Elevate Yourself E-Book

Anastasia Rachman

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 117

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

This book is dedicated to women. It is divided into two sections. The WHY is the first, and the HOW is the second. I want to explain where I came from, who I've become, and how I got there. I am not omniscient, but some say I am close... This book is dedicated to you, whoever you are: Because the ability to love yourself is your true power, these are the essential femininity tools for elevating yourself, strengthening your soul, and connecting with your natural beauty. I want to guide you on how to be the best version of yourself—for you!

Leseprobe

Copyright 2023

© Anastasia RachmanAll Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author.

DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES:

The information presented herein represents the author’s view as of the publication date. However, due to the rate at which conditions change, the author has the right to alter and update her opinion based on the actual conditions.

This material is a self-help and personal guidance only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice.

Cover: Rachman.ch

Acknowledgements

Tremendous gratitude to God and to the people who made this possible. You are the messengers of my life, the driving force behind my higher calling and purpose, and those who share the same values.

Lots of love to Scarlett, my biggest blessing. This one is for you, my sayang. Lessons, love, and kindness that my mother never shared with me. I love you forever.

To the people in my life whom I can’t mention one by one, thank you for the lessons or blessings.

Finally, to all women reading this book, I hope the message I deliver is the answer you’re looking for, the guidance you need, and the empowerment you seek. If I can make it, so can you. I am your living testament.

With love, kindness, and truth

Contents

Acknowledgements

For the Women

The Why

1.1. In the Eye of the Storm

1.2. The School of Life

1.3. My Life on the Road: The Way of the Phoenix

1.4. Education: The Ticket Out of Poverty

1.5. Life Is Not a Bed of Roses

1.6. The Butterfly: The Law of Attraction

1.7. Chapters: “Connecting the Dots”

1.8. The Awakening

The How

2.1. Healing and Forgiving

2.2. Overcoming Challenges

2.3. Moving Up to the Next Level

2.4. Creating the Life You Want

2.5. Living a Meaningful and Purposeful Life

About Anastasia

For the Women

This book is dedicated to women.

Life as a woman is a challenging thing. Don’t get me wrong: it’s lovely, and I love it! But in this, unfortunately, still far too male-dominated world, it is made artificially difficult. Even more so if you’re different and don’t conform to society’s ideals – particularly what men expect of you. And let’s be honest, often we make it quite difficult for ourselves. Believe me, I can tell you a thing or two about it.

Those who have not experienced this difficulty themselves often see it in movies and television series, full of amazement and incredulous head shaking at how, even in Central Europe, women and other marginalized groups were treated in an openly discriminatory manner just a few decades ago. Women were not allowed to open their own bank accounts without their husbands’ permission, and spousal abuse was not treated as a crime for a long time because sex was considered to be one of the duties of a good wife. Even the right to vote had to be fought hard for and was not given to women in Switzerland until 1981! The Middle Ages are still on our doorstep, so to speak. And we are talking about Central Europe here, not Indonesia, where I come from. There, it’s an entirely different matter with regards to women’s rights.

I have escaped the toxic circumstances into which I was born, but this experience is far from over for so many other women worldwide. Not in our country, and certainly not in others. In some parts of the world, conditions for women exceed those of apartheid in South Africa, regarding exclusion and discrimination. My own life is the sometimes bitter proof of this.

The fact is, and I also say this from experience, we women have become accustomed to this nonsense for far too long. It seems to be the expectation for many to grow up in a toxic environment, to wear themselves out in unhealthy relationships, and to always put themselves last. Precisely because of this, it has been made far too easy for narcissistic men or toxic people to treat us as victims and live at our expense. Even the poorest weenie of a man can still act like a patriarch and a henpecked tyrant at home in this world.

I say, women in power!

In the business world, in particular, we have taken it so far that being female often has an unpleasant connotation and usually means practically the opposite of being powerful and successful. So if you want to be taken seriously, try to be as masculine as possible. But, unfortunately, when I look around in the business world, the type of woman who, to be taken seriously on the corporate ladder, masks herself like her male colleagues with a black suit and a severe face and denies her femininity wherever possible still dominates.

It is this society that has made women surrender their femininity or give up their dreams of being provided for or even becoming a mother; it is a free choice. I fully agree, but deep inside, it is not in our nature as women to be masculine; we are built and created differently.

Why is that so? I dare to say that it is precisely because of the patriarchal structures I just mentioned.

In this male-dominated world, women are assigned dual roles; therefore, everything that has to do with femininity is also a symbol of this status. So at this point, I ask myself: Does it have to be this way? And I answer this question without hesitation with a clear NO! On the contrary: stop it!

Because femininity is power!

This book is meant to be an exclamation point. It is divided into two parts. The first is called THE WHY, and the second is THE HOW.

Let me explain this briefly. Why is the first chapter called WHY? Every crisis, in retrospect, has been an impetus for growth and development for me. Like every human being, I have survived many problems in my life. They are ultimately the WHY. They drove me to develop, and to become who I am today. That is why they form the first chapter.

Someone once said that anything and everything can be a teacher. They were right.

But the WHY also has at least one deeper meaning. This refers to who I am, to my character, and finally, to the simple WHY I write this book.

The second part is called HOW. Here I share how I have upgraded my life again, and which insights have helped and inspired me.

