My "Friday The 13th" curse...and how I broke it!

Hi, everybody. Steve Barnes here once again with Life Writing Live. Like I said, I'm trying to get here more regularly, talk to you, especially during this time of stress. And today I actually have something kind of, kind of special to talk about because I have a lot to celebrate. And so I wanted to share that with you. Over my life, I have accomplished a lot of things that matter to me. You know, New York Times best selling author, three black belts, and married to my soulmate. But the most important one is my son, my daughter. By far, the most important accomplishments, the most important things, the things that are closest to my heart and the thing that I'm most grateful for. You know, the thing about parenting is that one thing that's almost universal is you want to make the world a safer place, a better place for your children than it was for you. You know, I love them more than I love anything in the world. Yeah, I actually love them more than I love you guys. And I love you guys an awful lot. I really enjoy seeing you and I enjoy talking to you. But the welfare of my children and my family is more important than anything in the entire world. I want to save them years of pain and grief and struggle, the struggles that I went through. And everything that I'm saying, everything that I teach, everything that I do is trying to point in the same direction. I mean, I've spent thousands of hours and incalculable amounts of treasure and pain and blood and sweat to learn the things that I know. And I just want to give them to my children for a fraction of the price that I paid for it. And if I can do that, I will have accomplished something of worth. That's once again, that's the way the human race advances. Each generation standing on the shoulders of the ones that came before. I look at myself as sort of a dwarf who stood on the shoulders of giants. So if you're of normal height, if you listen to what I'm saying, you're going to do great. If they'll listen, if I can find a way to communicate with them, then I will have accomplished something really worth accomplishing. And I like to try out little pieces of it on you guys. So that's hopefully a good thing. So today I want to talk about something that just happened yesterday. And it's actually in the process of still happening. It's the healing of a wound more than 30 years old. I mean, it's something that's been in my gut, chewing at me for more than three decades. And I may have finally crossed the threshold I may finally be healing this. And it's important when you accomplish something, when you accomplish something that is important to you, it's important to stop and celebrate, to say, you know, kind of, I did this. If you don't have that sense of joy, that sense that you do good things, you are a good person, that you've had blessings in your life that how are you going to believe that good things can happen in the future? You know, our capacity to believe that good things can happen in the future is based on believing that good things have happened in the past. If you believe good things have happened in the past, it's much easier to believe that the future could do that too. So it's one of the things that we don't do is when you've had a whim, to stop and say, you know, wow, life is okay. It really did allow me to reach this goal, do this thing, help this person, you know, have this experience. So let me tell you a story, and some of you will have heard some of this story before. Back in 1987, there was a television series called Friday the 13th. And Friday the 13th was not about, you know, naked teenagers being chased by a guy in a hockey mask with a machete, although it certainly had that feel to it. Basically what they had was a series in which there was a haunted curio shop. And every week somebody would buy something from the curio shop. And if you bought something from the curio shop, you would be possessed by that item, by the cursed item and go out and commit murders. And so every week, what was happening is that the owners of the curio shop would go out and try to reclaim these items and bring them back and stop the murders from happening. So I was, my agent. I'd written a couple television shows at this time, and my agent set me up with an appointment, you know, to go and pitch to. To. To them over at Paramount. And I wasn't really thrilled with the concept of the series, but I decided, hey, it sounds like it could be good money, and money is important. My daughter had just been born, and so we could use that money. So I did the thing that I usually do, which is to come up with like 100 different ideas and then trim them down to the idea that seem the best, the freshest, that be the most interesting to write. It seemed like I hadn't seen this before. And actually the fact that it felt like it would be relatively easy to write also factored in there, say, I can do this. I can do this on the schedule. You Know, would it cost much money to do? I put on my producer's hat and think through it from that point of view. Would this be expensive? Everything seemed to be pretty good. I narrowed it down to five. Then I narrowed it down to the best one idea. I thought, this is killer. I thought I had an idea that would be just terrific. They