Courage for the Journey: Wisdom for the Broken Road

By Wendy Weikal-Beauchat

COURAGE FOR THE JOURNEY assembles a collection of wisdom to ignite courage, hope, and strength in those caught in the inevitable storms of life. In his 1965 masterpiece I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, Dr. Seuss observed, And I learned there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. Adversities arise in all shapes and sizes. The death of a loved one, divorce, business failure, job loss, health issues, and natural disasters are only but a few examples. None of us is immune from the life events that can shake or even obliterate our foundations. Personal disasters leave us dazed and shell-shocked. We find ourselves standing in the rubble of our lives, wondering how to move forward and what to do next.
Winston Churchill asserted, If you are going through Hell, keep going! This is sage advice for anyone in distress. The question is how, when you have totally lost direction, do you keep going? When fear, discouragement, failure, loss, and regret have taken firm root in the gardens of our heart, mind, and soul, how do you vanquish them? During adversity, attitude will always dictate outcome. The key to overcoming any obstacle is to tune out the negative noise of the storm and society in general. The positive emotions of courage, faith, hope, perseverance, and peace contain far greater power than negative emotions. COURAGE FOR THE JOURNEY explores strategies for:
Finding courage and faith in place of fear
Finding hope and perseverance in place of discouragement
Finding opportunity and choice in place of failure
Finding clarity and accepting change in place of loss
Finding recovery, reinvention, and peace in place of regret

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491814758

Wendy Weikal-Beauchat

Wendy Weikal-Beauchat is the proud survivor of many of life’s broken roads. From divorce, to business implosion, to significant health issues, she has been there and done that. She cherishes each scar as a souvenir of her many travels down the Broken Road. Ms. Weikal-Beauchat has learned that, in life, we all have choices, and we all travel the Broken Road at one point or another. Some travelers grow and prosper from the Broken Road. Others fall into despair. The difference is what the traveler learns from the journey. “Prospering during adversity” is her personal motto. Teaching this principle to others is her calling. Mr. Weikal-Beauchat is an attorney by training. This has given her exposure to not only her Broken Road, but also the travels journals of many others. For twenty years, she was the managing partner of a law firm, and a practicing lawyer. She is now the principal of The Beauchat Group, LLC, a consulting firm geared toward teaching others the alchemy of the Broken Road. She lives in Gettysburg Pennsylvania, with her delightful daughters, Tessa and Bryn.

Book preview

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Books To Motivate And Inspire

Movie List

Song Playlist

History’s Greatest Failures

For:

My Family—Tessa, Bryn, Mom, Dad,

Nans, Gramps, Uncle Jim, and Mark.

and

My true friends

True Friends are the people who run in

when everyone else is running away.

You know who you are.

Thank you for being there!

PREFACE

Paulo Coelho, writer of the timeless book The Alchemist, reflected, Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all, or by having everything happen all at once. One year ago, to the outsider, my life had the appearance of a modern fairy tale. I had two beautiful, smart children of my own. I had just re-married. My new husband appeared to be the man of my dreams. He was tall, dark, and handsome with a PhD. He brought to our marriage an additional two beautiful, smart daughters. We all lived in a dream home. I remained friends with my ex-husband. There was no custody order. The kids and dogs went back and forth as made sense on any given day. I maintained a loving and supportive relationship with my ex-husband’s family. I had many devoted friends. I was the owner of successful law firm which was in its 19th year. I had 8 long-term, loyal employees that would jump through fire for me, and often did.

A year later, I am suffering from significant health issues. These issues aren’t necessarily new, but have now become acute rather than chronic. After an accounting issue was discovered, the decision was made to close the law firm. I have consented to disbarment rather than having a protracted fight. The whole thing has caused a fairly decent sized scandal, as well as an investigation into the firm. Prince Charming took my much loved step-daughters and fled before the first article hit the newspaper. This left me mentally in a fetal position with the functional equivalent of a marshmallow. The bank is grumbling about foreclosing on the dream house which, due to the real estate market, has lost nearly a third of its value since construction. Many friends have distanced themselves from me. That’s the polite way of saying abandoned me. A few of my professional attorney friends have even taken on clients that are suing me. This reinforces many stereotypes concerning the nature of attorneys as sharks feeding on their own. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Welcome to the Broken Road. The Broken Road has always existed. It started out as a footpath in ancient days. As the infrastructure of society has developed, so has the Broken Road. The Broken Road was once a quaint, two-lane road with an appropriate speed limit and scenic rest stops. Today, it resembles the D.C. Beltway or L.A Freeway system at rush-hour.

We take to the road for many different reasons. Often the trip is work related or involves endless errands. Sometimes our travel is for a social event or purely for pleasure. None of us would choose the Broken Road. It is a life detour that happens on our journey. We get detoured onto the Broken Road for many different reasons. It may involve health issues, divorce, financial issues, or loss of a job. The list is virtually endless. It doesn’t matter how you got on the Broken Road. Here you are. This is not my first trip on the Broken Road. It is just the most recent. As a frequent traveler, let me be the first to welcome you to the Broken Road. If this is also not your first visit, let me welcome you back.

Many spend their lives in fear of the Broken Road. Some see the road signs, and will go hours or years out of their way to avoid a trip across the Broken Road. They stay in lifeless marriages or mind-numbing jobs to avoid the possibility of the trip. Some travelers find themselves on the Broken Road, and risk life and limb to perform a U-turn, backtrack and exit. They will drive the wrong way on the interstate just to return to safety. Others dread and fear the Broken Road so much they avoid any excursion that might take them out of the safety of their neighborhood which is devoid of Broken Roads. For a few, the fear can be so powerful they won’t even go near the car.

The Broken Road serves a purpose. Living in fear of the Broken Road doesn’t make it any less real or reduce the likelihood that someday you will travel it. Many of us will find ourselves there more than once. Fear of the journey just robs us of the joy