I want to share where I came from, who I have become, and how. I am hopeful that my mistakes and detours can be a lesson to others. I am not omniscient, but some say not far from it…

Of course, this book is primarily about my life, which is certainly not a blueprint. Every person has their own path, destiny, struggles, and victories. But much of what I have gone through can serve as an example of what women still have to endure far too often.

Whether it’s a boss harassing you or a father abusing you, or you’re experiencing being a victim of the nasty office politics played by a work colleague, or you’ve been betrayed by a business partner or friend, or a partner is exploiting you emotionally or financially, or if you have to brave the world as a single mom, believe me, I know and have experienced every single one of these situations.

Whoever you may be, this book is dedicated to you. I want to show you how to deal with these situations, how to change your life for the better, and how to protect yourself from unhealthy people and circumstances in the future.

I want to show you how you can take back your power, be in the driver’s seat of your life, and stay true to yourself simultaneously. I want to show you how to be the best version of yourself – for you!

Elevate your life!

I

The Why

1.1. In the Eye of the Storm

For a moment there was nothing.

Then I realized that something terrible had happened.

I saw the Bekasi sky, vast, infinitely wide and blue between the building roofs, only flecked with single clouds. As a little girl, I saw myself bent over books and circuit boards with thick glasses. My parents’ faces were oversized, and my siblings were far away. My family’s store, rows of cluttered supermarket shelves. The shadows of skyscrapers move in a time lapse across dark street canyons. Then an empty room with only a mattress. A row of gazing faces, some angry, some sad, some smiling. A suitcase. A bed. A man. The screaming child. Everything danced wildly through my mind.

But the sky I saw was not the sky over Bekasi. Instead, a cold sky stretched endlessly over the sparse rooftops on the side of the road. And I was not the little girl, but…

The child did not stop screaming. The shrill voice twitched through my nerves. Slowly my thoughts sorted themselves out. I could not breathe. A stabbing headache. Everything was happening as if in slow motion. Sounds dull and far away hit my ears. Again the crying child, now more clearly. I panicked: my daughter! The memory returned, heavy like a mudslide.

My daughter was in her child seat in the passenger seat. We were on our way to the day care centre. I can no longer say precisely what happened; I was stressed out, the work I had to go to, where a boss who bullied me was waiting for me, plus the divorce. The divorce from a narcissist. Then suddenly, this red construction truck was in front of me, driving much too slowly. My nerves fluttered like curtains in an open window during a storm.

So as not to be late for work and have to endure my boss’s caustic remarks, I glanced over my shoulder, flashed my lights, and swerved to overtake the truck. I’ll tell you a secret: single moms are only human. Thoughts raced through my head. I was already familiar with this: survival mode. Keep going, keep going, don’t think, don’t hesitate, don’t stop. Stress, boiling over stress. Had I forgotten something? My bag! No, there it was. Did my daughter have everything for day care? I looked over at her sitting in her child seat, looking at me with her bright eyes. The next moment, I saw the red wall approaching behind her. For no apparent reason and, more importantly, without signalling, the truck suddenly swerved and crashed into the side of our car, on the side where my daughter was sitting, of all places. Then the events rolled over, and I knew nothing more for the moment…

Even though my head was throbbing, and I felt as if I had lost both legs and swallowed my eyes, all my attention was only on my daughter. She was screaming. That was good. She was alive. It took a moment for the realization to take hold: we had survived the accident without a scratch.

Yes, we had survived. But something died that day.

Perhaps the old Anastasia. Like a film, the whole life passes before the mind’s eye at the moment of death. I experienced something similar, but it was not only death. It was more, much more. It was a rebirth.

The moment when I was behind the wheel and everything was spinning around me, the moment when time seemed to stand still, and I no longer knew who I was, whether I was living or dying, awake, or dreaming – at that moment, I was in the eye of the storm.

Oh yes, a storm swept through my life at that time and mercilessly tore away and cleared everything that was not nailed down. And while I sat there in the initial shock, it felt like I had a moment of peace for the first time in a long, long time. It may sound crazy when I had only survived a collision with a truck, but that’s how it was.

For so long, I had been in survival mode, just functioning, going on and on, plodding along, wearing myself out without knowing exactly what for. Until now. Until this moment of silence and clarity.

In the eye of the storm, in perfect peace, and at a time when everything around me was in flux and falling apart: I was about to lose my job, I was in the middle of a difficult divorce, just escaping a toxic marriage…and now this – the accident.

How beautiful was this moment of silence?

But I knew I could not stay. When you’re in the eye of the storm, you can’t stop – you have to keep going, because the calm is deceptive, beyond the howls of the approaching gusts. The turbulence will return, that’s for sure. I knew that, so I kept going.

It took me another six months to get out of the storm. And yet I was already transformed. The Anastasia who had dived into the dark clouds was no longer the one who came out after the accident and all the turmoil. My vision was washed clean, and perhaps, for the first time in my life, I really saw clearly. I realized that everything had its purpose, that I was on a path, that all the suffering, all the disappointment, that everything in my life had to happen as it did to lead to this sacred moment when my eyes were opened. I realized that with a new beginning, first space must be made. The trees drop their old leaves, which will serve as fertilizer in the future and make room for fresh, lush greenery. It’s the same in every human life. Sometimes we lose things to make room for the new. Or, as the saying goes, when one door closes, another one opens.

I now knew that my life had a purpose and that there was a force – you may call it destiny, the universe, or God – that reveals itself in everything that exists and leads everything to blossom according to the respective plan.