can't pass this up. They gotta go for this idea. It's wonderful. So I drove onto the Paramount lot and parked my car. And it was. It was a fine day, I recall. I mean, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. Maybe that was just in my mind, maybe it was raining, I don't know. But to me, the sun was shining. This is great. I'm gonna have an opportunity to write more television. So I went into the meeting and as usually happens, you know, they greeted me and sat me down, asked me if I wanted some water. You always take the bottle of water. You know, I don't know exactly why, there's something psychological about that. But you always, when they offer you something, you always take it. And we did a little chit chat. And then, as things generally happened, it was time to get down to brass tacks. The executive sat back, crossed his hands and said, so, what do you got for us? And I pitched them an idea that I call Purple Heart. So basically, you have a squad in Vietnam and they're being led by a sergeant who is tough but fair and they love him. And. And by a lieutenant or a captain, I forget which, who's utterly incompetent and is getting them killed. I mean, this guy is the kind of guy, the way I put it, who would send you into a live minefield to retrieve a hand grenade under heavy machine gun fire. I mean, just a nightmare of an officer. And he gets the sergeant blown up. And the men are so angry, they grab the sergeant's rifle and shoot this guy. And, you know, they figure, well, it was the sergeant's rifle, you know, so nobody will be able to figure out what happened. And our hands are clean. They only made one mistake. The sergeant wasn't quite dead. And he gets medevaced out. And the officials at the Pentagon look at the situation. They believe the sergeant fragged the officer. But they feel like, you know, we can't put this guy on trial. I mean, he's got no legs, his left arm is gone, he's blind in one eye. The court won't convict him. So what they do is that they just through blizzards of red tape and dragging up people from his past they just completely screw him out of his benefits and cashier amount, dishonorable discharge. It's just. It's a nightmare situation where they can't get him for murder, but they just bury him in red tape. And because the guy has a cloud in mind, he doesn't even know exactly what happened. He doesn't remember exactly what happened. So years pass, and there is a reunion of his squad happens right about the same time as his birthday, as it happens. And so he wheels himself in there. He's in a wheelchair now, and there's a celebration. And during the celebration, people get drunk enough that somebody spills the beans. Somebody says the truth about what happened over in Vietnam. That this guy had been set up to frag the officer. And he is just shocked and appalled. He's angry, and he's also just filled with grief. I mean, it's just like, why did you do this to me? I loved you guys. If you felt that you needed to do this to save your lives, why didn't you just let me die over there? And it turns acrimonious, as you can imagine. And he leaves, wheels himself out, goes home to his little cold water walk up flat with a little bad elevator. And the lady who is his landlady thinks that he's a nice boy. And, you know, her own husband died in Korea, and she believes that the government screwed him out of his benefits, and she knows it was his birthday and that she has no one to celebrate with. And walking home that day, she passed an old curio shop. And sitting in the window of this old curio shop is a Purple Heart medal, or was a Purple Heart medal. And she bought it, and she gives it to her. Now, I'm not going to say any more about what happens in the story, but I think you can probably guess where this story is going. I finished my pitch, sat back, you know, waiting for them to praise me. And the executives looked at each other, and they said the following thing to me. They said, we can't do that story, because if we did that story, people would think that this show was about something. And our only excuse for putting on a mass murder every week is that this is pure entertainment. They actually said that to me. And I sat there looking at them. I wanted to walk out, but I realized that I needed the money. I. I needed the money. And that these guys, with a flourish of a pin or by picking up a phone, could put $15,000, $20,000 in my bank account. And God helped me. I started trying to pitch ideas. I Didn't have any backup ideas. I just started talking to him and coming up with this, coming up with this, coming up, this. And fortunately, one thing that is true about me is that if I don't, my heart isn't in it. I can't come up with anything good. And so it just petered out. And they, you know, very kind to me. It'll come back anytime, and showed me the door. I walked out of that meeting, and it was like walking out of an opium den. It's like this veil with cloud lifted off my head. And I heard this voice in my head. The voice of the little boy inside me, the little writer kid, a little creative writer kid inside me. Eight years old, 10 years old, no older than that. And he said very clearly in a voice trembling with pain, daddy, why did you have me talking to those terrible men? Don't you love me? And I realized