Your First Step to Re-Create Your Life in Oneness: Awareness

Copyright © 2016 Kayla Wholey, PhD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-4639-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-4640-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-4641-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015919734

Balboa Press rev. date: 2/10/2016

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Awareness of Oneself

Chapter 1:   Soul, Mind, and Body Functions and How They Work in You

•   The Soul

•   The Mind

•   The Body

•   The Oneness of Soul, Mind, and Body

Chapter 2:   Awareness Problems of the Self: Soul

•   Story of Paula: Self-Worth and Self-Blame

•   Story of Karolina: Self-Efficacy and Controlling Others

•   Story of Matias: Individual Responsibility and Dependence on Others

•   Story of Alice: Self-Love and Addictive Tendencies

Chapter 3:   Awareness Problems of the Self: Mind

•   Story of Derrek: Constant Thinking and Control

•   Story of Yusuf: Constant Need for Search and Perfectionism

•   Story of Neola: Enormous Need to Foresee the Future While Neglecting Oneself

•   Story of Isabella: Negative Thoughts Masking True Feelings and Vulnerability

Chapter 4:   Awareness Problems of the Self: Body

•   Story of Milena: Insomnia and Spending Life Energy

•   Story of Yuliana: Vaginismus and Self-Protection

•   Story of Gertrudes: Irregular Periods and Nurturing the Female Side

•   Story of Lukas: Breathing Problems, Aches, and Self-Centeredness

Part II: Awareness of Oneself in Relationships

Chapter 5:   How Relationships Can Work for Your Awareness

•   The Attraction of the Similarities and the Attraction of the Opposites

Chapter 6:   Awareness Problems and What They Might Cause in Our Relationships

•   Story of Zivanka and Aslan: Loneliness, Self-Degradation, and Sense of the Other

•   Story of Matthew and Elizabeth: Being Stuck in a One-Way and a No-Way-Out Relationship

•   Story of Adriana and Diego: Reaching One’s Center of Self vs Being Self-Centered

•   Story of Karen and Tom: On Equality, Responsibility, and Responsiveness

•   Story of Jessica and George: It is a Ship for Two—Not One

•   Story of Evelyn and Andrew: Needing the Other vs Sharing One Another

Chapter 7:   Enabling Oneness in Relationships

•   Oneness within Self

•   Need vs Experience States

•   Courage vs Fear to Take Any Step in Awareness

•   Consideration of the Other in a Relationship

•   Oneness between the Two Selves

•   On Responsibility and Responsiveness

Part III: Awareness of Daily Actions and Career

Chapter 8:   Self-Expression, Life Mission, Purpose, Goals, and Careers

•   Self-Expression

•   Life Mission, Purpose, and Goals

•   Our Careers in all Dimensions of our Beingness and Oneness

Chapter 9:   Problems of Awareness in Our Daily Actions and Career Paths

•   Story of Adam: Who You Are vs What You Need to be Happy

•   Story of Katja: Where vs How to Spend Life Energy

•   Story of Ahmed: Thoughts about My Career vs How I Think about It

•   Story of Ulka: Psychological Independence and Nurturing One’s Vision

•   Further Awareness for Reaching Oneness in Career Life

Part IV: Awareness for Having What You Desire

Chapter 10:   Realizing Our Dreams with the Help of Awareness in Soul, Mind, and Body

•   How to Understand Our Wishes and Their Link to Our Soul’s Purpose

•   How Our Minds Work in Relation to Our Wishes

•   How Our Bodies Be and Act in Relation to Our Wishes

•   Oneness in Our Beingness and Dream Realizations

Chapter 11:   Why It Doesn’t Happen—Is There Something Wrong With Me or My Dreams?

•   Story of Ayesha: Becoming an Adult and Holding the Steering Wheel of Your Life

•   Story of Rewez: Breaking Chains and Ending Vicious Circles

•   Story of Vidra: Victim in the Past and Creator in the Present

•   What Actually Went Wrong in All Stories from Oneness Standpoint

Conclusion: The Next Steps

Bibliography

About the Author

To my grandmother, for her unconditional love and the times we shared.

Preface

This book is a byproduct of both personal and professional efforts over the past twenty years. The journey started with my own individual therapy sessions and continued with several personal-development sessions and seminars that I later conducted. On a personal level, I have been experiencing many life issues in relationships, career and related things for years. I have to say, I found it lot harder to help myself as compared to helping others. It was somehow much easier to look at others’ lives from clearly an objective place.

