This personal memoir is based on my experiences in this world.

Bob Marley, Princess Diana, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and countless unknowns, have all talked about essentially the same thing: that there is One Universal Love that flows inside us all. And yet, as I will share, I believe life is often about harmonizing with the co-existence of opposite values, and I believe those to be life and death, happy and sad, up and down, love and fear, pain and growth, and light and dark.

You cannot have one without the other, and we all strive for a balance whether we are conscious of it or not. Together, and individually, we all travel the vast spectrum at our own rate of speed and in our own unique ways. Experiencing these opposites is what often makes this journey interesting. Only by keeping our focus on the positive realms as much as possible, can we achieve, and enjoy, a healthy balance.

I have certainly had my share of both sides of this spectrum, and in the nine years I have developed this book, my ability to handle life's chaotic, loving, and sometimes bumpy ride has also evolved. So, if life is an inevitable balance between up and down, and good and bad, are we all at the mercy of the changing tides? How do we directly impact our experience? Many of us wait for something bad to happen in our lives before we actually wake up and begin to move through life seeing clearly, as Nature intended. Very often, we go through many forms of pain in life, before we discover the true growth that was intended for us.

I have certainly had my share of pain, sometimes deeply traumatic, and sometimes trivial, in the grand scheme of things. It is when we have a direct experience of a conscious contact with the Divine, that the power within each of us that inspires and guides us to improve, transcend, and overcome negative situations, truly awakens. What ever you may call the divine and whether you are actively seeking it, you happen upon it serendipitously, or it hunts you down and finds you in the shadows, leading you out of the forest, makes no difference.

My own conscious contact came about as a result of a devastatingly painful experience, after which I began to realize that nothing is impossible, and that only together, can we realize this truth. I began to understand how much we all share in this life, and I realized we are clearly meant to work through our pain collectively. Together, we will discover happier states of existence. It is only with the true caring and sharing of so many, that I was able to survive a potentially insurmountable ordeal, and I am here today to share with you all I have learned. And if my story inspires, motivates, guides, or assists another, then it was worth sharing. It is other people that saved my life, and for that I am eternally grateful.

This is my journey, of how I came to truly live in the Uni-verse, and to sing the One Song. And this is my story -- of how I came to experience, embrace, and be transformed by, that Universal Love that great men and women before me, have also discovered.

Perhaps, in the reading of these pages, you will come to share my experience of waking up to a new awareness of all that is possible in life, and to the belief that, as one, we can fulfill our highest potential.

I came into this world to a loving family, yet the socially conditioned ways my parents inherited were intended to be passed down to me, with limited exploration to other areas of life besides what they learned and were conditioned to stay on course in order to supposedly succeed. We were an upper-middle class family fortunate enough to find a home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Despite what your last name was, it was really just one Jones family keeping up with the next. My father's role was to work hard and make as much money as he could, while my mother stayed at home with my two older sister's and I, and this would provide everything necessary to give me the same ability to go out into the world and build the exact same life and lifestyle. At the age of fifteen, I remember thinking I would make a great business person, and man would that tie feel like a great symbol of success! Well, at the age of sixteen, I was involved in a tragic car accident that claimed the life of my best friend of many years, and put me in a coma, paralyzed, with traumatic brain injury.

Out of something so tragic, to experience a near-death experience that was completely peaceful, calm, and transcending is an act of God, and although it took me many years to figure this out, something happened on the morning of July 3rd, 1988 that would forever wake me up and open me up to a whole new exploration. It would be an exploration different from the socially conditioned ways I was surrounded by, and it would be a journey that was revolved around the same love that I felt in my near-death experience.

So my awakening began at the age of sixteen and continues to present day at the age of thirty-three and living in Los Angeles, California. We all share so many things in this game called Life, and I know we are clearly in it together to get through it. My car accident would foster more growth and gratitude than I could have ever imagined, and in this memoir, I share all that I have learned from so many different experiences. My goal is to connect and relate with my reader on the most important and meaningful levels. I have learned that love is the answer, and when we open up to the many ways we can receive love every moment of our lives together, then life takes on a whole new meaning, one that will be better than anything we can imagine. It is my sincere hope that this book helps to heal, and promotes goodness in a world that can often be a tough playing field.

This is my story, and I hope you like it.

I am presently a professional tennis instructor in Beverly Hills, California. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Communication Studies from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts and a Master's Degree in Holistic Counseling from Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. I practice Holistic Life Coaching with private clients.

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