what I had done. I realized that for all practical purposes, I had pimped out my little boy. That I pretty much put him out on the corner trying to turn tricks. And he knew it. And he turned his back on me. And for the first time in my life, I could not hear his voice in my mind. I could not hear his voice in my heart. And that little creative kid inside me was gone. He wouldn't talk to me. He wouldn't be with me. And for the next year, I struggled. I could not write effectively. It was the only time in my life I've ever been effectively blocked. And it got bad. It. It was the most painful thing imaginable. I knew I had betrayed myself. And I knew that I had to find some way of healing the damage that I had done. So I looked through all the things that I know, all the tools that I've used, you know, and that are in that, you know, Warriors Journey program that I talk about. And I found one. The tool that I used is. Was the origin of the ancient Child technique. What I did was I imagined a place that used to be of joy to me when I was a child. Turned out it was the beach. Santa Monica. I used to love that beach. My family used to go there. My mom and my sister and I used to go there. And it was a place of great joy. And I imagine sitting in the beach, and it was deserted. I looked around, and there was no little Stevie there. But I kept doing that for, like, 20 to 30 minutes a day, every day, going back, visualizing the beach. I would actually visualize myself taking toys to the beach. And he never showed up. Weeks and Weeks would pass, but I kept doing this every day. Months would pass. I kept doing this every day. I would leave the toys there. And when I came back the next day, no footprints. Toys hadn't been touched. Except one day. Finally, the toys have been moved a little bit. And I noticed some little footprints in the sand. And I kept coming back. I kept coming back. Footprints in the sand, toys being moved with more. I think a couple times I brought some food there. And sometimes the food would be nibbled. Just every day, meditating. Every day, Every day, Every day. Days, weeks, months. And then finally one day, I looked out at the horizon and there was a tiny child's figure all the way on the horizon. Couldn't even make out his face, but it was there. And I kept coming back one day at a time. That little figure started getting a little closer and a little closer. And then one day I stood up and he backed away. So that was all for that day. But the next day, I stood up and he didn't back away. And the day after that, I took a step toward him and then stopped, and he took a step toward me. And as the days passed, I took another step toward him, and he'd take another step toward me until I was close enough that I could see his face and he was crying. And then I took another step toward him, and he took another step toward me. And then he ran to me. He ran and he jumped up into my arms and wrapped his arms around me and hugged me. And he said, oh, Daddy, I've missed you so much. Where have you been? And I said, I'm so sorry. I'm here now. And I swear I will never leave you again. And I never have. I've kept that promise. I. That little boy has been there for me, and I have acted to protect him. But just recently, like I said at the beginning of this, I've been able to do something a little bit more than that. Thirty years passed, and thank you. I see you guys. To Letha and Shannon and Mark and Dylan, all of the rest of you, thank you so much. It's kind of hard to share stuff like this, but I think it's important. Thirty years passed, and I. I kept trying to find a way to tell that story, that story that had cost me so much and cost him so much. If there was some way of. Of telling the story, it'll be a way of making this right. And I couldn't figure out how to do it. I mean, I talked through the beginning of the story with Harlan Ellis and Harlan Loved it. So I had all the motivation in the world to write it, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. See, because the television Series Friday the 13th with a context in which magic existed, so I didn't have to explain how magic exists in the universe, right? Magic was already there. And what I found out was when I tried to write that story as a separate story I had the time I spent explaining the existence of magic in universe seemed to work contrary to the thematics and the plot elements. It became clumsy, it became ungainly. And so I just. I couldn't do it. Maybe a better writer could do it, or a writer more familiar with fantasy and horror could do it. I could not. But I also, for a long time, had wanted to do a book that was a series of ec, you know, tales from the Crypt style stories, but arranged so that each of them represented one step in Buddhism's Eightfold path to enlightenment, to awakening. You know, right thought, right action, you know, so forth and so on. And when John Jennings said that he would publish it as a graphic novel, and Charles Johnson, the Buddhist scholar and national Book award winner, just fantastic human being, agreed to co, to co write these with me, I realized this was an opportunity because the context of the book provided the background in which it was perfectly reasonable for magic to exist. So I could then concentrate on the story more than