An opportunity for miracles
this blog is inspired by my daughter suddenly finding the courage to dip her head in the water after +10 swimming lessons
I didn’t want to go, I really didn’t. But I did. And then a miracle happened. Something I never did before, something I couldn’t do before, something I was too scared to do before. Here I was, not wanting to give it another go, and suddenly – I’m doing it! Just turning up, just giving it a go, I allowed the miracle to happen.
Many years ago, I was working on my thesis for university and I just couldn’t think of a name. I thought and I thought until I couldn’t think anymore; I drew and I sketched until I had no more room on my paper. And then, bored from the more appealing drawings and meditating that I had been doing, I wrote. I wrote, just words, nothing sensible, just a whole lot of words with an occasional sentence, sometimes related to the topic of my work but mostly, not at all. Certain words started repeating, certain phrases were starting to form and it happened. I had a name “Moving Beyond a Mended Body”, it perfectly communicated my assumption that a broken body can heal and continue to move. It was the perfect combination of words that I hadn’t put together before. By a miracle it worked out. A miracle that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t given it an avenue to reveal itself.
For years I had been trying to do a smooth pirouette (which is another way of saying, just do a pirouette, because once there’s hopping around it doesn’t really count). I just couldn’t do it – I couldn’t spot, I couldn’t keep my balance, I couldn’t keep my momentum – every time I had to hop to finish in the right place. But in one class I came despite really not wanting to. I wasn’t feeling well, I didn’t sleep well, the last thing I wanted was to go to class, I much preferred to sleep and feel very sorry for myself. And yet, I participated in the lesson. And, who would have thought, tired, delirious, and full of self-pity, I did it! I did a pirouette, then I did another one, then I did one and a half, then I did a double! I suddenly felt elated and not so sick at all. Had I stayed in bed, the miracle wouldn’t have had an opportunity to happen.
Many, many, many years ago I was in a new job, one of my first jobs after school. Everything went wrong – I couldn’t keep up with what I was supposed to do and people were shouting at me for not doing things right. So, I planned to quit, just admit defeat when the chips were down. Except when I came to speak to my boss, she listened to the speech I had prepared, and looked me in the eyes and said ‘no, you’re not quitting, you’re staying and you will just get better at the job’ and ended our meeting with that. So taken aback by her response, I stayed. And once I stayed, miracles happened! I made changes, I improved efficiency, I made everything easy, and all those that yelled at me before befriended me now. Had I not stayed when things were difficult, miracles would have not had the opportunity to show me that the “difficult” ends and, through hard work, can turn quite “easy” (and sometimes even become fun).
There are countless times that I did things despite not wanting to. I wouldn’t call it perseverance, although that occurred too. I would simply call it “showing up” or “keeping going”. The lesson here is not that ‘things happen when you least expect them’, although sometimes they do. The lesson is also not that ‘miracles only happen when you are at a difficult point’, although sometimes they do. The lesson for me is simply to ‘keep going’, ‘keep turning up’, and do something, anything, that will enable a miracle to happen.