The Elusive Butterfly of Happiness

Anthea DeVito

Description

An inspiring story of survival against all odds as a woman reveals how she overcame seemingly overwhelming challenges to find her purpose.
Throughout her lifetime, Anthea DeVito has found happiness to be elusive, just like butterflies that are beautiful when we find them, but challenging to hold onto for forever.
In an inspiring narrative, DeVito chronicles her search for happiness, meaning, and a purpose in her life as well as the amazing number of tragedies, traumas, and physical hardships she has endured in the process. As she leads others through her varied experiences, DeVito also documents the world’s most significant events over the past sixty years and how they impacted her life as she spent her childhood in Penang, trained to be a nurse and then beauty therapist, owned a shop, navigated through romantic relationships and family dynamics, and experienced many adventures that included falling in a river full of crocodiles and traveling the world.
The Elusive Butterfly of Happiness is an inspiring story of survival against all odds as a woman reveals how she overcame seemingly overwhelming challenges to find her purpose.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Malasia
• Biography
• Malaysia
• Malaisie
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press AU
• Date de parution: 18 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781982295394
• Langue: English

Extrait

The ELUSIVE BUTTERFLY of HAPPINESS
 

 
An Inspiring Autobiography
 
 
 
 
Anthea DeVito
 
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Anthea DeVito.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
Balboa Press
A Division of Hay House
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.balboapress.com.au
AU TFN: 1 800 844 925 (Toll Free inside Australia)
AU Local: [phone] ([phone] from outside Australia)
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
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 Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
The names of people and places have been changed to protect privacy and prevent litigation.
 
 
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9538-7 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9539-4 (e)
 
Balboa Press rev. date:  07/14/2022
To my son, Steven, and my granddaughters, Eloise and Bella, all of whom I love to the moon and back.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Childhood: From Toowoomba (Australia) to Penang (Malaysia)
Chapter 2 Completing Childhood in Australia
Chapter 3 Adolescence Living in the Bush
Chapter 4 After I left Home: A Babe in the Woods
Chapter 5 My Marriage to Zach (January 1974 to January 1982)
Chapter 6 Making It on My Own: The ’80s
Chapter 7 The “Dark Years” (1990 to 1995)
Chapter 8 The Realisation of a Dream: Beautiful Solutions
Chapter 9 The Fire and the Aftermath (2006 and 2007)
Chapter 10 Conceding Bankruptcy (2008 to 2010)
Chapter 11 After I Finished Work (2011 to 2013)
Chapter 12 Back to the Beginning (2014 and Beyond to 2021)
Additional Reading
Bibliography
Afterword Acceptance
About the Author
Endnotes
 
