The Book of Ah Ha: Insights & Epiphanies ...For the Modern Day Human

By Jennie Elizabeth Lake

Ever wonder how the mind can actually believe that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are real? Ever suffer over an idea you realized later on wasnt true? Join Jennie on a fast-paced journey to the end of the mind as she shows the difference between what we make up and what can help us wake up.

Come chase squirrels, visit with Santa, and find that place within where suffering is optional. You no longer need to feel angry or empty inside; Jennie knows the way back home to the real you!

Are you ready?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Sep 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781452582092

Jennie Elizabeth Lake

JENNIE ELIZABETH LAKE offers a practical approach, bridging the gap between modern science and ancient wisdom. She has overcome her own tumultuous story to help save and bring healing to thousands who once suffered as she did. As author, educator, and friend, Jennie is able to successfully demonstrate the often-subtle yet meaningful difference between our mind-made constructions and actual reality. Jennie grew up in a small farm community in Ohio. From there, her journey unfolded through the course of receiving direct instruction from world-renowned teachers who set the foundation for the work she does now. She honors them by continuing to extend the tradition of these teachings. Jennie is the founder of several organizations dedicated to alleviating suffering by way of self-inquiry. Over the years, she has received countless accolades, and her presence has been in demand as guest instructor at several universities. In addition to training some of the most renowned mental health professionals and spiritual teachers in the world, she assists youth programs, community centers, as well as several hundred probation departments across the country. It is these experts whom she instructs on how to best implement her groundbreaking work. By utilizing her services, the cycle of violence has been greatly reduced throughout many communities. From her home in Arcata, California, Jennie teaches and travels, responding to requests to conduct workshops and seminars across the country.

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Copyright © 2013 Jennie Elizabeth Lake.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-8208-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-8210-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-8209-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013916562

Balboa Press rev. date: 09/24/2013

Contents

Special Thanks To:

Introduction

Foreword

88 Words

The Mind-Made Me Illusion

Struggle with Struggling

ThoughtDogs & Tree Houses

Quiet Mind

About the Author

Dedication

This book is dedicated to those in my family, and yours, who are currently in pain, or are no longer with us due to mental suffering. It is in their honor and memory that drives me to continue my efforts to find answers to stop the cycle of violence, pain, and instability that has harmed so many of us.

May we all find peace and a deeper understanding of who we are.

This is also dedicated to the teachers who helped me save my life. You showed me wonders of the world I would have never found on my own. I honor you, and those who came before you, and dedicate myself to continue the traditions of this work by being of service to those who need help. I am only alive today because of your love.

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Special Thanks To:

I would especially like to thank Valerie Shields for her contributions. She spent many a late hour assisting me to find the right words to describe a teaching buried within my brain.

Also, being firsthand witness to hundreds of my classes, and thousands of students healing inside due to the power of this work, lent her the ability to edit from a wider perspective. Valerie, you help me save lives, and I am very grateful for all of your hard work – you are loved.

Thank you dear friend!

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Introduction

Imagine having the chance to speak to thousands of people who had had a Shift in understanding so powerful that it changed their lives forever. What would you say? What would you ask? Would you listen? Is this even important to you?

Well, now is your opportunity to find out.

The author, Jennie Lake, lived for seven years having one of the most unique experiences imaginable, and she was insightful enough to keep records of it all.

What is this experience you ask?

For the first time, comprehensive documented records were kept of over fifteen-thousand people – Mentally Waking Back Up Inside!

The Book of Ah Ha is a priceless collection, the direct result of over ten thousand hours of research, thousands of personal client experiences and insights, and hundreds of interviews. The author has also taught in excess of twenty-five hundred classes and seminars to hone her expertise. There is in fact so much gathered material that it could fill the inside of a Volkswagen Bug.

What you are about to read are the first five Lessons in The Book of Ah Ha, Insights & Epiphanies Series, based on author Jennie Lake’s personal insights and experiences. These insights were powerful enough to allow her to heal from a life previously filled with violence, isolation, substance abuse, depression, and suicide.

