The preface is printed below to explain why I wrote this book and how you can start your own journey to wellness.
When you were a child, you experienced life through the eyes of a child with the limited knowledge you possessed at this age. In many situations, an adult would have interpreted the same scenarios and reacted differently. Some of the events that were registered in your mind as traumatic were, in actuality, not so bad, but the trauma was registered and that’s how the event remains in the recesses of your mind. For instance, many young children are terrified of clowns and Santa at the mall. There’s no reason for alarm, but that’s not how the little tots see it. They scream in terror! They are too young to “know better.”
For many of us, memories of bad experiences continue to affect us as adults. Some part of us does not grow up because we are still stuck in the past with these memories we can’t seem to let go of. We can’t get over some things just because they happened a long time ago. The mind makes the memories as clear as if they happened yesterday, and we continue to react as if they did. If you could re-run those memories and consider them with the knowledge you now possess as a mature adult, do you think you’d feel and act the same way you did as a child given the same situation? Most likely you would see the larger picture and understand the motivation behind the actions of the people you were interacting with at the time, why you reacted as you did, and how you would rework the scene again if you could do it over. Unfortunately, there is no chance to have a “redo” of the past.
You can, however, choose to revisit negative experiences and look at them with an open mind and a discerning eye. You may realize that your reaction way back then was based on your limited interpretation of reality as a child and was understandable considering where you were at that time in your development. Some very hurtful memory that you cling to with a victim mentality, may have been overblown in your mind. Looking at it with adult eyes, you could feel differently and not be hurt so much. You now understand much more about how the world works and how the people in it relate to one another.
You may have had the perfect parents and home life but had negative interactions with schoolmates and teachers. Did kids in school make fun of you? Were you the last to be picked for sports in your physical education class? Are you one of the many that never seemed to fit in with the other kids? Did you grow up with the stigma of being on the wrong side of the tracks in a poor neighborhood? There are so many disempowering incidents that happen to us in the course of our lives that affect our sense of self-worth and leave us still hurting years later.
Can you go back in time and contemplate how you may have arrived at a feeling of low self esteem? Are you still grappling with issues of trust because someone betrayed you? After your heart was broken did you build a wall around it for protection and now find it difficult to open up to experience a really close relationship? No matter your achievements, do you still feel that you are somehow lacking in intelligence because someone that mattered to you labeled you “stupid” a long time ago? What did people say and do that left a painful mark in your mind and on your emotions?
Byron Katie, author and lecturer, counsels people to closely examine the persistent thoughts that dictate why they feel as they do about past events, people in their lives, and themselves. On stage, before large audiences, she can get people to do in a few minutes what she taught herself to do in order to heal herself. She learned that if she believed thoughts that were not true, she would cause herself pain, but if she chose to not believe them the pain would go away and be replaced by happiness. Using keen discernment and calm emotions she discovered she could remove limitations and negativity by changing what she believed. She decided that what she learned was too valuable to keep to herself and has been helping others to learn how to do the same.
Louise Hay’s first book, You Can Heal Your Life, had a big influence on me. It made me understand that holding grudges, hate, and other negative emotions will only serve to damage me physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. She wrote that forgiveness is the key to letting these things go so they will no longer have a negative impact on your life. Forgiveness does not by any means condone what some people may have done to you, but it loosens the grip those former actions have on you. The benefit of forgiving others is to lighten your burden, and holding onto these painful memories is a burden. Do you want to spend the rest of your life feeling bad every time a hurtful memory from the past comes up? It’s so much better to come to terms with the past and then let it go.
The impact of negative thoughts was made clear to me when I gained a basic understanding of Eastern medicine and learned about the experience of a friend of mine who was originally from Japan. He was diagnosed with cancer and had to choose where he would prefer to be treated. As a citizen of Japan living in the United States he could choose either place. After some thought he chose to be treated in Japan. Once there, the first thing he said the medical team did was to ask him to think deeply about why he attracted cancer to his body. He was operated on to remove the cancerous tissue, but in order to fully heal he knew he had to find the source of the cancer – his emotions. He could trace it back to an issue with one of his parents. He is an excellent example of how your emotions and your mind can affect you in a physical way. This is a tenet of Eastern medical philosophy in Japan, China and India. These ancient truths are still just as true today.
