Гимнастика в моей жизни. In English)

Для тех, кто говорит по-английски, глава из моей книги

Zvezda Gymnastics in My Life

What are my personal changes resulting from Zvezda practicing?

I'll leave out all the details because I've described them in the book about my motherhood. Now I want to pay a special attention to the underlying meaning of my life processes of that time.

I'll start with the parable.

"One night a man had a dream. He saw himself walking along the seafront together with God. He could see the scenes of his life flickering in the sky. After each flicker he saw two lines of foot prints on the sand. One belonged to him, the other one to God. When the last scene flickered, he looked back at the foot prints. The man noticed that many times on his life path there was only one line of foot prints. He also noticed that it was in the most difficult and saddest moments of his life.

That upset him and he asked God:

- God, You said that from the moment I decided to follow You, You would never leave me. But I noticed that during my hardest periods there was only one line of footprints on the sand. I don't understand why You leave me when I need You most of all.

God replied:
- My dear child, I love you and I will never leave you. In the time of sufferings you saw only one line of foot prints on the sand because at that time I was carrying you".

So, to make my point of view clear, I want to speak about the key moment of my life when I was left alone, pregnant, and with the first child to care about. I want to describe it with reference to Zvezda Gymnastics. Thus, basing on the real life example, it will be clear to understand what I mean saying that this practice helps to get aware of your life processes and gives you resources to face your life mess, without ignoring it, to work it over, to get transformed, to move to a new stage of life and understanding of reality as it is.

An extract from My Motherhood Book:

About Prince Charming and Cinderella
"...Time passed by. I continued working and had success from time to time. My life was interesting and intense. I opened some businesses, had some love relations. In a word, I lived as I could. Then I had a love affair, then another one, and the second child. It was in 2006. The love affair was over when I was pregnant but the baby remained. And in that moment Zvezda Gymnastics gave me resources to overcome it. Before the second pregnancy I was quite an ordinary person with standard desires such as "Prince Charming in a cool car", "beautiful palace" and so on. Yes, I did deliver my first child at home. I didn't have him vaccinated and didn't apply to medical institutions. I didn't take any medicine myself or give it to my child. But at the same time I still wished "an ordinary woman's happiness" and material welfare with my "much loved" work and other attributes.

When I met the father of my second child I thought this was HIM. My concept of the universal harmony was a bit spoilt by the fact that I had another child from another man as well as the fact that I make my living independently. As for the rest, everything looked perfect to me. I am beautiful and he is handsome. We have a place to live in (in my flat, of course). Soon we'll have a baby. The man will maintain us and fight for our material welfare. That was my vision. The love affair lasted for four months. I got pregnant and after that we tried to keep our relations for three more months. Our beautiful, romantic and passionate relationships quite fast turned into passionate fights with lots of pain, resentment and expectations. We even went to the so called family therapy. Our relations didn't really get any better but I learnt about gestalt therapy. And I've never used this method any more...

Once, in one of these therapy sessions the question about expenses was raised out loud: how we share expenses and who pays. Our relationships were new and I preferred to ignore the fact that the man didn't take any part in our expenses. Somehow I hoped that "once we get married....". In a word, discussing our common expenses (something about an air conditioner installed in my flat) it turned out that the man wanted to share our expenses in half. That meant he would live in my territory but install an air conditioner with our joint efforts. And I could do nothing about that. I didn't manage to convince myself that this would go away by itself. I simply said that I was pregnant and he had to maintain us. Then we had some talks trying to find out who loved whom, how we wanted to live and with whom etc. Anyway, we broke up. To be more exact, the man left me.

That was a crash. Wreckage of my everything. How? That was the love of my life, my Prince Charming! We must die on the same day and our children must live in a family estate happy and safe! And what do I have instead of that??? The second child and me being a single parent? With two kids? Who will want me now? How will I earn my living to maintain my children? Only with the money support of the first father?

I was rolling on the floor with pain... I didn't understand how I could go on living. The question wasn't about living or not, it was about how I could do that.

As far as I remember the first thing I did was going to the sea to Romania with my child. By bus. I wouldn't do this during my third pregnancy when I already understood that a pregnant woman should take care of herself and not take additional load. But then I went to Romania. I engrossed myself in Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus book hoping to understand the male psychology and to become the "right" woman so that my man would come back to me. When I returned from the holiday, the Prince had finally decided everything and left. And I was left alone with two children.

