From Heartbreak to Heart's Desire. Dawn Maslar
gorgeous man (whoever he may be). But why would I feel this way? Poor programming. If our home lives were loving and nurturing all the time, so would be the voices we hear from within. But if they weren’t loving and nurturing (and very few of our home lives were paragons of constant love and nurturance), then the voices we hear within us would reflect that. Since no one is born and raised under perfect conditions, we all have “corrupt programs”— programs that we need to erase and rewrite, in computer parlance.
NOT DEFINING WHAT YOU WANT
How many times have people asked you, “What would you like?” And how many times have you thought, “I don’t know. What are my options?” So many times we don’t stop to think about what we really want; instead we wait for someone to offer choices among which we can decide.
When I was in high school, I was asked to decide what I wanted to do with my life. Did I want to go to college, go to trade school, or get a job? I decided I wanted to go to college, but I wasn’t really sure what to major in. I knew I loved animals and I thought I might like to be a veterinarian or at least a veterinary technician. But instead of looking at schools that offered programs that would qualify me for such professions, I chose a local school and decided to take what they had to offer—because although I knew I wanted to go to college, I didn’t want to be too far from my boyfriend. (In case you are wondering, yes, this was the man who would one day jump on the hood of my car with the distributor wires he’d yanked from the engine.) I chose a school that was only about an hour away so I could come home on weekends to be with him. However, this school didn’t have any programs in veterinary science. They did have a program called “animal husbandry.” I said, “Close enough,” and applied.
I was accepted, and soon I was getting ready to go off to college. Not long before I was ready to go, I received a letter from the school.
“Congratulations on your admission. We only have one other question to complete your enrollment. Please choose from the following list which animals you would like to study: horse or cow.” I was a suburbanite with no experience with either animal. I had to decide what I wanted to spend the next several years of my life studying. I had never been on a horse, and the closest I had been to a cow was working at McDonald’s. After careful consideration, I chose the horse, because it seemed more sophisticated than a cow.
And so I spent a lot of time and money studying something I had no interest in because I never took the time to define exactly what I wanted (and because I allowed my decision to be influenced by my need for love, rather than by my true career interests). As the old saying goes, “If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.” What I discovered, after years of making most of my life choices pretty much the same way, was that the same principles that applied to my college education and early career choices also apply to my relationships. If I don’t take the time to define what I really want, and allow extraneous factors to influence my decision, I can easily end up wasting a lot of time with something (or someone) not quite right.
If you are tired of “getting what you’ve been getting,” this book will help you change what you are doing. Let’s take a look at fixing your picker, and moving you further away from heartbreak and closer to your heart’s desire.
CHAPTER THREE Healing Your Picker,Step by Step
“YOU CAN NEVER PLAN THE FUTURE BY THE PAST.”
—EDMUND BURKE
I once brought my vehicle to the tire store. My old tires had worn out very quickly, and I was upset. I told the man at the counter that I was never going back to the old store where I’d bought the tires because they were terrible. I showed him my car, pointed at the tires, and said, “See? I just got those a few months ago.” The attendant was very nice and gentle as he pointed out my problem. “It’s not the tires that are the problem,” explained. “It’s your car’s alignment. It’s way off. I can install new tires for you, but you will be in the same place as you are now in just a few months. Or I can take your car in, do some work to correctly align the car, and then put on new tires. They will last for 35,000 miles.” Our lives work the same way.
Trying to make changes anywhere in our lives without doing the realignment work is just going to get us more of what we’ve been getting all along. Healing a broken picker takes some time and some work, but there’s no other way to get the true, long-term results you desire.
STEP BY STEP
This book contains activities designed to fix your picker. It consists of twelve steps or actions. It’s not a twelve-step program like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. But if you are in a twelve-step program you will be familiar with the idea. I had been working the Twelve Steps in my own recovery for more than seventeen years when I came to the point in my recovery where I realized I needed to do this work. In fact, it was in the rooms of recovery that I first heard the term “broken picker.” It is no coincidence that there are twelve steps or activities. The number twelve is one of those numbers that are meaningful. In numerology, twelve is considered to be the number that forms a complete and perfect harmonious unit. And in spirituality, the number twelve signifies faith and all the aspects of love. In fact, there are twelve aspects of love:
What more perfect number could there be for fixing your picker?
The time frame of twelve weeks (give or take) is used because, just as when I needed my tires realigned, work takes time. The activities in this book are about making changes. Most of us are resistant to change; that’s only human. We may have great intentions when we begin a healthy practice, only to find, in short order, we are back to our old routines. But the twelve-week time frame isn’t cast in stone. The actual time you take to complete the steps will depend on where you are in the process when you start out. You’ll modify the program to meet your particular needs.
These twelve steps are designed to address the specific conditions that heal a broken picker. Each action has a specific goal in mind that addresses the different factors that contribute to a broken picker. As you go along with the exercises, I’ll explain why each action is important and how to perform the action, and suggest how long to continue performing it. Effective “picker alignment” is a multilayered process designed to help you develop self-love and improve self-esteem, release and heal old pain, reprogram negative thought patterns, grow spiritually, and finally, discover your true heart’s desires.