Gene Simmons Implodes

Do you watch the TV show Gene Simmons Family Jewels?

I love this show!

Gene Simmons is a member of the legendary rock band KISS and has created a wildly successful business by licensing KISS merchandise and investing in ventures he believes will generate a profit.

This guy lives a pretty charmed life. Gene has been in a relationship with the love of his life, Shannon Tweed, for 27 years, has two grounded, talented kids and lives in a huge mansion in Los Angeles. He doesn’t drink, smoke or do drugs. He flies around the world and has enough money to do literally anything he wants.

The new season of this show, though, revealed some cracks in the foundation.

While Gene’s and Shannon’s relationship has been stable and loving, he has refused to marry her all these years, saying he wants to be with her out of choice and not because he is obligated to. He views getting married as a surrender of control over his happiness.

He has cited many times on the show that his own father abandoned him and his mother and how it traumatized him, and it was obvious this painful experience was the root of his refusal to tie the knot.

Having “had it” with the rock-star groupies and the lack of a marriage commitment, Shannon finally left him.

What happened next was truly amazing.

After seeking help from a psychotherapist, the two reconciled and the family headed to Israel, where Gene was to receive an achievement award from the town where he was born.

Shannon arranged in secret to gather Gene’s half-siblings together so he could meet them for the first time (his father passed away two years ago). When Gene arrived at this gathering, he seemed positively mortified at first, but embraced what was happening and spent some time with his new-found family.

Over the next few days, all of the beliefs he’d held as true about his life imploded.

Through interaction with his half-siblings, he discovered he had a new family anxious to love and accept him, but more important, he disovered that the source of his pain all these years — the notion that his father had abandoned them — was just that, a story in his mind.

In truth, his mother had been hell-bent on emigrating to the US with 7-year-old Gene in tow. Gene’s father didn’t want to leave Israel, but his mother took their son and went anyway. She then worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, leaving Gene home alone while she went to her night job. He would wake up in the middle of the night, terrified, not understanding why his mother wasn’t answering his cries and this scarred him. Yet, he’s blamed his father for the pain this caused.

His father’s true feelings were revealed through his personal writings, which his siblings shared with Gene. It was clear his father had loved him deeply and was heartbroken that Gene didn’t want a relationship with him. He was also incredibly proud of his son’s massive success, which he watched in the media like the rest of us.

As Gene sat at his father’s grave, the regret of what could have been washed over him and he broke down sobbing, repeating the phrase, “I’m so sorry,” over and over and over. It was too late to make things right with his father.

He told himself a story all these years so he could perpetuate the idea that his mother was a martyr. In reality, there were good and bad things that came out of the choice she had made, which is always the case. She had not been so much a martyr but was simply living with the consequences of her choice.

Of course, the greatest positive was that Gene lived his dream and became an American rock star.

Watching this episode moved me to tears, as I remembered an important lesson: the story we form in our minds creates our suffering and prevents us from actualizing the life we truly want.

It’s the movie reel that we play over and over so we don’t have to make ourselves vulnerable enough to experience deeper love, realize our dreams or go for the success we are capable of.

What will happen next to Gene Simmons? Time will tell … but in the preview for this week’s episode, Gene tells Shannon that, after 27 years, he is finally ready to get married. This kind of instantaneous shift is exactly what happens when you are willing to let go of the stories you tell yourself.  [UPDATE: He subsequently popped the question.]

What are the stories you perpetuate in your life — the ones that hold you back from realizing your dreams or experiencing deeper love or greater success?

You can tell what your stories are because they are the canned responses you give others when you tell them about your life — especially about what is not happening or what happened in the past that frustrates you.
The most common stories center around playing the victim, but there are an infinite number of fictional stories the mind can come up with to keep you from making yourself vulnerable and moving ahead, like:

So and so ruined my life.
If I go for it and fail, I’ll lose everything.
The time for me to launch my dream has passed. I blew my chance.
People abandon me / cheat on me / can’t be trusted.
I’m a financial screw-up.
All the successful people are better looking than me.
I have to have a perfect body to make it in the music industry / as an actor / in television.
Life is hard.
If I open up to being loved, I’ll get my heart broken again.
How do you find the stories you’re telling yourself?

>> They lurk in the patterns you repeat that frustrate you so much.

>> They whisper to you in your moments of opportunity by reminding you there is a possible negative outcome.

>> You tell them to others so many times your story becomes a sound byte.

Why not see things from a new angle and choose to see your experiences with more objectivity?
When you are willing to do this, your external world can improve rapidly.

Your Dreaming Big! Creating Reality Assignment This Week:

In the next 24 hours, ask yourself, “What are the stories I tell myself that don’t serve me and where I want to go?”

Identify your stories and then going forward, pay attention to how you talk about your past, present and future. Consciously choose to talk about and think about your life in new terms.  

Want help releasing the struggle, eliminating self-sabotage and bringing your dream to fruition? I recommend the My Life, My Dream, My Turn Home Study program. To learn more, visit

http://www.mylifemydreammyturn.com.

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Beth A. Grant is a spiritual mentor and personal coach who specializes in helping people let go of the struggle. Clients learn how to integrate day-to-day the power of now and universal laws to achieve ease of life, deep happiness and effortless attraction of what they desire. More info: www.yourquantumsuccesscoach.com. To schedule media interviews email:

beth (at) yourquantumsuccesscoach.com.

© 2011 Elizabeth Grant. All Rights Reserved.