Confronting The Past To Get Complete And Have Energy To Create

The first step to creating your own destiny is to complete some of your major incompletions from the past. You have to go talk seriously with your parents, old flames, ex-spouses, brothers and sisters, and lost friends and any other previously unresolved separations. Go wake up all the sleeping dogs and don't let them lie anymore. I suggest a systematic methodology for this and have many examples of people who have done it before. Take, for example, this email I received recently.

Brad,

I appreciate you for sharing with me ideas that have fueled a rocket-like takeoff in my life. Here's a summary of what's been happening for me since the last Reunion Group meeting.

My first project was making my business (Teaching Violin) be the way I want it to be. Students now come for three individual lessons and two group lessons per month, and it works out so I have one week per month free from work. I redesigned my group violin classes to reflect what I care about—adding body awareness (yoga, Feldenkreis, and so on), improvisation, creative

visualization, music history, and lots else. The classes are fun to plan and conduct, and I'm getting well-paid in the process. Next I took on getting divorced. My goal was to be friends with Arnold, and to provide a stable home for our kids. We succeeded big time. We are divorced as of December, are best friends, and still living together. My kids have never been as together as they are now. We're thinking of writing a book called 1001 Platonic Dates. My next project was finding lover(s). The universe provided again, with a guy who is blowing me away with new sexual

experiences, as well as plausible backups in case this relationship blows up. Enclosed is one of the letters I wrote him in response to him sharing fears about his history of promising more than he can deliver in relationships and hurting people as a result. I imagine you will notice your influence.

One of my goals for 1999 is to find and discard old mental baggage. Experiencing life with my baggage detector switched on helps me find it. For example, I notice as I write to you that I'm feeling insecure about you finding my thoughts tedious. Where would such an idea come from? Probably not from anything you've done or said. I imagine it might have something to do with the fact that my mom doesn't do process very well. The only acceptable utterances in my childhood home seemed to me to be cheerful ones, so I stuffed my concerns and reflections. Being aware of that baggage, I can go ahead and write and send despite my insecurity, waiting for you to cry uncle if you choose. That's new for me; I used to keep my thoughts private, to Arnold's chagrin. This year I'm an eagle, observing the world and speaking my truth, soaring on the winds.

I invite you to speak your truth with me, to share your unfiltered feelings day-by-day, even if that means breaking my heart if your positive feelings for me ebb away. First of all, I've never been rejected by a lover, and I'm collecting varied life experiences. Second, though I felt guilty at the time I rejected Arnold as a lover, I look back on that as an act of integrity and kindness. He's grown enormously through the process of dealing with his broken heart. Third, my heart was broken by my father's rejection, and may need to be broken again in order to be reset better than ever as a healing grown-up.

To use Harville Hendrix's paradigm, I've come into my own with my mother as a result of my struggle with Arnold. They are both card-carrying members of the thought police if you let them be. Now it's time for me to come into my own with respect to my dad. As a strong match for my dad's imago, you're the lucky one to help me with this project. So again, be yourself. I chose to let you into my heart knowing full well your history with women. I am not an innocent victim. Of course, I say all this as I chart unfamiliar territory. I am not used to allowing myself feelings of deep caring for men. It may hurt so much when we separate that I choose not to do this "in-love-with" routine to myself again. But at least I'll know that much more about life. I am unlikely to try to saddle you with blame; it's not my style. My guess is that beyond the hurt feelings, we will be friends again.

Statistically speaking, I may be more likely to leave you than be left, despite my more intense feelings. I say that because I am more in transition, having no idea about who I am or what I want now that I'm free of marriage. Am I polyamorous or monogamous, or something else? What's the rhythm of my sexual desire outside of that decades-long relationship? What sort of people am I most attracted to? I'm an adolescent in an adult body running loose in the world. And this isn't even considering the baggage factor; my old tendency to withdraw when I get scared by love. All I can

promise is to behave as gently as my skills allow me as I try to live a life true to myself. I'm quite through with living a life governed by "shoulds."

Love, Georgia

Brad, this kind of communication helps to create a nuclear reaction in my body. Sometimes I wonder if I'm going to get arrested fully clothed, there is so much life force coursing though me.

My next project is getting closer to my family of origin. I've got a date lined up with my dad tonight, and on Saturday I'm going out to California, to spend a week with my sister. I'm organizing a three-day reunion in April for the women in my extended family, including my cousins, aunt, and mother, to talk about how we want to handle death, money, family feuds, and other big topics.

So again, thanks. I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks.

Georgia

Completion Leads to Creation

Isn't it just wonderful how casually Georgia reports outstanding, life- changing, risk-taking, consciousness-altering, freedom making, taking-it-all-on- and-running-with-it life changes? I have heard lots of these stories from

graduates of Radical Honesty workshops. In the workshops, we have developed a series of exercises that lead to more freedom. If you can't come to a Course in Honesty, give these a try in a Radical Honesty Practice Group you organize yourself: