on. Our new kids were
rushing to show us their new shoes that were sponsored by Juliana and few other
locals. The kids were stepping in funny ways as to present their dexterity in
them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Oh my goodness.
This is wonderful. Thanks Juliana, that’s very sweet of you guys.” I felt so
glad that these people were not expecting for me to solve all the problems. As
we entered the kitchen we saw among few other women a small, maybe five year
old girl. She stood there with that same insecure and lost look on her face the
way the pair of siblings did the day before. She looked like she was about to
cry. Fan immediately started to translate:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“This is Winnie.
She was at the market all alone and crying. She was part of the group. All five
of them used to hang together. She separated from them for a moment yesterday
and then she couldn’t find them anymore since we brought them here.” I was
listening carefully. I felt bad for Winnie but at the same time I wanted to
make sure that we weren’t being scammed. Fan warned me that if people were under
the impression that we were some major charity; led by desperation many women
would literally drop their offspring at our door. She explained to me that
Juliana confirmed Winnie’s belonging to the “pack”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“OK well; now we
have five of them.” I said causing obvious sense of relief in everybody. I was
being very strict as for the number of children in our household and everybody knew
the reason for it. It wasn’t because of the money only and the costs related to
raising high number of children. I simply didn’t believe in creating an
orphanage. This wasn’t my goal. The idea was more of helping to shape a close
family, even if only circumstances-related, by providing the essentials for
living, not just surviving. The competitiveness, obeying the rules, cold
institution feel was not something I was looking for. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Winnie fully
relaxed once she joined the rest of the kids. They engaged in explaining to her
what she missed and what was happening in general. She had envious and sad look
on her face until she understood that she was being included. Her eyes started
to sparkle and she begun to boss around the kids. It was hilarious to see how
she was getting away with it. She looked
like a boy even in the dress she was wearing. She had an aura of a
trouble-maker. Being the youngest and the smallest would explain how that
forced her to learn to be pushy and demanding. Winnie was funny as hell, the
way that she was prancing around with those puffy expressions designed to
control every one. The rolling of her eyes from disapproval on her expressive
face and the arms crossed on her tiny chest were a frequent view. She had to be
the first one to do everything. She was eager and fearless. She was definitely
adding liveliness with that tiny posture and huge personality of hers. </span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-48246675210850362172013-12-13T20:00:00.000-08:002014-01-16T19:45:46.138-08:00Forgiving Is Like Giving Birth (Without The Epidural) <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-89Zs7pHbqOw/UtNo9rx1m4I/AAAAAAAAAx0/81stujtLSI0/s1600/giving+birth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-89Zs7pHbqOw/UtNo9rx1m4I/AAAAAAAAAx0/81stujtLSI0/s320/giving+birth.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Forgiveness is a concept that it's really hard to understand, unless experienced first hand. I've struggled with it for a very long time, before I was able to fully understand what it means to forgive, why it's so important that we do forgive all the wrong doings, and how to apply this incredibly healing tool. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I used to ask myself: "<i>How can I forgive when it hurts so much???</i>" </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I thought it was simply impossible to forgive all the pain and suffering I had to endure, especially in my childhood. When I finally understood that the only way to free myself from such pain was through forgiveness -- my perspective had changed entirely. It became obvious to me that the question "How can I forgive when it hurts so much?" was out of context. The more accurate question was: "How could I <i>not</i> forgive when it hurts so much?" The moment I understood that forgiveness was (to me, at least) the only way to heal, was the moment when I realized that if I didn't want to keep experiencing the pain, I really had no choice, but to forgive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">From all the pain I've experienced, the rejection hurt the most. And of course, it was the hardest to forgive. As they say, hatred is not the opposite of love -- the indifference is. Being unnoticed, unrecognized, ignored, and completely neglected is a feeling that I would not wish upon my worst enemy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Not surprisingly, such emotions were the main reasons that were hiding behind my several suicide attempts. What was surprising to me, was that I've discovered this only <i>after</i> I overcame my suicidal tendencies. For a very long time (several decades, to be more specific) I was in complete denial about the resentment and the grudge I was holding against my mother. I've had too much respect and too much admiration towards the woman that gave birth to me, to allow myself to see her as a human being only. Typical for a child; in my eyes my mother was nothing else but a replica of God himself. She did earn the admiration in many ways, I won't dispute that. She raised nine children, while working full time, and while struggling not only financially, but through living with an abusive husband as well. She seemed to posses the strength that not many people had. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But that strength did not come to her for free. It had it's price. The saddest part was that her children (myself including), which she loved the most (and still does) were always the ones picking up the tab. My mother's strength (in other words love) did not come entirely from within herself, and that was the biggest problem. She was born as an "illegitimate" child, and as such, in those still very primitive times, she was viewed as a burden by her own mother. She was the symbol of embarrassment and shame. Her father, (my grandfather) still remains unknown to this very day. There is no doubt that her childhood was anything but "a walk in the park". </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Unfortunately my mother did not have the understanding that I have now. She didn't understand that in order to be able to show the love to her own children the way they deserved (and the way she wanted) -- she had to find that love within herself first. And the only way she could have done that was if she forgave her own parents for neglecting her the way they did. My mother searched for that love and acceptance outside of herself. She became fascinated with the religion and the Church. She became obsessed with it. Her daily attendance of mass (sometimes even twice in a single day) gave her a temporary high, which she interpreted as a sense of belonging. She mistook that as a source of her inner strength. Her addiction to Church became so strong, and so overpowering that she wasn't even able to see the sense of abandonment I was feeling every evening while waiting for her to come home. She put herself and her children in a risky situation of being beaten up by her spouse, who understandably so, felt infuriated by her constant absence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Obviously all that time I was well aware of everything that was going on, but only when I reached my mid-thirties, I was actually able to admit to myself as to where my fear of rejection had initiated. My marriage had finally shown me everything that I needed to see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I started to understand that my constant anger towards my husband, particularly when it came to his absence in the evenings, had a lot less to do with my spouse, and a lot more to do with my mother's absence. The excruciating pain I was feeling while waiting for my significant other to come home, was the exact same pain I felt every day while waiting for my mother. The sense of neglect and abandonment was not new to me. The old sense of rejection, powered by the awful feeling of knowing that someone you love would rather be someplace else, away from you, instead of spending their time with you -- revisited me once again. At first I resisted the reality every way I could. I threatened with the divorce on a daily basis. I yelled, I screamed, and I cried myself to sleep almost every night. Nothing ever changed though. Things seemed to get worst progressively. I even begun to hate my husband. He started to resent me as well. At one point, if felt as if I was living with a stranger.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The thing was -- I cared way too much about my husband, to just sit and watch our marriage going to ruins. So I had to do what was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do -- I had to forgive my mother. I had to acknowledge first what it was exactly that needed to be forgiven. That meant I had to abolish my child-like view of my mother. I had to become no one else but an objective observer. I had to stop being her daughter for a moment. I had to see things clearly for what they were, as opposed to what I wished they were. And I had to stop wishing that my past, and the way my mom's absence felt, would ever be any different.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It was painful. It was like being in a labor with a child that for some reasons kept refusing to come out. Same way as a woman in a delivery room might find herself hating everyone in that moment, I felt irritated by every one around me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"You did this to me!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Yes, I yelled that in my mind at my mother many times.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"You, and your constant freaking absence made me feel rejected, unwanted, and it hurt like hell! And I had to re-experience that over and over again throughout my entire life. I had to go through relationship after relationship where I had to endure being dumped over and over again. If you didn't go to that stupid Church, if you just spend more time with me, I wouldn't be such a wreck today. I wouldn't have to feel rejected on a daily basis."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">While revisiting my painful past, the emotional "contractions" became even stronger. I was in so much pain that I couldn't even verbalize, or construct any thoughts. The intensity of hatred found its peak. That's when I admitted that the grudge existed. I couldn't fight it anymore. I was too exhausted from trying to deliver my forgiveness to this world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Finally, after a couple of months, I gave in. The usual absence of my husband felt more than unbearable. I felt the urge to punish him for the immense suffering he was causing me. Fortunately, this time I didn't have to consider ending my life. This time I knew what I needed to do. I needed to finish giving birth to my forgiveness. This time I fully understood that my past suicide attempts were in fact my attempts to kill, but not myself, but rather my pain. I also understood though that in some ways it was my way of punishing those who made me feel unloved and not accepted.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">With such humbleness, brought by the utteral sense of powerlessness, something had finally broke inside of me. I was finally able to see my mother as a human being, who is allowed to make mistakes like everyone else. I was able to see her inability to find love withing herself as a condition, from which the majority of people on this planet suffer from. I could understand (and therefore I could forgive) that her addiction to Church was not different at all from my father's addiction to alcohol. Like my father, she was sick too, but not necessarily in a way we define sickness. She was sick from living in a world where two parents had to work full time in order to be able to barely feed their children. She was sick from trying to do her best, only to come short all the time. She was sick from not knowing what true unconditional love felt like, and not knowing where to find it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When I finally understood all this, I begun to relax. The anger started to get weaker and weaker. I noticed I started to see my husband in a more tender way as well. This time, while facing the old issues, I started to react differently. While presented with the old dilemmas, I'd tell myself in my mind:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"If he's hurting you by making you feel rejected, it's only because he's been hurting within himself. Don't punish him with your cold shoulder anymore. Love him even that much more. Let your unconditional love be the medicine to his broken heart as well."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">One morning I woke up with a strange sense of happiness. I say strange, because it had absolutely nothing to do with the circumstances. Externally, everything had still remained pretty much the same. And yet, an incredible sense of joy I woke up with, was telling me that I must have been doing something right! I could no longer question the fact that once we find the love (the joy) within ourselves, we no longer depend on getting it from the external world. And when we stop depending on it, we are actually able to love and receive love from others! As it turned out, the fastest way to find such inner love is through forgiveness. It's a hell of a bumpy road, for sure, but like any shortcuts, it has to lead through wild, and quite often unfriendly terrain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My complete forgiveness was finally born. It came to this world, while making me scream and cry from pain. But just as a new born child would do, once it arrived, it gave me more joy that I could ever ask for!</span><br />
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-79088211768407211852013-12-06T18:35:00.001-08:002014-01-16T20:05:15.495-08:00Free Yourself From Your Bra!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Admc8rgqyZk/UqPsJd6p7BI/AAAAAAAAAtY/7C8QdCyWM9A/s1600/letting-go-of-the-bra.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Admc8rgqyZk/UqPsJd6p7BI/AAAAAAAAAtY/7C8QdCyWM9A/s1600/letting-go-of-the-bra.gif" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Ladies! Isn't time to free ourselves from the unnecessary and useless, some would even argue -- damaging -- "support" manufactured for our breasts -- called bras? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Come on, I cannot be the only woman who finds these bras (any kinds of bras) awfully uncomfortable, of restrictive nature, and to be a major contributor of a skin rash (right where those bras embrace our torsos.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I haven't been the biggest fan of bras since well after my puberty. Before that, like almost every teenage-girl, I would steal my sisters' bras to make my chest look bigger and more full than it was. But then, as I grew older, I forgot that no other species but humans, voluntarily choose to torture themselves by wearing wires and other synthetics around themselves! I forgot I had a free choice, and that no one could stand in my way of executing such freedom to wear what I'm pleased to wear, and to be who I choose to be. For years (actually decades) I followed the "main stream" fashion guidance (for those who are new to my blog: I used to be a fashion model) and continued to suffer the discomfort and the limitations such faithful follow-ship had brought onto me. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'd always take off my bra the moment I'd step in my house, sometimes before I'd even take off my shoes. Then I'd spend few good minutes on rubbing my breasts - especially the underneath area - to alleviate the discomfort caused by the skin rash, created by the trapped sweat. Yet, I'd continue to wear the 'torture device' in attempt to please the public, and to avoid causing too much commotion. God forbid, someone would be able to see my perky nipples through the shirt or a dress! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Well, recently (partially due to freeing myself from depression) I decided to end this nonsense. First thing I did; I went to buy some sport bras, thinking it would do the trick. I thought I'd be more comfortable, and that the public wouldn't feel "offended" by the display of my nipular bulge on my wardrobe. I got the most comfortable bras the store had. I wore them for a while, until I was ready to admit to myself (and to my patient breasts) that even the most comfortable bras are not comfortable at all. The only comfortable bra I've ever run into is: <i>no - bra - whatsoever</i>! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So I apologized to my breasts, and to myself, for taking so long to free myself from this self-imposed restriction, called 'trying to fit in the society'. Why on earth would I continue to make myself so miserable so few people wouldn't have to experience feeling awkward? If anyone out there is still uncomfortable with their own sexuality, if seeing the shape of my nipples through my dress makes them distracted, then that is their problem, not mine. Simple as that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And so today, I went bra-less to do grocery shopping. Before I even got the chance to leave the house, I was stopped by my concerned husband. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Aren't you gonna put some bra?" He asked me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Nope." I answered. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Seeing the amusement on my spouse's face, I went on and on, explaining how I refuse to be a slave to the society, how not that long ago, women were pressured into wearing uncomfortable beyond belief things called corsets, and how that was finally abolished too. My husband just stood there, listing patiently to my verbal rant. When I was finally done with educating 'one of the male population', he smiled insecurely. I could read his face that said: "There is that crazy girl I married! Watch out world, here she comes!" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">At the grocery store I didn't pay any attention as to what was going on around me, so I can't tell what impact (and if any) my bra-less outfit had on others. As usually, I stayed focused on picking and choosing the organic (non-GMO) fruits and vegetables. What I did notice was the difference in how I felt while driving back home. I rolled down the window and I immediately felt the fresh sensation of having my breasts being caressed by the wind! The air flew effortlessly through the summer shirt I wore. The pacific breeze made its way all the way to my unrestricted by bra nipples. Throughout the entire ride, the fresh air I was able to feel on my liberated breasts, continued to give me a sensation of freshness and freedom. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What a freeing, liberating and totally pleasant sensation that is! If you haven't experience it yet, don't wait.. You won't know what you've been missing, until you try it yourself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Remember: -- it's not illegal not to wear a bra, so it's not like you'll be braking law or anything. :) </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-57988949503578557232013-12-01T14:09:00.001-08:002014-01-16T20:16:26.628-08:00Preventing Suicide - 1 Simple Thing You Can Do To Save Someone's Life <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bw9bOx2RTvA/UpuhBsHCXzI/AAAAAAAAAq4/shVlf8oO2RY/s1600/famous+suicide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bw9bOx2RTvA/UpuhBsHCXzI/AAAAAAAAAq4/shVlf8oO2RY/s320/famous+suicide.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Suicide, (and having suicidal thoughts) is still one of the biggest taboos in the modern world we live in. It really doesn't have to be that way though.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Approximately 8 years ago, I found myself attending a free seminar in LA. The seminar organizers were offering free 3-nights lodging at a nice hotel for the attendees, so I took the offer, and I drove from Mojave Desert to the City of Angels. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Four thousand people attended this free event! Throughout the entire seminar, which lasted 3 long days, we were asked to take numerous breaks, so our brains could stay fresh (more receptive, of course, to what the organizers were selling). On those breaks, a loud music that was coming from the speakers was energizing the atmosphere. Not able to resist the rhythm, I jumped on the stage and I started to dance. Immediately, I was followed by the other attendees who started to dance on the stage around me. This was taking place on every single break. With a blissful smile on my face, and while moving my body freely, quickly I became sort of like a sensation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Towards the end of the seminar, the host had asked if any of us would be willing to share on the stage something personal, perhaps something that we felt grateful for. I joined the line that formed around the microphone. When it was my turn, I took the microphone, and I told the four thousand people that were starting at me, that I felt grateful to be alive, -- that I have had survived despite that fact of having to be hospitalized several times for intentional overdose on sleeping pills. The crowd remained speechless for a while. Then people started to stand up and to applaud. