by Thomas Sheen
Dear Beat Within Readers,
Deciding to change is not simple, but it’s something I knew I needed. At a certain point in my life, life seemed so empty and void of happiness that I doubted as to whether there was any hope for me of ever experiencing happiness again. To me it was obvious that something had to change.
My initial thoughts were, “If only I were not locked up,” “If only I had a job,” “If only I could see my family.” I knew these things could add to my happiness, but they didn’t necessarily produce happiness. I know this because at one point in my life before making some terrible decisions I did have a job, I could see my family whenever I wanted, and I was not yet physically incarcerated.
I accumulated possessions and sought status that was obtained through violence, intimidation, drugs, and lies. None of those things ever produced genuine, long-lasting happiness. Making enough money to live comfortably was important to me, but making more never improved anything, either. It only added to my stress by attempting to hold onto what I had.
Through my search to obtain happiness I’ve found that I needed to learn to make better choices for myself and to develop self-control. To accomplish this, I needed to learn how to heal from the hurt and pain that I had hoped would just go away and that I had tried to ignore for so many years. A crucial part of healing some of that pain was learning to forgive myself and to forgive others who had hurt me. This was the largest obstacle I had to overcome. I could not have accomplished it without my faith in my Higher Power, The Lord Jesus Christ, the love and faith of my family, and the supportive relationships with my friends.
To process some of my deep regrets and hurts, I’ve learned to write what some refer to as “Unfinished Business” letters to those I’ve hurt or that have hurt me. For me, some of those people were my father, stepdad, mother, sister, brother, friends, and even myself. I’ve found that by writing these letters I was able to dig through some of the shame I had from making some poor choices, and from hurting those whom I said I loved. I was also able to process and let go of some of my resentments, anger, frustrations, fears, hurts, and bitterness that I had unintentionally and unknowingly held on to for years.
Never before would I have believed that such powerful emotions would come up from events that happened years before. What surprised me even more was how emotionally difficult it was, and how emotionally healing it was, for me to read those letters to those whom I’ve grown to trust.
Happiness did not automatically come my way once I decided to change; it was a process. A process of making choices moment-by-moment, day-by-day, that reflect those things that I value, and then acting on them. Through making better decisions, developing a positive attitude, and doing the work to let out my hurts, fears, and shame, I’m experiencing the happiness that I used to fight so hard for but was never able to hold on to. Happiness that is embedded in my heart, my mind, and my soul.
This is one of the reasons I’m so grateful for The Beat Within, it opens up my mind to topics that I’ve rarely, if ever given any serious thought to, and it provides all of its readers an opportunity to write and share our personal experiences so we can heal and learn to experience true happiness that may have been missing from our lives for a very long time.