Lesson 2

Breaking Free of the Past

I have spent a lot of time dwelling on the past lately. Tragedy and loss can drive even the most optimistic and spiritual people to despair. The loss of a child is terribly painful; and when that child is your only child, the paralyzing grief that sets in is beyond words. It’s easy for others to say: “Leave the past behind and move on with your life.” But it’s not easy or even possible to follow that advice when the wounds from a tragedy are fresh and emotions are raw. Instead, one retreats into memories of happier times and becomes a prisoner of the past.

I have believed in the law of cause of and effect, which is known by various names, since I was introduced to the concept at age ten. It’s an obvious law of nature: Every action produces a reaction. When you toss an apple in the air, it comes down. Throw a stone in a pond and it creates ripples. When you make wrong choices in life, those actions produce reactions, and we call them consequences. We might not know until later whether a choice is the correct one, or whether it will have consequences. Sometimes, it takes years or a lifetime for actions to come full circle before we find out.

From the age of twelve, I felt a compelling urge to be a writer, though looking back, I never understood why. I published my first article in a national magazine soon after I turned fourteen. A few months later, I ran away from home to escape an abusive parent. I grew up on the streets, and life wasn’t easy. Being a ninth-grade dropout, I knew my prospects for success as a freelance writer were dim; but I was determined and stubborn. I taught myself the basics of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The summer after I turned eighteen, a paperback publisher offered me a book contract.

Over the next decade, I published a dozen books the old-school way—Amazon.com and its self-publishing platform were years off in the future, and the only way to have a book published was to write better than anyone else and find a publisher willing to gamble thousands of dollars on printing and storing paper books in a warehouse. I was fortunate to have landed a multi-book contract, and I devoted the following years to writing inspirational books, teaching classes on psychic development and meditation, and enjoying a bit of fame at the top of my field. My wife at the time laughed with delight when she went to the supermarket and saw my photo, at least once a month, on the front page of The Star under the headline “World’s Top Ten Psychics Predict...”

It was a bright summer day when I received a call from a woman named Carole who identified herself as the senior editor for Irving Wallace, one of the world’s bestselling authors at the time. She offered me a writing gig. I would contribute to Wallace’s popular Book of Lists and Book of Predictions series, and I would receive by-lined credit as a member of his editorial staff plus more money than I had ever earned as a freelance writer. I practically shouted, “Yes! Of course! I accept!” It was the opportunity of a lifetime for a struggling writer. I was convinced that fate had smiled down on me and my future was bright. I would soon discover how quickly a sunny life outlook can change.

One afternoon a few weeks later, I was watching news on TV and a story came on about a young boy who had been reported missing by his mother in a town about a ninety-minute drive to the south. Unexpectedly, a series of gruesome images flashed through my mind. As the scene played out like a video with no Stop button, I saw a man beating the boy, and then I saw him bury the child in a field. I sensed that the man was the boy’s father or stepfather. A woman stood nearby, crying, and I sensed that she was the mother. I was depressed for the rest of the evening and spent a sleepless night tossing and turning.

Previously, I had worked with law enforcement in several Southern California jurisdictions as a “psychic detective.” Most involved missing children or spouses; two were homicides. The next day, I contacted a detective acquaintance to discuss my impressions. An hour later, he called back. He asked me to drive down and meet with another detective. The boy’s disappearance was being treated as a missing person case, but the detective had some questions and wanted to meet face-to-face. I agreed.

Shortly before I reached the boy’s town, I drove by a vast field covered with heavy brush that stretched off into the distance. Suddenly, I felt a depression so intense that I pulled off the road and stared out at the field for at least ten minutes to compose myself. An hour later, I was walking through that field with a detective and four uniformed police officers; two carried shovels.

We wandered aimlessly for thirty minutes, tromping through heavy weeds and brush, and then we came to a small clearing with evidence of freshly dug soil. The officers with shovels began digging and soon uncovered a child’s body in a shallow grave. I broke down and became physically ill.

Before I drove home that afternoon, I spent an hour with a police sketch artist. Later, I learned that his drawing of the man I had seen in my mind’s eye depicted the boy’s stepfather. The man was arrested for murder, and the boy’s mother was charged as an accessory. Both were convicted and sent to prison.

After that horrible day, I was depressed for weeks. I had recurring nightmares of the child being beaten. I had begun to feel that my second sight was a curse rather than a gift; and other turmoil was going on in my life at the time, which complicated matters further. I needed a break. I finished my current writing project for Irving Wallace, and then I stopped writing altogether. I stopped lecturing and teaching meditation classes. I quit volun­teering at the suicide prevention hotline I had helped to set up at the local Free Clinic. I had decided to take a year’s hiatus from it all and use that time to recharge and assess my life goals.

During this difficult time, my wife gave birth to a son, David, who would be my only child. We had been having problems in our marriage, and after David was born, she moved out to live with her mother. By fall, I had drifted into a part-time job as a disk jockey at a trendy Southern California dance club. It was a weird, 180-degree departure from my writing and psychic work, but it was a needed diversion. Weeks went by, and the part-time job turned into a full-time job. I told myself that I would pick up where I left off in six months, then a year, then two years. I wasted the next ten years playing dance music and losing myself in the club scene.

I had no way of knowing then that twenty years after searching for a missing child’s grave in a deserted field, I would be forced to search one more time, on MySpace, for the killer of my son, David. He was stabbed to death the weekend after Father’s Day in a botched attempt to steal a laptop computer from his car.

“Leave the past behind and move forward” is good advice, but sometimes it’s beyond a person’s capability when faced with extreme circumstances. If you’ve experienced a terrible loss, you have probably faced that same dilemma. You may have felt weak because you couldn’t “get a grip” and follow this sage advice. But if life were truly as easy as following a cliché, saying a prayer, or making a New Year’s resolution, everyone alive today would be ecstatically happy.

It is easy to say in hindsight: “I should have done this, that, or another thing.” With hindsight, all the pieces of the puzzle snap neatly into place and we can see the big picture. But we don’t have that advantage when we are caught up in a tragedy that tears our emotions open or a situation that unexpectedly explodes into a sudden, full-blown crisis.

No parent should ever have to bury a child, and everything in my life changed after that. I had come to forks in the road of life before and understood their meaning; but this one was incomprehensible. I spent the next few years angry, bitter, and depressed. I lost myself in work; I’m still a workaholic. But eventually, my core beliefs in cause and effect, and that everything happens for a reason, rose from the ashes. The spiritual teachings passed on to me by the woman who rescued me from the streets when I was 17, brought me into her family, and loved me like her own son, were still ingrained in my character. Reawakening those beliefs helped me to begin the healing process and sparked a renewed sense of purpose in life.

Today, I can affirm, based on the deep conviction that comes from walking barefoot on burning coals, no matter what cards we are dealt in life, we must recover and go on. We can take a timeout to grieve, and then we need to make a conscious choice: either accept the role of victim and remain a prisoner of the past, or break out of that prison, rekindle our hope, and become the architect of a future that is like a lump of clay, waiting to be shaped by our thoughts and actions.

I have changed and learned some hard lessons. I’d like to say that I have learned every lesson life has thrown at me, and now I will devote my remaining time in this life to good thoughts and deeds. But I’m human, and like all humans, flawed. Nothing in nature is perfect, and no human being is perfect. Trying to live up to that lofty goal of perfection will only lead to frustration and disappointment. Even the most exquisite rose has blemishes, and those small defects set it apart from every other rose, making it wonderfully unique and beautiful.

As you walk your own path through life, you don’t have to be perfect. You can make mistakes–even dumb ones. Despite those mistakes and the flaws in your nature, you...