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When I left the stage, I found myself immediately surrounded by numerous people. Everybody started handing me their business cards. People were trying to let me know how moved they were by me, and by what I've said. Some lady had even invited me to appear as a guest on a live TV show. Some movie producers shared their interest in making a movie based on my life and my story. All this experience was pretty amazing, but not nearly as amazing as what happened next. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the midst of all this commotion, caused by the attention I was getting, I was pulled aside by a young girl. She had a look on her face as if she just saw a ghost. Her face was pale and she seemed unable to contain the excitement. Her words seemed to be leaving her vocal cords too slow to follow her aroused mind. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Oh my god! Oh my god! I have to tell you something!" She kept talking while directing me towards the corner, in an attempt to hide both of us from the curiosity of others. When we finally reached some privacy, she told me few things about herself. She was 18 years old and she came to this seminar with her boyfriend to celebrate their last 3 days on this Earth. The young couple have been feeling depressed and hopeless for quite some time. Neither of them had a job and they were living here and there, on whoever's couch they were allowed to sleep on. Fed up with the world and the life they've been enduring, the two teenagers decided to end their lives together. They had decided that after the seminar they were going to jump of the bridge. They already picked the time and the place to do so. But since the seminar had offered free lodging, they decided to take the offer, and to enjoy their last days on this planet. And that's how our roads crossed...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"When you were dancing on that stage, I've been watching you and I've been hating you the whole time!" The girl continued explaining everything to me.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"I was so irritated by you. I was like, what a fucking bitch! Look at her, dancing all day long, all happy, and all that. If I was as beautiful as she is, I'd be dancing too! She's probably some spoiled, rich girl who never had to work in her entire life. If I had her life, I'd be jumping like that too. And then, you got up on the stage, and you said what you said. At that very moment when you finished talking, I suddenly saw a black energy, sort of like a black Soul or something, that was floating away from my, and my boyfriend's bodies! I'm not kidding you. Look at me, I still have goosebumps on my skin!" The young girl kept shaking while I kept staring at her completely speechless. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"And so then, I knew we weren't going to jump of that bridge. You've saved our lives! By being so honest, by sharing what you've shared you've literally saved two lives today. That's not even all. After that dark shade disappeared somewhere in the ceiling, I looked at your face. You were still standing on that stage but you didn't look the same anymore. Your face was glowing and you looked like an Angel. You didn't even look human to me! The energy around you was so beautiful, and you were soooo beautiful, that I can't even describe it! I just felt like I had to tell you all this." </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This amazing experience had taught me that we can indeed help those who are feeling hopeless to the point of considering suicide. We can share openly our own heartaches, and by doing so we make others feel that they are not alone. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-78163297301604063882013-11-29T12:42:00.002-08:002014-01-16T20:17:25.682-08:00The Trouble Is - You Think You Have Time<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UJaeshuRz8I/UpVs_20ffVI/AAAAAAAAAqc/FVYap33KlYE/s1600/four+seasons+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UJaeshuRz8I/UpVs_20ffVI/AAAAAAAAAqc/FVYap33KlYE/s320/four+seasons+2.jpg" height="320" width="295" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"<b>The trouble is, you think you have time.</b>"</i> -- Buddha</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Why do we believe we have all the time in the world to change, and why is that a 'trouble'?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I don't know how old you are, but I'll be 37 years old pretty soon. Still young, right? If everything goes the way it supposed to, I'll be on this planet for another, perhaps, what; -- 40 to 50 more years? Life expectancy is pretty high these days, and we all expect to arrive to an age of, - let's say at least - 80 years. But how much time 80 years really is? If we think of it in terms of years, it might seem to us almost as long as infinity. Especially when we are at the very beginning of that number, -- when our journey on this Earth had just begun. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But what if we looked at it from a different perspective? What if we stopped thinking in terms of years? We know that 80 years, in most parts of the world, is made of 80 springs, summers, falls, and winters. Wow, this means we are here on this Earth for only 80 summers! And that's if we're even lucky to live that long... Can you imagine; -- our entire life contains such short number of seasons. Is 80 summers, or winters really that much? Doesn't seem like, does it, when we look at it this way?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So if Buddha was right, it means that we might be indeed in trouble here... We might think that we have more time that we actually do...So why wait then? Why do we want to keep postponing the inevitable change that has to take place within ourselves? Why do we keep resisting it with such stubbornness, while kicking and screaming to avoid the discomfort that comes with such change?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I don't know about you, but I'm done with this kicking and screaming. I am ready to <b>be</b> who I <u>really</u> am (as opposed to knowing it on intellectual level only) and I am ready to live in such new way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What is that mean? It means I commit to the new me. I commit to always being forgiving, accepting, compassionate and loving. I commit to the Truth. I commit to feeding the part of me that has understanding for everything and everyone, instead of feeding my ego. Trust me, if anyone knows how challenging that can be, it would be me...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My ego had been bruised so many times, it's not even funny. But each bruise assisted me with liberating myself from the grasp that the ego had on me. Each pain, and each hurt was nothing but a true blessing. It brought me that much closer to remembering who I really am, -- who we all are -- and thus it brought me to a realization that the hurt (the harm) is <b>not</b> <i>real</i>!!!! That the harm is only an Illusion, like everything else in this physical world. If we look beyond the Illusion, we will see that there is nothing else but unconditional love!!! We will see that each and every single one of us is made of such love, and thus we all have nothing else but love for each other. Our fear, our anger, and even our hatred is not real. It's pretend. It's only a game that we play with each other. On a deeper level, on a level where we remember who we really are, -- fear, hatred [insert here any negative and painful emotion you wish] simply does not, and could not -- exist!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">How liberating is that. But I would understand if you would start shaking your head right now, while saying things like: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all beautiful, isn't it. Maybe for you, not for me. You don't know what it's like to be me and to live my life."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Well, actually, I do. Just because I was able to free myself from the Illusion does not me that I am the next Dalai Lama, and that bad things don't happen to me anymore, or that I don't get affected by it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Just yesterday, my husband had told me that he wants to divorce me. I agreed to sign the papers. I agreed to move on without resisting the unwanted situation, and without putting up a fight. Of course this isn't the first time the two us have had the 'divorce talk'. Discussions that led to considering of such possibility were brought up by both of us in the past. Somehow we've learned to endure the hardships brought by the institution of marriage, and we've learned to deal with it while always trying to do our best. Still, does it it hurt to feel rejected by someone who you love and with whom you planed to spend the rest of your life? You bet it does. Is it painful to know that the person you've been the most intimate with doesn't seem to want you around them anymore? Of course it is. Have I been tempted to nourish the self-destructive thoughts, such as -- "obviously I'm not good enough"? Yes, I have been, many times. And even though I know that the main reason my husband told me what he told me, is not because he actually wants the divorce, but it is because he hopes that by threatening with it, he will make me change -- it still hurts. How do I know all that? I know it because I did the exact same thing to him before. I've tried changing my husband while using the divorce threat, before I finally understood that the only person I can change is me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Fortunately, I am not left without a choice here. It is up to me to decide whether I chose to be bitter, vindictive, and full of anger (hatred), or whether I chose to be understanding and compassionate instead. And so I chose to understand that the reason my husband could not love me the way I expected, and hasn't felt loved by me the way he expected, is not because we did not love each other. It was because we did not know how to love ourselves! It was because we were looking for the love outside of ourselves; -- in a partner, where it doesn't exist. We failed (both of us) to look for, - and to depend on - the love within ourselves, and within ourselves only. This understanding allows me to see the pain that my husband feels, and it allows me to understand how such pain made him to arrive to such decision of going separate ways. I cannot hate him for something he has no control over (since he cannot see it). I can only be grateful for everything he gave me, and for everything he taught me about myself. I can only be grateful for the time we've shared together, and which played the major role in my overcoming of depression. Without him next to me it would be a lot harder, if possible at all, to heal from my chronic depression, and to reach the liberation -- not just from depression, but on the spiritual level as well. He's been there for me in more ways than he even probably recognizes. He's been there to assist me with waking up, even though he hasn't realized that yet. In that sense, he gave me more than I could ask for. Therefore, all I have to do is to keep reminding myself that I only have control over myself, and no one else. And that the control over my own self, my thoughts, my emotions, and all that -- is all that I need.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So if I could tell you anything, it would be something that we were all told from the beginning:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Love thy enemy."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Don't hate. Don't fear. Don't reject what's in front of you, as it is always there for a reason. Don't escape from your circumstances anymore. Learn to embrace them and to love them with all your heart! Don't escape from yourself anymore either. Learn to embrace every single aspect of who you are. Celebrate <b>all</b> your differences, and <b>all</b> your unwanted characteristics. Dance with it! Smile at it. Give it a hug. It needs it so bad. It needs your approval, it's been waiting for it for ages! Don't hide it anymore from others, don't give in anymore into the fear of being judged and not accepted. Don't be a slave anymore to what others will think of you, if you start dancing on the street. If you start telling it as it is. If you refuse to alter who you are so you could fit in. Be different! Be unique. Be yourself. There is not a better, more liberating feeling, than being true to yourself! Don't waist your time anymore. There is no need to wait.</span><br />
<br />
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-63826701813916822662013-11-26T11:32:00.001-08:002014-01-16T20:18:06.991-08:00WHY You Should Be Grateful At All Times!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(<i><u>A Fastest Route To Enlightenment</u></i>)<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Do me a favor, and take a deep breath through your mouth. Now hold it in, without exhaling, for at least 30 seconds. When you start feeling uncomfortable, release the air through your mouth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Have you noticed anything? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You can breath!!! Isn't that amazing? Isn't that incredible that you have a capability to breath, and that you don't even have to remind yourself to continue to do so. That the breathing - indispensable to life - is performed by you automatically. That your lungs have so much love for you that they stay up, day and night, to assist you in staying alive! And they (almost) never take a break. Have you thank your lungs yet - for the awesome job they've been doing all those years? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What about the air you're breathing in? Isn't that amazing that it's always there for you, and that it never asks you for anything in return? Have you thank the air yet - for the unlimited supply of oxygen; absolutely needed by your lungs to keep you alive?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What about every single organ that forms your physical body? The heart that never stops beating and keeps pumping your blood through the veins 24/7. The eyes that allow you to read what I wrote here. The brain that allows you to understand what you're reading, and what you think of it. The ears that communicate to you what's going on around you, so you can hear things without even having to take your eyes away from what you're looking at. The nervous system that makes it possible for you to experience both; the pleasure and the pain. I know, everyone seems to love pleasure and almost everyone seems to <i>try</i> to avoid pain at any cost. But the pain; misunderstood and hated by so many, is nothing else but an 'alarm system' announcing that something is wrong, - thus whenever experienced - it allows us to take care of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So, have you thank your body yet, - for caring you around so you can experience what it's like to be alive, and to live in this physical realm?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Have you thank your mind yet, - for giving you the opportunity to be aware that you even exist? Imagine what it would be like, if you were absolutely amazing, but you could not know that without being aware of it, and therefore you could not experience yourself being so amazing! Wouldn't that be sad? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Have you thank the people around you (the good ones and the bad ones) for helping you to shape who you are today? For making your journey on this Earth a lot less lonely and less boring. For sharing with you their time, their energy, their love, and everything else that relationships are made of? For the heart-aches that made you that much stronger, that much more resilient, and which taught you about the importance of forgiveness? For the wisdom you've gain through making countless mistakes with others, while often unintentionally hurting them. For the wisdom you've discovered while going through the pain of being hurt by others, who just like you, knowingly or unknowingly - simply made mistakes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Have you thank the stars above your head for - being there, always displaying the same pattern to you, whether you live in a "highly civilized world" or whether you sleep on the ground, in a country that's mistakenly considered to be a "Third World"? Those stars do not discriminate. They do not believe that you deserve their light less because you have less money, or because you are technologically less advanced. As a matter of fact, you must have noticed that the farther away from civilization you find yourself, the brighter they shine for you...Their love for you is just as enormous as for anyone else who inhabits this planet. They prove to you that ever single night. Those bright stars on the dark sky winkle at you, to say hello, and to let you know that your real home was never here on Earth. That you are just passing through this planet, and that where you came from, and where you will eventually return, is a place of never ending unconditional love, peace and joy. Their light continues to guide you towards remembering who you <b>really</b> are, and where you really belong! When you'll fully understand it, you will never be affected by that awful feeling of not belonging, ever again...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You will dance in the rain, -- and in the sunshine. You will love the bad parts about you, just as much as you love the good ones. You will "explode" with a joy! You won't be able to contain it. It will spill out of you onto others. It will be contagious. You will know exactly why you're here. You will never doubt again that you are being loved, -- loved beyond your wildest dreams, and your imagination! </span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-26364600250079015352013-11-24T13:11:00.001-08:002015-04-24T18:00:43.550-07:00What it's Like to be Finally Depression - Free<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What does it mean to overcome depression? </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The other day I was chatting with a new friend that I met through my website, and it hit me! I realized that often, people who are gifted with depression have enormously high expectations as for what it means to be depression - free. Can't really say that this took me by surprise though; I myself, - prior to my recovery from chronic depression - have had the exact expectations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The chat I had with my new friend gave birth to the idea of writing this post... What exactly it means, to me, to be finally depression - free? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'll start with something very important here. Look around you. What do you see? Perhaps you see people who are doing very well, who are "normal," who had never been depressed in their entire lives. Now, does this mean that they are truly happy, or if so, does it mean that they are <i>always</i> that way? Come on, you know the answer. Just because someone is not depressed, or never been depressed, does not necessarily mean that such person is always happy (or that even ever been). The absence of depression alone does not guarantee happiness. As well as; -- our happiness does not depend on whether we are free from depression, or not. If that wasn't true, then we would see all bunch of people who aren't depressed, constantly dancing around from experiencing never ending bliss and joy. And we all know that, that is not the case, at least not in the world we live in...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now that we got that straight, we can explore further what it's like to finally overcome depression. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">First of all; we all know that depression isn't something like a tumor, which we get rid of by removing it surgically. Depression is a state of mind, and thus it is a very complex condition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To me, being depression - free, means not to be controlled by depression anymore, or anything else for that matter. It means not to be afraid to see the world in a totally unique way (the same way we view it while being depressed), without ever apologizing for it! Without ever feeling the need to apologize for who we are, what we do, and what we "fail" to do. To be depression - free it means to stop, once and for all, trying to fit in, without feeling bad about it. It means not to feel the need to be accepted, since the self-acceptance, which matters the most; had been found. It means not to be affected by the loneliness, which is brought by our unpopular (considered by others) -- point of view. It means to have the courage to speak up, even in the face of violent opposition. It means to have the unstoppable urge to be the voice for those who cannot, for whatever reasons, speak up for themselves. It means to want to protect the weakest, to be on their side. To be finally depression free, it means to finally appreciate your own self. To know your own value, and to understand that no amount of money could ever replace you. That your worth net is higher than a $1,000,000 x <strong style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-indent: 27px;">∞ </strong><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-indent: 27px;">(</span>infinity).... If you understood that, you would never, ever speak of your own worth in figures, money, and the size of your bank account. You would never combine your possessions to summarize your value, your worth. You would never let your profession, and what you do or don't do to survive, to determine what is your contribution to this world. You would finally understand, that simply by being, and being just who you are, you are contributing to this world, and to others, in a more significant way that you are giving yourself credit for!