Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It (6 page)

AN HONEST APPRAISAL

It’s important to be very honest here because you are basically looking at what’s been wrong with your life so that you can actually make it right. That means telling the truth about your past and acknowledging the bad as well as the good. If you take your car to the repair shop, you don’t hide the fact that the engine is leaking oil, or that the brakes are shot. You give your mechanic the list of everything that’s wrong so he can fix it. The same holds true when looking at your past. You can’t skip over anything that’s uncomfortable to deal with because those negative issues are probably the most important to examine and understand.

You can’t go back and make things better either. And you certainly can’t fix everyone in your life. But you can fix yourself and that should be your focus. You deserve the best life has to offer. You may want to help others and that’s a noble concept. First, though, you have to be strong enough yourself.

I tell myself all the time that to help and lead others, I have to serve as a positive example. I’m not always successful, but my goal is to get my act together, keep it together, and inspire others to do the same. I’ve done it physically, and I’m working on it mentally and emotionally every day. I figure if my brother and sisters and others I care about see that I’m healthier, making better decisions, and am more hopeful and optimistic, they’ll want to be the same way. And they’ll know if I got my act together, then it must be possible for them to do it too.

TEARING DOWN THE WALLS

For a long time I tried to hide from my problems rather than fix them. One of the things I did was push bad memories back into a corner of my brain where I hoped they would stay locked away. Psychologists and psychiatrists say that repressing memories can sometimes be a good thing, especially in the case of really traumatic events that might overwhelm us or cause us to react in negative ways. But sooner or later, for better or worse, we have to deal with even the most traumatic events because the mind becomes overloaded if we don’t. Deep negative memories will surface and sometimes their resurfacing can trigger self-destructive behaviors like self-medicating with drugs or alcohol.

REMEMBER, TO
GET BETTER,
YOU HAVE TO BE BETTER.

You may need help dealing with repressed memories. Many people do, including me. If you’re worried about opening the door to something you can’t handle, please find a professional therapist, a counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, clergy member or at least a good friend or family member whom you trust to be there for you. I’m very glad that I’ve had professional help sorting through the skeletons in my closet, so I encourage you to find the same.

Once you’ve acknowledged the past and all of the good and the bad it holds, you should commit to leaving it behind you, adopting healthier behaviors and perspectives, and moving ahead in a more positive direction. This may also require forgiving those who wronged you, and even forgiving yourself for your mistakes or foolish and self-destructive actions.

Remember, to get better, you have to be better. You have to clean up your act if you want to clean up your life. I’m working on that now and I anticipate working on it the rest of my life. I don’t expect to achieve perfection, but I’m determined to make it my target so I’ll keep striving each day, month and year.

I try not to have regrets because it’s important to keep looking ahead, but I know in my heart that there were many years when I could have done more with my life. I’ve had a lot of opportunities that I didn’t make the most of. I wasted way too much time partying, getting drunk and getting high on one drug or another.

I was carrying on a terrible family tradition. I have friends, including some of my fellow BSB members, who grew up in families where the emphasis was on things like faith and education. Honestly, I didn’t know those sort of families existed until I met upstanding people like BSB members Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson.

DON’T BE
STUBBORN
LIKE ME.

In the pages ahead, I’ll tell you more about these two cousins. They are humble guys who’d be the first to assure you that they aren’t perfect. They’d probably even say they’ve made mistakes in life too. I look up to them and admire them because, for the most part, they’ve built on the strong foundations, principles and values their parents wisely provided them.

RISING ABOVE

While my parents didn’t teach me much in the way of values and life principles, I did learn those things from reading books and witnessing the examples of friends like Kevin and Brian. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I began to see how important it was to have guideposts to live by. I could’ve avoided a lot of problems and been spared many war wounds if I’d been taught them at a younger age. If you haven’t found your own values and principles to live by yet, please learn from my mistakes. Don’t be stubborn like me. Set guidelines for yourself. They could very well save your life.

Without them, I became a product of my environment. But at least now, I’m determined not to be a victim of that environment. I am committed to rising above the life I was handed, so I can create the life I want. You can do the same. You have the power to choose how you will spend the rest of your time on this earth.

Are you like me in that you’ve wasted too much time drinking and doing drugs? If so, you can change all of that by figuring out why those vices seemed like a such good idea in the first place, then deciding you don’t believe any of the myths that those bad habits were built on anymore.

Maybe you haven’t been motivated to go after your dream job. Or maybe you are in a relationship that hasn’t worked out. Think about the last time you were truly happy and excited about your present and your future. What was going on then? How can you get that back? What could you be doing that would fulfill you and make you want to jump out of bed every day? Look within yourself and ask what’s kept you from making a change, then look for new and more powerful ways to motivate yourself to take a positive step toward that change. Next, we’ll look at one very good way to do that. Once you’ve figured out what has made you weak and unable to claim the life you want, you’ll be ready to identify and build on your strengths.

PERSONAL NOTES