Then there were lots of different things and now we... communicate. We are forced to communicate because we are adults and we understand that we have a child together. But, of course, there is no love at all. This is the way it is. This story has completely changed me, changed my concept of love, of the roles of husband and wife, of a child and parent. And I'm happy that everything happened this way not another: fast, clear and easy to understand.

Why am I describing it in such detail? The reason is that, in my opinion, people are born with a certain script that clearly states how a person must react to certain things. Characters are not so important. The main thing is how they behave and react in certain circumstances. One person will laugh in the situation in which the other one will commit suicide. People come to our life for a reason. Each meeting is a chance to step beyond your limits, get out of the squirrel wheel.

When you are inside the squirrel cage you think that happiness is bound to come soon, it is almost here, you only have to run the wheel a bit more. And when this happiness fails, you cannot understand how it could happen giving that you've diligently run the wheel and have already deserved happiness. Why am I chasing it and it is escaping me?

And in this moment there appears a chance. At first it is tiny but if you take it, it grows to the size of a mud stream. Some floodgates open and all your patterns of behaviour and mindset accumulated during the whole life are pulled down immediately. They are completely ruined. You look around and see the light and day. The earthquake ceased, the flood subsided as well as the fire. The pain is gone. So, what is next?

Now it is fresh and clear like in the early morning. All the wreckage is around you but you don't care about it any more. You want to get up and go ahead. Just stand up and go without running in the squirrel cage. In a straight way, in a curved way, with or without a purpose. Just start LIVING. Without any patterns or ideals prescribing what your life, your prince or flat should be like. Simple living. Every day, with every breath.

Now I can comment all this from the point of view of Zvezda practicing and family constellations in the following way: my second prince was a reflection of the relations of my parents. As simple as that. There were even some numerical coincidences. My father was 2.5 years younger than my mother. The same with my prince - exactly 2.5 years younger than me. My mother got pregnant with me when she'd been living with my father for 4 months. The same happened to me.

We call all this love: a script carefully passed to off-springs and not worked through by the ancestors.

I am proud of my ancestors. My clan has power and energy though, maybe, not always used for the good. And it took me some time to develop this power. While I was chasing my "happiness", I couldn't get my power...

Then, in summer 2006, I was pregnant and my prince left me. And... I decided to change my destiny. I moved the tram of my life from the predestined track to an open field. At that time it was only unconscious and intuitive, but I refused point black to live the life of women of my family. I decided I would better live my own way. My life would better be unclear than predestined.

And it was like that in summer 2006. God carried me in his arms, very patiently and carefully. But, of course, I didn't understand it then. I continued doing Zvezda Gymnastics and followed different tokens and omens. One of such tokens lead me to Vlad Lebedko's workshop and then to spiritual masters.

It's interesting that since I started Zvezda, there have been lots of different things in my life. But the things that remained are Zvezda Gymnastics and Sufism.

At the first Vlad's workshop a lot of different things happened to me. In particular, I had my first magical theater. My request was "What is love?". At that time I was in process of awakening and looking out of the squirrel cage trying to understand what was there, outside the cage. And I thought that I knew absolutely nothing about love. So, I could get this sacral knowledge at the magic theater.

Instead of the ephemeral notion of love I suddenly found out that I am strong. Incredibly strong. The fact is that I tried to find femininity patterns and implement them in my life. It was something like that: here is a man and I have to cook for him. Or, here are dirty dishes and I have to wash them up. And things like that. The woman must do these things because that is her role. And the man must kill mammoths and bring them home. Well, I did my best to comply with the woman's role with my prince and I didn't get any mammoths in return though I was expecting them in the future.

And when my prince left me, I was suffering a lot and questioning God why the prince broke up with me, such a beautiful and feminine woman who also washed up. And pregnant, in addition to everything.

And I received the answer: "Because you are not a lamb, dear. And don't pretend it. Don't wash up and cook for your man when he comes home. It will make happy neither you nor him. Do you want to wash up? Then do it. But don't do it if you don't want to". I got this answer in a very harsh way which is usual for me. It was at the hard magic theater but the result was worth it.