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And so, you would stop listening to others, and you would start listening to yourself, for a change, like you should. You would stop looking for that dead-end job, to please or impress others. Instead, you would start doing what pleases you, what you believe in, and what you are truly passionate about. Whatever that might be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When you are finally depression free, unlike everyone else out there, you start living without being fearful. Since you feel that because of your depression, you've missed on so many things in your life, -- you no longer give a damn whether you conform, or not, to what is considered as a social "norm." You stop pretending to be who they want you to be, and you start being yourself. You realize that it is much better to be hated for who you are, than to be "loved" for who you are not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You are free, and you realize that you always were. You realize that the only reason you weren't acting like a free person, is because you were giving too much power to people and to events that were in you life. You start taking that power back. For example, you don't laugh anymore - while pretending to be amused, - at someone's "harmless" joke directed towards you. You don't get upset either. You remain unaffected, and completely untouched by it. You learn not to hide your feelings either. You speak clearly what's on your mind and what's in your heart. You become your own biggest ambassador. You advocate your own well being, whether emotionally, mentally, physically or spiritually speaking. Perhaps, you even become the ambassador to those who need your help the most, even if it means that you simply start signing petitions online, against the injustice and those who transgress harm upon the vulnerable ones. You find your voice in doing so.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Then you start to really understand how not insignificant your are!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You discover a new strength that has nothing to do with how much money you have, or have not, or how big your biceps are, or aren't. You discover the strength and the power that comes from within you, where it always was. You realize that the only authentic power -- your power from within -- had never left you, it was always there. The only thing was; it was dormant, because you forgot how to use it! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So then, you suddenly realize that you were never a victim. At least not in a sense you were taught to believe in. You realize that you gave your power away freely, and so, that you were controlled by others, and by the circumstances because of your permission. When you begin to understand that, is when you start seeing clearly that you - and only you- have the power to allow someone, and something else to hurt you. You know that it is always your choice that you make. The choice between hating, resisting, getting even or -- loving, forgiving, accepting, and being compassionate instead. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When you overcome depression, you are finally able to see that everything, which you thought was wrong with you (as you were told by others) is actually not only NOT wrong, but it's what's beautiful and unique about you!!! And so you embrace your weirdness, your quirkiness, and every single aspect of you that might be considered as "unacceptable" by others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Consequently, you start to understand that obedience is not a good thing, as it is considered, whether by loved ones at home, or by the society in general. You are able to see how much serious damage being obedient (not rocking the boat) had provoked in your life, and in the world in general. So you stop being obedient, and you stop teaching your children to obey the rules. You start questioning everything as you start thinking for yourself, and that is what you start doing to your children -- you start teaching them how to think, -- not what to think, and how to obey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And so you suddenly realize -- you are finally free! And not only free from depression, but free in a much deeper sense as well. You are free from the burden that you've carried in your heart and your mind all this time. The burden that was made out of lies, in which you believed, and which formed a distorted image of you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Finally, when you are no longer depressed, you start living in the present moment. You start understanding that the only real time, and the only real place that there is -- is<i> <b>here</b></i> and <i><b>now</b></i>. You understand now that when you were depressed, it was because you were living in your past. You know that when you were feeling constantly anxious, it was because you were living in the future. If you were feeling both; depressed and anxious at the same time -- you were "swinging" between your past, and your future. You were never fully present in the moment. As this becomes even more clear to you, you begin to cherish every single moment, and you begin to stay fully present, fully engaged, even while doing the most mundane daily activities. You begin to feel peaceful. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now -- you've reached, what some would call; a self-realization!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Once you do that, there is no going back though (I know, as if that was a bad thing...) You don't miss the old you, and you don't miss the old world you were living in. Does this mean you never cry again? Of course not. Does the tree, when pruned, suddenly stops aging? No. It continues its growth. Same way with humans; when we "prune" our false selves, when we get rid of this distorted self-image, we still continue to grow. The work never ends. But this time, when we cry, we often cry for different reasons. We might cry because we see clearly, how much pain and unnecessary suffering surrounds us. We might cry because we are still simply human beings, and that is what, depressed or not depressed, human beings do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So don't ever beat yourself up (while comparing yourself to others, which you should avoid doing) because of how long, (you might think) is taking you to heal from depression. Keep in mind that you are not only freeing yourself from this "disorder" -- you are also freeing yourself from the Illusion, from the False World, which created this disorder in the first place! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So, in a way, if you have high expectations as to what it's like after overcoming depression -- you are right about it. Except that what you might expect it to be, and what it actually becomes, might be two different things, and that is not always a bad thing. So keep that in mind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If you want to know more in details about my journey of overcoming severe depression and suicidal tendencies, then this article is for you: <a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/2013/10/depression-and-spiritual-awakening.html">Depression and Spiritual Awakening</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Little bit about me:</b><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Now residing in Honolulu, Hawaii, Polish-born Elzbieta Pettingill is a former fashion model, author and survivor of depression. She suffered abuse and rape in her childhood, and was subsequently diagnosed with a depression that followed her from childhood through to adulthood. Let down by the medical and psychological establishments, and realizing that only she could change her </span><i style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mind</i><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, Elzbieta overcame her depression in her 30’s through a process of conscious spiritual awakening, a story that forms the basis of her book: “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/life-realized-Elzbieta-Pettingill/dp/1300061812/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=spir02-20" style="color: #0071bb; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Find on Amazon.com">Life Realized</a>” – available now on Amazon.com</span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-86586362039416627912013-11-19T12:05:00.000-08:002014-10-08T07:06:06.392-07:0010 Natural Ways To Cure Depression<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What are the natural ways that I used for speeding up the process of overcoming my severe depression? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'm going to list and describe them all here, so you can decide for yourself whether, and which of those natural methods could be appropriate (helpful) for you. Don't feel bad if for any reason you find it too difficult to follow any of my suggestions. Remember that you are unique, therefore what might gave me splendid results, doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be your "path" as well. The best path that there is -- is to follow your own heart. Your heart speaks to you through your feelings (sensations in your gut), so whatever you read, if you have a strong feeling that it sounds true (for example: you tell yourself in your mind;<i> "That's what I always thought!"</i>) -- then that is what you should pick. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Also, it's good to remember that this guide has nothing to do with self-improvement, even if it might seem like it does. I don't like that expression 'self-improvement' anymore. As I continued with my journey towards the recovery from chronic depression, I started to understand better that there really isn't anything that we should, or have to improve about ourselves! I understand now that there is nothing, and never was, anything wrong with us. Our depression is a perfectly normal, and even perfectly healthy response to everything that has been happening in our lives, and around us. Unfortunately we've been told, often from very early on, and often by the so called professionals, that we weren't "normal." And so we believed everyone else, except ourselves. We believed our society, we believed perhaps even our own family, that our behavior, personality, our characteristics -- everything about us -- was not "appropriate." We even started to believe that the labels, which were prescribed to us, such us "mentally ill", "mentally disordered" were there to identify us, so we could be helped. Nothing could be any farther from the truth though. If we examine closely the number of the 'success stories' of the so called "mentally ill" (depressed) patients being <i><u>permanently</u> </i>cured by the so called "mental health establishment," then we can see for ourselves how futile this labeling and those type of tactics derived from it, really are. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">With that being said, I believe that in order to overcome depression, we must indeed change the world we live in. I know -- it seems easier said than done, but it really isn't that hard. We create our reality - our world - on a daily basis anyway, whether we are aware of it, or not. So why not putting some effort into creating the type of reality that will suit us the most? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The other thing I want to point out here is that throughout reading my posts, you might notice that sometimes I may seem to contradict myself. I may say things like "Happiness is found inside only, don't look for it outside of yourself." Then in the same paragraph you'll see me saying: "To get rid of depression - change the world that surrounds you." I know it can be very confusing. It can generate frustrating questions such as; "So which one is it then? Do I have to renounce the world outside of me to be happy, or do I have to change it?" Well, the answer is - both. Let me explain. Duality exists in the Universe we live in, whether we like it or not. In that aspect, things are never just black and white. Universe doesn't function the way we've learned to function. As the Buddha once said, there is no North or South in Heaven. We, the humans, have made it up, so it can be easier to move around, to function. Same way, to the Universe, what we consider to be 'the right thing' and 'the wrong thing' simply does not exist! In the eyes of the Universe there is only, that which -- <b>is</b>. The Universe does not judge, only we; humans do. The Universe has no preference, only humans do. The Universe (referred by many as God) merely responds, like a loyal servant, to our preferences! It always gives us exactly what we ask for, even before we ask for it. The reason it might seem to us not to be true, is not because it isn't, but because of something else. It's because for the majority of us, our lives are being run by our subconscious minds. And any times the subconscious is in charge, we know very little what exactly it is that the subconscious mind believes in. And if we know very little what those beliefs are, how can we change things, if the world (including ourselves) is created with our deepest thoughts and beliefs? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So let me clarify here; I may say sometimes "Do this" and "Do that," and those suggestions may seem to be the exact opposite. That is because in my new world, in my new understanding there is no black and white, you could say that there is only everything in between. There is no right or wrong, there is only that which is. In my understanding, all, what we consider 'good things' can cause harm (evil), and all what we consider 'bad things' can equally cause something good, such as healing for example. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So it's important to put the judgment, which we are so used to, aside. It's important to remember, that each and everyone of us has its own Truth, - the only real truth. The only difference is, not everyone has founded it, yet. So then my truth doesn't necessarily has to resonate your truth, and vice versa. If it does, - great, but if it doesn't, - great as well. You are the only one who can determine what is your truth, I am merely here to help you, to assist you with making such decision. You might turn your back and decide that everything I write is crap, and that's great too; 'cause my "crap'" helped you establish what your truth is not about.... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As far as my beliefs that we find true happiness only within ourselves, and that we cure depression through also changing the world we live in... Well, to me, both beliefs are not exclusive. I was able to learn to <i>depend</i> only on the happiness that comes from within me, regardless of the circumstances. That didn't stop me though from creating my world (including myself) exactly they way I've always wanted to be! I didn't have to retrieve to some secluded mountain. I didn't have to renounce the pleasures offered by the external world. I just had to learn not to depend on it, that's all. I just had to remember that nothing in this world is permanent, that everything constantly changes. So if the 'good' doesn't last, so does the 'evil' passes as well. And I'm here just to observe it, not to judge anything or condemn.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And if for thirty something years, I've experienced a constant misery (created by my subconscious mind), then in the world where the opposite can exist, -- I know it is possible for me to experience a constant bliss, peace and joy (created by my conscious, awaken mind).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So, here are some of the the steps I took (consciously) and applied to my life, which led me to where I am now: (I'll start with the toughest ones, then it gets somewhat easier, I promise)</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1. Helping someone and doing it without expecting anything (<u>whatsoever</u>) in return </span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">As I described in my book, I went to Africa, to help few homeless children, even though I had no money whatsoever. I had to beg strangers (literally) for the money so I could buy the airline ticket (one - way 'cause it was cheaper). I went to Kenya on my own, without having the safety cushion offered by some charitable organization, without a return ticket, without the anti-malaria shots, and all that. I won't say more here because I don't want to spoil the book for you, in case you want to read it. The important part here is that helping those who had even less than I did (those homeless children could not travel the way I could, no matter how much they would beg for it) -- that such helping initiated some huge transformation within me. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">My world, almost literally, seemed to have turned upside down. My belief system started to change in a lightening speed. With all that transformation that was beginning to take place within me, the outside world I found myself living in, started to make sense. I started to see connections between things the way I wouldn't even imagine possible before. I started to notice that I wasn't helping someone else, -- I was helping myself! The outside world started to reflect that. It was as if the Universe started to repay me for what I just sown.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Even though I left Kenya after 2 months, and even though it took couple of more years to finish what I started there, I know that this experience contributed (maybe even the most) towards my recovery from depression. It initiated new transforming events within me and my life as well. </span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">2. Practicing forgiveness and acceptance</b><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">This step was a really difficult one, in fact, the most challenging. However, it was the most effective with fighting my depression and with transforming my life. I've practiced such forgiveness once before (and I had positive results) prior to my trip to Africa. But nothing had set "the engine rolling" for me, the way it did, when my husband had to spend 4 long months in jail. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Thanks to a friend, who offered me a book on Buddha's teachings, in those difficult times I was able to remember the importance of forgiveness. I had to forgive the "justice system" for taking my husband away for no good reason. I had to forgive our landlord for stressing me out about the unpaid rent, and for eventually, on my husband's return, giving us no choice but to sleep in our van. I had to forgive my husband, for making me feel completely abandoned, even though I knew there was absolutely nothing he could do to change that. For having to spend our first anniversary separate. For having to stress out daily on how to feed myself and our fur-kids. Indeed, I had a lot of forgiveness to do. I had a lot of hurt, anger, and hatred that needed to be let go of. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">By accepting fully everything that was going on, by not trying to resist the reality, I was able to complete my forgiveness. The sense of peace and tranquility, as well as the improved external circumstances started to take place within just few months from it. </span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">3. Becoming a vegan and doing it for the right reasons</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">While being all alone, and while waiting for my husband to be released from jail, I decided to become a vegan. I've arrived to this decision thanks to that same friend of mine who gave me the book, which helped me with forgiveness. She was in fact the only person that stood by me in those tremendously difficult times, in which I was "visited" by my "old friend;" - my suicidal thoughts,- more than once. She helped me understand that even more important than becoming vegan, is <i>why</i> it is important that we do so. She gave me yet another book to read, called "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/World-Peace-Diet-Spiritual-Harmony/dp/1590560833" target="_blank">The World Peace Diet</a>," which totally changed my perspective not just on the meat and dairy industry, but on the society and the world we live in, in general. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I've been a vegetarian before, on and off, but this time I chose to become a vegan (no meant, no fish, no diary products, no eggs, no leather clothes etc.) for the right reasons. I didn't become vegan because of the concern of my health. The health benefits derived from a vegan diet, I consider a bonus. I became vegan to stop my participation (even if "just" indirect) in the cruelty against the innocent and defenseless animals (all animals). </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Was it difficult to cut all that meat and cheese out of my diet? You bet it was! Was is challenging to shop in the supermarket for anything to eat, especially on such limited budget? You guessed it right again... But all that inconvenience was a really small price to pay, compere to the price that those poor animals pay everyday. The price of freedom, which is taken away from them, without their permission. The price of having to watch their own babies being jerked away from them, so they wouldn't drink their milk, so we - "humans" - can have a sip of their milk with coffee in the morning. The price of having to live in some congested areas, away from the sun, only to know that their entire existence depends on, not if, but - when - we decide to terminate it. I sure as hell wouldn't like to live, knowing that I'm only good to others when I'm dead, when others can eat my flesh. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">So then why would I want to create such horrific reality for anyone else? Or why would I expect to be perfectly happy, to be depression-free, if I continued to contribute towards the creation of these more than just depressing, but even appalling circumstances for other beings? </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">With my new way of living, things started to change even more rapidly. The more I ate fresh fruits and vegetables, and the more I ate them raw, without processed food, the more I started to notice that my level of awareness kept increasing. My intuition, which I consider to be the language of my Soul, started to be even more keen than it was before. My brain started to function in a new, much sharper way. My mind started to see the connections between things that I would had never even consider to look at! The world finally started to look a lot brighter, and everything started to make sense. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Inspired by those positive changes, I decided to take it even farther. I decided to go organic! And so I stopped buying anything that might even contain the GMO's (genetically modified organisms). Holly cow, if I ever thought that it was difficult to shop while being vegan, try shopping for GMO-free produce in this country (USA)!!! </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">So, my future goal is to grow my own food, but until then; I'd rather eat less, if I have to, instead of putting a poison ( 'cause that's what GMO is) into my body. </span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4. Reading about inspirational stories, and or, watching on TV inspirational movies based on true stories</span></b><br />