After her Shift, she spent several years living in her back office, throughout this time tirelessly helping thousands of people to heal inside. This gave her the chance to save all of her resources to build an agency, allowing her to teach in a way never seen before. Her personal sacrifices led to the formation of the wonderful programs she has developed, and the book you are now holding.

In this book, Jennie shares her own insights, and those of thousands of students, offering not only the unique language that changed their life, but also how their own inner healing helped those around them do the same. What she has undertaken is a task never seen before, and because of her dedication, thousands of people from all walks of life have learned how to heal and live so fully, and completely, through utilizing her unique teaching, that the scope and the depth of it are completely beyond words to describe.

The Book of Ah Ha was written to help each and every one of us navigate our way through the world we live in, today. What this material will offer you is priceless. You must see the results for yourself.

Foreword

There are things in life we cannot unlearn alone. And if there is in fact such a thing called loneliness, it is found only inside the mind – afraid to live, of life, to die, separation – and itself.

When introduced to Jennie Lake by a mystic friend after making a disturbance at a party, I never did expect to learn so much. At the time, Jennie ran an anger management and domestic violence prevention program out of San Francisco – in reality a much larger platform called a Wisdom Institute, which was being developed by using many of the recent groundbreaking discoveries she had made. I would soon find myself fortunate: Lucky – I had no arrests for some things I did – and blessed that I found her in time.

One thing Jennie taught is how I really am not that special. My life was just as devastated as anyone’s – only I lacked the credentials. Jennie demonstrated how RAP sheets, jail time, drug addiction, mental illness – that these, and countless other categories, are mere fabrications – fictitious labels mind agrees to slap on the world, to bring about its ruddy hues, to enable it to judge, condemn and, eventually, make throw parts of its self away.

I only lacked the credentials I thought I did.

Over two years of my life had been spent in psychiatric wards; I had done bodily injury to at least three immediate family members; I’d attempted suicide on more than a couple of occasions. Just what victory was I claiming? The symptoms of the disease may vary, but what of the function, the source, or the cure? I was simply choosing my own condiments to a path toward destruction…a trajectory filled (so far) with poisons that did not bode me well.

Work with Jennie involved sitting with a young woman who’d disclose to us she had spent several years in penitentiaries throughout California. She had at one time run with an Aryan street gang both in and outside the jail system. Having done irretrievable damage to her body, soul and world through the incessant use of meth, psychological violence and brute physical force – even premeditated hate crimes – this was the very same woman who, a few months before, had pounded frantically on Jennie’s office door in dead of night. Found the next morning all but lost, (and yet to be woken), she had been raped and beaten near Golden Gate Park only hours prior.

Jennie completely turned around her life. She was taught to question her thoughts – how to discern between mere conception and actual reality. Her tortuous beliefs soon dissipated, leaving peace of mind in its wake, lending her an opportunity to experience a profound conscious shift. Now herself able to teach, in due course she had earned herself a place in Ms. Lake’s company.

This was my first instructor….

I found, too, that the life of one of the young men at the party I’d ruined (indeed, it was his home), had been inextricably linked and affected by Jennie’s teaching.

One could say he’d had a rough life – as tough as any other. As a boy I am told he was in essence a throwaway, having spent more than four of his seventeen short years in mental institutions. No one had taught him to even tie his shoes, or to ledger the letters of the alphabet. It was Jennie who helped him, to learn these things, and to adapt, as he approached her – feral – most everyone having given up, or else gone astray.

There is a plaque that adorns Jennie’s wall now, in honor of him. Her face beams as she relates to me how once he entered the doors of her agency and, in the span of only one year, became a youth leader, an instructor, a college pupil.

