I always believed I’d do a TED talk, but I never could have guessed it would be on the topic I wound up addressing and I certainly hadn’t envisioned being on stage in a CLUNKY BROKEN LEG BOOT!
Since my talk was about the power and liberation in learning to take back the reins from Ego’s smallness and fear, the clunky boot became part of the story because, although I didn’t see it at the time, I actually broke my leg doing something I wasn’t comfortable with in an attempt to impress someone.
However, there is another really powerful part of the story that I didn’t share in the talk that I want to share with you now. Warning, it is a little bit graphic.
One of the most powerful, life-changing new habits I’ve learned over the past few years is to pause before I judge or react to a situation. Sometimes this is little stuff, like when someone cancels an appointment at the last minute. My first reaction might be to get irritated and feel like they aren’t valuing my time. However, almost every time when I take a step back all it really means is that I have the luxury of a little unexpected freed up time.
Sometimes the situation is a much bigger deal. The recent broken leg is one of the most powerful examples I’ve experienced.
The horse scrambled up off of me. I was face down in the dirt. Even though totally disoriented I immediately sensed something was seriously damaged. I don’t even remember rolling over, sitting up and looking down at my legs. “Oh God, on no.” My left foot was bent out at a ghastly 90 degree angle and I could see where the shin bone was trying to poke through the skin just above the ankle.
This wasn’t my first rodeo with a serious orthopedic injury and I knew the pain was about to get really, really bad. I couldn’t believe I was seriously injured again!
My mind started down the path of, “Oh man, I can’t afford this. I can’t afford it financially, or the time off, or the disruption to everything I need to do.”
And then, using new tools honed over the past couple of years, I shifted. I made the choice not to judge. I opened up to, “Maybe there is a different way to look at this. Maybe this is happening for me and not just to me.”
Then I shifted further to, “What do I want the outcome of this to be?”
- I want to be able to walk again.
- I want this to increase my spiritual awakening.
- I want it to empower my work.
- I want to have beautiful encounters with everyone I interact with in dealing with this.
And then the pain hit and there was no more thinking, just writhing, gasping, trying to keep breathing.
There’s a lot more to the whole story. Having the leg set in the emergency room and having that orthopedic surgeon say, “Wow. Oh my goodness,” when he saw the X-ray. Being handed over to a “Trauma Expert” surgeon. Having the trauma team use 12 screws and two plates to piece back together 20+ bone fragments. The terrible pain. Blah, blah, blah.
The BIGGER part of the story by far is the MIRACLES the situation delivered because of the lens I put on it. I had incredible care from ambulance, emergency room, surgeons, nurses, therapists – I had deep conversations with some of them. I opened up and asked for help (a big, new thing for me) and had dozens of people bring me food, run errands, even clean my house while I was healing. The insurance companies stepped up to cover far more of the costs than I had expected. I am healing weeks ahead of schedule. I had more down time to really work on my TED talk than I’d expected and, man oh man, I needed every minute! And of course, as noted above I was even able to use the story and my broken leg boot to good effect in the talk.
There is huge power in learning to release our reactionary attitudinal grip on any situation. STAYING OPEN TO POSSIBLE POSITIVE OUTCOMES MAKES THOSE OUTCOMES POSSIBLE! Read that one again.
My encouragement to you is to learn the art of taking a step back before judging any situation as good or bad. You have the awesome ability to disconnect your state of being from the circumstances swirling in your life.
If you’d like some help with this just let me know.
Happy weekend!
Cylvia
#CylviaHayes #ResiliencyMuscles #EmpowermentCoach