Dawna Markova - Living a Loved Life: Awakening Wisdom Through Stories of Inspiration, Challenge and Possibility

Praise for Living a Loved Life

When we learn to love the life we are living, the joke is on us. We have been inhabitants of Paradise all along. Who knew? Modern neuroscience is catching on to the ancient wisdom that Dawnaand her preternaturally wise grandmothertransmit with such grace through luminous stories that ring the doorbell of the heart. When we savor what is and find possibility in lifes inevitable challenges, our nervous system is reprogrammed from self-protection to sweet connection with the astonishing miracle of life.

Joan Borysenko, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Minding the Body, Mendin g the Mind

I love this book. After reading it, Im inspired to be a grandfather but also an elder. I wish I had a chance to meet Dawnas grandmotherbut I think I already havebecause, as Dawna wrote, she passed into me. Now her grandmother has passed into me too, and I can use all the help I can get!

Al Carey, CEO emeritus of PepsiCo Nort h America
and chairman of Unifi Inc.

Im sure Im not alone in my life-long yearning for a gramma who was wise, taught me the most important life lessons, who adored me, and whose believing eyes would bring forward my gifts for the world. Dawna Markova, in her touching book, Living a Loved Life , is kind enough to loan her exquisite grandmother to us to reaffirm that which is necessary for each of us to live life in its depth and fullness.

Linda Bloom, co-author of 101 Things I Wi sh I Knew
When I Got Married: Simple Lessons to Make Love Last

Internationally renowned thought leader and personal growth expert Dawna Markova, PhD, brings us Living a Loved Life which challenges us to listen to the heartfelt lessons necessary to create the most loving life possible. She inspires us with stories and keen insights into discovering our truest purpose on earth. Her teachings reflect the wisdom of our elders and empowers us to live a fuller life. In her irresistible, poetic narrative style, the author insightfully shares how it is possible to braid our strengths from even our most difficult life lessons. Her teachings guide us to reclaim our voice, redefine our story, and create the life of our dreams. Buy this insightful book today and gift it to everyone you care about. Its a rare jewel and a life-affirming literary mas terpiece.

Robyn Spizman, author of Loving Out Loud: The Power of a Kind Word , media personality, and New York Times bestsell ing author

Dawna Markova is one of the great wisdom teachers of our time. She touched countless lives with I Will Not Die an Unlived Life , and many more will be touched by Living a Loved Life . This beautifully written book was shaped by three questions: How do I find a way to live a life I can love now? How do I help make it possible for those who will come after me to do the same? How do I re-collect the wisdom earned through my own and others challenges? I dont know anyone who would not benefit from exploring those questions, especially in the company of a master mentor, a true companion on the journey toward the human possibility. Thats Dawna Markova, and this book is her gift to yo u and me.

Parker J. Palmer, author of On the Brink of Everything, Let Your Life Speak, Healing the Heart of Democracy, and The Courag e to Teach

Living
a Loved Life

Awakening Wisdom Through Stories of Inspiration, Challenge, and Possibility

Dawna Markova, PhD

Mango Publishing
Coral Gables

Copyright 2019 by Dawna Markova, PhD.
Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

Cover Design: Joan Selix Berman, Joan Selix Berman Designs
Photography by Joyce Chin
Layout & Design: Roberto Nez

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Living a Loved Life: Awakening Wisdom Through Stories of Inspiration, Challenge, and Possibility

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2019948614
ISBN: (print) 978-1-64250-126-1, (ebook) 978-1-64250-127-8
BISAC category code BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Inspiration & Personal Growth

Printed in the United States of America

Blessing

To David Adam Peck

These stories are my heirlooms and your inheritance. They are the true wealth that I have to pass on to you. Consider this my last will and testament, because it will take all of my will to finish it and it is a testament to the wisdom that has carried me forward through many challenges. Passing it on to you will enable me to release my last breath with deep sat isfaction.

To all those who yearn to love the life they a re living.

Table of Contents

What Was the Promise Life Made to the World
the Moment You Were Born?

Its all a question of story. We are in trouble now because we do not have a good story. The Old Story sustained us for a long period of time. It shaped our emotional attitudes, provided us with life purpose, energized action. It consecrated suffering, integrated knowledge, guided education. We awoke in the morning and knew where we were. We could answer the questions of our children. We could identify crime, punish criminals. Everything was taken care of because the story was there. It did not make men good or make for unfailing warmth in human association. But it did provide a context in which life could function in a meaningful manner. Now we are between stories.

Th omas Berry

The coauthor of this book is a ghost. My grandmother was a midwife and healer. She sat with people as they entered the world and as they left it. She never set foot in a school and could neither read nor write. I havent included her name on the title page because I never really knew what it was. I just called her Grandma. Others called her Ma or Dora, or by her husbands name, Michaels wife, as if she were his p ossession.

As I am writing about her to you, she becomes alive again: a tiny woman with a fierce will. In the late 1800s, she ran across Russian potato fields to escape Cossack soldiers who had killed her first two children and brother during a pogrom, an attack on Jewish villages. She and my grandfather escaped to New York by boat, traveling in steerage. Driven by that indomitable will to foster life, she gave birth to eight more children in a two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of an old brick tenement in Hell s Kitchen.