Ivinela’s Comments (group member since Jan 13, 2014)

Ivinela’s comments from the Q&A and psychology advice with Ivinela and Alexey from Life Can Be a Miracle group.

Hi Leila,
Great! This is exactly how it should be - having fun. If you can smile at this, then you have succeeded in changing the attitude toward the situation. Being too serious and focusing on problems, makes them seem bigger. Of course, I am not talking about not being responsible to a situation (a health issue in your case). But expanding a bit our perception, getting out of learned models, puts in motion the potential and the problematic situation can find a solution in an unexpected direction... I am glad that you feel more relaxed now. Keep us informed, please! :-)

Yes, please, Leila, come back and share your experience: what it was like approaching a problem this way and also - if you have noticed some changes in your reality. Just an alert: sometimes, when we act like this, it is like we open space that is not limited to solving the problem for which we started it all. So, anything that happened as a surprise could be an effect and a sign that you have succeeded in changing attitude, which is the most important. Because we do not change the situation directly, as we don't practice black magic :-) What we change is our attitude toward it and this is actually what triggers the potential and does the actual change... Looking forward :-)

Hi Leila,
Thank you for contacting us on this!
I hope this is really something "simple" and not causing you much suffering. Why don't you hire a Doctor (maybe Dr. Glue) to look after your stomach for a while (like Dr. Snore in the book). And you can also make a new story for the problem in order to reformulate it. How to do this? Put down the medical name of this condition or if it hasn't one - create it, for example: 'surgery to put new stitches in old wound'. Then combine freely in new ways the letters in this expression to find new words (for example: nude, stew, syrup, tulip... etc) and make a ridiculous story that has nothing in common with the problem, using these new words... This is like rewriting the problematic scenario - you make a new scenario where there is not even an idea of the problem you experience:-)
Please, let us know how this has worked.
Best wishes -- Ivinela and Alexey xx

An interview with P.C. Zick for the Writing Whims blog -

Welcome to Author Wednesday, Ivinela. I love the description of your book, which leads me to wonder about the theme of Life Can be a Miracle. What messages or themes are you trying to convey to your readers?

Most of our limits are created by following social stereotypes. We are taught to think deficiently, not resourcefully. We believe that happiness is an outside subject that should be persuaded as if it is a criminal or a game. We perceive the world as an outer reality, alien and hostage. We think the norm of living is struggling and fighting. Well, that’s not a good philosophy to live by. There is another way of living and this is what I write for. The message of my book could be summarized by Einstein’s quote, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Life Can Be a Miracle shows how we can achieve the latter.

I love the quote and the description of the choice we all have. Do all your books have a common theme or thread? Explain.

It would be a great pity if life was really just ‘an ordinary’ experience, a struggle and joyless. Or, if it was limited to satisfying consumeristic needs and achieving short-term goals. I believe that the universe has much more meaning and much more to offer. I also believe that we are unique creatures with great potential. We are called to constantly overcome our own limitations and social boundaries so we could live our lives as if everything in it is a miracle in its essence. All my books are written within this context. They aim to debunk the harmful myths that make us deficient, dependent and petty and to help change our mindset to a more resourceful one. We can create the miracle of life on a daily basis.

Do you have a favorite character that you created? Who is it and why is it your favorite?

In my novel there are only two named characters – Adie and Alexey. All the other characters appear only to help those two reveal to the fullest. Adie represents those of us who at some point feel lost in life because we have exchanged our authenticity for learned social roles. So, she is a collective image of the lost miracle of life. Adie realized that, dragged along by her fears, beliefs and prejudices, she had replaced her true identity with a personality scattered about in different roles. She believes that only by finding her vocation, will she be able to make sense of her existence and once again restore the integrity of her personality. Cue her meeting with the extraordinary psychologist Alexey, who helps her to look at herself and her life from a point of view she would probably never otherwise have.

Alexey’s protagonist is a real person, a very interesting and unconventional psychologist who I met in 2008. At the time, he worked as a psychologist in the Ministry of Defence in Bulgaria. I became intrigued by his personality and the manner he worked with people seeking his help. So, I started documenting what he did and at the end of 2009, I wrote Life Can Be a Miracle, convincing Alexey to keep his real name in my novel because I wanted people to learn about him and his unusual approach to reality.

What other type of research did you do in the writing Life Can Be a Miracle?

For about a year I was attending seminars for students on psychology and working psychologists run by Alexey and I took notes on his work. I have also read some books on quantum psychology, as well as Carlos Castaneda’s works and the books of two Russian game-therapy psychologists.

You mention Adie as the counter to Alexey. Is she the protagonist and did you enjoy creating this character?

There is not an obvious antagonist in the novel. The antagonist is hidden in Adie – this is that fake personality she allows to take the place of her authentic self. The conflict is internal, the antagonist is the ego that is nourishing itself with the junk food of contemporary society: fears, myths of great life, dependence, etc. It was a great experience to discover and reveal this internal antagonist as I had to look deep inside myself too.