What you think and feel affects your body. The popular mind-body-spirit metaphor is not a cliché. For thousands of years people have understood that your body is affected by your emotions, your thoughts, and your sense of spirituality. Find the imbalances, correct them with right thinking, and you can heal. Your mind is very powerful. Your thoughts create your reality. Medicine men in all indigenous tribes have always known this.
I encourage you to examine your past and look into the shadowy parts for the painful memories that you have kept in the dark. Do you want to finally come to terms with what happened? Is there so much weight on your mind that you’ve become tired of carrying it around? Don’t let it sap your energy and make you depressed. Stop allowing the past to keep you from the happiness you deserve right now.
Forgive others for their shortcomings. The Bible says that as Jesus was about to die on the cross he cried out to God to forgive his tormentors “for they don’t know what they do.” The reality may be that someone who hurt you never realized – or forgot – the harm they did and long ago moved on, while you are still licking your open emotional wounds today. Forgiving someone allows you to use compassion to see their common human faults and with the understanding gained, let those bad feelings go.
If you are truthful, allowing the shadowy side in yourself to be acknowledged, you may come to the conclusion that there is another person who needs to be forgiven. Look in the mirror; you’re not perfect either. Examine your past for times you caused pain and trauma. The hardest part may be to forgive yourself for the hurtful things you’ve done or said and make apologies if at all possible. Forgiveness is not just for the one forgiven but for the one who forgives as well. It can be a tremendously transformational experience.
This book examines my quest for healing and the challenging route I took to accomplish it. I consider it a miracle, while understanding that miracles are not always instantaneous, but many times take years to manifest.
I inherited some uncommon gifts from my grandmother that allow me to examine past lives, and to communicate with the spirits of people who have left this earthly plane of existence. In order to communicate with these spirits, and the guides assigned to help me in this life, my mind telepathically receives their thoughts. I can also use this telepathic ability to receive or send communications to the living. To assist me along my journey to heal I sought the objective and discerning counsel of others that are also gifted and use their talents as I do – to help people on their journey through life.
The pages of this book are peppered with unusual occurrences and synchronicities that have become commonly accepted in my life as the normal course of things. I realized that I had to write this story as it happened to me personally, because to present the material as fiction would make it a fairy tale – unbelievable, and worthless as a healing tool. I have to be honest that this is a memoir, that I experienced every bit of it, that it all really happened as I am presenting it, and that in the process of writing this book, even more healing was achieved. I don’t recommend that others choose to do the same things I did, but my story is an example of what can be achieved if you are as determined as I have been to rethink the pain of the past and transform it into joy. I learned that no matter how much I understood things on a mental level, my heart would still have an open wound until the emotions were healed as well. I hope to motivate others to become transformed in a similar way.
Listen to Susan’s interview about “Healing a Desperate Heart”
Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Healing a Desperate Heart:
During one of those summer visits [to Grandma’s], when I was twelve years old, Grandma’s sister Stella was visiting her. They were talking in the kitchen as I entered with a basket of clothes I had taken in from the clothesline. I folded the laundry, then paused to decide what I could do next. A thought drifted into my mind that I could sweep the steps going to the second floor. I passed them as I went to get the dustpan and a broom. I was about to start but sensed Grandma and Aunt Stella were standing behind me. I turned to look at them with a questioning expression. Grandma said they had been watching me. I asked why. She said there was something she noticed about me and that I was different than the other cousins. I didn’t understand what she meant. I told them I was helping because my mom said I should do so. She said she wasn’t talking about that. “You’re an old soul,” she said. I just listened. I had no idea what an old soul was and they didn’t explain. My guess is that when I got into the house with the laundry, she sent a telepathic message to me to clean the stairs. Once I picked up her thoughts, she knew I had the same “gift” she and her sister shared.
Grandma and her sister Stella were psychic mediums, and they considered it a gift from God, but no one in the family ever talked about this. The sisters kept it to themselves because they were told by the priests not to give messages. They didn’t know where they were getting their information from, but they were helping people, so they continued. I think Grandma didn’t want anyone to think she was influencing me in a way that was not acceptable – or even sinful – according to the Roman Catholic church.
You can order the print or eBook from Barnes & Noble with this link:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/healing-a-desperate-heart-susan-bischak/1129486370. It is also available from Amazon. Any bookstore can order my printed book by using the ISBN number 9781732699724.
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