Heart Guided Life, Walking with Adam

MEET ADAM

June 23, 2016 at 11:21 am PST / I’ve connected to a version of me who is living the life I never thought possible. Being held captive within, the man I wish I could be. He has everything I want, a ton of cash, strength, wisdom. The best part? It’s mine for the taking. All I need to do is shut up... and listen.

Over the last year, I groomed this relationship as I would a dear friend. But, one who controls my air. It has become a partnership. The lofty and wordy incantations I once spoke with grand gestures befitting a Salem witch trial have been replaced with humorous banter and a lot of yelling. A call for help is now, hey you or hey buddy.

What began as a murmur, agitating my youthful instincts, guiding me, urging me, is no longer a whisper but a boom that shakes the ground. With the war cry of an army, it soldiers me forward when I reach for the white flag. Fighting for his throne, the voice of a king who speaks victory without battle. Solemn and wise echoes a prophet whose rantings flow through my veins and forecast my every move. Yet, even this trifecta is no match for the one hiding in the back, lurking in the dark. Last and most powerful, Mr. Saboteur. The villain. His rhetoric tortures me at night, poking my brain with limiting beliefs, mocking the feel-good affirmations I passionately recite. He likes shadows and chaos. He’s wounded, angry, hurt.

The business idea that was spawned after the Dark Days is imploding. I’ve risen from the proverbial ashes for the fifth or sixth time, but there is nothing left to save. The patterns and cycles that haunt me have returned with a vengeance. Spinning out of control, again. Mr. Saboteur is chiseling away at all my hard work, hiding landmines beneath my feet. And, I keep running ahead as fast as I can.

I’m in panic mode. The repo guy is out for my car and someone just slid an eviction notice under my door. Any day the utilities will be turned off. I’m hungry and so fucking tired of the same fight.

I’ve been knocked down enough to know there’s only one place to turn when I need advice — within. Ceremonies and rituals aside, I sit on the floor facing north. Right foot over left knee. My body knows this position and automatically falls into alignment. Three deep breaths, I’m in.

How are you? fills my head. This is my signal. I’m not sure why all our conversations start out this way, but I play along. My social skills kick in.

I silently reply, Good, and you?

There’s an immediate sensation of laughter pulsing through me as the corners of my lips are pulled into a peaceful crescent. Whatever this is, a spirit guide, my higher self, or some new age mumbo-jumbo bullshit people try to label, it is void of human niceties.

Everything I worked for is falling apart. Why is this happening? I ask.

You were given signs, warnings, and you heard me scream, ‘That is a bad idea!’ Still, you repeated the same patterns, made the same choices. With each revolution, more distance separated you from your Personal Truth.

My arm twitches. Fingers coil. I steady myself. Exhaling and suspending my breath for a few seconds before curiously mumbling, Personal Truth? What the hell is that?

I think only minutes pass, but it’s been over an hour as the first line of my stone tablet is carved.

Shortly after conception, along with form and spirit, you are bestowed a path designed to follow a series of milestones. Some are fixed and unchangeable, like birth and death. Most are moveable, transforming until reached. These fluid milestones are intangible. Such would be an awakening to a Personal Truth, the ending of a hereditary cycle, or falling in love.

After reaching each milestone, you rise closer to the version of you who can Guide you to your greatest happiness and is holding everything you desire.

Personal Truth is the sole proprietorship over your life path. It is incapable of understanding more than the individual. It is solid and transparent. It has no requirements or conditions. No rules or restrictions. A Personal Truth is a divine right. A sanctified endowment. An ethereal inheritance.

You strayed from your path and ignored your Personal Truth. Now, the hands of God are pulling you back.

I nervously respond, So, what happens now?

It’ll be over soon enough.

Having reached apocalyptic proportions I query, Is something bad going to happen?

It is time to release what no longer wants to stay. This is the unchangeable part —  Purposeful Order. You can join in, go along with the flow but, most likely, you will fight against it. Either way, your next milestone is exactly the same.

Bringing my hands together, I lower my head. The fear of what tower is about to fall shrivels in the knowing that something greater resides within.

Reading through the notes I jotted down, I’m in disbelief. It is my hand penning these words, but I don’t remember writing them. I take the opportunity to express my thankfulness and have a little fun. Wondering if I should call a priest or exorcist, I ask one more question.

I don’t know where this is coming from, but I have faith that whatever is placed in front of me, I will be led to my Truth. Thanks, umm, umm... who am I talking to anyway?

A gust of air shoots down my neck. Silence followed by a piercing ding. Ears pop. Still with my eyes closed — I can see. Frightened, I wave my hands in front of my face and gasp for a breath.

Nails tear the sides of my throat, speaking aloud, You may call me Adam.

With those five words, a new cycle begins — a pursuit to find my Personal Truth. But, like every great story, this one started with failure.