Spiritual readings (especially readings that involve topics in parapsychology, books of spiritual teachers, spiritual guides…etc.) have been part of my life since I was about ten years old. It was my father who had introduced me to those readings. In the beginning, it was interesting to read about the afterlife, history of Atlantis, and many metaphysical and paranormal stories. When I was about eighteen, I was pretty much done with those readings, including the books written through mediums (channeling). During and after my undergraduate and graduate education in psychology, clinical psychology, and industrial/organizational psychology, I was concerned with humans from mostly a scientific and psychological perspective. It took me about ten years to get back to spiritual readings. In the time being, the world was becoming more and more interested in the field of spirituality, including the academia.

In that period of renewed interest, I turned away from reading about the paranormal and instead turned to spiritual-growth books. Among those, the Conversations with God series (by Neale Donald Walsch) as well as Kryon, Tobias, Abraham, Hay, Tolle, Osho, and Hawkins teachings became influential in my self-exploration. I also found the works of Sufi mystics such as Rumi and Yunus Emre to be very influential.

As I was experiencing problems in different spheres of life, I remember sometimes feeling stuck, depressed, and hopeless. While I was trying to solve my own problems, I also found myself puzzled about how I could fulfill my dreams and wishes. This seemed impossible given my life circumstances. I decided to use what was written in the books in combination with my professional knowledge in psychology.

The application part wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be. I had to change my lifestyle and then bear the unknown and uncomfortable. The change was sometimes too slow, and there were times when I felt down. At the same time, I was trying to help my clients/students through their life problems and wish fulfillments. The change wasn’t coming in an instant, but we started to achieve some fruitful results. This led to further motivation to continue with the applications, no matter how hard it was.

What step to take and how to take it required a lot of awareness at the soul, mind, and body levels. Because my private and professional work were going hand in hand, I was lucky enough to see my trials and errors. I was able to shift to a new change step or change the order of the steps if the situation called for it. In the meantime, I was recording many life stories not only from my own professional practice but also from my personal experience. As I had the opportunity to work and meet with people from all parts of the world, the richness of my data increased day by day.

For many years, I’ve been dreaming about finalizing this book, which was planned to cover only the life re-creation process. However, because of my growing interest in the idea of oneness, it took me more time to incorporate the concept to my existing methodology.

In general, what I was taught in school was theoretical. From the way our education system was designed, we have not been learning how but mostly what. Therefore, I have to admit that I’ve learned about transformational change mostly through practice instead of from books, which provided some content and guidance but no clues as to how. That is why I decided to present life stories instead of theories or concepts for the majority of this book.

As a consequence of this professional and personal journey, I have come to realize that personal awareness should be considered as the first step that is necessary to re-create one’s life, no matter what kinds of problems are experienced in the areas of relationships, careers and finances, and health.

Having said that, this book was not designed to lead you to do certain things that you did not experience. This book gives you examples related to real-life issues, taken from different individuals from different parts of the world, and prompts you to take the specific awareness action if you choose to do so. As you go through the book, you will find that nothing is strange or confusing. However, it might be very close to what you have gone through or what you are currently experiencing. Throughout, you might feel close to a hero in any particular story, you might benefit from related awareness tips being offered, and you may even decide not to read the rest. However, I recommend that you read all stories, as no two stories are exactly the same

The life stories are chosen specifically for the topics concerned, and some of the information related to identity and specific personal details were hidden to protect individuals’ privacy.

Before you start reading, let me conclude by sharing with you an old American Indian prayer that I’ve kept on my wall since my high school years in Wisconsin:

Oh Great Spirit,

Let your voice whisper righteousness in our ear through the West Wind in the late of the day.

Let us be comforted with love for our brothers and sisters with no war.

Let us hold good health mentally and physically to solve our problems and accomplish something for future generations of life.

Let us be sincere to ourselves and our youth and make the world a better place to live.

(www.widholmens.com/wisdom_of_words.htm)

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the contribution of valuable individuals who helped me along the way. First of all, I’d like to thank all my previous and current clients, students and friends whose life stories inspired me to write this book. For the transposition of the handwritten notes and for going through several bits and pieces of writing, I have to thank Miray Korucu, then my undergraduate psychology students and my leading students, Semra Kurc and Guniz Zeybekoglu, from my personal-development seminars.

For the idea of oneness, I have to thank Humanity’s Team leaders and members who gave me the initial inspiration to further pursue it. For all the edits, layout, and design issues, and everything they have done to help me bring this to life, I give my huge thanks to Balboa Press members and staff.

For his lifelong support, I’d like to thank my father, whose leadership motivates me to this day. Finally, I’d like to thank my husband, whose initial encouragement led me to frame this book into its final form.

Introduction

Your life is a demonstration of who you were, even before you came here. Every single experience you have had and will have are because of who you were. I am saying you were because what you are can change in this very moment. Everybody who has been around you, is still around you, and will be around you are your reflections in various forms. Some come to show you something, some come to give you gifts, and some model you in certain ways so that you fully live your life in ways you could not imagine.

