Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life (31 page)
Read Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life Online
Authors: Thom Shea
ADAMANTINE LESSON THIRTEEN
Moving on in the midst of hanging on
The past and all the things that happened to you, and even the past of others, is only carried forward in Internal Dialogue. It only lives there. Deal with it when it comes up and affects your and other people’s actions. But, recognize it as an impostor. You are not your past achievements or failings, nor are other people. Clean that shit up fast and create an Internal Dialogue that gives you access to this moment. Remember, each moment is always being shaped and reshaped by Internal Dialogue. Be cautious, because if you are not shaping this moment, someone else may be.
An Adamantine, Unbreakable Life sounds like: I AM … fill in the blank, and hold on for the ride of your life. It is your life, you know!
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing down the thoughts of war and love and family in a meaningful way is equally as hard as making it through BUD/S and combat. The experience is real, is frustrating, and is time consuming. I literally quit 100 times and got back up and started over due to the support and advice and love from a great many people.
This whole project started out like most successful things over a beer with a friend at a shooting resort called The Site in Chicago. Jerry Barber and I had talked about writing a “collective efforts” of the things we had learned in our lives. Without Jerry there would never have been the deep NEED to go back and share. Oddly enough the first effort started out with the title of
Spartan Wife.
I leave that for Stacy to write.
Without Stacy
Unbreakable
would have broken and died and quite simply never even started. In Stacy’s Internal Dialogue
Unbreakable
was born. Autumn, Garrett, and Chance did not even know what I was doing because the writing of
Unbreakable
happened at night, and in the daytime watching them live, I was inspired once again to continue.
My close friend Bret Anderson read a section and connected me to my publisher, Larry Carpenter at Carpenter’s Son Publishing, and my editor, Lorraine Bossé-Smith. They either took pity on me or “got it” and converted a manuscript written in crayon and blood. I don’t know how they made sense of it all with every other word being a curse word.
There is an old saying, “if you build it, he will come.” Well that saying is not true in any sense of any word. No one came—there was no market, no platform, nothing—until Meg McAllister read the edited book and literally risked her perfect reputation on
Unbreakable.
To my close friends: John Arnold, who demands authenticity; Doug Kim, who was hard to convince; and finally, Stecker, who, like me, is insatiable.
Finally, to every Navy SEAL that ever was, is, or will be; and to Bravo platoon and SEAL Team Seven.
You all are Unbreakable.
