WHOLE: How I Learned to Fill the Fragments of My Life with Forgiveness, Hope, Strength, and Creativity - Hardcover

Moore, Melissa; Matrisciani, Michele

 
9781623367442: WHOLE: How I Learned to Fill the Fragments of My Life with Forgiveness, Hope, Strength, and Creativity
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1623367441 ISBN 13: 9781623367442
Verlag: Rodale Books, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

A five-point plan to usher you through heartache and toward a stronger, healthier place.

“I know how to kill someone and get away with it.” The words spoken by her father when Melissa was a teen haunt her to this day. Two years later, after confessing that he was the serial killer nationally known as the Happy Face Killer, Keith Jesperson was arrested for the murder of eight women. The pain, guilt, and shame that followed her father’s conviction stigmatized Melissa for years until she figured out a way to use her emotions as fuel to free herself from self-imposed limits and set out on a journey to rebuild her fragmented life.

Through her work as an Emmy-nominated investigative journalist, television host, educator, and advocate, Melissa created WHOLE, a five-step program to better develop her own approach to healing: Watch the Storm, Heal Your Heart, Open Your Mind, Leverage Your Power, and Elevate Your Spirit.

Among other things, she found that the commitment to your core values makes all the difference in getting unstuck; that forgiveness gives the greatest chance of making a future not defined by the past; that there is great value in vulnerability; that creativity is essential to living a full life; and that hope is the basis for everything we feel, believe, and do.

In each phase of the program, Melissa inspires you to embrace your past to find wholeness within the parts of your life that you believe to be “broken.” If you are stuck in the rut of a painful experience—whether depression, trauma, pain, fear, addiction, or guilt—you will find comfort in this book’s advice, self-evaluation, and action plans.

WHOLE is a powerful journey of recovery and awakening that reframes the pain experience so it can be used as a way to invite understanding, growth, and transformation into your life.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

MELISSA MOORE is an Emmy-nominated television investigative journalist with Warner Brothers’ Crime Watch Daily and the host of LMN’s Monster in My Family. She is an internationally recognized expert and speaker on the topics of trauma recovery, domestic violence, and serial crimes. She is the author of her memoir, Shattered Silence.

MICHELE MATRISCIANI is a New York Times bestselling editor, collaborator, and ghostwriter hailing from several trade book publishing houses. She is the founder of Bookchic LLC, a publishing consultation firm.

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Watch the Storm

THE WISDOM OF INACTION

You are the sky. Everything else--it's just the weather.

--Pema Chödrön

What's Inside:

Preparation and Contemplation

The Consequences of Nonacceptance

Trauma: It's a Family Affair

The "Natural" in Doing Nothing

Clarity: The Result of Doing Nothing

Your Storm Gives You Special Status

A Mind-Set of Acceptance

Assessing the Conditions of the Storm

Emotions as Our Guideposts

You Are Here: A Course in Mindfulness

You Are Not the "I" of the Storm

Building Strength by Finding the How

In the movie Deep Impact, a comet hits the earth, causing a tsunami that devastates North America. It's pandemonium. A father and daughter, resigned to the fact that they will not make it to safety within the mountains, head to their most cherished place, the ocean. In a harsh reconciliation with mortality, the young woman buries her head in her father's collar. "Daddy," she cries. She is afraid, yet she looks up, watching the storm. Her father, ever so contemplative and protective of her until the end, closes his eyes and cradles her in his arms.

Cut to the next scene where others are succumbing to their better-known primal instincts, running and screaming in panic from the inescapable. Amid the chaos in the streets, a middle-aged couple ceases their escape attempt and acts on their last purposeful urge. They spend their final few moments gazing into each other's eyes, giving themselves the gift of an indelible image of strength and love.

Did the people running away from the inevitable somehow lose out on the preciousness of their few remaining moments? Was there something to be gained in the midst of their loss? Is it better to go down fighting than to go down possessing the moment in which you are taken? Now, I'm no philosopher, and I'm certainly not saying we shouldn't persevere over life's greatest obstacles, or at least try, but consider the wisdom in these characters' inaction. In the moments of taking their last breaths, the married couple, as well as the father and daughter, represented to me the importance of paying attention to the moment, to themselves, and to each other. They watched the storm. Of course, their fate was sealed by a natural disaster, and it's likely the storm you find yourself in won't have such a dire outcome. Nevertheless, there is great clarity and acceptance in the pause they take from fighting the conditions around them, and that's what I'm talking about here.

