How to Pursue Happiness

By Susanna Brown

Do you feel deep down that life just isn't satisfying? That you have been going around in circles looking for answers, but the same bad situations and toxic people keep on turning up in your life? Do you often think that there must be more to life than this?

Susanna Brown has lived life on the edge. Her earliest memories were of feeling un

• Language: English
• Publisher: break free church
• Release date: May 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781925585117

Book preview

Introduction

This book is dedicated to you. For too long our society has made us believe that pursuing happiness is found in materialistic outward appearances, and that unless you have been educated to a specific high-achieving job specification, you basically don’t really count in our society as successful. For example, what your job title is will represent your earned income, your earned income will represent how much you can spend, your income will represent how big your home is, how beautiful your wife is, how successful you are. Your image has a label, too, that fits the status quo, especially in our western society.

Wait, there’s more! You thought this book was all about the latest newest twelve-step programme on how you can be successful; that is, if you follow my new formula, that will make you rich? I can just see it now – how Susanna Brown made her millions within just one month; follow her and she can make you rich. The same formula that made her rich will make you rich; make sure you read the fine print. That’s where it says, ‘Terms and Conditions apply’ – or confusions, as I prefer to call them.

No doubt this subject on how to pursue happiness can be tiresome; more importantly, it can be interrupted by many differing voices and formulas that will get you quickly to the top, or the information they give you will make you chase your own tail, so to speak. We are all part of a generation of people who are striving – or shall I say, starving – to pursue happiness. Sadly, with some of you it seems so close, yet so far. You feel like you take two steps forward only to take ten steps back – am I talking to someone today? Let’s say ‘happiness’ has been introduced to us with all its fancy, outwardly enticing appearance, and so, in order to be happy we must chase after the success found in material riches. However, this type of materialistic happiness still keeps the majority feeling empty and the discouragement causes us to feel broken until we give up hoping; therefore finding true happiness can be quite exhausting. This might be you. Do you ever get the feeling like you are making similar, if not the same, mistakes continually? Do these symptoms apply? It almost feels like you are going around the same mountain, over and over again. Different faces but the same circumstances keep following you. You will hear me elaborate more on this subject.

Understand you have a true purpose in life. You might be reading this book, and you have a failed marriage or two, or a failed business, your child might be on drugs to the point whereby you feel your hands are tied and you feel helpless, or you might have had a lot of hard knocks and it’s a miracle you are still alive, and now you’re frustrated with life, or you are living in regret. So, if you keep reading on, let me put what you might be going through into perspective. In a nutshell, if you understood that you were on a journey and you had a map, a blueprint, a plan, then you would cut out the middle man (ignorance, the blame, name-shame game) and you could fast-track your journey via information. What information would you need? I’m glad you asked. I am talking spiritual information that’s relevant to your spirit, soul and body. Unfortunately we have not been given information how to build on our blueprint. We find ourselves frustrated, or you might feel right now like a mistake or a failure, or you might be in the regret stage, the guilt stage or the set-in-your-way stage, where you don’t trust anyone anymore. Yes, you were born to live out your purpose; however, you have been distracted with trying to please everyone else. Guess what? Those people aren’t even there in your tough time. Furthermore, when you put your head on that pillow, not even your spouse knows what you are going through. Purpose – there is a purpose for your mistakes, and nothing goes wasted.

You are more spiritual than what you know. Why do you think the western hospitals are full of embittered people? Because, my friend, they have been exhausted through strife, family feuds and loneliness, regret and so on. I’ve got good news for you, my friend – this is the spiritual side that people don’t get – bitterness, anger, strife, unforgiveness, it all is spiritual. We just haven’t been shown information on how to get rid of it, so that we don’t die prematurely without fulfilling our God-given destiny. God made you. You might be thinking, ‘Oh no, not this God stuff!’ Hold on, don’t drop this book because I mentioned God and you happen to be a non-believer. Give me the benefit of the doubt. Actually, I challenge you to read this book with an open mind. You never know, I might have some juicy information that you have been mulling over in your head that you have not had answers for – and yes, I mean the God questions you have been curious about. I promise I am not out to convert you.