Without giving us a spoiler, tell us a little bit about your favorite scene in Life Can Be a Miracle.

Alexey’s unusual lessons, which start with a tiny piece of blue cheese and an over-sized fork. Adie first meets Alexey “accidentally” at one of his seminars. As soon as an opportunity arises, she asks him the question that bothers her so much: What can she do to find the purpose in her life? Instead of giving her wise and logical advice, as expected, Alexey offers a strange therapeutic suggestion. Adie is desperate enough to try even nonsense in order to make sense of her life. So, later, in secrecy, she performs her first “foolery,” and suddenly, behind the silly amusement of doing so, she discovers the hidden principle in Alexey’s unconventional approach to problems. If we change our grave attitude toward reality, our reality starts changing too. When the main ego’s attribute – seriousness, is blasted from within with humor and ridiculous actions, we tear down the barriers that we have built inside and become more flexible. We start thinking resourcefully instead of deficiently. We are now able to replace the learned non-working models with authentic living of full value.

What else do you want readers to know about your book?

The book is different from positive psychology and new age books. Alexey’s approach offers a radical way to get out of the problematic thinking through absurd and humorous techniques that could be applied immediately in life in a very creative way that fits the specific needs of a situation.

Thank you so much for stopping by today, Ivinela. I find your ideas intriguing and love how you’ve woven them into the form of a novel. My best to you.

Here is an example of a Q&A taken from my blog. Please feel free to ask your own questions :)

Question:
Hi Alexey!
I don’t know how to start… I’ve read your previous article and I realized that we build behavior models in order to be liked by society or the people we live with. But this is not our authentic life and we wouldn’t like to live it following learnt models all the time. I am 37 years old and realize that my behavior model, which I’ve built, stands in my way. Would you advise me what to change in my behavior in order to break the vicious circle and get out of it?

Answer:
Hi,
We have already talked about the mental models that shape our maps, and respectively, our reality. Sometimes, as it seems to have happened to you, the models we use stop corresponding to our real needs and thus begin to hinder our happiness and joy of living.

Very often people come to me and say, “I’ve lost the meaning”. For me, that’s a sure sign that the map has taken control of their lives — the map, rather than them, has started managing their lives, and it has drained out the meaning that life use to have.

The good thing here is that this existential crisis, that you’re probably stuck in at the moment, can serve for reorientation. It gives you a signal that the map must be changed. Now, the best thing is that the reality will react to the change. When we change the map it also changes the shape of the vessel that forms our reality. As a consequence, different events start happening.

Maybe it’s important for you to start doing things that will recover your authentic connection with your natural self, and from there you could build the reality you want for yourself.

It helps a lot to get the seriousness out of the situation. Seriousness makes things rigid and the fixed models paralyze us. But for you, and in order to make the changes you seek, you need the flexibility of a more liberated attitude. One of the basic principles that we discuss at the seminars is: “In order to have something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done”.

You can try doing such things for a while – literally. It’s not necessary that these are some major or ambitious things like climbing Everest, for example. These may be small things from your daily life that you’ve turned into routines and you don’t even notice. Maybe you’ve never greeted your bath robe with, “Good morning, dear”? Or have you sung the “White bunny” song to your fridge? And I bet you have never had your coffee with parsley, have you?

In our lifetime we receive different labels and we also add our own as well – to ourselves and to everything around us. We start identifying ourselves with our labels – and the reality too. The problem about the label, however, is that it is a total prescription and defines the patterns of the models – not only for behavior, but also for the way we live and think. Labels organize our experiences and conquer our reality. However, if we remove the labels, we will discover that we can be much freer in our behavior, perceptions and thinking; we can recover our connection with life’s potential and start manifesting it in our lives so we can be, do and have everything we would like for ourselves.

Making these 'shenanigans' I mentioned is fun, of course, but is not an end in itself, although sometimes to just laugh at a situation helps a lot. These small fooleries actually open the door widely to a more flexible and diverse use of our potential in the perspective of infinity. The point of doing these 'techniques' is to make space within, where we can choose new options and work out new experiences – but this time ones that are synchronized with our natural self.

There are no labels and limits in the Universe, it is neutral, non-verbal and non-linear, which means that all interconnections we make, different from our social experience, can have the 'butterfly effect' in our lives.

For more efficient ideas on how to get out of the matrix where our lives get stuck, I recommend you read the book 'Life Can Be a Miracle' by Ivinela Samuilova. You can directly use and immediately start applying most of the techniques suggested there, adapting them to your specific needs.

Alexey Buchev - psychologist and protagonist in the bestselling novel 'Life Can Be a Miracle' by Ivinela Samuilova

Alexey runs practical seminars together with Ivinela Samuilova - Life Can Be a Miracle - that are one of the most popular forums of self-improvement in Bulgaria