To do nothing, especially when something horrifying has happened, is probably the most difficult thing we could ever do, yet in many circumstances it can be our wisest choice. It's a place of acceptance and acknowledgment of all the turmoil before you forge ahead. If you don't take some time to assess what is going on, you can wind up like me and the millions of others who go in search of self-soothing only to adopt destructive coping mechanisms. My shame and avoidance manifested in an eating disorder, chronic depression, social anxiety, and panic attacks.

Why is the decision to wait to act--not firing off the angry e-mail, not begging the bank for a reprieve, not fixing our child's mistake, or not crying to the boyfriend to come back--so damn hard? Because in the face of extreme stress, there is fear, and fear signals our brain that there is danger. Doing nothing goes against our primal survival instincts and impulses to avoid said danger. If we win the inner war and stay "in the moment," our hormone-infused fight-or-flight responses take a backseat to sitting still as a stick, making us a blaring target for the impact. Some might call this passiveness, weakness, clamming up, or copping out even, but on second thought, is there anything braver than staring down something despite the certainty that it is about to wash you away?

Watching the storm is the early time in a pain experience when, instead of going into reaction or panic mode, you wait, pausing so that you can conserve what you will likely need later in the healing process: things like acceptance, clarity, and intention, which can sweep away self-doubt, denial, blame, guilt, and shame. It's an important time because if taken, it's a time of deep reflection, of permission to experience emotions, and of an objective assessment of the conditions of the storm. Taking a pause will not cause you to forfeit the facts; those will be the same regardless if you are frantic or not. But I have found in my own experiences, large and small, that stopping to validate the pain by calling it what it is--"a storm"--helps me to calm down and create conditions for clarity. Power comes to you when you identify the bad and consciously separate yourself from it. This is not you, Melissa; it's another storm coming.

When you are in a peaceful or calmer state, you will be able to access more resources and more facts that help crystallize a clear, motivated, purposeful response. Only then can we move forward with more intention than we would have if we didn't watch the storm.

Preparation and Contemplation

Sometimes we express ourselves most eloquently by not expressing anything-- by allowing our presence, unexplained and unembellished, to speak for itself.

--Amy Cuddy, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges

My life has been enriched by meeting people whose circumstances are nothing short of devastating and watching them persevere. I have seen how watching the storm acted as a critical time of preparation and contemplation responsible for their overcoming the aftermath of their storms. Unfortunately, I've also experienced firsthand how not waiting equated to nonacceptance, causing a cornucopia of issues--from addiction to clinical depression to suicide.

You are reading this book perhaps because you or someone you love is in pain and you want some perspective on what you can do. Something has gone wrong, nothing feels right--you're in the midst of your storm. What's my take on it? Pause.

I know what you're thinking. You just bought a book in the attempt to make strides, to try to "do something" for yourself, only to hear someone with zero credentials (that would be me) encourage you not to act, not to do something! Hear me out. Usually when we act, and especially if we're under pressure, we do the first thing that comes to mind--and without thinking about it. Therein lies the problem. We are reacting without giving honest thought about how we want to handle something. Our emotions and actions are being controlled by others, our own ego, and the environment. Operating in this state ensures that our power is swept away.

I have found there to be wisdom in inaction, in an accepting place I refer to as watching the storm. In holding your attention on the harsh elements and igniting your senses within the pain experience, you will see what I now see: You can't control the storm. Scary, yes. But it also can't control you. Deliberately watching the storm has the potential to stop us from taking things personally and interpreting other people's behaviors, opinions, or rejections as reflections of our self-worth. In the midst of a chaotic event, we can decide to give ourselves the gift of a pause, examine the situation, gain clarity, and choose better responses.

Reaction or Response? What's the Difference?

Reaction is a defense mechanism, while response is a support system. Here are a few ways to know whether you are in an adrenal reaction or in a conscious, purposeful response mode:

REACTION = INSTINCTUAL

Feels physical, even when it's not

Doesn't take very long

Usually only one type at a time

Feels good in the moment, but often feels terrible when coming off the adrenaline high

An easy release usually on an outside...

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Verlag
Rodale Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1623367441
ISBN 13 
9781623367442
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
256
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Verantwortliche Person
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