“What a wonderful book!!! It takes you to a very deep journey inside yourself to discover the strength and power that we all have when we believe in it and chose to take control and take the lead. Can’t thank you enough Dear Vivbala for this life changing book and I’m sure it will change a lot of lives.”
Book Review by reader for Life is Binary by Vivbala
One part of this review stands out for me, which I reword to make my point:
“We discover the strength and power we have when we choose to take the lead.”
What clicked for me a few weeks ago, even before I read Vivbala’s book, was that I had a problem. I saw that I was waiting to awaken; I habitually saw it as something that was going to happen soon, sometime in the future.
Today, I realize for a long time I have had the belief that I was following God, doing his will by surrendering and listening. Looking at my experiences, I can see where this belief started. I was in a deep dark spot, was recovering from alcoholism, and had panic attacks. At that time, I considered myself atheist. After I gave up my medicine, which was alcohol that I was using to treat my anxiety, then I had nothing to fall back on. I would not take the anxiety pills; I had no God in my life, and now no way to escape with alcohol. I was really in a tough place that left me two options. 1. Kill myself or 2. Try another way. I seriously thought about ending my life and when I was in that state I realized how low I had sunk, and really did not want to end my life. That then left me option 2 which was the way to ask for help by surrendering to your higher power. At that point, I started working the AA steps, doing what had worked for others to help them heal. Trusting that if I did this ‘other way’ then I would also get better.
The first three steps in AA are:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
The first step I could fully admit, my life had become unmanageable. Now I had done the second step, trusting to try this new way to allow a power great than myself to heal me. Then I started the 3rd step by praying and calling out to God to help relieve my suffering very earnestly for many weeks. I also was very consistent with my meditation, doing it twice per day. Then it happened that ‘God’ heard my call, an awakening event happened and my healing journey began. Because that worked then I just kept doing that, meditating and asking for guidance as I went forward. I saw it like I was following the leader, whom was God. This worked well for many years.
Then it happened after I read a different book that I realized that this belief may now be a limitation for me to awaken. Being a follower of God made me feel like I was powerless, like a victim, that life was happening ‘to me’ rather than being a participant in life. This belief also shielded me from seeing how much I do in fact create my own reality.
The big breakthrough came with logic. There is only one energy that exists undivided in the entire universe, all things that exist are created and sustained by that one energy. While the world we live in seems separated due to our bodies, the reality is there is no separation. We are one in energy as well as form, everyone and everything is just another reflection or aspect of the one living being, which some call GOD. There is no division at all anywhere. Then it struck me that if this is true, then this one energy that exists everywhere is also who I truly am at the core. There can’t exist any other being. I am all the parts and all the energy and I have created and give energy to the entire world. Okay, that is probably too much for most readers. Anyway, from that the next thing I realized is that I have much more power than I have realized. I just need to stop feeling like a victim and powerless! I need to take the lead and stop being a follower.
This article is an exact opposite viewpoint from the article I wrote yesterday entitled: When Pushing is NOT Effective. You see, sometimes we do have to push ourselves, to go beyond ourselves, and then when we do we can realize we have much more strength than we realized. An AA buddy of mine commonly says: “Sometimes I don’t know what is good for me and I just have to do things I don’t like.” Well that was what I did when I quit alcohol, it is what I did when I would not take the anxiety pills and it was what I did yesterday…
I rode a bicycle 10 miles to go see live music at the water front yesterday. At the festival, I danced several times, met some new and old friends and had a good time. You see, I have not ridden my bicycle for 15 years. All those years I have had it in the back of mind to get back on, because I always enjoyed that in the past. I made a FIRM DECISION on Saturday to I would ride my bike and go to this festival, trusting that LIFE was ‘suggesting’ me this experience. I had the feeling I would get some lesson from it, meet or encounter something interesting if I just did it. However, I will tell you I really had to force myself to do it! When Sunday morning arrived, excuse after excuse kept coming to me with reasons not to do it. I kept pushing those thoughts down, stayed determined with my decision, trusting in the life message and did it. Today I see many benefits came from this one small experience and I am glad I did it. In short, it was a lesson on how to take the lead and it was energizing. I see this article will get too long if I tell this entire story here, I will continue with a new one…
Betsy
June 9, 2014
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