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Throughout my depression it was pretty hard to read, but what was easy for me, was to watch TV. I found out quickly that watching movies, that are based on true stories, was not only entertaining, but it was also giving me a strength, which I desperately needed to continue on with my life. Seeing how others were able to overcome their biggest challenges in their lives, served me as a guide, and it showed me that I could do the same. My motto became; "If they could do it, so can I!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In our house, for a good period of time there was nothing else to be watched on TV. The "estrogen channel" (referred in a cynical way as such by my patient husband,) dominated our household, often driving my spouse insane. The only shows that could yield to those 'true movies' were the ones that made me either laugh, or left me amused. From watching the endlessly amusing reality shows, I learned what not to do, and what not to be like. I learned also not to be so quick to judge. I've "seen" myself more than often in others that were part of those reality shows.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I purposely stayed away from anything that was negative and depressing, such as the News. Apart from that time when the presidential election was approaching, I avoided the News the way devil (if he existed) might try to avoid the holy water.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I still don't watch the main stream News, since I believe that the main broadcasting agencies are owned by few corporations, whose sole goal is not to inform, but to influence others, and therefore to have a control. But to talk about my perspective on politics and how the government functions, I would have to write a different post, I guess. I won't contaminate this one with it.</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">5. Taking home a homeless kitten, and or a homeless dog</span></b><br />
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There is nothing in the world quite the same, as to know that because of your existence, and because of your doing, someone else's life is much better. That if you didn't exist, someone else (be it a dog, or a cat, or a goat) wouldn't be as happy. It is very crucial though to treat those animals as equal to us, human beings, because they are. We do a tremendous disservice to them, and to ourselves, when we start looking at them as "pets." They're not ours! We do not own them, even if considered legally, may be so. You cannot own someone else's Soul, which is there to roar free, and animal's Souls are just as real, and just as untouchable as our own. Animals, - all of them - are our gift, but not to be eaten or used, but to be celebrated. I believe that animals exist so we wouldn't have to feel so lonely on this planet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My 2 German shepherds (one of them still missing, click <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-zuA2ff5bU&feature=c4-overview&list=UUUMlBmjwJQlDfl3P7YIDlLw" target="_blank">here</a> to find out why) and all of my 4 cats, are not my pets. They are my fur-kids, if you will. They are not just my companions. They are the best spiritual guides I could ask for! Through watching closely and observing my dogs and my cats, I continue to learn about myself. The relationship I have with them shows me the kind of relationship I have with myself. If I am patient and loving with my kitty that just happened to pee all over my bed (cats do that to let us know that something bothers them) then it means that I am also patient and loving with myself. If I consider their natural needs, and I build them a tree to climb, it means I am considering of my own needs as well. If I neglect them by ignoring them or their natural needs -- it means I'm neglecting my own self, and my own needs as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If I am committed to my animals, and I take them with me everywhere I decide to move, it means I am committed to myself. It means I don't abandon myself when things get tough. And so on, and on...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sometimes it's really hard to see ourselves, and so our relationships with others (including animals) are the best mirror in which we can see the reflection of ourselves. Am I kind and loving, am I considerate and compassionate, or am I the opposite? Are there some things I need to work on? My animals always tell me the truth.... </span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">6. Getting good sleep and taking 'power naps'</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">OK, if you're depressed, then you know that getting a 'good night of sleep' is not an easy thing to do... You also know how important it is for your recovery though, that you do get deep rest while sleeping. I've tossed around in bed for many, many years before I was able to conquer this issue. What helped me with it, was applying the steps I described above. Particularly forgiveness and acceptance are the best "sleeping pills" I could had ever asked for. And I don't have to be afraid of the accidental overdose from it... You won't get any more 'natural' way of fighting depression, than that!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When you wake up all tired, in pain, and you're all cranky, because you weren't able to sleep well, -- good luck with feeling anything but being depressed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There are 4 components that help me assure a good rest at night. All 4 of them have to be combined, in order to be effective:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">1 -- I cannot allow myself to worry anymore. Worrying does never resolve anything, it only keeps us awake, or half a sleep at night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">2 -- I cannot allow myself to get upset anymore. Getting upset does never resolve anything, it only postpones us from finding a solution, which often isn't even needed in the first place. Often everything is, and was just fine, and we got upset for nothing. Plus getting upset also keeps us awake, or half asleep at night. Additionally, as I found out first hand, getting upset creates bladder problems. Yep, when I stopped my habit of getting upset, I immediately noticed not just that I was sleeping better, but also that my overactive bladder stopped being overactive! What a relief. Only a person who knows what it feels like to have a constants need to urinate, and to have a painful sensation while having to postpone the trip to the bathroom, knows what I'm talking about... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My not getting upset should not be misinterpreted as putting up with crap. Not getting upset doesn't mean to allow others to walk all over you. In fact, since I started to practice not getting mad, I started to articulate myself better than I've even done before! I became more assertive than I've ever been. It's really hard, if possible at all, to be assertive, and to let someone know not to cross the line, when you're boiling inside. When you're depressed, it means that the healthy boundaries in your relationships have been broken, and have been overstepped by others, more than once. It means you feel (righteously so) enraged by that. But you can't repair those boundaries by yelling and by getting all worked up. You repair them with your assertiveness, with your calmness (while remaining firm), and with your compassion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">3 -- If it doesn't come to me naturally, for whatever reason, I force myself (if I have to) to focus on what I am grateful for. When I shift my focus onto things I'm thankful for, (that includes being thankful towards my own self) - I noticed it is virtually impossible to stay mad at anything or anyone. Gratitude, besides calming my nerves, also speeds up the frequency of the energy, which forms me and the world around me. Thus gratitude speeds up the process in which the desired physical "things", such as circumstances for example, "appear" in my life. It's always a win-win situation when it comes to choosing gratitude. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">4 -- Acceptance. I believe that this is THE most important aspect of this 'method.' Without fully accepting everything, everyone, including myself for what it is, -- all that not getting mad, not worrying, and being grateful, seems to be pointless. I've done all the other 3 steps, without accepting everything the way it was (in other words; I kept wishing that things would change), and I still couldn't sleep well. My bladder kept disturbing me; I still had to urinate every five minutes. Once I added the acceptance to the equation, I started to sleep like a newborn.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Acceptance means love. With all this experience, I started to understand what the phrase from the Bible meant;<i> "If I had everything in this world, if I did all kinds of charitable deeds, if I prayed on my knees every day, and if I still had no love in me, -- I'd be nothing but an empty vase......"</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Especially while going through depression, and while doing all these kinds of new changes, I found that taking as many 'power naps' as necessary is highly beneficial. Our body and our mind can get very overwhelmed, very quickly when we throw so many new things at it. That would explain why babies need to sleep so often. Well, it's the same thing when you're trying to overcome depression. You're making all these changes, which are not only new to you, but also very difficult, so you need to rest your mind as much as possible.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>7. Discovering your own desires and fulfilling them</b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I don't know you, but when I was depressed, I had no clue as to what was it exactly that I wanted from life. Sure, I knew I wanted a home filled with love, and that I didn't want to have to struggle, and all that. But if someone would have asked me specifically; "What would you like to do with your life? What is is exactly that would make you feel fulfilled and happy? And what do you think, you could do to make that happen?" -- then I'd just scratch my head, without knowing what to say. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Since I was little, I knew exactly what I had a passion for, what I loved doing the most, but then, with the painful events that took place in my life, I lost all that knowledge. The longer I continued to stay depressed, the less clue I had as to what I wanted, and don't even try imagining if I knew how to get it...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">With my depression, I had lost something priceless: -- I had lost my ability not just to identify my deepest desires, but also I had lost my power, which comes with knowing that you can be, and you can do indeed anything you've ever wished for!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">How did I regain my power then? The steps I described above led me towards this self-empowerment. Helping others, even in the smallest ways. Forgiving everyone and everything, and accepting it without any reservations, without trying to force a change. Replacing fear with love. Becoming a vegan. Caring for my fur-kids.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">All that was great, but to me, food, was one of the biggest tools, which I used in awakening my dreams and desires. Food wasn't always just something that I loved throughout my life; food was something I was addicted to! I was, what you would call; an emotional eater. Particularly cheese, sugar and any carbohydrates were my choice of drug. Anything that would frustrate me, would get "resolved" by my trip to either the refrigerator, or the kitchen's cabinets. I was well aware that sugar, in particular, was only masking temporarily the symptoms of my depression, and that in reality it was actually contributing big time to my mood swings, but what was I supposed to do? It was "fixing" the problem at least for an hour, wasn't it? That was better than nothing. Plus, - eating, rather than being bored to death, - also seemed more logical.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So what made me change my self-destructive eating habits? Becoming a vegan, and eating organic produce. With making such (difficult) decision, I started to eat consciously. I started to take pride in my physical body, while starting to take such good care of it. My body became more than just an instrument that carries me around, -- my body became my temple.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">At the very beginning the 'junk food withdrawals' I was experiencing were super intense. That is when the 'power naps' came really handy... But I learned something incredible through these withdrawals. I observed that while I wasn't numbed by that junk food anymore, while I was in so much pain, craving it like crazy, - I was finally able to see very clearly what was it that I wanted! I was able to identify my dislikes, and therefor my likes (desires) as well! Not just that; now that I knew what I wanted, I also had a clear mind telling me what it is that I needed to do to obtain it! It just doesn't get any better than that...</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">8. Making peace with depression, - seeing depression from a different perspective</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Accepting depression (making peace with the fact that it's gonna be there for a while, before it can be completely released) was an absolutely crucial part of my recovery from it. As I described in one of my previous <a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/2013/11/treating-depression-by-un-creating-it.html">posts</a>, we cannot change something that we resist. In fact, the more we try to resist it (trying to change it by force, at any cost) -- the more it will persist (continue to affect us).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I know it can get really confusing. It was for me too. Again, this is because of our old way of seeing things as black and white, left and right, etc. It made me almost pull my hair out of frustration. I was like: "God, so do I have to stop trying to get better then? Do I have to accept this depression, and live depressed like this for ever? So then what good would this acceptance do? Why would I have to even bother making peace with something I've hated all my life?" It took awhile until I understood what it meant to accept my depression, and to stop hating (resisting) it. Finally, what I did; - I copied my own previous tactics of forgiving others (and myself) and I started using those same tactics with the forgiveness towards my depression. I kindly explained to myself that for the time being, until the forgiveness (acceptance) was completed, I would still have to continue feeling depressed. I had to have faith, that my depression would let go of me indeed, once my hatred towards it was gone completely. And it did!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What helped me with the acceptance was my new way of viewing my depression. Here is a more descriptive post about it that I wrote: <a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/p/depression-facts.html">7 Secret Facts No One Tells You About Your Depression</a></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">9. Developing, and practicing even a more compassionate way of being </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This one was a big one too, in treating my depression. OK, - if you have read my book, or if you saw my video from Africa (on the About page,) then you'll agree that I've always been a pretty compassionate person. Well, turned out, that wasn't enough... To cure my depression I had to learn to be compassionate not only towards people who happened to be less fortunate. I also had to learn to be compassionate towards everyone else! Even the "jerk" that just cut me off on the freeway, or even the psychiatrist whose arrogance had hurt me in the past, - all those people deserve our compassion. We don't really know what's behind the person's 'social mask.' How can we tell, if someone who's being rude to us, hasn't been suffering for a very long time? We really can't. When we look at everyone through the eyes of compassion, is when we start loving everyone unconditionally. And when we love everyone - we love ourselves! And vice versa; - when we <i>truly</i> love ourselves, we love everyone!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Like the Buddha said: "If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When we start loving ourselves, for real, we stop hurting ourselves and others, by using harmful judgment especially.</span><br />
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<b><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">10. Actually doing everything it takes, and not just dwelling on it</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The final step for me was to actually start implementing everything that I've learned over the course of my life, instead of just keeping on dwelling on it. When I reached the point where I could no longer continue to live the way I was doing, I was ready to 'roll the sleeves' and to start getting dirty. I begun to put into daily practice everything that I've learned from the books and from my own life experiences. It was time for me to stop indulging myself with the thinking, and to start doing all that I've been thinking about all those years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I would tell myself: "OK Elzbieta, it's time! Like they say; <i>knowledge is like a paint, - it's useless, until applied.</i>"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So, I'll leave you here with yet another quote by Buddha: "However many holly words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you, if you do not act upon them?"</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #504d4d; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Photo taken by <a href="http://www.animaladvocateinc.org/" style="color: #3379ba; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Pam Davis</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #504d4d; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 20px;"> </span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-27122215804437393972013-11-17T18:37:00.005-08:002013-12-09T21:59:34.432-08:00Let's AlbertEinsteinize Things A Little Bit Here...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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To me, Albert Einstein, still long after being gone, represents what having a truly bright mind stands for. I know very little, if anything, about his contribution to the world of physics, mathematics and all that. What I find so fascinating about this famous genius is his mind indeed, but more in a sense of his genius perspective on life in general, rather than even his greatest scientific discoveries. </div>
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Since in my opinion the best, and the most permanent treatment for depression is through treatment of the person's Soul, I decided to share few things, which helped me with the healing of my broken Spirit.</div>
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So, - without any farther adieu, - I present you with one of the brightest geniuses that had lived among us: Albert Einstein! <br />
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<b>"I won't lie to you; I feel very flattered to be called a genius by your gracious host; Mrs. Pettingill here. But what does it mean to be a genius? Who can be a genius? Can anyone tell me? ------ Well, then let me tell you: -- "</b></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RRpbzR_V3cs/Uokyma6wsQI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/IW_CeI-Oun4/s1600/albert+einstein+12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="422" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RRpbzR_V3cs/Uokyma6wsQI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/IW_CeI-Oun4/s640/albert+einstein+12.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>"Now, we are here today because some of you have been "diagnosed" with a "mental illness" called depression. I see that Mrs. Pettingill who was lucky enough to overcome this condition, was able to question the common beliefs surrounding this so called mental illness. Good for her. Now folks, I understand you more than you might even think. I know what it feels like to be considered crazy, or even worse; -- what it's like to question your own sanity. In fact; -- "</b></div>