To everyone reading these words, I commend you. It is a testament to your strength and will to survive that you are here. That said, if I may be so bold, I would like to offer how fortunate you are to have found these pages. And maybe it’s true – it’s true too you have been handed an inheritance of stories – stories of agony, misery, nightmares, hell on earth. There are tears, too, perhaps, that you have had to shed or fought back, more than you’d ever cared to – in dead of night – and without answer; treading, as if in unsafe waters, as we have done – as we all have had to – to find our way home. Maybe you knocked and no one answered. Maybe you spoke and no one understood. What I can share, as more than a survivor, is that if you allow – and only you’ll know when this is true – this work will immensely help you. It has saved not only mine, but so many lives. I don’t claim to know your story. I don’t claim to know your pain. But I do know you no longer need to suffer.

In the pages that follow, you will find incredible insights to change your life. I more than invite – I beseech you – to keep an eye and mind open for the doors that will soon burst forth, by which new light and perspective shall be shed upon what your life was before – and is fast becoming. And what is revealed to you – that – this I promise – will be nothing short of breathtaking…!

Valerie Shields – Arcata, 2013

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88 Words

That Changed Everything

No one told me I didn’t have to believe my thoughts.

Sounds simple doesn’t it?

Matter of fact, no one told me that thoughts don’t come with disclosure statements!

Disclosure Statements? You know, like the ones on the radio when an automobile ad comes on, and at the end some fast talking person recites all of the legal jumbo. If thoughts don’t have disclosure statements then how do you know if they are based on reality, or something we made up?

How would we know without questioning them?

What you just read are the eighty-eight words that have helped change the lives of thousands of people. This, when understood, can change your life—as well as entire neighborhoods—and it has!

The day the insight I don’t have to believe my thoughts hit me, I cried. It was a cry that felt like it had been building up inside of me for many years.

This, the cry of all cries, left me weak and on the floor as the mental pain I had held on to for so long released its grip. I had the realization that for the first time in forty-four years there was something I could do when I find myself in situations that, before, would take me down a very dark path.

I began to see that I could actually have avoided the times in my life where I had hurt myself and others; that is, if I would have had the awareness that I could have questioned where my thoughts were taking me. It quickly became obvious that the new path I was on was beginning to provide some of the relief I had spent a lifetime searching for. Many of you may also be looking for answers on how to avoid all of the pain and suffering you have experienced in your life; maybe, instead, to somehow replace the pain with more fulfillment and satisfaction in your lives.

What an effort we have all made.

I don’t know about your list of attempts, but I’ve tried just about everything. I tried the big house and the tiny waistline; I tried the big bank account, cars, and exotic vacation spots. I have bought the biggest TV’s, had plastic surgery, food, drugs, alcohol, sex, boats, relationships, marriage, children, medication, violence towards others—even attempted suicide to feel better.

Like many of you, I have been in and out of rehab clinics, jails, mental hospitals, and was homeless—living in a car for almost two years. I have been beaten and raped, have hurt others, and consistently failed to meet my responsibilities and obligations; yet at one point I was a very successful business owner.

My life, like many of yours, had become a carnival ride, endlessly going up and down. My belief was that it would keep going until I finally took myself out of it. Over thirty-six years of my life was spent in therapy, and this started when I was only eight years old. Nothing worked—until now.

This was a very different way to see things!

All of a sudden I am my thoughts—became—"I am aware of my thoughts." This shift in perspective gave me options I never knew I had.

I was no longer the thought; I was simply having one.

Before, thought was like an identity, something I had to protect. Now it’s just a shirt I wear—or not—and or not was also new. You see, when I realized that thoughts could be looked at and then decided on—that they are not solid, but are instead, a variable that could be chosen or not—one new option became available. It was the option to do nothing. The compulsion and internal pressure of having to always do something was gone. I no longer had to act, whereas previously I felt I had to, even if it hurt me, or someone

Reviews for The Book of Ah Ha

[abbireddi devi · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I believe this book can change lives as it changed my life via observing my thought patterns. I am very thankful to the author of this book.