Gina Lake - Trusting Life: Overcoming the Fear and Beliefs That Block Peace and Happiness

TRUSTING LIFE

Overcoming the Fear and Beliefs

That Block Peace and Happiness

GINA LAKE

http://www.RadicalH appiness.com

This book and others by Gina Lake are alsoavailable in paperback.

Copyright 2011 by Gina Lake

Cover photograph: Ivan Kmit/Dreamstime.com

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Beliefs Are Self-FulfillingPropheciesTrusting Your HeartPlaying Your Part in the WholeTheRole of SufferingTwo StatesLiving the Life You Were Meant toLiveThe World the Ego Creates

Our Dual Nature as Ego and EssenceTheInstinctual EgoThe Conditioned SelfThe Ego Cant Control LifeTheEgo Doesnt Like ChallengesThe Ego Doesnt Like SufferingThe EgoTells StoriesBeing Present is Absent of SufferingHow ChildhoodExperiences Damage TrustReligious Teachings That Damage Trust

Life Is Consistent but Not PredictableJoyand Love Point the WayEvil Is the Absence of LoveLifeProvidesHow Life ProvidesThe Law of KarmaAsk and You ShallReceiveLove Is What Drives Life

What Do You Believe About God?The Ego asGuideFeelings as GuidesOther People as GuidesWhat Guides YourLife?What Guides LifeWhat to Trust

Trust Is Developed by BeingPresentMeditationOvercoming Fear and DoubtWorking with the InnerChildLiving from a Place of Trust

In my work with individuals over the years,Ive come to realize just how important trusting life is. It isoften a lack of such trust that blocks true happiness and peace andmakes it difficult to live the life we were meant to live. We dontnaturally trust life. Theres a reason for this, and those whoveexperienced any amount of abuse or wounding in childhood find itespecially hard. This distrust makes it difficult to be in themoment, where peace and happiness abide. How can anyone drop theirguard and enjoy life when theyre afraid of life?

Fear and distrust are the enemies of life.Fear pretends to protect us, but it limits and immobilizes us andtakes the joy out of life. Fear and distrust dont keep us safe.Rather, they keep us lost in our thoughts, in our internal reality,and out of the present momentreality. For this reason, fear anddistrust are actually dysfunctional, not functional, as they mayseem to be.

Fear and distrust are the greatest hurdlesto seeing the truth about lifethat it is good, abundant,supportive, and potentially joyous. The truth about life is reallygood news. The truth could be the opposite, and sometimes life doesfeel that way. But fortunately, goodness is at the core of life,and that is what this book will offer evidence for.

Overcoming the fear and beliefs that keepyou from discovering and experiencing this goodness is some of themost important emotional and spiritual work youll ever do. Theresnothing more important than seeing the truth about life. As theysay, The truth will set you free, and what it sets you free fromis the fear and distrust that belong to the ego. It actually setsyou free from the ego itself.

Another name for the ego is the false selfbecause it isnt who we really are, but only ideas about whowe are: Im a woman. Im a shopkeeper. I like horses. Imartistic. I was abused. Im going to be famous. I have to have nicethings. No one understands me. Im different. Im a good cook. Icant do anything right. I dont like to travel. Im lazy.

The ego is the aspect of ourselves thatprovides us with a sense of being an individual, and for that it isuseful. However, the ego, through our thoughts, attempts to manageour life, but it is a poor manager, a poor guide to life. We arehere to discover the truth about life, the truth about who wereally are, and how to live from a deeper place than the ego, froma place that is often called the Heart, which I also callEssenceour true self. This discovery is what this book isabout.

One of the most difficult things aboutmoving from living from the ego to living from Essence isovercoming the egos distrust and trusting that theres somethingelse besides the ego to trustEssence. One would think thattrusting Essence would be natural, even easy, since Essence is ournatural state. But it seems that were programmed to trustsomething else. Were programmed to trust the ego, to trust thethoughts that go through our mindthe voice in our head.

The commentary we hear in our head thatappears to be our thoughts is what many call the egoic mind.Its called that because it is the aspect of the mind that belongsto the ego. Its different from the aspect of the mind we use toread a book, add a column of numbers, design something, solve aproblem, follow directions, and do all of the other mental tasksthat help us function. I call this the functional mind. Weneed this more functional aspect of the mind, which is like a toolwe pick up and use and put down when were done using it. But weactually dont need the egoic mind, which appears to be our ownvoice, and yet it actually belongs to nobody. When we look, we findnobody behind it.

The egoic mind merely reflects ourconditioning and the conclusions weve come to, based on our ownand other peoples experiences, and other beliefs, opinions, andpersonal perceptions as well as fears, desires, and judgments. Thisvoice isnt the origin of any wisdom weve gained nor of ourinsights and intuitions. Such things dont originate in the mind,but are experienced or sensed more subtly in the body, often in theHeart or gut.

Wisdom, insights, and intuitions appear as aknowing, an Aha! or a sense of rightness about somethingwe justknow something or suddenly have clarity about something. Some mightcall such knowings faith, but these knowings arent based on anidea or a belief weve been taught, as religious faith often is,but on a deeper knowing within us that comes from connection withEssence. Unlike beliefs, such knowings show up in the moment whentheyre needed.

Theres something within us that guides us,but it doesnt do so through the voice in our head, but throughdeeper, more subtle nudges, inspiration, intuitions, urges, andexuberance of spirit. So while the voice in our head attempts toguide us, theres something elseEssencethats guiding us morewisely and truly thats far more trustworthy than the voice in ourhead.

Its funny that we think of the voice in ourhead as our own and that we tend to believe it and value what itsays, when so often its contradictory, unhelpful, and unkind. Weare so much wiser than this voice! We are so much kinder and morecourageous than this voice, which is often fearful and upset withlife. My hope is that this book will help you not be ruled by thepetty, fearful voice of the ego and that you will more deeply cometo trust your own beautiful true self, which has always been theonly thing living your life, while the false self has seemed to bewho you are. We are all much wiser, more loving, and greater thanwe seem to be, and its possible to discover this now.

I invite you to explore the greatest mysteryof allwho you really are. But this will only be possible if yourewilling to trust something other than the thoughts that run throughyour mind. I will give you many good reasons to not trust thesethoughts and to trust, instead, the beautiful Being that you are,which is alive in you. That is my purpose in writing this, and yoursuccess rests only on your willingness to entertain the possibilitythat you are much more than what you