Why God did create mankind? When God created mankind, He gave us the right to choose. However, we were not trained on how to find out our purpose for why we were created uniquely, individually very special and with a tailor-made assignment that suits our personality, made to fit us just right. Say, for example, my grandfather dies and leaves me a will. If I am ignorant of that will, I will never find out what belongs to me. It’s up to me to read that will and testament. You see, you are the law of attraction. You have heard of chemistry, right? Well, everything about you is a cycle and, as humans, our cycles come in decades. What does decades have to do with you? Good question. A decade is ten years and because you are an experience in the making, what you experienced as a child in the first ten years of your life will produce a cycle, a circle.

This can be likened to a game. When playing a game, it gets a little frustrating when you cannot go to the next level, right? Remember previously when I said you are the law of attraction? When you experience disappointments young, those disappointments will turn into moments which will in turn develop momentum. This, in effect, is an almost identical experience that will follow you in the decades to come, so repetitive to the point where you will feel hopeless. You see, you are more spirit than anything else; however, you are spiritually ignorant regarding your spirit, soul and body, especially regarding your divine connection to God. You have a part to play in the realm of the spirit, but ignorance has left you out of what belongs to you.

What governs the realm of the spirit is a similar set-up to what governs our natural laws. If you understand this, you won’t be breaking spiritual laws out of ignorance. Making your connection with God is like putting the best fuel in your car; without it, your car will not run to the best of its ability, and the fuel will eventually affect the motor. Listen, God’s not mad at you, and God is not the author of confusion, poverty, sickness, sadness, war and all evil. However, we are genetically wired to blame. In ignorance, it’s easy to blame God for all of our choice as humans, right?

Just a little bit about me. My name is Susanna Brown, renowned for graduating from the ‘university of hard knocks’. Yes, I have been to bible college and have had an education, but what makes me stand out is that I have had hands-on life experience. I have made load of mistakes but, more importantly, I have grown from them and allowed my life lessons to shape me into the well-rounded mother, wife, pastor and educator I am today. My desire is to lead people on their journey of finding out what information they need to obtain and utilise their very own toolbox. Drawing from my personal testimony, I deliver a powerful message of love, hope and happiness that will make you laugh and possibly cry, but most assuredly I will challenge you and empower you to make choices that will effectively change the course of where you currently are in your life’s journey.

Chapter 1

My pursuit of happiness

Hi. My name is Susanna Brown. You don’t know me from a bar of soap. I want to take you on a journey of my life’s experience, based on my own testimony, entitled ‘My Pursuit of Happiness’. My pursuit of happiness is based on what I have observed over the last forty-seven years of my life, both on a personal level and on an outsider’s perspective, of what I have seen in generations gone by, and is purely based on my opinion. On a personal level in a nutshell, it’s very important that you like what you read within the first two minutes of picking any book up, so perhaps my story will speak volumes into your heart, although you might not have gone through exactly what I have been through. However, I have a habit of accidently telling your story through my story. Funny, that. My passion is to see genuine people happy. No matter how bad things are in my life, I have this ability to spread the love, hugs and kisses to all who are reading this book, so to speak.

Welcome to my heart, welcome to my story. I want to make you feel as comfortable as possible. My aim is to bring to the table information that will challenge my hearers to re-evaluate their current opinions, beliefs and traditions. I love to challenge people to come out of their comfort zone. Why, you might ask. Because I know that there is more to you and me that meets the eye. This is not just about how successful Susanna Brown wants be, this is about stirring you to live life to your fullest. I know within you is a cry for more, a desire to come out of your shell. The hunger deep within you just like the depths of the sea, this yearning brings you to a no-through road, and this is where your frustration begins, because you lack information that pertains to your destiny. This makes your life feel like you are on pause and, yes, you do your own head in – am I talking to someone right now? So what does your head in? It’s that ‘what if’ question, when you say to yourself, ‘There has to be more to life then where I am now’. You can pursue your happiness potential if you are willing to be open to change.

