Agapi Stassinopoulos: Wake Up to the Joy of You
VICTOR FUHRMAN: What practices do you offer readers in your book about that?
Agapi Stassinopoulos: I have guided meditations. I have action steps. I have journal writing. I have freeform writing. I have found a good course about healing and finding a coach or a therapist. I think therapy can prolong things sometimes, so there are some amazing courses. I found some Insight Seminars that I take in Los Angeles were amazing to go into a place or where you can heal it. You can try it, and you can bring the loving and the spirit and move a way forward. So, once you decide that you want to work on something, and then as you beautifully said, the Teachers will find you, the solutions will find you, the people will find you, and always share and say: “You know I am working on these. I would like to find someone who can help me. Do you have any ideas?” and you would be amazed at the resource out there.
VICTOR FUHRMAN: How important is forgiveness, both of the perceived hurter and for yourself in overcoming your childhood?
Agapi Stassinopoulos: Oh, my God. Forgiveness is amazing. I do not know what I would do without forgiveness. Forgiveness of self, forgiveness of life, forgiveness of others. I think, Victor, the judgments that we place against ourselves, and I guess what happened to us, what someone did or did not do, and then we blame ourselves that there is something wrong with me that this happened or this did not happen, or I am not good enough. It is like I have this chapter, which I know you love, it is called “Enough of Not Feeling Enough.” Enough of feeling there is something wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you, and there is nothing wrong with us. We are in the process of discovery and evolution and becoming a self-realized person. It is a lifetime, a long-life process.
VICTOR FUHRMAN: What advice do you give to folks who are seeking a partner, who are seeking a relationship?
Agapi Stassinopoulos: I say, let the love find you by becoming a lover of life daily. So, if you are coming from a place of “Oh, I do not have someone to love me, to hug me, to adore me and share my life with. Therefore I have to find that person to bring worthiness to myself,” that is the wrong approach. If you say: “I am completing and loving myself, and I am rejoicing in who I am, and I do good things for myself, and I do good things with people I love, and I find people I love, and I am open and my heart is open to having a partner in my life, to have the perfect match for me”, and you come from a place of abundance rather than scarcity, that if it is yours to be it will be.
VICTOR FUHRMAN: Thank you for sharing that with our readers, and that is one of 52 amazing Meditations in Agapi’s book “Wake Up to the Joy of You.” Agapi, in your book you speak a lot about gratitude. How is that an element of a happier life?
Agapi Stassinopoulos: Gratitude. Well, gratitude is something that we should live in 24/7. You know, our own breath, being our breath, you just have to see what people go through when they cannot breathe, and it is so suffocating. Just to live in gratitude for breathing, and I think gratitude transforms everything. It transforms your thoughts, transforms your emotions when they are in turmoil, and transforms everything. So, to live in gratitude is really the only way to live. I mean, we take so many things for granted, Victor. I say: “Be grateful that you can turn on the faucet and there is water.” Be grateful that you walk on the ground and the ground is safe. Be grateful that your cell phone is working. Be grateful that you have hair.”
I have a Chapter in the book about gratitude and reverence, and I write this experience – we do not have a lot of time to say – but about how I was moved into learning about gratitude, and when you are in gratitude you walk around saying thank you to life. “Thank you for the air, thank you for the people I see and thank you for my eyes that see. Thank you for the curtains that I see in front of me, thank you for the subway, thank you for the cars, thank you for the freeways, thank you for the oranges I am eating, thank you for water, thank you for food, thank you for Restaurants, thank you for movies. Thank you for so many things.” Thank you for having eyes and nose and ears, and going to this place of knowing that your own body needs to be thanked because there are 37.2 trillion cells in our bodies and they are making a life for us, and we never thank them.
