Ok, it’s story time!!!! Buckle up, this should be fun!
One day in the middle of winter, I just finished teaching one of my epic winter sessions. I remember how we used to manage to stay warm AND upright throughout the snow and ice storms. We were just finishing up and everyone had left. I had a client in a half hour so I was in a bit of a rush.
I jumped in a beat up Saab with no reverse and pulled a U-turn. Only problem was, I misjudged the distance and ended up smack dab in front of a snow bank. I normally wouldn’t have a problem with this, just open the door and push with my left foot and magnificent quads (if I do say so myself). Unfortunately, the ground was too slick. Â I was slipping faster than Trump’s approval rating (ba dum bum).
I get out to start pushing. No traction up front either, I face plant onto the hood of the car. The only option is to get some help so I start to try to flag down some fellow drivers. 2 of them swerve to miss me and almost slide onto the opposing sidewalk. I almost chased after 3 that stopped to literally tell me they were too busy. Grrr…
Now pissed off, I got stomping across the road in search of someone who can help me get this damn…OH, f#@* I’m on my back now on the side walk and I don’t know why. I managed to avoid a concussion, but my back was really sore and my ankle was starting to hurt.
As I lay there in shock, staring up at the sky, I thought to myself, how did I get here? It’s a scary experience going from just walking along to all of a sudden being on my back alone in the city. I roll to start getting up and all of a sudden a sense of panic comes rushing over me as this excruciating pain is coming from my right foot. I look down to see the most horrifying thing I ever thought I would see.
My right foot was dangling off the curb, touching the street while my leg was still on the curb. My right ankle was completely dislocated!!! As I laid there looking at my foot in horror, a strange sense of calm began to come over me and something or someone said “that’s not right” and all of a sudden I’m watching my hands reach down towards my ankle and set it back into place.
“That’s better,” I remember saying. I’m pretty sure I was still in shock as I went to try to stand up. No dice…I was stuck with one leg, a slippery sidewalk and no one around to come to my aid.
After that, everything started happening in slow motion. I started to think of all the people I’ve helped since I’d moved to the city. I thought of all the mornings I got up and didn’t want to, I thought of all the (kinda) smiling faces that just so happen to not be around when I needed them most. It was sad, but also for some reason, I felt at peace with what just happened.
Just as I started to lay back down on the sidewalk a burst of energy rushed through me and had me pull myself up on a car that was next to me. I needed to do SOMETHING! And that’s when I found magic…
One of my boot campers had forgotten to fill up her car and was passing by on her way to the gas station and saw me struggling to stand up. She called to me and immediately I fell down to the floor in relief.
As we maneuvered my body into the car, I felt fearful. I wasn’t sure if I’d need surgery because I had seen what had happened to my foot and it didn’t look good.
Higher Self
The shock started to wear off while I was in the X-ray room. Now in excruciating pain, my ankle had swollen to the size of a cantaloupe. I could see surgery in my future.
An hour later, the doctor walked in to give me the low down. “Good news and bad,” he said. “I’ll take the bad news first,” I said. I was still feeling pretty nice on those pain meds, so you could have told me that you had to shrink my head and I woulda been ok with that.
He told me that I had broken my heel bone and that rarely ever breaks so I was looking at a long recovery. The good news was I didn’t need surgery because by some miracle I had set my ankle perfectly back into place.
No surgery?! Yeah, believe me, I wouldn’t’ve believed it either if I didn’t have a witness right there equally amazed.
It was then I realized that God, the universe, our higher self, or whatever you wanna call it is real. I realized that you become essentially invisible, without the right attitude. Anger and frustration repel people so, I was left alone to deal with my own anger and resentment.
It’s just like in everyday life. People expect to attract good things to them with a negative mindset. They want good, but in their mind, all they replay are all the bad scenarios and unfortunate possibilities.
Mindset, it’s the strongest characteristic you possess. You either make or break each day with your attitude. A negative attitude can destroy your life and will leave you blaming everyone but yourself, but a positive attitude can set you straight on a path to power and abundance.
Jerry “all better now” Washington
P.S. This was a defining moment for me and made me seriously start to consider the role our thoughts play in our everyday life. Before, that I used to believe that we were the products of our environment, now I believe and have witnessed that it’s not the external environment that controls your fate but your internal one. I’d like to know if you agree. Leave your comments below if you think that you have control over your own destiny. Talk soon…
I remember visiting when you were laid up and recovering from that crazy catastrophic incident. Our environment definitely can impact our lives in good and bad ways but then hopefully with effort we come to a point of self awareness and wisdom (wisdom in the sense of recognizing that we can never know everything and need to keep learning every day). When we reach that point, it’s all about controlling our own internal reactions to what happens and what may be out of our control each day. We can choose each day to focus on gratitude no matter what life throws our way. We can choose to focus on growth and goals and self improvement. We can choose to repel negative attitudes and be a beacon of light and hope and help others to realize the power within themselves. No matter what Tump is tweeting or how awful traffic is or how crappy the weather is we can cchoose to find the positives. See you tomorrow night buddy! Looking forward to it!
Nice sentiments Laura! Yes, we control our own space 😉