It is very common to blame those who have brought us to this world for the way we are today, for our current life circumstances. Many therapy sessions are spent in forgiving them. What kind of a universe is this? Why did this happen to me and not to the others? Why have I had so many relationship issues? Why did my mother behave like this when I was a child? Why was it a constant struggle with money? Why was my father an alcoholic? Why did we move from place to place rather than staying put? The questions can go on forever. We can spend so much time asking them instead of answering them.

I have had many discussions with people who say, I wish I were lucky enough to have a parent like that so I would not be this way, or I wish my husband were like that. No matter how much they read and became informed about spiritual and psychological facts, many still believed or assumed that life is just a coincidence and that we are born to a family because it had to be this way. God assigns a role to each of us, and we play them. Since there is nothing we can do about it, this circular thinking finds its reinforcement as recurring complaints of depression, anxiety, and all other sorts of pathologies.

This book will try to change your firm perspective by starting with questions such as, What if there were no one assigning you to a family? What if your birth situation was because of who you were, not because of faith? What if all your life—rich or poor, lovely or cruel, punishing or rewarding—is because of who, what, and how your being is?

And you will answer, So what? This is not big news to me. What’s the use if I were that way? Isn’t it impossible to change it now? Everything is all set before birth, the life I do not have any access to now.

You are absolutely right.

If you look at these questions from your time perspective, which is usually past, it is nonsense. If you look at them from a future perspective, it is still nonsense. But if you look at them from the present moment—if you can see that what you experience now is because of who you are; what you think, feel, and behave; and how you do it with others—it will make a lot of sense. I have seen many who have been to countless therapy sessions, but their lives remained exactly the same. Nothing changed, but there was more and more exploration of who they were. No action for change came, but forgiving after blaming makes you see how much forgiving you have done therefore how much progress you have made in therapy. Today, I have finally forgiven my mother’s punishing behavior when I was six, Today, I could finally understand why my dad said those words to me, and Now I am finally content that after my childhood trauma, I am still alive; I should be grateful for that. Basically, the result is some awareness and partially accepting the situation, but that’s it. People usually leave therapy sessions and coaching programs with many tools for digging in but not so many tools for building something new. I am not saying that exploring what is inside is harmful. In fact, it is the first step in understanding your life and why it is the way it is. But if you do not strategically use your inner knowledge and if you keep going within more and more, you might end up experiencing similar problems all your life. That is why you might learn how to meditate deeply and beautifully, but you might still have constant fights with your spouse.

Cultivating Awareness by Looking at Repeating Patterns in Your Life

Through my personal development journey, I have met with people who were coming across different sorts of problems in their lives. These problems were classified as follows:

• relational

• social

• professional

• financial

• physical

• self-related

As they were overcoming these problems, it was almost impossible for them to move beyond solutions to goals and dream realizations.

Whenever it was possible, with my students from my personal-development seminars, we looked at their desires in life and their personal visions or dreams. They fell under some common categories:

• Finding a mate and having a happy relationship thereafter

• Having a happy family

• Having a good relationship with one’s parents

• Being financially abundant

• Being a successful person (no matter what the criteria for being successful)

• Being promoted

• Changing jobs and finding one’s dream job

• Having desirable living conditions

• Being physically healthy

• Being socially popular

• Being competent and skilled

Of course, there were subcategories under these main ones, but these were mainly desired and usually not mutually exclusive.

However, it was impossible to fulfill those desires, as they were mostly in the needs level, meaning that the person longed for these results but didn’t carry out the necessary awareness work so solve their problems. Because they did not know or did not have the tools to do that work, they were stuck with the repeated patterns outlined above. In the short run, they were having constant complaints about them; in the long run, being without tools led them to having a depressive perspective toward life in general.

As an example, let’s say a woman has a relationship problem with her husband. The root of the problem might be in her usual presence in the relationship—not recognizing her self-value (regardless of who her husband is). However, since she does not realize the real cause of the problem, she might come for help with complaints such as He doesn’t listen to me, He doesn’t care about me, He and I have non-stop quarrels… Now, to go beyond this problem and be able to dream about a harmonious relationship (not necessarily with the current mate), this woman needs to be brave enough to answer the following questions:

• Who does she think she is; what kind of a person does she think she is?

• Is she living as who she thinks she is?

• Is her problem coming completely from outside or herself? What is her opinion about it?

• Did she ever ask one or more of her close friends how she presents herself in a relationship? How does the other feel, and is she aware of this?

• Is her desire for a harmonious relationship a desperate need or a pure life-sharing goal? In other words, does she think she can live without that harmonious relationship? Does she also think a harmonious relationship is the only way toward her personal happiness?

I am not asking questions about her past or future. Rather, I am asking questions about her present evaluations of herself. The data that are to be gathered are required in the here and now, although we might use some past data to fill in some blanks. Of course, our questions for our