I consider myself more of an inspirational speaker, teacher and healer, than I do a writer. But it is thanks to the publication of my first book in 2006 that I have been invited to teach over thirty workshops in more than twenty countries on six continents.
So I’m a writer (two books, many articles and most recently a screenplay). I’m a story-teller really and my stories are about my own experiences, my insights, my visions and the amazing things that happen when I stay out of my own way and allow the magic of life to unfold.
The magic happens regardless of the circumstances of our lives – the good, the bad, the ugly or the sweet. In fact some of my most challenging experiences have been the most grace-filled, when I was able to shift the quality of my experience simply by changing my perspective about it. And of course, it is much easier to change our perspectives, than to change a situation that is outside our control.
Embracing the magic, doesn’t mean the situation is what we want or what we hope for yet a life viewed from this shifted perspective allows us to be fully present in the moment where all manner of poignant beauty and possibility awaits us.
When we can ACCEPT the situation as it is, we enter into a sense of freedom, released from the frustration of wishing it to be otherwise. As we become still and totally present to the moment, we can recognize possibilities that were hidden before. As our perspective shifts, we exist between worlds where magic abounds, where impossibilities become possible, where the circumstance can become more and better than we’d hoped for.
In 2011 my Swedish husband Christer and I traveled from our home in Peru to the States for a family reunion. The day after we arrived, Christer woke up not feeling well. As we got ready to go out, he said he couldn’t breathe. I called an ambulance. On the way to the hospital his heart stopped beating. It turned out he had a blood clot in his lung that stopped his heart. Although the ER staff revived him six times over the next 40 minutes, his brain was deprived of sufficient oxygen. He was 12 days in the ICU in a semi coma.
It was certainly not the holiday we planned or hoped for. Christer and I had met only four years before in a magical fairy-tale way where the prince and princess were destined to live happily ever. Not to say our relationship didn’t have its challenges but we saw them as opportunities to heal and grow into our better selves. How could it all be ending just as we were getting started?
Yet those days with him in the hospital were profoundly beautiful and full of love. The most unconditionally loving thing I ever did was to help Christer pass over. It was then that I really understood how shifting your perspective on a situation, changes your experience of it. When the worst thing you can imagine can also be one of the most beautiful experiences of your life, then you have the key to ultimate freedom.
What I’ve discovered in my years of writing, story-telling and experiencing magic is HOW we tell our story is more important than the story itself. How we tell our stories- not just in print for others to read, but more importantly to ourselves in the secret recesses of our hearts- shape and change how we experience the world. Our choices can be powerful and life changing.
There are tools and practices we can use to teach ourselves to respond to the circumstances in our lives in more positive ways. We can learn to step out of the drama and into a state of grace, where we can process our feelings yet discover in the discomfort, the gifts and opportunities waiting for us there. That’s the magic.