Basing on my personal experience and observations of other people, though without claiming the absolute truth, I can confidently state the following. The society is not interested in strong women. We live in the epoch of patriarchy, so, the woman must be "soft and obedient". If a woman is strong, she is either single, or makes a man knuckle under, or, if she doesn't want to be a battle axe, she starts attending femininity seminars to learn to be "a woman". And here is the trap. Few people know what "the woman" is. And those, who know, don't teach it. Those coachers who teach femininity convince women to be flexible and pliable molding them as clay and promising a man in return without mentioning what kind of man they'll get. Who becomes the partner of a "strong" woman who is pretending to be a lamb? A weak man pretending to be a lion.

They will be a couple for some time. And, maybe, it will even be romantic. But later they will inevitably show their cards and everything will become clear. If the people are clever enough, they'll let their relations finish. If not, the weak man will show his power using the methods available to him: humiliating the woman or even hitting her if humiliation ceases to be effective (in terms of gain of energy). A man hits a woman for the sole reason: he can't show his power otherwise because he really has little power. He has physical power, but he has less energy than his woman does. He feels it and starts proving to himself that he is also "strong". He proves it physically.

Thus, femininity training courses prepare women for sexual and household slavery which they are bound to be in for the sole reason - their gender. Were you born a woman? Then work.

During the magic theater the characters wanted me to be weak. But I didn't give up. I screamed and refused to become weak. That episode helped me to realize my power. Realize and finally accept it. The woman can do many things, she can do everything. She can do more than a man because she can give birth to a child. And she can also do all the rest. The man also can do everything himself, except for giving birth. People of both sexes can cook, build houses, go to space and make scientific discoveries. It is easier to live together and to share responsibilities. But if people want to live separately, each of them can do everything himself/herself, though it'll take more time. For this reason, I think, there are no male or female responsibilities. There is no point in being obedient for your husband to love you. The challenge is to be happy. This challenge is for everyone. Are you happy washing up? Then do it. But if you believe that by washing up you'll make somebody happy though you don't want to do it, then you won't make anyone happy.

I think the only reason to live together is love. But without any conditions about washing up.

In this way I found my power. To be more exact, I started discovering it. I stopped rejecting it and finally faced it. And Zvezda Gymnastics was one of the main reasons for that.

I'll speak about femininity again and not once. Femininity as well as Zvezda practice is my "topic". Whatever I do, everything about women, femininity and the role of women in the modern society arises this way or another. The same goes to children and their healthy upbringing.

To a certain degree, I decided to write this book because I need to compile and reveal everything that is boiling inside of me. Zvezda Gymnastics remains the background of everything I do this way or another. Zvezda and Sufism. Zvezda practice helps to have a healthy body, get pregnant, give birth to children and raise them as well as to travel, work and write. Sufism helps to keep your mind and heart clean and clear, to live fully and brightly.

I write a lot about Sufism in my resources. And I'll speak about it in this book too because Sufism is an important part of my way. I think that Zvezda Gymnastics and Sufism have something in common: they make people healthier and happier in their life. Here is Rumi's quote: "Either seem as you are or be as you seem". And it is Zvezda Gymnastics that brings a woman to her true self.
And one more quote: " There is a voice that doesn't use words. Listen!".

Rumi (or Mewlana) is a great Persian poet, sufi. After his death the Mevlevi Sufi Order was founded. It is also known as the order of whirling dervishes. Dervishes don't do Zvezda Gymnastics but they whirl. I share their philosophy. And I think that those who have been doing the Gymnastics for a long time also share the sufi principles.
Rumi says: " Come, come, whoever you are. An unbeliever, a fire worshipper, a pagan. This is not the door of desperation. Come, whoever you are, come!"
Sufis welcome any practice, beliefs and convictions. A person can be a Muslim, a Christian or a Buddhist and be a Sufi at the same time. That's what attracts me in Sufism. Tactfulness and firm following the Way.
I believe that after practicing Zvezda for a long time each woman will find her own faith which might be embodied in some certain Tradition or which might be free of any religious rules. Judging by myself and thousands of other women, Zvezda exercises help to open the heart and feel the true spirituality.