He had come to understand it so deeply before he died, just because he didn’t have anything else to do.

He finally answered himself, it came down to: “trust and love of all. Love yourself.”

These were some of the last words of Shirley MacLaine’s father. “If I love myself, I can love everything. Too bad it took me so long. Do I really have to die to find this out?” Learning to love and to forgive.

What are your life lessons? Shirley had decided early on that no one was ever going to be in a position to fail her. She would decide whether she would succeed or not and her mother had instilled in her as a child that perseverance was necessary for accomplishment. Do not give up on anything until you succeed.

You see it everywhere. Even with people who have been told “That’s it. You will never walk again, or you have just a few months left to live.” You make your own reality.

Picasso said that “Art is the lie that reveals the truth”. The purpose of the theatre and its performers are of creating an uplifting spiritual illusion, which helps bond the human being with the divine.

In fact, Theatre was created by the Greeks after they felt cut off from the spirituality of the gods. They needed a ritual by which to re-establish the divine connection. A place in which people could congregate to collectively experience the regeneration of their connection to the gods. The theatre offered people a place to rekindle and recapture their spiritual identity.

We live in a world obsessed with “watch me”

And life is your theatre.

Find the magic in yourself.

At times it feels that we are floundering and at times we take giant steps.

The present becomes the past before it has a chance to become the future.

Some people indulge in imitating others, in search of themselves.

Some do anything to be loved.

Life is to be lived, loved, and laughed at.

Give yourself the freedom and spontaneity to try, without concern for the future.

Try everything, and in trying we will find the answers.

I sometimes wonder if I should be doing one or the other.

Should I be dedicating my time to writing these articles and working as a part-time mentor which I so much enjoy? Or should I concentrate on my own startup? I preach that we should follow our purpose, what we love, and the route with the least spiritual resistance, and yet I also preach that we should persevere. I do, I carry on with my startup against all odds, against all statistics. I work it because it is still part of my journey, my passion, life, blood, and love. I persevere allowing myself some rest time and I feel guilty at times as I am not giving it my full attention. It is My dilemma. It is my fear.

Most of what I have written so far is what I took from Shirley MacLaine’s book “Dance while you can”.

Shirley called herself a fellow student of life and that is how I feel. She believed that we are the product of our parent’s nightmares and dreams. We are influenced by their fears. She explains how her parents would talk about saving for the worst scenario. I so much identify with that. My parents lived through the war in Iran. While my father was a giver and he made sure that we lived a comfortable life, he also worried. My mother would tell me how much he worried and I must have learnt to worry and in defiance of his worry, I would try to show him that I wasn’t going to be influenced by that. Yet somewhere along the line I also would worry. I also wonder how much of this worry I instilled in my step son and I try my very best to avoid that with my daughter.

Like Shirley, I would wake up one morning focused on a small issue in my life, focus on it, and magnify it until it blows out of proportion and I would need to find a solution.

That solution I found in another book “You Are Love” by Tomas Nesnidal. Everything seems to just come together. I had lunch with Tomas a few days ago. We talked about some of our struggles, and he talked about he once let go and surrendered, and it all started working. I have known this. Every time I let go, every time I surrender and just accept, every time I let go of the future and enjoy the day, everything unfolds.

I hang on to the past and save for the future, sacrificing today in the process.

I doubt myself, I doubt my inner wisdom, I doubt my potential.

Only if I could fully let go and just love.

As Shirley’s father lay dying in his hospital bed, nothing was as important to him as to why we were here and where we had come from.

“Do I really have to die to find this out?”

He finally came to understand that the most important thing is trust and love for all.

I must love myself.

If I love myself, I can love everything. Learn to love and to forgive.

Do I really have to die to find this out?”