Could my environmental activism have been a way to avoid dealing with my own pain and have originated from a feeling that I am responsible for saving everyone but myself (since I subconsciously believed I didn't deserve saving?)

(yes)

On a professional level, had I done my "childhood dream" of hosting my own television show in 2017 titled "CARLEN SAVES THE WORLD", would I have created delusional unrealistic expectations and gotten physically sick from emotionally overgiving? 

(yes)

Could my style of artwork (copying things but adding my own twist in a photorealist way) and perfect handwriting (I don't have a picture, but trust me, it's perfect) have come from just trying to mold myself to something that had 'already been done' so it had no chance of being perceived as wrong?

(probably)

These are 3 big things I am unravelling while continuing my coursework (2nd screenshot from course above)

Here is a lovely podcast episode by my teacher in case you want to listen

In January 2017, I had just moved to Los Angeles and thought I had finally saved my dad from cancer, after living with him for 4 months on his couch in a retirement community, feeding him Alkaline rich foods and watching everything I could on healing cancer holistically.

In March, he called me and told me that the cancer had come back, but that he was giving up and went on hospice care. I immediately flew back to New Jersey to try and save him; I literally wheeled him out of hospice in his hospital gown and had his neighbor-turned-nurse waiting with her car to drive him home.

I tried for 3 more weeks to save him, but he began to grow resentful and just wanted to die. He wanted to die so much in fact that he crawled from his bedroom to where he usually kept his pistol and planned to shoot himself in the head, to put him out of his misery.

My intuition had told me only a week beforehand to go and hide his pistol, and so I did - in the back of his closet, where I knew he wouldn't find it. Thank God I had done that otherwise I am sure he would have in fact killed himself, and that would have been a way more traumatic experience for everyone involved.

I remember the night he died, he asked me to tell the hospice worker to amp up his morphine and other pain killers to take him out of it - he wanted it all to end - so they did, and he died.

I woke up at 5:10am that morning and knew the phone was going to ring, which it did, and it was my dad's nurse telling me that my dad was about to "die" (she had seen hundreds of people this way, at death's door, from her decades of being a nurse in Brazil, and now here in New Jersey)

Even though my dad was not conscious and was apparently foaming at the mouth, he was still breathing and I mustered up the strength to remember everything I had learned while reading a book on dying, and how to help someone transition more peacefully (that book is called FINAL GIFTS, if you're interested)

I told my dad's nurse Nadia to put my dad on the phone "even though I knew he couldn't speak" - I knew deep down that he could hear me - and I then proceeded to calmly tell my dad that it was safe to go and that I would be okay - that I would be protected and protect myself - and he was safe to go. I said "Thank you, thank you, thank you"....(which was what I learned from reading THE MAGIC by Rhonda Byrne, as a way to seal your declaration of reality)

A second later, my dad's nurse told me that my dad died, as soon as I said thank you for the 3rd time, just like I imagined would happen.

From that moment on, on March 10th, 2017, my life has taken a completely different turn. I cancelled my plan of making the television show "CARLEN SAVES THE WORLD", which was a comedic environmental docu-series in the style of my favorite show at the time, NATHAN FOR YOU... and I was so humbly grateful that the producers of that show had agreed to develop the show with me! My childhood dream was coming true!

However, after my dad's death, anytime I felt like making that show or working on the pilot (which I was set to direct and star in and write, with the help of my close friend Kate), I literally felt like I had small hands around my neck choking me. I thought it was just 'nerves' and 'fear of failure' but I could NOT get the choking feeling to stop.

It was so horrible that I finally told my manager and all the producers that I did not want to do it.

I couldn't believe that I was giving up on my dream but I was in such pain at the thought of making it, that I had to stop it.

Perhaps had I still been on Prozac at the time, I would have been able to ignore the intensity of the throat-choking feeling (which I now see as my guardian angels lovingly choking me, like tiny cherubs wrapping around my neck in a circle)

As I take this course I have mentioned, it makes me realize that I truly WAS saved from a very unhealthy lifestyle had I made that show, and I am so happy to say that I have kept my promise to my dad that I will protect myself, and now I see that I have protected myself more than anyone else has my entire life.

Life is so strange and beautiful and frustrating and amazing, isn't it?

As I am realizing, we are all a PART of the Earth, so when we heal ourselves, we really are healing part of the Earth... and you really can't heal anything beyond that until you first heal yourself.

You can not heal other people who do not want to be healed, and especially since sometimes the pain of healing may be too hard for some people to handle, like it has been for my parents.

Yesterday I drove an hour to therapy and I intentionally took 2 new routes to go there and back home. I am so used to taking the same boring inefficient route because it is so familiar to me for the past 3 years but yesterday it dawned on me that our neural pathways which feel 'comfortable' aren't always the most efficient - or even the 'safest'

Our neural pathways are like Los Angeles roads. There are routes which I have taken over and over again which feel "safe" but there are other roads out there which I may not have taken (out of fear) which are far more enjoyable and scenic.

I am ready to try new roads in my mind and externally, and I have so much compassion for the younger version of myself who learned to believe that I had to save the planet, since me ignoring my own pain/needing to be saved was (in my child mind) the way I felt loved and needed by my family. 

I was praised for being the 'helper' and martyr and prided on myself on being a needless loner - so of COURSE I would want to have a teleivision show where I am praised for being the helper to the entire planet!

I am so glad the planet and God spoke to me in 2017 to tell me to stop this path and go inwardly. 

And by the way, the routes I took yesterday were way more beautiful than I had ever taken before!

I drove down Melrose and saw all the shops and then Beverly Boulevard and then Chinatown and then along the trains of downtown Los Angeles. I drove back through Griffith Park and ended up in a protest on Sunset Boulevard. The protest organizer and I made eye contact and she told me to go around, which I did, which was a nice gesture on her part (even though I do not believe protests which involve blocking traffic rarely ever accomplishes the intentions/goals of the protestor, but that's another topic - on Effective Activism)

The point is, I was grateful for the protestor's passion and grateful that I had quite an adventurous day yesterday and I am thankful that I can handle this level of novelty, from a physical and emotional perspective.

I listened to this song basically my entire ride there and back...

Thank God I began saving myself instead of trying to save everyone else. Thank God for making me take new roads.

It all makes more and more sense everyday.