CHAPTER ONE

What Goes In...Eventually, Gets Out

THE DARK DAYS

February 23, 2013 / Signs pointing to a catastrophic end were everywhere I looked. My world needed to be destroyed, and I was holding a pocket full of matches.

Gone was a six-figure salary that never satiated my constant need to need. And, I was ravenous. Convinced that by obtaining more, gathering more, taking more, consuming more, I could qualm whatever was inside and ached to be free. Each day I wanted something different. Alcohol, drugs, sex, clothes, shoes, gadgets, anything shiny. The things I once enjoyed turned into compulsory acts on an imaginary task list. When I wasn’t crossing one of them off, my body went into death mode. Daily shopping trips justified by the voice of lack would chant, I’ve been through so much. I’m tired of doing without. I need to do this for me.

I was back to checking my bank account before I walked into a store. Calculating the items in my cart, knowing precisely what to skip so I’d have just enough cash left over to numb myself at one of the neon green pharmacies down on Santa Monica Boulevard. From working with some of the wealthiest and most famous people in Hollywood, I could no longer differentiate myself from the institutionalized tribes I stood in the same lines to buy booze, drugs, or at the utility company to turn my electric back on.

My car’s fuel gauge perpetually on E. A subtle answer that would soon be a key out of this mess. I was reaching the point in a cycle where desperation turbocharges my decisions. Even as the gears are grinding to a halt, in my self-righteousness, I take the freeway. This frantic pace of chasing robs my morals. My actions, a step to the left of criminal. I had fallen before, but these were the Dark Days where lower consciousness dwells in its own filth. I snapped. The borders between the countries of my physical being and God crossed. A mass evacuation was underway.

Dramatically, as I tend to do everything, I gathered every numbing agent I could get my hands on. I knew this was going to be painful. A forensic investigation was required to find out where it all went wrong by ripping open my old wounds. Pulling boxes from storage that contained every journal, photograph, and note from the last forty years, I poured over each word and detail. I scraped at any thought attached to blame and dug at the festering bacteria eating at the truth until I saw it was my hands holding the rug beneath my feet. Every broken relationship, every disappointing end. One common denominator underscored my sorrow. There was a voice trying to pierce the sheath of my reality, trying to break the thin layer separating me from my happiness. It was inside, sewn into my DNA, but I refused to listen.

This autopsy went on for weeks. Mornings brought a flicker of hope lasting but a few hours until my skin felt like it was falling off. Sounds from the outside world so loud I cursed the chirping of the birds. When the voice grew stronger, pushing through my chest to comfort me, to hold me — I would race to alcohol, drugs, sex, food, anything that brought me back in touch with the physical world. The magnetic force of limitless love erupting from within was the polar opposite of the reality in which I stood and was too agonizing to endure. The numbing increased, beyond measure. One day, it lowered my resistance flooding my head with hundreds of channels playing simultaneously on one small screen. That was my end.

March 24, 2013 / Sunday morning. After spending the night rampaging through cabinets and drawers, gathering anything I could swallow to numb the pain, I am humbled to still be breathing.

At first, what resembles a burglary, turned into a chaotic system containing piles of papers. There were drawings, stories, theories, and historical retellings. It was a roadmap to my Personal Truth with directions on how to find the path to something called a Heart Guided Life. In the driver’s seat, a version of me who is already there, and he knows the shortest possible route to the unimaginable.

I sat amongst the empty bottles and stacks. Enshrined in sunlight. My body disconnected from my spirit. My spirit disconnected from my mind. My mind disconnected from my emotions. Feeling the urge to adjust my legs, I bring my right heel over my left knee. Wondering if this was one of those soppy spiritual awakenings, I fold my hands and give prayer. Nothing else made sense, and the moment with its religious symbology begged for it.

I looked to the sky and release, I’m ready to listen.

Focused ahead, a crow is perched at my window. I make an agreement, When I see this bird, I will know there is something I should do, a direction to walk. It will be a sign.

For the next hour, the bird doesn’t move, squawking when I touch certain pages and notes which I separate from the others. I skim through the two stacks. A small photo falls out. It is a picture of a man holding a notebook, written beneath, author. The crow screeches and flies off. My heart thumps. In my hand, the image of a forgotten Truth. Placing it into a journal, I sort through the rest of the bundles. On my left, a pile containing a business idea, outlining a design and consulting firm. The other, a right turn, a way out. The path to my calling, my destiny. Two sides, same coin.

Logical thinking punched the inside of my skull. My ego was in charge and wanted to be vindicated for its failures. A pattern allowing for the biggest fall was just picking up speed. A cycle with enough gas to take me for one last spin.

LET ME GUIDE YOU

July 18, 2016 / Two years later. Here I am again.

The business lost its luster. The phone stopped ringing. Employees gone. Weeks behind on rent. Times bleak. My fifteen minutes over.

Back to the basics: When it feels like there is