A dear friend and I were making our way through South America shortly after my wife had passed. I couldn’t help but think that everything and every aspect of my life was so much worse without her.
You know that song, La Vie En Rose, by Edith Piaf? It means to “see” or perceive everything through rose colored glasses, to witness life with the beauty of rose colored hue.
My glasses were black, La Vie En Noire.
Anyone else watching me live my life wouldn't have thought I was struggling with so much Darkness.
The ironic part of my trip was that I spent my days teaching abused women self defense and my evenings strolling from bedside to bedside, trying to pry smiles from the little ones at the children’s hospital.
On some days, after fortifying my mental and emotional courage, I’d spend time with kids in the burn unit – it was some heavy shit.
I was always good at prying smiles from kids though, and other than a good sunset, it was the only soulful medicine that seemed to work on me.
Then one day I became very ill with a virus or some kind of parasite. I counted the steps from my bedroom to the bathroom, 17 cautious ones or 7 bounds depending on the urgency. That round trip commute numbered in the dozens by the third day.
Ryan and I still had a few more countries to visit after Bolivia – we were far from done and I didn’t know if I could make it much longer without something really bad happening to me.
When your mental and emotional health suffers, you tend to rely on your physical – when that bailed on me, things got scary.
As I layed on the bed retracing the cracks in the ceiling, it felt like my will to live was slowly seeping from my body.
I remember thinking, “I can’t live like this anymore.”
At the time, I found that to be such a strange thought.
Here I am helping single mothers defend themselves from abusive partners or spending time with the strongest and most courageous little children I’ve ever known – and I’m thinking about how I can’t live like this anymore.
What an asshole.
I’m traveling the world with a best friend, taking in all the sights, culture, people and natural beauty and here I am sickened with my life and thinking it unbearable.
This was a very profound moment for me because within it I discovered how much one’s perspective determines their reality.
I knew I couldn’t carry on living like this anymore, trying to maintain and make it look like everything was fine.
As crazy as it sounds, I was also receiving signs and guidance from my departed wife.
This played a crucial role for me because it proved there was reason for me living my life, I just didn’t know what that reason was. And this meant that I couldn’t take the easy way out, I had to push through and discover it for myself.
So I made a choice.
I flew home three days later and four weeks early – that was simultaneously the hardest and best decision I made.
A month after that I had moved to Costa Rica so that I could continue my soul searching journey but without all the travel.
I devoured all the spiritual, self-help, and religious books I could get my hands on, spent hours a day meditating, kept to a clean diet, swam in the ocean every evening, worked out, volunteered with both people and orphaned howler monkeys – and I never missed a sunset.
I lasted four months there before getting itchy and driving a 50 year old Land Rover allll the way back to Chicago. It only took 3 months! I’ll be sure to share all about that trip in a future letter soon enough.
Seven years later, I run my own business teaching others to do for themselves what I came to discover through my time soul searching; elevating my perspective through the power of my mind and creating the kind of life I’m not only honored to live but one that I’m in awe of.
I have an amazing, supportive partner in Suzy and we have a beautiful, baby boy. We’re grateful to be living in a tranquil setting near friends and family.
And I work for myself, spending my time writing (My novel will be released this year!) as well as teaching others how to heal, how to grow, and how to create the life of their dreams – and I’m really good at it too.
If you’d like to utterly transform your life, please take a moment to look over a course I’ve developed for that specific reason.
I promise you won’t regret the investment and things will never be the same again.
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