My Heart Hurts

Elizabeth.

When I write about “Rewriting Life”, I describe a process that I initially stumbled upon six years ago.

This process is about constructing a mental emotional landscape which allows you to be the best you.

Eliminate friction points.

• Guilt and regret about the past.
• Bitterness and resentment.
• Self-reproach and excessive analysis.

These are all “friction points” a term I take from Lawrence Gonzales and his book Deep Survival.

So much of this is to convey the importance of

Be Here Now

You are what you think.

And you are the arbiter of your experience, every moment of every day.

The past, particularly disempowering and distracting thoughts about your past have an incalculable degradation on your most precious resource:

ATTENTION

Attention and thought create your experience in every moment. Attention and thought shape your trajectory into the future.

I’m no bible thumper, but the bible is full of great illustrations of the deleterious effect of divided action. “Middle of the line” decisions as Edward Norton calls them.

Luke 9:62 “Jesus said unto him, “No man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit”.

Remembering the past is important. But, divided attention degrades all forward motion.

Now, this is called “My Heart Hurts” for a reason,

A life rewrite can scrub away these disempowering memories from the past. But, we cannot always elminate people and other reminders of those memories from our daily life. Sometimes our present and future is inseparable from the toxic connections to our pasts.

This is why my heart hurts.

Six years after my life rewrite… I find myself needing to do it all over again.

I’ve spent the last three years working with my dad attempting to restore and preserve a century-old family farm.

But, at the three-year mark, our differences came to a head:

• Budget
• Drugs
• Scheduling
• Community

I took a stand, insisting that we organize our finances. But, his substance abuse had consumed him. This drug use was connected to his addiction to a certain type of person. Without a budget, scheduling, or sobriety… the farm was having a noticeable negative effect on the entire community as my father poured thousands of dollars into the pockets of drug dealers and users.

This was not what I came back home to do.

I could no longer be complicit to such destructive behavior.

I came back to help develop something regenerative for our family, our environment, and our community…

But, somehow, my good intentions caused my father to go from unhealthy to suicidal.

I don’t know what to make of this.

And this is why my heart still hurts.

It’s been six months since I left.

The nightmares of the immeasurable human suffering and subjugation still haunt me.

This is more haunting still because of my own regret and remorse.

This is hard to leave behind because of my own desires in the future.

I don’t want the farm to crash and burn. I don’t want a century of effort and sacrifice to conclude with an implosion of drug abuse and lechery…

I want HOPE.

My wheels spin. My heart turns:

“What might have I done?”

“What might I still do?”

I’m stuck in this Maya. This illusion.

That farm is not part of my life.

It has no place in my present.

But, my work there shapes everything I do in my new home.

Those three years, although full of tragedy, gave me much skill and value.

So here I am, Six years after my first rewrite, realizing that I need to do another rewrite to allow myself to be more present. More useful and joyful into the future.

So. My heart goes out to you Elizabeth.

I have been physically assaulted, financially raped, and watched my dreams burn as they were pillaged before my eyes.

I have every reason to abandon that past, embrace my present, and walk happily into the future…

But, this is the entire point of the life rewrite:

As long as your fighting against the immovable… You’re disabling yourself… Until you release, you become part of the very unhealth you struggle to overcome.

So…

If you can’t separate from your abusers… I don’t know what to tell you. Your delusion and devotion to health and joy must overpower their toxicity.

Or, you detach from them. Stop struggling and allow yourself to apply your energy forward with people more empowering and more healthy.

I have this to focus on: SOLeducation

We can do this together!