How to Develop the Courage to Fully Be Alive

Finding Light in the Darkness: Spiritual Lessons from My Father's Journey

"To live is the rarest thing in the world.
Most people exist, that is all." ~ Oscar Wilde

You might have noticed that not all human beings you meet are truly alive. It takes a very brave soul to be vulnerable enough to show up and live life fully. Many people don’t know how to enjoy their time here. They have many ideas about what their life should look like, and when it doesn’t match their ideas, they stop enjoying life and feeling fully alive.

When I was 23 years old, my father made an enormous life choice that changed all of our lives forever. He decided that life was too much for him, and decided on his wedding anniversary morning to commit suicide. The only note he left behind said that his financial situation, health, relationships, and career circumstances were all sinking in a perpetual downward spiral, and there was nothing he could do to regain the successful life he once had.

I had the privilege to live with my father alone for the last summer of his life. I remember watching him stay up late, pushing himself, working harder, and driving faster around town each day. At the end of the day, he was secretly drinking his favorite hard cocktails, and sometimes one too many. It was obvious that my father was trying soooo hard not to feel this sinking feeling of failure. The financial struggle and emotional toilet bowl he was swirling in over the past several years.

What’s interesting I find is that my father was a super positive man. I listened to him day after day rant on with super positive grandiose ideas about the massive million-dollar successful empire he was building, and yet intuitively I could sense that there was no foundation beneath his dreams. In his body, he wasn't feeling safe, grounded, or relaxed about anything. He and my mom had separated the year before, and I don’t think he knew how to take care of himself without her. It was obvious to me that my father wasn’t listening to his higher self guiding him to manifest the most successful life of his dreams.

One of the reasons I'm sharing my personal story with you today is I’m hoping it may shed a deeper, more valuable perspective on human life. I believe everything we do or don’t do happens for a higher reason. I see that my father’s suicide was the one thing that we all needed to experience to realize how precious and powerful our inner dialog can be. How we talk to ourselves and others, how we treat and nourish our bodies, and how we judge our past mistakes will make all the difference in our world. We cannot fake whatever darkness we are feeling deep down, and if we try to hide, we are only fooling ourselves.

"I thank God for my handicaps, for through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God." ~ Helen Keller

I believe the Universe seems to know us more intimately than we know ourselves. I’ve seen it proven repeatedly that life will deliver the exact perfect portions of success and challenges to force us to dive beneath our head trip and discover the real gold inside our hearts and souls. It is from receiving both the pleasureful and difficult gifts in life that we wake up and become radically courageous beings. For me, this means a person who has the strength to find solace in the hard times and will use their spiritual path to manifest whatever successful brilliant future they desire.

I know every atom in the Universe is divinely intelligent, and collectively all these atoms know exactly what we need deep down to step into our highest passion and purpose. This all-intelligent Divine Source is designed to bring us to meet our greatest darkness so that we find the strength inside to deal with it and discover our highest potential. It never gives us more or less than what we can handle. The life situations delivered are exactly what our soul needs to expand, evolve, and grow. Sometimes it happens that the deeper the challenge that’s offered, the closer we are forced to find our most enlightened liberated state. This is what happened to me after my father passed away…