CHAPTER 1

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THE VOICE---that changed my life!

Life shrinks or expands

In proportion to one’s courage.

~ ANAÏS NIN

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I was Suicidal.

I was 28 years old, living in Croydon, a suburb of South London. I had been working in the building industry for the last six years and was the owner of a small construction company that

primarily focused on renovating Victorian houses in the area; there are a lot of them in London and therefore I was very busy.

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As a workaholic, I was working a lot and doing my best to manage a few troublesome employees. Financially I was doing the best I had done up to that point in my life but I was feel- ing desperate. I mistakenly thought that money would be the source of happiness, but having money in the bank made no difference to my challenging mental states.

Day after day, I was plummeting into the depths of hopelessness, with no way out from my negative mind space. Being only 28, I didn’t have the life experience, wisdom, or awareness for figuring out how to be happy. I perceived my world and my future as hopeless. I was not in a relationship; I did not love myself, let alone even like myself. I was masterful in self-criticism and self-shaming and I was moving on the treadmill of life believing that happiness would never be a reality for me, only different degrees of unhappiness.

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I recognize today, with hindsight, that I had been depressed since ages 10 or 11 and possibly even earlier. I lived in a family where we weren’t encouraged to talk about our feelings. Despite having four sisters, I always felt alone, and outside of work, I kept myself fairly isolated. My best friends were a bottle of wine, self-rolled hashish cigarettes, speed pills and a cute little grey cockatiel bird named Beaker. I had suicidal ideation from a young age and can remember thinking I would be dead by sixteen.

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I was ready to leave this life—not realizing that I was about to leave this life, but not in the way I expected.

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A VOICE IN MY HEAD

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One typically dreary day in London, I found myself sitting on the floor in my apartment where I lived alone, feeling desperately unhappy and with no hope of a brighter future. This for me was just the course of my life: a predetermined reality, deigned by God. With waves of depression rolling over and through me, I knew this was the day I would end my life.

 

From out of nowhere a Voice spoke to me! It sounded like the Voice was outside of me, but I couldn’t be sure. It was a male Voice, strong and clear. He said,

 

“Do you want to live, or do you want to die?”

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I was taken aback but felt it was a serious question that I needed to respond to. In my despair, there was only one answer to give: I want to die!

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Even though this was a unique experience in my life and far out of my normal frame of reference, I took it in stride because it felt completely natural.

   

Again, He asked, “Do you want to Live, or do you want to Die?”

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This time, I knew He meant business so I searched deeper inside myself, into the source of my pain—deeper than I had ever given myself permission to go before. Up to that point I had grown accustomed to wallowing in self-pity and had become resigned to a life of hopelessness. In that moment, I began moving beyond mental reasoning—to a state of being. I began soul searching. I was connecting with a place deep in my core that I had not accessed before. Previously, I was always stuck in my head, trapped in patterns of despair. Not only was the Voice talking to me but, the source of that Voice was guiding me in how to look inside myself, literally to the heart of the matter: to the heart of myself.

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I took this question: Do you want to Live or do you want to Die, into a new realm of experience—a feeling experience, beyond my egoic patterning and conditioning. I quickly began to experience a gentler, more spacious and open relationship to myself, which was markedly different from my old rigid and fixed views. I was being gently guided to really look beyond the me that I knew.

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In the gentleness and expansiveness of that moment, I connected to Love.

 

Instantly, I knew I had a choice to make: either keep believing that unhappiness was my normal operating system (my old conditioning), or make a different, unfamiliar choice, where I had full sovereignty over my life outcome.

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I responded: I want to Live! I want to Live! But how do I Live, I am so unhappy? How can I continue to endure such pain?

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“I’m going to tell you.” The kind Voice responded.

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“You have to change the patterns of your life. Actions have consequences and if you continue to live your life the way you have been living, then nothing will change.”

Upon hearing that, I shrunk back into my fears, worrying that I would not be able to move away from the negative beliefs that felt comfortable and familiar. I quickly reviewed my life and asked: But what about the last 15 years of my life? Am I just going to give that up? If I just move out of depression, then all of those years will have been for nothing? All of those years will be wasted and lost?

 

The Voice responded, “Who cares—just You?”
   

It was simple, powerful and life changing.

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