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<b>"I know you might me judged by others, and even made fun of by others because of the way you are. No one seems to understand you. Everyone seems to wanna stay away from you, because you drag their energy down. Only those who are depressed themselves are able to fully understand what depression really does to you. So, you feel lonely. You don't go out much. You hide in your little world where no one can reject you. Don't look so surprised; -- I know few things about loneliness. But let me tell you something: -- " </b><br />
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<b>"So they might refer to you sometimes as mentally insane, crazy, nuts, whatever. People who judge you, they judge you because they don't understand you. They don't understand you, so they fear you. Their biggest fear is that you could be right, and that would make them wrong. So don't ever forget this: -- " </b><br />
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<b>"Now that you should feel at least a little bit better about your depression, which as Mrs. Pettingill here believes -- is your gift, let's move on to other things. How can you be happier? Well, first and foremost, -- "</b><br />
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<b>"Start with setting some small goals, if you have to. Then continue with the bigger ones. Getting well, getting rid of depression, then perhaps helping others to do the same, could be one of them. Whatever you choose your goal to be; - "</b><br />
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<b><br />"While on this journey to a complete recovery from your depression, remember that mental health and physical health are interdependent. That your mind and your body are one, they're not separate. So, keep in mind that - "</b><br />
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<b>"Why would you want to expect to have a perfect health, and a happy life if you continue to create a misery to other defenseless beings? If you continue to order murder and torture that is performed on animals, by picking up a steak or eggs in the grocery store? Don't you know; what goes around -- comes around? Do you think those poor animals, locked up in those congesting areas, while waiting to be killed and eaten, aren't depressed? Do you really believe everything you see in commercials, that the "happy cows from California" exist...? Stand up for your fellow non-human beings. Be their voice. Help them same way you wish someone would help you with overcoming your living nightmares. Don't worry that you are "just" one person. Be the example for others. Be the change that you want to see in this world."</b><br />
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<b>"Which brings me to the following - "</b><br />
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<b>"So go out there, and start experiencing what it's like to be truly compassionate not just towards other human beings, but towards animals as well. It will widen your horizons more than you might expect... It will bring you closer to a knowledge of you <i><u>really</u></i> are. And we all know that - "</b><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-78J_IJ7T7Ds/Uolyw_As4GI/AAAAAAAAAmI/XmB9cv4EzGc/s1600/albert+einstein+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-78J_IJ7T7Ds/Uolyw_As4GI/AAAAAAAAAmI/XmB9cv4EzGc/s640/albert+einstein+10.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>"But we also must remember, that - "</b><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8QnwlT14Jjs/Uolz5E8r1CI/AAAAAAAAAmU/-o43VmMd4eQ/s1600/albert+einstein+8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="444" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8QnwlT14Jjs/Uolz5E8r1CI/AAAAAAAAAmU/-o43VmMd4eQ/s640/albert+einstein+8.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>"Let me repeat that: "</b><br />
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<b>"And so if you haven't started yet, start imagining the world the way you want it to be. Start imagining yourself being the way you've always wanted to be. Have fun with it. Be as much as creative as you can with it. You've been depressed, which means creativity is one of your strongest assets, so use it."</b><br />
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<b>"While you're at it, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Make as many mistakes as you can, in fact."</b><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eCqrui_GnRE/Uol8wy0nDFI/AAAAAAAAAnY/A5iaTCTYtVo/s1600/albert+einstein+50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eCqrui_GnRE/Uol8wy0nDFI/AAAAAAAAAnY/A5iaTCTYtVo/s640/albert+einstein+50.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>"And while you're having all this fun, remember that - "</b><br />
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<b>"How did I do? Kindly leave a comment below for this young lady. Goodnight everybody."</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3; font-weight: bold;">Trivia: </span><br />
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<b>Did you know that:</b><span style="color: red; font-weight: bold;"> </span><i>At the age of 50, Albert Einstein had a nervous breakdown brought on by depression and paranoia?</i><br />
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From the source: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2988647.stm" target="_blank">Einstein and Newton 'had autism'</a><br />
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<b>Did you know that:</b><i> Abraham Lincoln suffered from severe depression for most of his life?</i><br />
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From the source: <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/12500/11-historical-geniuses-and-their-possible-mental-disorders" target="_blank">11 Historical Geniuses and Their Possible Mental Disorders</a></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-60954082735540507672013-11-16T11:32:00.004-08:002014-01-16T20:22:58.909-08:00Forget Everything You Know About Your Depression. Realize Everything Is Perfect The Way It Is - It Always Was...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tn2iC1zBusE/Uoe3kLN9aeI/AAAAAAAAAjk/0xwOFqo2xe4/s1600/perfection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tn2iC1zBusE/Uoe3kLN9aeI/AAAAAAAAAjk/0xwOFqo2xe4/s1600/perfection.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The day before yesterday I had an epiphany. I realized, (and not just on an intellectual level only,) that everything in this world, including you and me, is already perfect the way it is! That there isn't any need for change...That the change occurs already on it's own, whether we like it or not, and that it unfolds in a perfect way, and a perfect time frame. The permanent lifting of the inner burden that was on my mind, -- made possible by such realization, -- is simply priceless!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You're gonna think I'm crazy... Well, you wouldn't be the first person to do so, I guess. Which is perfectly fine. As I just mentioned earlier; everything is perfect the way it is. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So what exactly happened to me that made me arrive to such liberating, relaxing, and such relieving conclusion? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I watched a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq-FOOQ1TpE" target="_blank">video</a>, called "Forget What You Know," of a young boy name Jacob Barnett, who is considered to be our next Einstein, and who helped me realize that my lack of schooling was the best thing that happened to me. Even though I understood that for quite some time already, it was a totally different type of experience to be able to see it with my own eyes through someone else's experience. It served as a validation for what I already believed in. In doing so, it opened my eyes to a new perspective on life in general.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'll start with explaining few things about my childhood. As I described in one of my previous posts, I wasn't even able to finish the mandatory elementary school. Let me say something here; school, learning, and books in general were my biggest passion that I've cultivated in my heart, literally since before I learned how to walk! On my 1-st birthday, following our Polish tradition, my mom surrounded me with different items, to see which one of them I would pick up first. This type of game supposed to help with indicating what kind of interests a child will develop later on in life, and therefore what type of profession he or she may choose in the future. I crawled towards the book, of course, and I grabbed it as if it was a real treasure. As my mom recalls, I made everyone laugh with my determination of not wanting to let go of it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The "silly" tradition proved to be not entirely unfounded, at least not in my case. After I learned how to read, my passion towards the books continued to expand uncontrollably. Whatever books were to be found around the house, (mainly the Bible and other religious scriptures) were examined by me on a daily basis. The wonders that the written words (and the colorful illustrations) contained, were simply blowing my young mind off! Mom had to yell at me sometimes for staying up all night, while trying to read under the cover with a flash light. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"You're gonna ruin your eyes this way!" I remember hearing the concern in her voice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Socially speaking though, I was not nearly as talented. I was an introvert (still am). I was considered to be too serious, overly sensitive, and awkward<b> </b>in general. All I ever seemed to do was to read and to think, often not without over-analyzing things. I had a speech problem, for which my mom had to take me to a specialist. I remember distinctly practicing the pronunciation of the difficult words with my family. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In school I was a straight A's student. In my fourth grade the teachers observed my higher than average IQ, I guess, because they suggested my mom that I should be bumped at least one grade ahead. They explained that I was too bored in each class since I knew all the material already. Mom for some reason hesitated, and she didn't follow the teachers suggestion. I was disappointed, but it wasn't the end of the world...yet...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In my seventh grade I was chosen to be a president of the entire school body. I was very surprised to win the election, since most of the girls in my class didn't seem to like me. I was proud to be such a "genius." It seemed to be the only thing I was good at. In the first week of my eighth -- the final grade of my elementary school -- my mom asked me to stop attending the school for good. Yes, the final decision was up to me, but how was I supposed to not grant her wish, knowing the reason behind her request? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My parents were about to lose their land and the house they build with their own hands, using their own money, to our uncle, who instigated a law suit against them. In a desperate attempt of protesting against the legal system that eventually allowed my uncle to evict us from our own home, mom thought that particularly my absence in school would get noticed, which it did. But unfortunately our cry for help did not make anyone to extend a helpful hand. With the property, we lost our home -- the only home we knew. My younger siblings and I ended up at an orphanage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now, at the orphanage I had the opportunity to continue my education. But something had happened inside of me that simply wouldn't allow me to. You could say I was suffering from a post traumatic stress disorder. I started to hate the books and the school, which not long ago were my biggest love affair ever. I could not make myself read anything, even if my life depended on it! The books, the school and the teachers started to repulse me. I rebelled against all of it. I rebelled against everything I was ever taught to be true, everything I've ever read, and everything I've ever learned. I did not graduate from the eighth grade, but it wasn't because I had failed on the exams. I managed to pass all the final exams despite the fact that I had missed almost the entire school year, and that I attended the classes for two weeks only. I did not get a piece of paper stating that I completed the mandatory by the Polish government education requirement, because only 2 weeks before the graduation ceremony, I chose to run away from the orphanage. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But then, I haven't even realized yet, that the latest traumatic events in my young life were already forming a new beginning for me. I couldn't yet grasped the fact that my not attending school was one of the best things that ever happened to me! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As I grew older, - and as the process of my overcoming the severe depression I was affected by my entire life started to come to an end, - I realized that even though practicing forgiveness helped me to heal my depression, in the end there was really nothing that I had to forgive! In the end, there was only everything to be thankful for! Why is that? Because if I continued with following the guidance of the educational system, I would have never learned to think for myself. I would have never learned to think critically, I would have never learned to question everything. I would have never had the guts to stand up against the current of the society's believes in what's "normal." I would have never found the wisdom, which each and everyone of us is born with! My brain would have been too contaminated with the information, with the believes of what's right and what's wrong that others had formed for themselves, and which would have been piled upon my fresh mind. I would have to unlearn everything from the beginning, which wouldn't be an easy thing to do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There is a perfect reason, why fire departments for example, do prefer to hire fire fighters that don't have any prior experience whatsoever. The "fire people" that save lives on a daily basis understand that it is much easier to train a complete "rookie" than having to un-teach someone experienced, all the bad habits that were picked up along the previous training.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">With that being said, I feel extremely thankful today. I am thankful to my mom for (intentionally or unintentionally) saving me from the brain wash I would have received from schools, if it wasn't for her decision. I am even thankful to my uncle, who by evicting us made all this possible. Besides, without the suffering I endured because of my uncle's doing, most likely I would have not written my book, and this website wouldn't probably exist either. I wouldn't probably have the understanding I have today without the pain I went though while being abused by my father. So I thank my dad for being exactly the way he was with me. If it wasn't for all that nightmare I went through, I wouldn't have nearly as much compassion for human suffering they way I do now. I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for all those people who helped shaping me, often while hurting me the most. If it wasn't for my depression that tormented me for 3 decades, I wouldn't be here trying at least, to help others. Also, if it wasn't for my experience with depression, today I could not fully appreciate what a joy is to be alive! What a joy is to know, and not just understand, but actually know through experience, that everything is perfect the way it is, - it always was... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'll leave you here with a quote I found this morning on the internet:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">“Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If th</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">ere is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”<br /><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">― Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">And here is another quote, by Buddha this time: </span></span><br />
<h1 class="entry-title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0.3em; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">
“When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: justify;"> </span></h1>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-26306570005384814622013-11-04T14:03:00.000-08:002014-01-16T20:23:57.880-08:00 Dealing With Major Depression - A More Comprehensive Guide For Overcoming Depression<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Of6fL8LhNLE/UnfvDyEJEtI/AAAAAAAAAS8/_2HFU7tpg6I/s1600/solution+for+depression.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Of6fL8LhNLE/UnfvDyEJEtI/AAAAAAAAAS8/_2HFU7tpg6I/s320/solution+for+depression.jpg" height="320" width="285" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Don't you just hate when someone tells you: "Why're you feeling depressed? Just go for a walk. Do something. Anything. It will make you feel better. Don't just lie around all day doing nothing"? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As if it wasn't bad enough that you have very little energy, just enough so you can stay alive to witness your own misery of having to live with major depression, you also have to deal with the lack of sensitivity coming from others. You already feel bad as it is for affecting people around you, especially the ones you love the most, in a negative way. You already blame yourself for being the way you are.You don't need anyone else to remind you how little, if anything, you are able to accomplish in a single day, or in your entire life, for that matter. You feel like the biggest loser ever. You hope though that others won't see you that way. Perhaps that's why you've learned to hide your feelings so well. You put a mask on your face every day to protect yourself from harsh judgment and criticism coming from others. You've got so good at it, and you've done it for so long that even you, yourself, can no longer recognize your own emotions or desires. You've lost your true-self in a futile attempt of trying to be accepted by others. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It seems like people around you take for granted how easy it is for them to brush their teeth in the morning, to take a shower, or to brush their hair. You don't even have enough energy to get up, let alone to stand in front of the sink long enough to groom yourself. What for, anyway? You're not going anywhere. You don't want the world to see you. You don't want to take that chance of being out there just to experience rejection and disapproval over and over again. You've been there too many times already. You've had it. You're done with it. Either the bed in your bedroom, or the couch in the living room becomes your favorite spot. You 're aware that the price you pay for this isolation is having to endure the sharp pain of feeling lonely. Yet you don't care. Well, you do, but really, what can you do about it? You feel lonely even when people are around you. The lack of understanding from others makes you feel not only disconnected with everyone, but it might also cause you to arrive to a conclusion that you are better off without anyone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You might wonder; how come I seem to know you so well? I was diagnosed with major depression and I've struggled with it for over 30 years before I was finally able to overcome it. I will be the last person to tell you: "Get up and gets some exercise." You will not hear that from me. Although I don't dispute the fact that movement and fresh air are helpful when it comes to treating depression, I do not wish to ignore the fact that the term major depression has a word <i>major</i> in it for a reason. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Based on my personal experience with overcoming major depression, I believe that approaching this condition with a "one step at a time," "little by little" attitude can be more encouraging and therefore more beneficial in a long run. Imagine if you were in a car accident and you had broken bones as a result of it. Would you expect of yourself, or would anyone else expect of you to start jumping around? I don't think so. It would have to be someone totally wacko to make such a crazy suggestion. And yet, this is exactly what we tend to do when it comes to our common view of how major depression should be treated. Just because we can't see quite well what might be broken in our mind, doesn't mean it isn't. And if it is broken, it will require some time and plenty of rest in order to heal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The mind can bruise just as much, if not more, than any other part of a human body. It might also take much longer for a mind to heal, probably because it usually takes more time to recognize and to acknowledge the mental/emotional wounds.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In the process of healing my emotional wounds through the practice of forgiveness, (I outline the importance of it in my previous <a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/2013/10/depression-and-spiritual-awakening.html">post</a>,) I learned that making even the little changes in my lifestyle was very helpful. I had very little money, so I couldn't go extravagant with this new life style, even if I would had prefer to. I had to make it work on a very limited budget and I had to avoid getting discouraged. What helped me to persevere was my own reasoning. I asked myself questions like: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"What is it that I can do that will help me to get better in a more permanent way? What could speed up my recovery? What could I do that's either completely for free, or if I have to pay for it, I'm paying for it already in order to survive?" The answers were clear; I could change my thinking, which wouldn't cost anything other than the effort, and I could change my eating habits. I could start healing my mind by changing my perspective on things. And since mind and body are connected, I could start healing both; my mind and my body simultaneously, by consciously feeding myself with the right kind of food. