7 GREAT REASONS TO STAY ALIVE AND ENJOY IT
Glenda Shenkal
Joey Avniel
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Published by Barefoot Mind Inspiration
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 Barefoot Mind
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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DEDICATION
I want to dedicate this book to my friend Shlomi who took his life a few years ago, leaving behind devastated wife, daughters, family and friends. Shlomi was loved by anyone who knew him. His funeral was one of the biggest I ever attended. Shlomi took his own life because he made one mistake that couldn’t be undone. He didn’t ask his friends for their help before he made up his mind. Please, don’t make the same mistake.
7 GREAT REASONS TO STAY ALIVE AND ENJOY IT
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE - Secretly Wishing To Die
REASON #1: You Can Get What You What Out Of Life
REASON #2: You Are Going to Outwit Your Pain
REASON #3: Every Day Can Be A Crazy, Wonderful Adventure
REASON #4: Soon, You Will Be Loved In A Wonderful Way
REASON #5: 8 Simple Ways To Transform Your Life
REASON #6: Everything You Master Becomes Your Triumph
REASON #7: I Have Mission For You
PROLOGUE
SECRETLY WISHING TO DIE
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Facing the truth--admitting that you literally want to take your own life; or at least, you wish you could really disappear forever, is to fall into a weird and mysterious hole. To be this desperately disconnected sets you uniquely apart. How can anybody describe it? The darkness of that place is like dense black fog, an oppressive isolation which feels like it's light years distant from basic human activities and stories. Living suicidal is to feel heavy all the time, like your body is made of lead.
Ordinary life is an agreed-upon consensus: take out the garbage, go to the dentist, get the oil changed, buy groceries. Suicide is another way of existing altogether--should you let go of your experience and sink into the void of oblivion? What will happen if you die? What will it really mean for you, and what will it mean to others? Would you have regretted it later if you’d only hung on just a bit longer, tried just a little bit harder to figure out what was so horribly off about your life; off about you?
To want to die is to wonder if there is any value or meaning in the truth that you do, actually, exist. It is to wonder--do you exist as a person for nothing? Will the feeling of horrible emotional pain, of being an endless burden to yourself and other people go away if you die, or will it somehow still persist?
If have suicidal thoughts you’re going to ask: will dying be a solution? What will it be like to stop existing--or worse, will you go on being aware somehow? And if you remain aware, you will know that there’s no way back, so you can’t fix whatever it is that you broke by killing yourself. If that’s what happens, it will be even worse than what you’re going through right now.
Wishing you could die is to wonder if you should tell other people, the ones who seem perfectly pleased with life, that you have thought about jumping in front of a semi-truck or leaping off a bridge. You might toy with the possibility of bringing up your terrible question, right in the middle of a conversation about sports, or while doing a handy man project with a friend, like building a new deck. Only people who plan to be around for a while bother to build new decks. People who more or less wish to be dead, don’t build them.
Wanting to die is to idly wonder: how many other people in this room have also considered killing themselves? Is it a common feeling, a phase that many people go through, that they figure out and solve, like a riddle that has an answer?
Compared to the ordinary humdrum of someone immersed in normal life; to feel that you want to die is to carry the sense of an explosive, implosive threat of gigantic proportions. Like a long, long fuse on a very big bomb, that threat is quiet but feels endless. It feels more intensely important than the burden of numbness or stupidity you routinely carried before you wanted to die.
I’m convinced that a death wish is really the recognition that most of what passes for ‘living’ leads to no joy. It’s to require more from life than shallow dreams that bear no fruit. Pain and numbness are the after-effects of disappointment; a disappointment so profound that it can’t help but ask, is this all there is? The urge to vanish out of your own life is to arrive at an absolute dead end. To be at a place where the old stuff doesn’t work, and you’ve got to have more. Wanting to die is a demand for better answers.
People don’t come lightly to the question of suicide, it’s something that simmers in the soul over time. Of course, the truth is that there are other ways to exist in the world, and if you feel ready to die, some part of you is open to discovering new ways to be you. You are ready for the old self to fade away. But just because you want a new self, doesn’t mean you have to kill the old one. You can simply choose transformation--to become a different you.
If you experience the urge to die, that it is pointing you to something incredibly important. Your suicidal sense is really a call for a much more engaging way to live. Even if no one you know is living that way doesn’t mean that it’s not available to you, and that there aren’t people who are experiencing the sense of authentic peace that you have been searching for.
If you are wondering, is this all there is? The answer is simple. No, there is much, much more than what you are dragging yourself through in this overwhelming moment. If you are feeling trapped, as if you’re hauling a heavy shadow of worthlessness and futility, then this book will help you find your way.
Consider this: Is being suicidal a way of turning life inside out; is it something that leads to an end point other than extinction? Is it the doorway to something bigger than the defeat of dead-end emotional pain?
Wanting to die is really coming to the end of what you have lived without joy, and failed at being. Feeling that you can’t take it anymore is symbolic: if you genuinely want some of what you are to go away, what parts of you exactly do you want to disappear?
You want to end the self that fails other people, as well as the part of you that feels like no matter what you do, you will lose. You want to extinguish the part of you that feels terrible overwhelm and fear; the part that keeps experiencing new losses; the part that feels misunderstood. You want to discontinue that element within you that is alienated and feels completely isolated. You want to dissolve the sense that there is something completely wrong with you, and that there is no hope of fixing it.
