For a year and a half, before I did anything else in the morning, I would write my Miracle Practice list and send it off to the two friends in my circle. And every morning, they would do the same. We were consistent, committed, connected.
And it worked.
In making space for the irritants, in letting them flow instead of stopping them up behind a wall of denial, miracles shimmered all around.
These were no small miracles. They were the big ones. Like forgiveness and gratitude. Acceptance and Love.
For me, one of the biggest ones centered around my feelings of betrayal that kept surfacing when I thought about a situation I’d left earlier that year. The story I told myself about what had happened held me in a victim’s place. It kept me stuck in hurt, sadness, confusion and it kept me me from being accountable for my own experience.
Yes. Things happened that did not sit well with me. And yes, it didn’t go the way I wanted — but it did go the way I allowed. Because regardless of what I judged others to be doing that was in my opinion mis-guided, manipulative, small, I was not playing my big story. I was not acting up to my higher good. I was giving in to my fears and ego. I was letting myself off the hook of being 100% accountable for my experience.
That was the gift of the Miracle Practice. In writing out my angst with the opening line, “I am grateful today for….”, in being honest with my victim’s voice, I moved through the dismay and pain and the story I kept telling about how I was ‘wronged’ to that place where acceptance shone loud and clear — it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t a personal statement of my worth. And today, it was, and always will be, what it is. The past.
And I get to tell the story of my past. And most importantly, I get to decide how it impacts me today.
I used to have a story around my birth that held me in a place of feeling ‘unwanted’. As the story goes, my father lost a case of beer and $20 because I was a girl. My mother wanted me born on Dec 8 not Dec 9 — because the 8th is the Day of the Immaculate Conception and I was a real disappointment being born 2 minutes after midnight.
That story got me lots of laughs, but it also caused me pain. Inside. Deep inside where no one could see it except me. I could feel it. And while I could feel the sadness inside, I couldn’t see how the emotional triggers of that story kept sparking off my belief in my unworthiness and deep, deep belief that I was always a disappointment to my parents – and thus to the world.
And then, one day (I actually did this exercise sitting by a lake on a beautiful spring day, long before I read Melody Beattie’s book Make Miracles in Forty Days) I decided to write my gratitude statement around that story.
I am grateful today for the story I keep telling around what a disappointment I am in the world. It hurts and bothers me that I feel deep within me this sense of sadness. It’s funny though. I’m the one carrying this story. I’m the one telling it, which means, I’m the one letting it eat away at my peace of mind. What if I change the story? What if I let go of the emotional triggers. What if the story is true — but it doesn’t mean any of the things I tell myself it means. Maybe my dad really did want another son but in getting me, he fell in love with the little girl who made him laugh and smile and who wanted to be the sunshine. maybe my mom really did want me to born on the Day of the Immaculate Conception — but in the end it didn’t matter because I was born when I was born. And maybe, whether the story is true or not, what is true is that I am loved. I am cherished. I am wanted on this journey. Maybe, I’m the one holding myself pinnioned to the pain of the past in the telling of that story. maybe, I am the one investing the story with what hurts me, instead of what supports and loves and lifts me up. Maybe, the story doesn’t matter — it is kind of funny — and maybe, what does matter is that I want me. I need me. I cherish and love and support and know that my life is a miracle because I am a miracle of life.
And here’s the deal, in telling the story as it is, in accepting it as simply that — a story I tell on myself — the pain lifted and I could feel the miracle of who I am in the world infusing my heart with warm, tender loving care.
In falling into gratitude with my discord around this story, I got to quit being afraid of who I am, as well as the underlying sorrow the story evoked.
I began to feel at peace within me.
It was a miracle.
And still is.
everyday.
this place of knowing, wow, my life and who I am in it is all that I am meant to be when I accept and love all of me and everything in my world. When I move with gratitude through the ups and the downs, the good and the not so good, the big and the small happenings, the things that hold me back from living the life of my dreams…. evaporate… into the limitless possibility of what can happen when I set myself free to soar through all kinds of weather.
Namaste.
Dare Boldly 