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To read the entire guide, click on this link: <a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/2013/11/10-natural-ways-to-fight-depression.html">10 Natural Ways To Fight Depression</a></span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-19747607893012638462013-11-03T13:19:00.000-08:002014-01-21T21:50:39.896-08:00Treating Depression By Un-Creating It<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You're reading this post, so I will assume that you know what it feels like to be depressed. You don't need me to tell you what depression is about, -- you've struggled with it, perhaps even your entire life. What I will tell you is something entirely different from what you might have heard until now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I will tell you that you are a very lucky person because of your depression... and I will prove my point to you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">No, I will not throw at you a list of things that you should be grateful for. I won't even tell you to focus on the positive things in your life. As a matter of fact, I will tell you the opposite. I will tell you that, for a while, you should direct your attention towards the negative indeed -- towards your depression, -- and I will tell you why.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Fact: what we see -- disappears (ceases to exist).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Nowadays, we understand better how the Universe works. As a result, more and more people create their lives in a conscious way, because of that knowledge. The same principles, used for such conscious creation can be applied when it comes to treating depression. First we must understand that; we, ourselves, have created it. Of course such acknowledgment has nothing to do with the erroneous thinking that depression is only in the mind of the beholder. Once created, even if it originated with the mind, the depression takes different forms on different levels, including physical, and it hurts. The symptoms of depression are real and not imagined. The experience of being depressed is also real. In this aspect, being responsible for creating depression is not any different from being responsible for creating any other illness that's out there, such as diabetes, cancer, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The point here is that we take control of our own power by rejecting having to live in the denial of being the Creators.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Once we establish that, we now have an option to consciously un-create what we have created, even if we have created it without being aware of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">How do we un-create depression? First, we have to acknowledge it. We must admit that it exists, and we must be OK with that. Any attempt of trying to resist such reality will not bring beneficial results. Our resistance to it will only help to create more of which we resist, and thus depression will continue to persist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Resistance often results in us trying to do everything that we can think of, that will help us get distracted from the issue and from the pain. And so we continue to take drugs, watch TV excessively, overindulge in eating, overworking, obsess with relationships, you name it... We don't care about the price we often pay for such practices. We just want to get rid of the pain, instantly. We're not concerned about more pain coming our way due to the choices we make in the process of trying to get rid of it. Who wants to feel the pain, the sharpness of it, without numbing it? Nobody. Our entire society is built on the belief that we must do everything we can to get rid of it. We put harmful pain-killers in our bodies, while completely disregarding the warning labels, to get relief, even if just temporary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But it's like the Buddha said: "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There is no question about it; -- not just the physical, but especially the emotional pain that comes with depression, -- is something that no one wishes to experience. And yet, in our lives, (some of us more, some less) we experience it anyway. The thing is, we don't have to <b>continue to</b>. That's the good news. The bad news is; we must go through that same pain once again, while un-creating it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The law of the Universe says that what we see, what we look at, -- disappears, ceases to exist. It's hard for us to understand it, because there seem to be plenty of elements that continue to exist, even though we keep looking at it. We might look at ourselves, the trees, the sky, and there still there. While the process of creation of the physical world, in many ways still remains mysterious to us, we're starting to grasp of the fact that such physical matter continues to exist because it's being <b>re-created</b> by us every moment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">We've all experienced such phenomena in our lives. We've all had a problem, or two, with which we struggled for some time. Then, out of desperation, and exhaustion, we decided to give up the search for a solution. In such state of surrendering, we've accepted the problem for what it was. We finally then, looked at it closely for what it was, without trying to change it, without trying to manipulate it in any way. We made peace with the fact that we didn't have what it took to change it. Then, what if felt like "out of the sudden", "out of the blue" -- the solution arrived on its own!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">What happened there was that we looked at ourselves as powerless, unable to get what we wanted. We watched ourselves being so. As we saw, what we saw, it ceased to exist!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The same thing can be done with depression. I know for a fact, because I did it, when nothing else worked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">We can un-create our depression, and we can continue to re-create exactly what it is that we desire for it to be. That is why, in the earlier part I wrote, that focusing on the negative (depression being the negative here) is what sometimes might be needed. We must see the depression for what it is first. We must experience its effects without trying to numb it and get rid of it. We must observe it without judging it, and without questioning its existence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Once you take that first step, things won't necessarily get easier, at least not right away. In fact, at first, they'll might seem to get even worst, but at the same time you'll find a strange sense of relief. Next thing you know, you start going deeper within your own self for the answers... and you find them there. You start asking yourself different kind of questions. Instead of banging your head against the wall while trying to figure out how to get rid of your depression, you now begin to understand why its there in the first place. While feeling almost at peace with your condition now, you begin to understand that it has its purpose. You start seeing the roots of it. Those roots might take you all the way to your past, which might need to be re-visited. When you do, don't run away from it, don't try to shut it down. Embrace it, with as much grace as you can. Allow yourself to feel the pain while you're watching your past in your mind. Feel the intensity of it. In your mind, re-visit the people that have wronged you. Perhaps you have some forgiving to do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In my other <a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/2013/10/depression-and-spiritual-awakening.html" style="color: #b87209; text-decoration: none;">post</a>, I write about how forgiveness and the daily practice of it, was absolutely essential in resolving my depression.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Do not get discouraged by how difficult following this approach can be. Do not give up, the beginning is always the hardest. You are embarking on a new journey in which you learn to consciously create yourself and your life, and depression happened to be there to assist you with it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Depression could be there to awaken you, just like it was for me, and that is what I meant when I wrote; you are a lucky person because of your depression... Without it you might have not been as determined as you are to embrace the change. Without it, you would not even try to look for a transformation. You could find yourself being merely content with yourself and your life, the way many people are. You could continue to just exist without ever knowing the pure joy brought by the existence! For people who are simply content with their lives, who are comfortable with the things the way they are, it's very hard, if not impossible, to change anything. They're too afraid of losing what they've got, especially when it comes to their mental formations, their beliefs. They're too attached to it. You, on the other hand, don't have that problem. That is why you are so lucky -- you've got nothing to lose. You've got nothing that will hold you back from reaching for what your Soul desires, which is remembering and experiencing who you <b>really</b> are.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Perhaps this is what, whoever wrote that in the Bible, meant; "It is much easier for an elephant to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to go to Heaven."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Should you choose so, your depression could be the end of the old you, and of your old struggle. The beginnings are often hard, but just like in the good movies, often the endings can get even tougher. So while you're climbing that mountain of depression, barely hanging for life from the cliff called your life, remember that you're almost there. You're almost home. This is the toughest part and it might feel the scariest. But just like you love watching heroes in the movies overcoming their last, life-threatening obstacle, (which always seems to be hardest yet) you can now be your own hero. You can now overcome your depression by going through the darkness of it, instead of avoiding it. You can save yourself by crossing straight through the burning fire of your unpleasant emotions. You can befriend your enemy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And when you finally succeed at it, you can help others to do the same.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Here is another post explaining more in details what I did to overcome severe depression: <a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/2013/11/10-natural-ways-to-fight-depression.html">10 Natural Ways to Cure Depression</a></span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-87596606429090134112013-10-19T16:58:00.004-07:002014-01-21T16:40:41.592-08:00Self Realized: The Angel That You Are<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lzQ64wqZMRA/Utmv77ui8aI/AAAAAAAAA1Q/21XMfU0vm70/s1600/angel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lzQ64wqZMRA/Utmv77ui8aI/AAAAAAAAA1Q/21XMfU0vm70/s1600/angel.jpg" height="400" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Have you ever looked in the mirror,
and seen a reflection of an Angel? Which you are. For real, did you ever find
yourself looking at your face, as if you were suddenly looking with a new set
of eyes? As if, out <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8239421562197651268" name="_GoBack"></a>of nowhere, you were able to see the
unseen, as if you were seeing through a different dimension?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Have you ever experienced being
completely immersed by the outer and inner beauty of your own self? Did the
bliss of your own pure admiration descend on your body while you stared in
disbelief -- disbelief at what looked like your face, only a trillion
times more beautiful, more glowing, more profound, more complex, more
mysterious, more loving than you could ever think was possible, or could ever
describe?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'm going to share with you how I was able to have
such an experience, and not just once. But first I'll talk about the anger that
I believe, for many, stands in our way of seeing how magnificent we <b>really</b> are
– and actually seeing it in this physical world, with our own eyes, not just in our minds and our imaginations....</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: -0.35pt;"><u>Inward and Outward Anger</u></span><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75"
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<!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.35pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I've experienced
both in my life. Can't say that either one of them felt good. As a child I was
very shy, and I thought I had to smile at everyone, no matter how I felt, so I
wouldn't have to experience being rejected. Ironically, I didn't feel accepted
-- I felt unwanted by almost everyone most of the time. My father, who had an
alcohol problem, did most of the yelling, so I never dared to raise my voice. I
detested loud confrontations just as much as I detested anger. I could see how
much dysfunction it was bringing to our life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Unknowingly though,
I was harboring my own anger inside of me. Looking back, I know that my
unacknowledged and unexpressed anger was responsible for my severe
migraines and for my troubles with sleeping. It turned me into someone easily
frustrated and highly irritable. Later on in life, this unattended, and
untreated anger resulted in my intentional overdose on sleeping pills. I was
angry at the entire world, including myself. Particularly, I was angry with
God. I could not comprehend how He could just sit up there in the sky, and
watch me going through such hell, called my life, without doing anything to
stop it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">After such
self-invited close encounter with death, I finally admitted that my anger
existed. I started expressing it without being concerned of anyone's feelings,
while often using profanity to accentuate the message. The relief from giving
myself permission to say whatever was on my mind, and in whatever way I wished,
was sweet and sour. I did not like myself being so aggressive, but I did not
wish to ever go back to being submissive either. I didn't know how to remain in
between. My depression continued, and so did my self-inflicted close encounters
with death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Hand-to-hand with
the hatred, the anger was consuming me. Even 'anger management', for which I
signed up voluntarily - desperate to find something that would work - did not
help me to control my inner rage. This torment of feeling imprisoned by my own
anger lasted for years.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.35pt;"><u><span style="font-size: large;">The Experiment</span></u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Finally, in the
midst's of searching for the answers deep inside of me, I decided to perform an
experiment on myself. I decided to go 30 days without getting upset, not even
once. This anger-free experiment had to include especially not getting upset
with myself, meaning I could not generate any angry thoughts whatsoever!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Phew.....<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Easier said than
done, for sure. I struggled with it immensely, but I remained faithful to my
plan. In order to succeed with it, I had no choice but to monitor closely every
thought that would cross my mind. I noticed that my negative thoughts were
responsible for making me feel angry, and so each time they'd arrive, I had to
consciously replace them with, if not with positive thoughts then at least with
a neutral ones. The circumstances I was in were making this challenge even more
challenging, however I was determined to find out what, if any, beneficial
changes such practice could bring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666;">Within days, I started noticing the first signs of
spiritual transformation. I noticed that while interacting with people, I
wasn't prone to make any judgments, good or bad, regarding them or their
behaviors -- even if I was directly affected by it. Best of all, I didn't have
to <i>force</i> myself not to be judgmental, it was coming naturally
from within me. It felt as if I was simply an observer, a compassionate and
understanding one. An observer that was grateful to see and experience whatever
unfolded in front of me. It felt as if whatever anxiety I've experienced in
life had evaporated, and a new feeling of peace and calm was flowing through
me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Encouraged by this
positive change, I decided to take it farther -- by consciously focusing on
gratitude. And that also seemed to come effortlessly from within me. I consciously
started replacing the angry thoughts (which by the way kept coming to my mind)
with thoughts of gratitude. Whatever made me angry, I made sure that first, I'd
notice it, then I'd find a relevant thought that would show my gratitude
towards whatever it was that was making me mad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In one of those
days, I was around a young mother and a child. I observed their dysfunctional
interaction. I watched the mother getting frustrated with her child for not
listening to her and for refusing to leave her in peace. I felt compassion for
the child, and for the young woman. I saw the suffering in both of them, and I
felt their pain as if it was my own. When the little boy, exhausted from crying
earlier, was resting on my lap, I allowed myself to feel admiration towards
him. Silently, in my mind, while watching him being immersed in sleep, I told
him how sorry I was that he had to go through so much pain so early in his
life. I told him, what a special Soul he was for incarnating in human body in
such unstable times. I continued to admire his facial features, his tiny hand
that formed a fist -- and the way his entire being radiated how much love he
had to give, and how much he wished for nothing else but to be loved! I felt
immense gratitude that he existed.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.35pt;"><u><span style="font-size: large;">Seeing The Soul</span></u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I got up later to go to the bathroom, and that's
when for the first time, I saw what I saw. I looked in the mirror that was
above the sink in total disbelieve. I saw my own reflection, only this time it
wasn't just my face the way I'm used to seeing it in the mirror. It was as if I
was hit by some sudden realization of how <i>beautiful</i> I was. It
wasn't just an external beauty, it was a beauty that was so profound that the
depths of it could never, ever be measured by any means!!!! It was
unimaginable. Indescribable. It was as if I was looking at an Angel,
face-to-face. The love that was emanating from the eyes of my reflection was
deeper than any love I've ever felt. The strange part was that even though I
was clearly in a state of shock, and my face had to assume some expressions
resulting from it, my reflection wasn't showing it. My reflection was looking
at me as if she understood everything, as if she had some kinds of ultimate
knowledge and ultimate power.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The energy that was
forming the reflection and everything around it seemed magical. The only
closest way to describe it would be by asking you to imagine what it must feel
like to be in another dimension, and to see an other-dimensional being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The experience
didn't last just a few seconds, it actually continued for a few minutes. I was
allowed to stand face-to-face with my higher me, with my Spirit, with that
which is One with everything. I was allowed to see past the Illusion of the
physical world. I was allowed to admire it, to feel the incredible joy and the
incredible power that it had. I was allowed to see how connected I was with it.
After all, I was looking at myself....<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #666666;"><span lang="EN-AU">After this experience, I still found myself lost in
the old habit of getting angry. I spent a few more years on inner work directed
towards resolving this issue. I found out later that the most permanent
solution for it wa</span><span lang="EN-AU">s</span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #4e4e4e;"> </span><span lang="EN-AU"><a href="http://wakeup-world.com/2013/10/19/depression-and-spiritual-awakening-womans-story-of-overcoming-abuse-and-depression-through-the-practice-of-conscious-forgiveness/" target="_blank" title="Depression and Spiritual Awakening: One Woman's Story of Overcoming Abuse and Depression Tthrough the Practice of Conscious Forgiveness"><span style="color: #0071bb;">practicing <i>forgiveness</i></span></a></span><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #4e4e4e;">,</span></i><span style="color: #666666;"><span lang="EN-AU"> </span><span lang="EN-AU">the process that required for me to re-experience such anger.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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</div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The good thing was
that once the forgiveness took place, once I healed the old wounds with it, it
got much easier to practice not getting mad and not having angry thoughts.