Understand that you can allow just these parts of you to end completely; that they can fade away or die away, even if they feel like the biggest part of you right now. Recognize that there are other parts of you that are worth saving: the part that loves good things, the part that is willing to learn, the part that can help other people, the part that wants to make the world a better place. Odds are high too, that you have a creative instinct in you somewhere--something that appreciates and enjoys wonderful things, or even likes to make them: interesting music, art, writing, poetry or dance; or perhaps a part that feels creative when it lifts a burden for someone else. We all need to make a difference in order to feel like our lives matter. We need to feel like someone’s counting on us.
It’s simply true that even if you’re not aware of it, there is someone who is counting on you right now, just to show up and keep on trying. If you give up, an important piece of hope will die in the hearts of every person that knows you. Each of them will think: why didn’t I show the one who died more love, more kindness? How did I fail?
That’s right: your death will feel like a personal failure of caring to everyone who knows you. If you are not sure about this, just reach out a little bit to each of those you feel connected to, and test whether or not they care about you. You will discover that they do.
Open up to someone you can trust as you decide which parts of you to save, and which to actively discard. Don’t be ashamed to share with a trustworthy person that you feel despondent. Just think; if your best friend, or you little sister came to you, secretly revealing that she was thinking of ending her life, would you shame her for telling you? Would you make her feel stupid or guilty that she was in pain? No. So too, if you trust someone enough to share your feelings, you will be amazed at how unconditional their support can be. If you try and it’s not unconditional enough to meet your needs, turn immediately to the suicide hotline. Then, find a professional who can help you and preserve your confidentiality at the same time.
Whatever you do, don’t give up. At the same time, don’t feel like it’s wrong to want to end your life. Just figure out exactly which parts of your life you want to end, and concentrate on eliminating those parts. Understand my friend, that the rest of you doesn’t need to die.
If you learn how to handle your suicide instinct skillfully, it can become the portal to a much more expansive way of being alive. Like other powerful transition points, knowing your life doesn’t work ‘this way’, is to automatically open yourself to discovering a way that no one else you might know, has found.
A new self can be born without physical death. That is the secret truth encoded in the urge to end your life. As you take the journey into self-awareness, you will begin to uncover a self that is capable of being reborn.
I promise that if you make this journey; that if you postpone suicide at least for a while, you will discover potent reasons to stay present in the here and now, to show up for yourself differently. These reasons will become even bigger than the sense you have now that encourages you to die. You can choose to live because you choose the terms; the conditions of your life are no longer assumed, and they’re not handed to you. Your reasons for staying alive will become your terms.
I promise that these reasons won’t be mine, or anyone else’s. After all, no one else can know what you need and want. But you can. You can discover what will bring you meaning and joy. It’s clear that you’ve outgrown your old life; now create a new one that fits you better.
I will help you discover the tools that will release the burden of pain you now carry. Then, we will talk about seven great reasons to stay alive that will resonate now, in the place where you are today. You can learn how to drop the burdens you don’t want to carry. You don’t have to live inside a limitation just because other people expect you to. You don’t have to care about things, just because it’s considered normal to do so. You get to choose your own normal. You get to demand more. It’s you who gets to undertake the great mystery: what new experiences would give me the wish to stay alive?
That answer can be, because being alive is my journey and my choice, and I want to live to create and then enjoy the dreams that matter to me. I want to experience my own power and find my own answers.
Isn’t that a great reason to tackle the question of your own life, for a while longer?
REASON #1: YOU CAN GET WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF LIFE
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Probably it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it’s really possible; you can learn to get what you want out of life. How do I know this? Because there are people who do. Because I couldn’t do it, but then I learned how. Sprinkled all around the world and in every part of it, there are people who live happy, prosperous and abundant lives. And since abundance is a way of looking at life, anyone can achieve it.
That means that if you discover the tools to getting what you want out of life, then you will get what you want out of your life. Makes sense, right?
So, let’s talk about what will make that happen. If you are feeling unhappy with your life at this point, you are not alone. Many people go through some pretty dark experiences, the kind of times where it seems like the sun is never going to shine again. Maybe you are feeling like you can’t find any supportive people, or you feel you are spinning your wheels when you try to face your problems, and you are not getting any traction at solving them. Maybe your attempts at getting solutions seem like they are at a dead end, and you feel overwhelmed. Let’s talk about how to turn that around.
Psychological traction comes from using the right tools to move through life so that great results can come easily to you. Learning these skills is a process; knowing what to do will not appear out of nowhere or overnight. But, following these 5 time-tested secrets are going to make you more than happy with your own results. Good results will turn around your depression over time, if you will allow that to happen.
Secret #1 - the power of actions.
We all know that actions lead to results. If you don’t go to sleep on time, you’re going to be more tired tomorrow. If you spend lots of evenings with friends, you will have a busy social life. If you drive too fast every day on the freeway, probably at some point you are going to get a speeding ticket.
So what’s the big secret?
Sometimes you are in a persistent situation where you see no actions that you can take to shift things around to your satisfaction. Everything you tried has failed and you have run out of ideas. Does that mean there is no solution?
When I wrote my first book, no publisher wanted to publish it. I can’t even remember how many polite rejections letters I got. I was close to giving up. But since I learned so much about the publishing world while trying to get published, I started to write a blog for other beginner writers to help them not to make the same mistakes that I had made.
One day I added a new post to the blog about some small publishers, describing their disadvantages. A few weeks later someone added a comment to my post. He said that I should check another publisher that wasn’t on my list and didn’t share those disadvantages. So I did. A few months later this publisher published my first book.
Here, I made the mistake of thinking that I knew everything about publishing, and so I had decided that there was no solution. Because of this, I just took actions that were peripheral to my first plan. The actions that I took didn’t seem to lead toward my desired results (getting published). I got surprised.