"Anna Chapman's image has come to exist separately from my identity."
Anna Chapman releases a confessional novel "BondiAnna. To Russia with Love." The book has every chance of becoming a bestseller. Popular broadcaster REN TV, who in 2010 was facing a term in an American prison for espionage, for the first time described her real story. The author put into the book and psychotherapeutic effect, sharing with readers how you can overcome the blackest depression and change your fate. This is a prequel novel to the events that shook the world when the Russian agent network was uncovered in the United States. In an exclusive interview with Izvestia, Anna told why she decided to describe the events of 15 years ago now and how she was affected by the tragedies and pain experienced.
"I did not know that I woke up famous, because at that moment I was sitting in a solitary cell"
- The scouting exchange you participated in made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. What was it like to experience that and wake up popular?
- I didn't know I woke up famous because at that point I was in prison, in a solitary confinement cell. We were not allowed to socialize amongst ourselves and were only taken out for one hour a day to walk around the small room. During this walk, one guard, who was clearly sympathetic to me, showed me a popular New York newspaper with my picture on the cover. It was then that I realized the magnitude of the scandal and that I should not hope to bail out quietly. I remember this guard asking me with such subservience, "Why, do you really have an economics degree?" I replied, "I'm actually from a country where almost half of the population has an economic education, and the other half has a law degree. Our education was free." In his mind, only a person from a privileged family could study economics.
The fact that as a result of this scandalous story I became a star, I got a lot of advertising contracts, my career development started - this is certainly a plus. But, on the other hand, it plunged me into a state where it's hard to live in the present, since there is no longer such a significant drama going on.
You say I became popular, but actually I became famous. After all, popularity is built up gradually. And I became famous thanks to completely uncontrolled PR. Everyone wrote about me! Often these texts were fictitious, even more often - something painful for me. I had to get used to the fact that the image of Anna Chapman began to exist separately from my personality. People began to invent different facts of my biography. And it was impossible to refute each fact, because there were about 25 articles a day. Someone from show business may think that this is the best thing that could have happened, but it didn't seem that way to me.
- You haven't done an interview in so many years. And now why did you decide to share your story, to open up to the world?
- I felt mature enough. Moreover, I put a therapeutic effect in this book. I created such a mini-instruction on how to get out of co-dependent relationships, and we wrote it in the form of a thriller novel.
"I had the maximum amount of betrayals and disappointments in my life, and I became terribly depressed."
-The book is read in one sitting.
- A friend of mine said a beautiful phrase: "Every personality has the capacity for tragedy that it can absorb." And if my reader does not have enough capacity, it will be difficult for him. But if they do read this book to the end, they will expand that capacity.
- Many people do not understand how to live when there is a crisis - debts, the departure of a loved one. What secret have you found for yourself?
- The secret is very simple. When the maximum number of betrayals and disappointments happened in my life, I fell into a terrible depression. It was like falling into a pit and couldn't get out of it for a long time. Advice to people who are going through similar things - it is necessary to just live, to be in this tragedy, to accept this bitterness. And at the same time, realize that the world is dual, and every time you experience pain, it means that it will bring you happiness later. This is the law of the universe. And the more tragic the amplitude downward, the more you will get the depth to go upward. Because personal expansion only happens in tragedy.
"At some point I realized that I had so much resentment and anger in me!"
- It turns out you're no longer falling into tragedy now. At some point you can learn to do that?
- I have found the strength to constantly return to a state of awareness - to understand what I feel, why I feel it, what I think in connection with it, and if I am in a bad mood, for example, in connection with what it is. If you very clearly learn to identify all your emotions and feelings, then you can control their quality, change their amplitude.
There is such a table of feelings, where, for example, lust, victimhood, resentment, accusations are low-frequency, and love, gratitude, bliss are high-frequency. And if we can realize in any tragic situation what these trials have taught us, then we, in fact, already thank the Universe for them.
Anna Chapman during an interview
- So the suffering goes away?
- No. We experience pain, but it can be experienced beautifully. You can be sad at home one evening if someone didn't call. It is a reason for sadness, and there is nothing wrong with it. If someone rejects us or even betrays us, that's just part of life. But we can learn to ask ourselves: "What have I learned from this situation? How can I make myself happy right now? And what can I do to prevent others from experiencing the same bitterness?"
- It turns out that we ourselves begin to manage this difficult situation and learn from each moment?
- Yes. All people fall into two categories. The first have what they want happening in their reality. The second ones are constantly blaming others for things not working out for them. At some point I realized that I had so much resentment and anger in me! I realized that you can't always be in a state of victimhood. You just need not to think about the past, not to plan the future all the time, you need to live here and now and ask yourself what you want. You have to curb this energy, climb on it like a horse, and not be afraid to fall.
Evenif you fall - this part of the path will inevitably lead you to higher professionalism and the art of living, because living is an art.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