Also, through that same process of actively replacing negative/angry thoughts
with thoughts of gratitude, that same experience of seeing my Soul in the
mirror started to recur, bringing me each time closer to a full realization of
who I really am. An Angel.</span><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: Segoe UI, sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><b style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: start;">Little bit about me:</b></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--IP8aQgKpS0/UtnX9cX-O9I/AAAAAAAAA1g/Dw8a6RmT7kw/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--IP8aQgKpS0/UtnX9cX-O9I/AAAAAAAAA1g/Dw8a6RmT7kw/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Now residing in Honolulu, Hawaii, Polish-born Elzbieta Pettingill is a former fashion model, author and survivor of depression. She suffered abuse and rape in her childhood, and was subsequently diagnosed with a depression that followed her from childhood through to adulthood. Let down by the medical and psychological establishments, and realizing that only she could change her </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mind</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, Elzbieta overcame her depression in her 30’s through a process of conscious spiritual awakening, a story that forms the basis of her book: “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/life-realized-Elzbieta-Pettingill/dp/1300061812/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=spir02-20" style="color: #0071bb; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Find on Amazon.com">Life Realized</a>” – available now on Amazon.com</span></span></div>
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Elzbieta http://www.blogger.com/profile/11702184929007328337noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8239421562197651268.post-19063182766500382522013-10-17T18:43:00.000-07:002014-09-24T08:19:56.105-07:00Depression and Spiritual Awakening <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0EratJYf02s/Ut6noE-YUfI/AAAAAAAAA10/AnWa-XPbR9A/s1600/reaching+enlightenment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0EratJYf02s/Ut6noE-YUfI/AAAAAAAAA10/AnWa-XPbR9A/s1600/reaching+enlightenment.jpg" height="394" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">If you suffer from depression, or know someone
close to you who does, then you came to the right place. No, I’m not a
psychologist, but if you are anything like me, chances are that your faith in
psycho-therapy has diminished, if not disappeared completely. I’m here to share
with you my own experience of dealing with chronic depression, how the
hopelessness that comes with it had made me attempt suicide numerous times,
what steps I took to overcome this so called “mental disorder,” and what impact
all of this has had on my spiritual awakening. My experience has driven me to
find a true peace of mind and the sense of true happiness that can only be
found within ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Did you know that you can heal your depression
entirely?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Better yet, did you know that you can accomplish
that entirely for FREE? Yes, that’s right; with no cost whatsoever. From my
experience, you don’t need health insurance to cover your medical bills, pay
for the prescription drugs and for the visits to a psychiatrist. You don’t even
need the money to put gas in the car to get there. Also, you don’t need the
money to take you out of the unwanted and depressing circumstances, either. As
a matter of fact, as strange as it sounds, the less you have, the better off you
are. Materialistic things often serve as distractions, and can be misleading.
They often prevent us from focusing on what matters the most, which is looking
within ourselves for the answers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Everything that you need – you already have. Yes,
you do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Let me explain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Depression comes from within us. We know about it,
quite a lot these days, but it’s not something we can really see, is it? We are
only able to see the symptoms; the consequences of it. Depression is something
we experience through our feelings. We cannot see our feelings; we can only see
what impact they have on us. If it’s a good feeling, we might see a smile, if
it’s a bad one, we might see tears. If feelings of being depressed come from
within us, then why do we continue to search for an answer - for a cure - out
there, outside of ourselves? Why don’t we look within ourselves instead?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Why does our society encourage this madness? Why
are we being constantly brain-washed, by the media, by the pharmaceutical
companies, by the chosen few whose last names are followed by letters like MD
and PhD? These and other representatives of the Establishment, such as the
church, the government, you name it, want us to believe that what we need is <i>out
there </i>as opposed to<i> inside of </i>each of us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u>The</u><u> Business of
Health Care<o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Isn’t this a conflict of interest? If in order to
get well, we have to continue to pay those who are providing us with a
“solution”, how soon do you suppose it would take for this solution to start
being effective? Never….? The entire existence of the “solution providers” such
as pharmaceutical companies, doctors, therapists, counselors, etc. depends on
the demand -- <i>our need of them.</i>
Would they really be willing to tell us that we already have everything that we
need to get well?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">What we truly need to heal - not just the
depression, but ourselves, our lives, our relationships – is not easy, but it
is simple. We need to practice forgiveness. True forgiveness, like depression,
can be found only inside of us. Forgiving means expressing compassion and love,
which is an absolute acceptance. We all know at some level that love heals. So
we must know that we are able to heal ourselves by using this tool. Practicing
forgiveness is free, and always available to us!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">From my own personal experience, it is possible to
attain such healing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Being depressed is not a fun thing. It’s almost
like living in a vegetative state. It’s painful, not just emotionally but even
physically, to simply exist. Your decreased level of energy makes your mind
dull and your body unwilling to perform necessary tasks. Nobody seems to
understand you, no matter how hard they might try. The more people shy away
from you, the more you tend to withdraw. You feel misunderstood, alone and
hopeless…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I know how hard it is to live while being depressed
all the time. Throughout my life, I have suffered from suicidal tendencies, and
I’ve acted upon them several times. I was diagnosed with major depression and
post-traumatic stress disorder. I know that my grandmother suffered from major
depression her whole life also.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">As a child, I had no clue as to what was wrong with
me. I thought it was like this for everyone... I thought everyone hated their
lives and themselves with the same passion I did. It wasn’t until I reached my
twenties that I learned what clinical depression is, what the chemical
imbalance of neurotransmitters does to the brain, and all that. After being
hospitalized for an intentional overdose on sleeping pills, I was subjected to
countless in-patient and out-patient therapies. Doctors kept prescribing me
drugs like Zoloft and Prozac, hoping that the medicine would keep me alive, at
least until they would figure something that would be more effective. There was
no permanent solution though. Psychotherapies turned out to be just as
short-term effective as the prescribed drugs were. Crying my eyes out on some
leather couch, in the company of some sympathetic certified therapists, might
have been relieving, but only temporarily. I’d feel alleviated for a day or
two, only to crash again even before the next appointment. The cognitive
behavioral therapy seemed like the right answer for a while. Recognizing some
maladaptive behaviors, choosing explicit goals, all that may have been useful
but not helpful enough. I couldn’t help but to wonder why, of all those highly
educated doctors I was seeing, not one of them ever looked me in the eyes and told
me: <i>“We can beat this thing. Depression
is curable. You won’t have to live like this for ever.”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">After years of this living nightmare, and two major
brain seizures caused by yet another suicide attempt, I was ready to admit that
whatever I was told I should be doing wasn’t really working. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">For more than three decades, I was not able to make
amendments with myself or my life. I could not make peace with the fact that my
life was nothing but a big struggle. For a very long time, I didn’t even know
that in order to heal, I had to forgive and truly accept not just myself and
others; I had to completely accept my life for what it was, instead of
continuing to try to change it at all cost. Nobody taught me that. I was taught
the opposite in fact. I was taught that I had to do everything I could to
improve myself and my life. I was taught that my life and I were broken and
needed fixing. Even all the spiritual and self-help books I read could not
prepare me to truly understand what forgiveness and acceptance is about. Those
books have guided me and had shined some light on it, but only through putting
forgiveness and acceptance into practice could I understand it for real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Nobody told me that my depression wasn’t just a
curse, some mental handicap. As it turned out, my depression was a true
blessing - a true gift - but I had to make that discovery on my own.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The Seeds of Depression<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #595959;">Growing up with a
father who suffered from alcoholism, I learned early what physical, mental and
emotional abuse can do to a person. The only defense mechanism I knew then was
anger, which quickly turned into hatred. </span><span style="color: #595959; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 166;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Throughout my life, hatred dominated my existence.
I hated the feeling of being in a constant state of survival. I hated the
poverty I grew up in, in Poland, and the limitations such extreme poverty
opposed on me early on. I hated even more the fact that, even though later on,
I was given the opportunity to travel the world as a fashion model, I still
managed to experience scarcity. I still managed to remain depressed, even
suicidal. I was still subjected to rejection that hurt like hell. My deep
insecurities were still there, tormenting me on daily basis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">My life stopped making any sense to me when at the
age of 14, roughly a year before ending up at an orphanage, I was asked by my
mom to stop attending school. She had her own reason for this drastic request;
my family was entangled in a legal battle with my uncle over the house 8 of my
siblings and I grew up in. We were about to lose the only home we knew. My
mother’s desperate act of making us not attend the school was a cry for help.
It was her way of protesting against the injustice of the legal system that
would eventually allow my uncle to evict us from the house that my parents
built from scratch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">At such tender age, I started losing everything I
cared about. First, I lost the ability to continue my education. I was a
straight A’s student, and so to someone for whom learning and books meant the
whole world, such adjustment could not be painless or easy. My love affair with
learning was suddenly replaced with passionate hatred towards boredom, a sense
of emptiness, and the fear of “never being able to amount to anything in life
without proper education”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">In that period of time, I also lost my virginity;
rather it was taken <i>by force</i> by a guy
I was infatuated with. I did not even know then, that what took place was
nothing but rape. I did not understand why screaming my lungs out, while trying
to push the guy away, or even usage of clear words like “Get off of me! You’re
hurting me!” weren’t efficient in stopping such a traumatic event. I prescribed
the fault to myself, and to my stupidity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Soon after, my uncle finally won the battle over
the house. My younger siblings and I were sent to an orphanage. Losing our home
- and our family - was the most painful and traumatic event in my life. I could
not live with those circumstances without doing something about it. When I made
the decision to run away from the orphanage, I didn’t know that this was just
the beginning of my chronic need to escape from myself. My life continued to be
one struggle after another. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I was finally ready to <i>look within myself</i> for all the answers when I reached my thirties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">No Going Back<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I was living in Hawaii. It felt as if I had come
literally to the end of the world, considering that my life’s journey began in
Poland, moved through various countries of Europe, and then through different
states in America. Always headed west, I was attempting to escape from myself
and my emotional pain. But depression always remained present, refusing to part
from me, no matter where I went. Apart from my two German shepherds, depression
was the only truly faithful companion I had.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> My “rational” mind was very good at
justifying the need for the unstoppable migration to continue: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">“I just haven’t yet found the right
place to live. I just haven’t met the right people, the right guy. I just
haven’t made the right kind of money. But once I do, I’ll be happy.”</span></i><span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I was convinced that I had to continue this quest
until I had attained everything that I had ever wanted. THEN I’ll be happy.
THEN I’ll be the kind of person I’ve always wanted to be. THEN I’ll live the
kind of life I’ve always wanted to live. THEN I won’t be depressed anymore. If
I try harder, if I go farther, if, if, if, if….. Millions of “ifs”, of effort, but
none of the desired results.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The Hawaiian Islands, so distant from the rest of
the world, was a good place for a wake-up call. Completely surrounded by
oceans, I could not escape from my final destination this time. There was no
going back and if I continued to head west, eventually I’d find myself back
where I came from. And then what?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I wondered if I would start circling the world all
over again in a desperate search for happiness. This idea could not have been
as thrilling as it may have seemed when I started my journey at the age of 15.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><u><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Paralyzed<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">After the initial shock brought on by the
realization that even living in paradise did not guarantee happiness, I was
done. I wasn’t “just” depressed this time; I was emotionally, spiritually and
mentally paralyzed. At that point, a totally different kind of giving up overwhelmed
in me. I was now ready to let go of the attachment of the physical world,
without having to die first. I was about to renounce the search for happiness
in the outside world. I had no idea what exactly, and how long it would take to
find such true happiness from within, but what choice did I have but to find
out?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">On a physical level, I only seemed to be able to
perform tasks absolutely necessary for survival. There seemed to be no point in
continuing to live, but unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any point in
dying either. I knew that ending my life would not necessarily mean ending my
suffering. My numerous suicide attempts that took place just few years earlier,
eventually made me believe, that the answers could not possibly be found in the
world of the dead either. There had to be some other way to cure my depression
and to find a true peace of mind. Leaving the physical body through
self-inflicted harm, could not possibly be the method to end the suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I didn’t necessarily believe that completing
suicide would have a negative impact on my Soul. (I refrain from using a word <i>committing</i> suicide
on purpose; committing -- often means committing a crime. Any attempt to
understand the phenomena of suicide will not benefit from attaching such stigma
to it.) Even though I was raised as a Roman Catholic, I did not believe in the
existence of eternal Hell, bursting with flames. To me, the life I was living <i>was a hell</i>. What I may have been afraid
of was Reincarnation -- the idea of coming back, just to start all over again
from where I left off. I was afraid I would cause immense suffering to my
family if I took my own life; and, I was afraid of the awful Karma resulting
from this suffering. I felt like I was trapped. Stuck on Planet Earth, destined
to live endless human dramas… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">See The Illusion, Embrace the
Gift<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Since my teenage years, for more than a decade I
had indulged myself in reading all kinds of self-help books and writings about
spirituality. It became obvious that all these books, even though written by
different people, in different times, and in different ways, all talked about
the same essential truth:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">“We are all One. We are
inter-connected. Separation is an illusion. What we do to others is what we do
to ourselves, and vice versa.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">One part of this newly found truth was the most
mind-blowing:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">“The world we live in is an illusion.
The real world resides within us.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I could not wrap my mind around it for a very, very
long time. Nevertheless, instinctively I knew it to be true. Yet, at this
point, as much as I agreed with all of it, I wasn’t living it. It was nothing
but a theory, or an intellectual understanding. I had not reached the
point where I could start implementing those teachings into daily practice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">In order for that to happen, I first had to find
myself in a state of being sick and tired of being utterly miserable. Only the
seemingly endless suffering, despair, depression and hopelessness could prepare
me for the change I was longing for. Without it, I would not have had the
courage necessary to undertake such a huge task.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Without the pain suffocating me from within, I
could not win the battle over my resistance to change. Such resistance is there
supposedly to assure our survival. To preserve ourselves, we resist any kind of
change that comes our way. It’s a natural order of things, and hating it
wouldn’t do any good. It is what it is. What’s more important is that we are
not left without proper tools to handle such adversity; emotional pain that
comes with depression is one of the most effective tools, or at least it was
for me. I began to understand that depression, which I hated with all my heart
for stealing my life away, was also one of my biggest blessings. I started to
understand that my depression wasn’t the real problem; depression was just a <i>symptom</i> of it. There was no point of
treating the symptom and expecting the real cause to dissolve on its own.
Instead of traveling the globe, I had to travel within myself this time. I had
to dig deep inside, discover my feelings, examine my thoughts, face the
unknown, and embrace the darkness of it. I had to do all this without the
anesthesia offered by the busyness of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">It felt as if I was pressed against the wall by
depression, boredom and undesirable circumstances all at once. The process of
self-examination was excruciating but it was effective. I began to see
depression as a gift that was pushing me hard towards the permanent solution.
It was driving me towards spiritual awakening. In viewing my depression in such
way I began to slowly make peace with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">My depression was making my life a living hell for
a reason; it was speaking out for my Soul that was craving for a big
transformation. Depression was there not to crucify me, not to make a mockery
out of me -- it was simply doing everything it had to in order for me to
awaken. My Soul was the one that needed the treatment. It needed for me to feel
re-connected, unified, and in perfect alignment with love, as opposed to fear,
like it had been until now. It needed from me to be freed from human
conditionings such as judgment. It needed me to heal from a disease called
superiority. My Soul needed from my ego/mind to yield to my heart/feelings.