trying to come up with a justification for why the magic was working after 33 years. And so I created the story, I turned it over to Chuck and he looked at it and he said, well, it still needs all these other things. More work was needed on that story than any other story that had been done in the, in, in the collection. And I realized why that this was. This was pain. I mean, this was, this was really hard for me because of all the, all the baggage. But I did it. And I asked myself, what could I have done differently? You know, is there some way that I could have gotten to this point where I had something to celebrate, something that was meaningful, something that mattered, without 33 years of pain? I thought, you know, if I'd been more financially secure, I could have walked away. If I'd had more self confidence, I could have walked away. If I'd been more adult in my preparations, I would have had backup stories and that might have worked. If I know how to deal with fear better, I would have recognized its masks, you know, guilt and shame and anxiety. If I had known how to love myself better, forgive myself, I would have been able to just put it behind Me and motor on, get on with my life. But for 33 years, I carried that pack. And now, having finally gained the skills, gained the Allies, cleared out my head, in my heart, found the opportunities. The little. The story that little Stevie came up with all those years ago that created so much trauma, is finally going to see the light of day. I'm finally going to be able to share. And that's all that he cares about. He doesn't care about the money. He just cares. Do people like my stories? You know, are my stories good? Am I a clever boy? That's all that little kid, Pardon me, it means that's. That's all he wants is. Is to share and. And to love and be loved. And finally, I've created a situation where that can happen, you know, so much pain. You know, I was in my meditation this morning, and I saw him, and I said, you know, I'm sorry it took me so long. And what he said to me was, hey, we got there, dad. It's okay. You know, you never quit. You never quit. And that's all that little kid inside you really wants to know, you know, that you never quit, that no matter how many times you got knocked down, you picked yourself back up again. That you love your heart, you honor that little child inside you who began the journey of life. We all fall down, but, you know, just like your dog doesn't care how much money you get at work, your dog just cares. Do you play with him? You know, you scratch him. Your cat just wants to know, can I curl up against you? And you scritch my ears? And your kid wants to know, are you there for me? Do you love me? Do you give me everything you can? When you can do that for yourself, for your own heart, you get access to that core creativity, that core sense of being alive 33 years. A lot of those things were things that I learned from meditation and therapy and coaches and gurus and, of course, martial arts practice. The cauldron in which I cooked myself over and over again, purifying myself until the impurities floated to the top and I could skim them off. But if you'll use techniques like the Ancient Child and the things that I discuss with you or things that you learned from other teachers, I don't have to be the teacher for you. Find someone that you trust, someone you believe in who's getting the kinds of results that you want and follow them. Or trust yourself. Trust that somewhere deep inside you are all the resources you need to become the person you were meant to be in this lifetime. I have tried to do that. I continue to try to do that. And if these words reach you, I beg you to go to www.realwarriorsjourney.com and take a look at that class, which is the best collection of tools that I have ever created. I could not have done this by myself. I had to find a great teacher, Dawn Callan, who shared with me how she has helped many thousands of students in LIVE workshops find this kind of forgiveness, that sense of protection within themselves. And then we worked together for two years to create a home study version of her course. It's the best I can do. You know, one day when I can do better, I'll do something else. But right now, www.realheroes realwarriorsjourney.com that's the best I can do. And I pray that you'll check that out. And more importantly, that you will find whatever resources you need to heal whatever wounds you have within yourself, that you can go forward from this point in your life and live every day of your life with joy. Because that is, you know, the meaning of life according to the Dalai Lama, to find joy. So thank you so much for listening. I love being here with you in this time. And I'd like to conclude this time, as I always do, by asking you if you like this, please share it. It's the only way that we know which messages mean something to you. Leave comments, make requests. I will address any questions that you have in future meetings. And thank you so much for all the love, all the hearts. That means the world to me. It really, really does. I like to close today with the Sanskrit expression that means that the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within each and every one of you today and always. Namaste. Take care. Bye Bye.