Carlson - From heartbreak to wholeness: the heros journey to joy

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For Lisa.

Im so proud to be your best friend.

Thank you for choosing to be the hero.

You are my hero.

A book like this is born as a collaboration of many conversations and the support of many people over many years. But there are always a handful of people that stand out as being truly instrumental in the process of birthing a book. There are so many people to thank:

My parents, Pat and Ted Anderson, for raising me to be a strong woman with a deep belief in Christ and a benevolent God.

Richard, for always being present and loving me; I feel so held by your spirit.

My daughters, Jazz and Kenna, who are always my best cheerleaders and who make me want to be a hero every day. Devon, my son-in-law, who is the best police officer and father I knowIm so proud of you.

My grandchildren, who bring me so much joy.

All of my closest devoted friends who have lovingly supported me all these healing years: Carole Foley-Stewart, Lisa Marino, Melanie Desautels, TJ Nelson, Laura Hulburd, Simin Kaabi, Jane Carone, Karen Salmansohn, Christine Arylo, Mary Vesey, Nancy Hughes (the best cousin ever), Marcy Cole, Nancy Katz, Diana Cole, Dana Dowell, Jen Rode, Sharon Piserchio, Karen Rhodes, Marni Posl, Amy Ahlers, Alissa Brownrigg-Small, Julia Akunding, Liz Malone, Renny Madlena, Kathy Fettke, and Tamara Gerlach.

KC Baker, for inspiring the leader in me and bringing my voice to the world. Robin Sharma, for your friendship and the conversation that inspired the depth in this book. Dorian Aiello, for exposing me to the Mankind Project. Celeste Fine, my agent, and her associate John Maas, for believing in me and finding the right publishing home for this book to be birthed. Alana Leigh, for all of your heart support and inspiring study and conversation of ego. Jennifer Loftus, for being a new friend and supporter. Kim Serafini, for all of our laughter and exposing me to a new conversation of neuroscience. Christina Rasmussen, for your great work and being my soul sister while we walk this parallel journey together. Shauna Shapiro, for your eyes on the early chapters and for breaking my fall so my foot was my only injury. Mike Robbins, for always remembering Richard and speaking about him. Alexandra Franzen, for your encouragement and support and for a lovely retreat in Hawaii. Rich Dutra-St. John and Yvonne St. John-Dutra, for being the heroes you are and helping me remember why I came to this earth. You are the transformational leaders I have learned so much from over the years, and you have been my best friends. Rosa Aguayo, for allowing this book to work on you and validate the journey of healing in these pages as you drove me everywhere with my broken right foot. Justin Hilton, for introducing me to Debra. Michael Flamini at St. Martins Press, a wonderful editor, who felt this book from the beginning. And finally, the biggest thanks of all, to Debra Evans. She has been the greatest gift to me in this birthing processshe inspired me to bring my best self forward. Debra is a master; her expertise as an editor brought ease and grace to this process. A true book doula she is! Thank you, Debra, for being the hero you are!

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

RUMI

All around the world people are suffering due to heartbreak of some kind. Some have lost a partner or friend through a breakup, divorce, or death. There are those who are alienated from family members due to conflict or irreconcilable differences. For others, there is the painful loss of purpose that can happen when a job ends or the nest empties. There can be devastation in losing ones home due to financial crisis or natural disaster. When a person goes through an illness, there can be the loss of the way life was before the diagnosis shattered their safety and their identity as a healthy person. Whatever the form, loss leaves us heartbroken, vulnerable, raw, and in fear of the unknown.

This book is not only for people who have gone through loss; it is for those of you who have gone through anything. It will address loss, but more than that, it will teach you how to recover to live your most vibrant life. In the coming pages, you will read about my story of loss, so there is no need for me to go into it here. I speak to you, heart to heart; one broken heart mended, to whatever form your heart may be in now, which is likely feeling in pieces.

We often think of loss as being the big losses, but truth is, we experience heartache all the time, although we dont always acknowledge smaller disappointments and curveballs as those things we may be grieving. At times, we may call it anxiety and depression. But what if its not anxiety or depression? What if what we are really going through is grief? Anxiety and depression do, of course, happen independent of grief, but for many of us, what were feeling may be the malaise of unacknowledged loss piled upon loss. What if we really dont understand the opportunity that is present to us in loss? The Western world has traditionally been wildly ill equipped to do grief and understand how to heal. At a certain point in my own loss, I realized that grief was the great housecleaner; this one great loss brought enough reason for grief to clean out all the pipes that contained the layers of loss that had built up throughout my lifetime. Whoosh! All those tears for all those years!

Sometimes the healing is quick, and sometimes it takes weeks, months, or years. Any great loss will lead you to the gateway of transformation, and no matter why youre in loss, transformation is messy, just as birthing a child is messy. A miracle happens on the other side of that birthing process, but its certainly not pretty going through labor and delivery. This process of change can look and feel insane from the outside looking in because you dont feel at all like yourselfand you dont act like yourself, either. Ill tell you now youre not yourself. Youre literally changing form in this process of healing. In fact, due to this loss, youll never be the same again. You arent the same for having loved and lived, and you wont be the same as you walk through the doorway of awakening that loss provides.

Heres the good news: As you move forward in crisis and through the stages of healing presented in these pages, youll evolve into someone better and more capable of giving and receiving greater love. In time, youll feel at home in your body again and more authentic to your true nature than you ever have before. Youll feel more alive, and youll access even more joy than you thought possible.

This book is not about how to grieve your losses as much as it is about how to transform your heartbreak into rich, authentic expression and allow it to catalyze you into wholeness. Although I address the importance of grief in the early chapters, this is a book designed to let you choose to be the hero of your story, and its going to teach you how to frame your story in a way that reveals who you are.

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