Depression was simply a tool, used by my Soul, to let me know that something
wasn’t right and to make me pay close attention to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">With this new understanding, even though being
depressed still hurt, I could not hate it anymore. In the same way, if my
stomach would give me aches, I could not hate it for letting me know that
whatever I ate was spoiled and to stay away from it. I could only feel grateful
towards my stomach for being so faithful to me, and for its wonderful way of
protecting my body. And now, I was grateful towards my depression for
protecting my Spirit with such diligence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Choosing the Inner World<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I still wasn’t sure exactly what would take to heal
my Soul, or how long it would take, but it was a start. I knew that depression
wasn’t going to let go of me until I made some huge changes from within. I knew
it was going to hold me hostage, until I had no strength left to resist it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">At that point I was finally ready and <i>willing</i> to start living my life in an
entirely different way. I had already lost faith in my ability to achieve what
I desired. Now I had no choice but to admit to myself that the sole reason I
haven’t been able to find what I was looking for wasn’t because I was
depressed, incapable, unlucky, cursed or hated by God, but simply because I was
looking for it in the wrong places. I was looking for it <i>out there</i>, in the external world, where it didn’t exist. I was
finally ready to admit to myself that as crazy as it sounded, everything that
I’ve ever wanted and needed, everything that I’ve ever dreamed of was inside of
me and <i>inside of me only</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">It was time for me to start shifting my
consciousness. It was time for me to decide whether I wanted to continue to
live in ignorance, whether I wanted to remain on the path of unawareness that
inevitably led to pain and suffering, or whether I wanted to choose to abolish
the illusion and free myself from it once and for all instead. I chose to free
myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I made the decision it was time to put into
practice everything that I’ve learned from my favorite books of all, written by
Neale Donald Walsch: “Conversations with God” and “Communion with God”. It was
time for me to experience on a daily basis the spiritual discoveries he talks
about, instead of understanding it on an intellectual level only. This was the
time for me to actually start <i>experiencing </i>that sense of union with
everything and everyone, about which Walsch speaks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Following the author’s revelations, I consciously
made a decision, which I then re-took every day and every moment; that the
world outside of me, including my physical body, is <i>not real</i> but instead a manifestation of my mind. I chose to believe
that the only real thing, the only real world, the only real love, the only
real happiness, the only real <i>me</i>, the
only <b><i>reality</i></b>
was inside of me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">At the beginning I had more than one dilemma with
this new thinking. It was one thing to <i>believe</i> in all those
things, but a totally different thing to actually <i>live it, </i>and
to live it on a daily basis, not just from time to time when it was convenient.
My intellectual mind was fighting it like crazy. The resistance set in and it
wasn’t going to let go of me without a fight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">For days I would contemplate finding a way to
convince my mind of this new truth. I’d tell myself in a calm but steady
manner:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">“Just because something seems crazy
doesn’t mean it’s not true. Think of the times when people were absolutely
convinced that the earth was flat and that it was the sun that travelled around
this planet we live on, and not vice versa. Sure the illusion of it still
remains to this day, it still looks to us as if the golden ball circles the
azure sky, and yet we know that it is Earth making the round trip. Why couldn’t
this be true when it comes to our perception of reality? Everything may appear
to us (using our five-sense perceptions) as if it exists outside of us - but it
is just a reflection, illusion, sort of like a rainbow, of what’s deep inside
of us.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Slowly but surely my mind started to process this
new conception of reality. However, the old habits of living in the old world
were so strong that the inner conflicts were inevitable. Through countless
mistakes, I had to teach myself that in order to remain faithful to this new
truth, I had to let go completely of the idea that the outside world really
existed; meaning, I could not continue to live as if I believed that the world
outside of me was just as real as the world inside of me. I had to choose. You
could say that I could not worship two gods at the same time. It was either one
world, one reality or the other. There was no room for both. Treating the world
outside of me as real was equivalent to denying that the real world inside of
me existed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<u><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My Heart Is My Compass<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">By then I’ve accepted the fact that however
undesirable my life might have been, it was me who has created it, even though
in a non-conscious, unaware way. Now it was up to me to un-create what I have
created, and to re-create what I wanted it to be. This time I was going to do
it consciously. The awareness kept increasing as I kept insisting on seeing and
accepting the reality for what it was. I didn’t yet know everything that I needed
to know. I couldn’t see into the future, or even make sense of everything that
was happening at the present moment. My heart, using my feelings as its
language, became my compass. This time my mind had no choice, but to follow it.
Whenever my mind would start to attempt to protest, I’d tell myself: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">“You had a good run for three decades
now. You took me this far, and I’m thankful to you for that. This though, is as
far as you can go. You cannot take me any farther and you know that. You’ve
been in charge of me and my life for this long, now it’s time to pass this
leadership to my heart. Where I’m headed -- only heart knows how to get
there.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">My conscious shifting of awareness had successfully
begun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Step 1: Decide that the only real
world, the only real you, is inside of you. Remember that the world outside of
you is just an Illusion, even if that makes no sense at first. Remain faithful
to this new truth.</span></i></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Step 2: Make peace with the external
world, including yourself.</span></i></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #666666; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">As I continued with step number 1, instinctively I
was led by my heart to focus on accepting my external world - the external
reality - for what it was. For the first time in my life, I had the necessary
courage and wisdom to look closely at myself and see who I became, without
distorting it, without minimizing the unwanted characteristics, and without
judging. My new understanding - that the person I had become and the life I had
created for myself was not who I really was - was making this process easier
and possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">But it didn’t mean that I suddenly became
depression free. As a matter of fact, my depression seemed to even deepen. The
more I observed my external self and my life, (notice I wrote <i>observed</i>,
not <i>analyzed</i> – which leads to judgment/opinion), the more I
started to feel peaceful. I was surprised to learn that it is perfectly
possible to feel totally depressed, deeply sad, and yet peaceful at the same
time. This sense of peace was giving me the kind of confidence, the kind of
sense of security that cannot be found in the external world we live in. No
amount of money, power, prestige, or even of the conditional love and
admiration we might receive from others, could ever create such deep sense of
stability. I began to understand that this was coming from within me. This
served me as a proof that, even though still undiscovered, the world within me
was indeed real, and it had a lot to offer - more than I could even imagine!
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The amazing part was that this new sense of feeling
safe could not be taken away. Not by the circumstances, not by the act of
others, not even by my own depression. Nothing and no one in this world could
steal, sabotage, or affect in any way this new feeling. Fear simply had no
access to it. As long as I remained non-judgmental of myself and my life, this
sense of peace continued to stay with me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">This doesn’t mean that it was always super easy to
do so. It required effort and perseverance to constantly remind myself of what
I was doing. Every day brought new challenges that needed to be faced and dealt
with. I told myself that every single circumstance, every single person that
was in my life at this moment, was there for a reason; they were there to bring
me a message. The message would always contain a lesson that needed to be
learned. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yd2AXZuKhYw/UnvsWzmKMrI/AAAAAAAAAUY/l3fy3mNY3-I/s1600/lessons+learned+in+life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yd2AXZuKhYw/UnvsWzmKMrI/AAAAAAAAAUY/l3fy3mNY3-I/s320/lessons+learned+in+life.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">So while stuck in an abusive relationship, I began to view my abuser
as a spiritual teacher. His verbal and emotional abuse reflected my own inner
verbal and emotional abuse I directed towards myself. His inability to
appreciate me was mirroring my own inability to appreciate and cherish myself.
Through him I could finally see how little I thought of myself, and how much I
doubted myself. His criticism towards me ignited in me an urge to be protective
of my own self. It forced me to re-examine my own beliefs, my own thoughts of
who I thought I was. It took such extreme circumstance – which lasted almost
two years - for me to be able to truly see how awful I had been to myself; how
hard I was on myself, how little self-respect I had, and how unwilling I was to
give myself any credit for what I have done, especially considering what I had
been through. I realized how internally beaten up I was, not just by the outside
world, but especially by my own self. Extremely unhappy and miserable, I still
felt gratitude towards my difficult circumstances, and towards my oppressor. I
wished I didn’t have to experience it, but I knew I was where I needed to be.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">With time, I started to understand that through my
full acceptance, slowly but surely, I was beginning to love myself
unconditionally. It was a slow and even painful process; nevertheless, it was
in motion…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Conscious Re-Creation<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">While most of the time lying on the
couch, often with my eyes closed, I’d tell myself in a gentle way, as if I
spoke to a child: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">“You did what you did with your life
because you’ve created it in an unconscious, unaware way. In a way, you really
had no choice. It’s as if you were building your life with your eyes closed,
‘cause that’s what you were really doing. You had no knowledge. Your
understanding was very limited. Your reactions to things could not have been
any different, just as any other person who has been living in an Illusion
could not react any differently. You could not have acted in a different way.
You could not possibly be a different person, than you had become, without
knowing what you’re starting to understand now. Now that you have this
knowledge, you are starting to consciously re-create your new self, and your
new life. Your old life and your old you, were part of this process, so don’t
hate it. Without having the darkness, we could not have the possibility of
experiencing the light. Without hating, we could not know what love feels like.
Without failing, we could not know what success is about. You may feel like a
looser right now, your life may seem like a failure to you, but that’s just it
– it seems – you
haven’t seen the whole picture yet. What until now felt like a total failure,
has been leading you to this very moment, hasn’t it? Failure is part of
success. You could even say that failure is just a pre-mature, not quite ready
success.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">As difficult as it might have been, I actually had
some fun with this new mental exercise. I loved seeing the amusement on my
then-boyfriend’s face when I responded to his less than flattering remarks: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">“So I smell bad, so what? Who cares?
I don’t give a damn if I smell good or bad. I don’t mind myself.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Or I’d say to him: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">“So what if you think I’m a lazy
person? I love being lazy. It’s fun to lie around and do nothing, nothing wrong
with that. You should try it sometimes.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The thing is; I wasn’t just saying all those things
to shut him up. I actually believed in what I was saying. Through my hard work
towards self-acceptance, which was still in progress, I was learning that
feeling ashamed or guilty did not serve me at all. Embarrassment and guilt are
just a few different ways people use to manipulate each other to gain control.
If we are not ashamed of whatever it is that we are made fun or criticized of,
such control of our mind cannot take place. I also understood that this had to
be a genuine belief, and not the pretend kind. The worst thing that we can do
is to pretend that something doesn’t bother us, when in fact it does. When we
pretend, we lie not just to others, but we lie to ourselves as well. Only when
we remain truthful with ourselves and others, no matter how difficult and
painful that might be, is when we can truly free ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Prior to letting my boyfriend know that it didn’t
bother me that he thought I was lazy, I had to come to terms with my own self
when it came to viewing myself in such way. I had to accept my laziness; I had
to be completely OK with it. It didn’t really matter whether it was true or
not, whether I was in fact lazy or not, what mattered most was that even if I was
so, I could live with it. I could be lazy and not ashamed of it. I could be
stupid, without feeling the embarrassment of it, and so on and on…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I would say to myself: <i>“It is what it is. I am what I am.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The sense of power that those words and those kinds
of inner practices were giving me was similar to that sense of peace and
stability that was coming from within me. This new power also could not be
intimidated or compromised in any way. Unlike the external power, that comes
with the attachments such as how much money, how much influence etc. one might
have, this internal power could not be subjected to any external circumstances
that could lead to the removal of those attachments, or therefore weakening of
such power. This inner power was the only <i>real</i>
power. And now, amazingly, I was starting to experience it myself, as opposed
to just reading about it in some books.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">How ironic; I was learning about my inner power – my
<i>actual</i> power - while being stuck in an abusive relationship. In the
midst’s of living a life being controlled by another person, I started to
control my own destiny... While being put down, I was discovering my true
value… While being constantly questioned, I was learning not only how to trust
myself, but to avoid doubting myself altogether.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Forgiving The Outer World<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Almost two years later, I was somewhat satisfied
with my transformation from within, but still remained completely dissatisfied
with the external world. My life did not change a bit. I was still deeply
depressed, still dependent, still unable to fulfill my dreams, and still stuck
in an unhealthy relationship. One day a thought crossed my mind: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">“What if the only reason I’ve been
stuck in this unwanted situation for so long is because I’ve failed to truly
forgive? What if through forgiving my boyfriend, I’ll be forgiving my father
for treating me the way he did? The similarities between those two men are
undeniable. Is this a Universe’s way of giving me an opportunity to forgive my
father and to let go of the pain and hurt that he had caused me?” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Turned out, I was right. I needed to re-live the
hell of being abused, just like I did in my childhood, so I could experience
the healing power of forgiveness. Amazingly, within just two months of
practicing this forgiveness, I was free. I was no longer stuck in an abusive
relationship, and I no longer had to re-live that part of my childhood. My
external world started to look less unbearable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">After that, I had no doubt that the healing power
of forgiveness and acceptance - in other words, unconditional love - is the
best medicine any depressed person can ask for. The only thing was; I still
needed a lot of that medicine… I still had plenty of deeply suppressed
emotional wounds that were in need of healing. The good part was that life, in
its mysterious ways, kept providing me over and over again with those same
familiar scenarios that resembled those from my early childhood, until I was
ready to forgive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">With each completion of such
forgiveness, not only I was getting less and less depressed, my external life
was becoming less depressing as well. It felt as if someone lit a candle at the
end of the dark, long tunnel I was in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Step 3: Forgive and accept everything
and everyone, including yourself.</span></i></b><span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Step 4: Practice forgiveness and
acceptance on a daily basis.</span></i></b><span style="color: #666666; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I will say that to me, those two steps were the
most crucial in treating and healing my severe depression. They were the most
difficult to follow, the most challenging, but at the same time, they proved to
be the most effective. The forgiveness had to be genuine in order for it to
work and it had to come with full acceptance. The pain, the sorrow, and all the
unwanted emotions had to be re-lived while going through the process of
forgiving. There were no short-cuts. There were no anesthetics that would take
the pain away. In fact, the depression and the emotional pain that comes with
it were deepening each time I was going through it. Depression was taking me
all the way to my painful past, which had to be forgiven in order for it to let
go of me. I had to constantly remind myself that all this was temporary. The
permanent disappearance of my old issues, followed by each completion of
forgiveness, was encouraging and inspiring. The new, more and more frequent
feeling of living in the present moment was more than just refreshing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Two of the primary emotions that always indicated my
need of forgiveness were anger and frustration. I learned to embrace those
feelings instead of acting out on it or doing the opposite by suppressing it. I
learned to watch them closely without forming any judgment. I learned to
forgive them for existing, for disturbing my peace, and for contributing big
time to my depression. The anger was just a messenger -- always letting me know
to pay close attention, so I could find out what particular circumstances,
which particular people, including myself, had to be forgiven. The more I was
doing this, the more clear it became to me, that I rapped myself with such
anger, which over the period of time turned into bitterness so I wouldn’t have
to feel the pain. Obviously, the pain always remained there; it just seemed
more bearable since it was numbed and suppressed. In the old days, anger just
kept distracting me from it. It was clear to me that such untreated pain was a
perfect recipe for ongoing depression.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">If you want to find out more on how I forgave my father through forgiving my boyfriend, go to this link: <a href="http://thegiftofdepression.blogspot.com/2013/08/stuck-in-abusive-relationship-how-i.html">Stuck In Abusive Relationship: How I Freed Myself Through Forgiveness</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Little bit about me:</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J2iqaReIoB4/Ut61sMmRbSI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/f0q4w2-no8c/s1600/Elzbieta+Pettingill.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Now residing in Honolulu, Hawaii, Polish-born Elzbieta Pettingill is a former fashion model, author and survivor of depression. She suffered abuse and rape in her childhood, and was subsequently diagnosed with a depression that followed her from childhood through to adulthood. Let down by the medical and psychological establishments, and realizing that only she could change her </span><i style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">mind</i><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Geneva, 'MS Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">, Elzbieta overcame her depression in her 30’s through a process of conscious spiritual awakening, a story that forms the basis of her book: “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/life-realized-Elzbieta-Pettingill/dp/1300061812/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=ur2&tag=spir02-20" style="color: #0071bb; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Find on Amazon.com">Life Realized</a>” – available now on Amazon.com</span></div>
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