Preface
In these pages, I trace the history of “the family” in my time on earth and how that has changed, looking at different events, as well as societal attitudes happening in the world and my country to change the family unit to what it is today. I look not only at the family but also at my family as I tell the story of my life.
I have called this book The Elusive Butterfly of Happiness because I have found happiness to be elusive like the butterflies. It comes and goes and, like a butterfly, is something you can’t catch. And like a butterfly, it is beautiful when you find it. Butterflies and sunflowers have always made me feel happy—hence, the title of my life story.
Essential to happiness, it would seem, is a sense of meaning and belonging. I have always had a strong belief that I was meant to be—an indestructible self-belief instilled in me by my father. I never felt loved by my mother and asked him from time to time as a young adult, “Dad, was I an accident? “Didn’t you and Mum want me? Am I adopted?”
He would always answer, “My darling daughter, you were a gift to your mother on her twenty-first birthday.”
After some years, I grew up believing I was an unwanted gift.
This book is about my search for happiness and meaning in my adult life, my life’s purpose. I have endured an amazing number of traumas and tragedies and ill health. The truth of my life is unbelievable, like a fiction novel, and this book is like Pandora’s box with the unbelievable number of traumas constantly appearing. I think there are many who will be shocked, and some will find this book fascinating and/or inspirational. It is a story of survival against absolutely all odds.
It is also a fascinating historical account, in that I document some of the history of the world’s significant events in my time, trying to understand what influences there were on my world and family. I take a look at how all that was going on in a wider context impacted my life and the society I was living in at any given point in time. I have included lots of events from the 1950s and some from the 1960s to recreate that era in your mind as you read.
This makes an interesting read, allowing the reader to see how the world has changed and, thus, changed the society within it. It wasn’t just the family unit that changed. The whole world has changed. But perhaps that’s life. It is always evolving. Day by day, nothing changes. But looking back, it’s all so different.
This book looks at the last sixty years and how the world has changed. From the 1980s on, I look at the growth in technology, which will appeal to my younger audience or anyone really.
This is my story, about me—about the difficult life I have had and my attempt to make sense of it all. Why did all this trauma happen to me? Why did it turn out that way? Do the things that happen in childhood lay down a pathway for adult life for what we will attract in to our life? This was Freud’s belief and the belief of many psychiatrists and psychologists today. We are all unique individuals, and there are so many factors that come into play, which will determine who we grow up to be.
There are genetics and personality, environment, and circumstances at different ages in our growth, as well as influences on us by the significant people in our lives. All of these things and more will go to shape who we turn out to be, as well as what we do and don’t attract into our lives as adults. So, this story takes a good long look at my childhood, to try and understand and make sense of why the entire traumas in my adult life happen to me.
Besides the trauma, I have led a very interesting and fascinating life with my formative years spent in Penang (Malaya) and spending my early adult life in different parts of Australia. Despite suffering an almost total amnesia after the birth of my son, I continued my career sometime later and enjoyed many high points as a nurse. Nurses and doctors or anyone with an interest in medicine will enjoy reading about nursing in the 1970s and my entire career.
I also trained in another career in beauty therapy and did this simultaneously with nursing. I have always been the eternal optimist and look at how I managed to cope with this entire trauma without turning to drugs or alcohol, though I would fully understand if anybody did.
When I look at how I have always managed “to keep on keeping on,” I realise that music has been my medicine. Throughout this book, I talk about the music of the time as each stage of my life goes through. So, it contains some kind of historical account of music starting with the fifties.
I’ve included just the music I tuned into or the music that was changing or impacting on the world. I have also found movies a wonderful distraction. I believe what we see in movies impacts our being and our inner world, as well as our outer world. For this reason, I do give details of a range of movies I either saw or I believe influenced the world.
Every parent has a story to tell of the difficulties or experiences they had as a child and what their parents experienced, as well as the circumstances and experiences they endured to bring you into the world and to bring you up. So, in effect, with understanding and true empathy, you can forgive your parents for whatever short falls or failings you may perceive they had.
I believe forgiveness is a magical and powerful tool, which will free people from emotional pain and speed the pathway to true happiness. I believe I was born a victim of victims and am just grateful I was given life.
The other tool I have found is gratitude—to count one’s blessings is essential to being able to overcome grief and trauma. It is impossible to feel unhappy when you experience real gratitude, or humour for that matter.
In my search for the elusive butterfly of happiness, I discovered its central core is about connection—connection to life, to people, to places, to nature, to your community, to the world. And on the list goes on—connection.
There is also purpose. It seems having a sense of purpose, feeling useful is also integral to this thing called happiness. There were other factors as well, like feeling good in your own skin and with yourself.
This book is the story of my childhood and adult life and of my search for love, happiness, and a sense of purpose. I believe you, my readers, will find my life story intriguing and fascinating. As hard as it is to believe that it is true, it is a true story!
I hope you get something out of it for yourself and that you find it inspirational. For me, I have had this overwhelming compulsion to tell my story, whether it sells or not or whether it becomes a blockbuster movie has been irrelevant to me in the writing of it.
My son, granddaughters, and God-daughter are all very keen to see this