"The RoadMap Home" by Leonard Szymczak

    A voice within me was insistent upon visiting my daughter, though she did not want me to visit.  We have been estranged for three years, and I didn't understand why.  I had taken her on many adventures and did all the things that my parents did for me, but I didn't empathize with her when she was sad.  I thought that I had, but that's the funny thing about Aspergers---Aspies had no clue how they're being received by others.
    As I packed for my trip filled with anxiety about the difficult emotions that were going to be wrestled, I realized that I should bring a book with me for the plane and when my daughter has to work.  I grabbed a book in my cue to read, "The RoadMap Home" by Leonard Szymczak.  Apparently, God knew which book I was going to need for this trip.  It was perfect!
    "The RoadMap Home, Your GPS to Inner Peace" gave me peace on the plane.  I'd moved around the most important circle of petals in his book---Adaptation, Becoming an Orphan, Wake-up Calls and Signposts, Staying Awake, Healing Wounds and Breaking Free, and Heartfelt Connection.  I was in the Healing Wounds and Breaking Free petal of the Leonard's flower.  I'd broken free and started a new life in Sacramento, but my wounds from my broken relationship with my daughter and inability to connect with a romantic interest weighed on me.
     Leonard's book helped me hold on to my True Self while lovingly discussing difficult, heart-wrenching issues with my daughter.  His book helped me love my Aspergers self which caused the rifts in my life.  I was able to openly say as a mother, "I don't understand you.  I understood you brother better, but now I don't understand him either.  You were my little porcupine, because I could never get passed your long needles to figure out what was going on with you."  I would have denied my Aspergers self and that I lacked understanding before I read the book.  I would have tried to camouflage my Aspergers as I was trained to do by my mother.
    Using the Guiding Power of Spirit (GPS), I was able to stay listening with love while my daughter listed all the horrible things that I said to her when I was trying to mimic empathy and comfort her.  My GPS helped me not hate myself for being such a cretin and having so little control or filtering over my comments.  The last thing that I ever wanted to do was hurt my daughter.
    We even got to the subject that I should have never stopped being an engineer.  I should have never tried to be a stay-at-home mom.  My daughter was so damaged by my comments that she wasn't able to love herself.  I cried for her.  I inflicted upon her deep emotional wounds within her without even trying.  My daughter was completely miserable, because of me.
    After intently listening and following her directions about not trying to be empathetic with her again, but just holding her while she cried and listening to her, I started to do that.  We made a lot of progress.  We worked through a lot of scars.  I just have to give her space now for her to process our discussions, for her to take my Asperger test results to a psychologist for proper help for her, and for her to read "The RoadMap Home" by Leonard Szymczak, too. 
     God wanted me to grab that book for the plane.  He wanted me to use Leonard's tools to start a healing within my daughter.  He wanted me to finish the book while my daughter needed her space to regroup after our emotional discussions.  God's Guiding Power of Spirit wanted me to give this book to my daughter, so that she could start the process of finding inner peace.

P.S.  To my blog readers:  If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at:  https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960         Thank You!