Let my testimony begin

I won’t get into my testimony in depth, as there has to be a level of privacy for the sake of the people involved. I will share little bits so that I can relate about pursuing happiness in my own life. I am of Lebanese decent. I am in the Bible! When Solomon said to his wife, your nose is like the mount of Lebanon looking down towards Damascus (as he was describing her appearance), I said, ‘That’s me!’ It’s okay to have a laugh; joy does good like a medicine.

I was born into a family that was dysfunctional, from what I have heard through the grapevine. I have memories of my mother and father arguing, and even fighting physically, with my older brother begging my mum to stop talking back to my angry dad, who would retaliate to my mother’s constant nagging. I am the fourth child in the pecking order, out of six children. We were all born within five years; the youngest are twin boys. The first child is a girl, the second child a girl, and the third child a boy. My father told me that the day I was born, both my parents were disappointed and somewhat angry because I was a girl. They were hoping that my older brother could have a friend, another boy preferably.

In between the dysfunction and the mayhem, I want to share about a trauma in my life that had really affected me in ways you wouldn’t expect. Believe it or not, one day my mother decided she would cut my gorgeous blonde curly locks of hair. I would have been around five years of age. I distinctly remember after the episode crying and blubbering. Not long after, people all around used to mistake me for a boy, and I seriously got it wherever I went. People would say, ‘Is that a boy or a girl?’ My identity was tarnished and it made me terribly sad from the day my hair was cut. You see, people don’t fully understand that if a parent does not instantly embrace the conception of that baby, the rejection and abandonment will automatically be transferred over to the baby, so you can readily trace a child’s brokenness by going back to the root cause. Rejection and abandonment stems from the day I was conceived, then it continued after I was born. My mother and father wanted a boy so desperately (coming from my father’s mouth who told me this ten years ago). Funnily enough, when I look back, I knew that I was not accepted as a girl from the time I was born, and for a long time, all I wanted to be was a boy. I would hate that I was a girl and would fight other boys, play with other boys. I could feel I was rejecting myself as a girl. From my earliest recollection of what I heard my dad spout off, he made it clear that any boy born under his household would take on the family name, and all girls were to be married between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years of age, so the boys were more special, more important. My dad did everything to make this known to us girls. Over the years I felt a deep longing for my father’s acceptance. Sadly, rejection will do anything to fight for approval, acceptance and attention. Rejection performs until the attention of the onlookers like what they see, then it becomes an addiction. I would do anything to get my dad to love me, even if I had to become a boy. Eventually, I gave hope that my dad would ever love and accept me, so I started wanting attention from other male sources, even to the point where my life was in grave danger.

Going back to my mother, I recall days where my mother used to leave four children home, hopefully asleep, while she went to pick up the other two from school. If we woke up, which we did, we’d be a mess, traumatised by the time she got home. We would get into trouble, as we devised a plan by shifting furniture in effort to escape the entrapment of the bedroom we were locked into. I can’t hold this against her. Juggling life with six children on her own, she was truly like a super-woman single mum who basically had to do everything on her own – a very brave and strong woman for the nearly eight years I knew her.

I also recall my mother being afraid of my father, if he came home when she was on the phone to her brother. I also remember she was one of those women who kept the house clean and spotless, both inside and out. My mother and father had a café-restaurant in the heart of the city of Melbourne. She would peel and cut the potatoes to make kilos of chips. How she got to the café was, she would put us on the bus with all the food and go to work; she truly was a hard-working woman. Sadly, all of her siblings and extended family lived in Sydney, and therefore she did not have regular contact with them. I know she longed to see them. The only family