If we are paying attention we see that our teachers come to us in any number of disguises; friends, family, co-workers, students, clients, books/authors, stories, nature, and dreams. There is a saying; “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” One of the most important teachers in life is service to others. It teaches us compassion, humility, generosity, and that we are much the same but with different life circumstances.

Whether or not we get the lesson or message has to do with how available we are to our teachers. We become more available to them by creating space in our lives; by becoming receptive. Some of us commit to a formal process with a teacher and this, too, succeeds based on our availability and doing our homework. And sometimes we are just in the right place at the right time. Recently I was gifted with an opportunity to hear Maya Angelou speak. I was struck by being in the presence of grace, wisdom, and humor – all coming together with her poetry and stories to teach powerful lessons to a large gathering of people. It is a night I will never forget.

I also feel blessed to have been given the right book at the right time throughout my life. The authors listed under resources have been influential teachers in my life and offer great lessons to all of us.

Stories offer us another form of teaching – they are personal, intuitive, and creative for both the story teller and the listener.
I offer two of my own stories here, and one from a recent client.
I hope to share the stories of other clients in the future – our stories offer hope to one another.

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When I was 35 I had abdominal surgery – back then it required a lengthy recovery. By the fourth week I was able to drive and having two teenage sons and a husband at home my first trip was to the grocery store. I came home with nine bags of groceries. By the time I pulled into my driveway I was in a good deal of pain and also feeling disoriented. I took only the refrigerator items into the house and put them away and collapsed in a chair. A few minutes later my husband’s parents and aunt stopped by – I really didn’t feel like company but they were on their way home from camp and had a long drive ahead of them. I offered them iced tea and we visited for awhile. Suddenly Aunt Peg noticed I was very uncomfortable and asked me if she could do therapeutic touch on me. She had studied with Dolores Kreiger, the nurse who had started the therapeutic touch movement in this country. I was skeptical but said sure – I’d try anything to relieve my pain. I sat in a chair while she moved her hands around my body, not quite touching me. I could feel some warmth coming from her hands but nothing particularly strong or “healing.” After about 20 minutes I went out to the kitchen to get a glass of water and went back to rejoin everyone in the den. I leaned over a hardback chair to relieve the pressure in my back. Suddenly I felt what I can only describe as a ‘whoosh’ around my body – as if there were a vacuum cleaner at my feet. It sucked some kind of energy from within and around my body. It was so surprising I stood straight up and said, “oh!” In seconds all the pain and tension left my body and never returned. Now, I was trained in conventional medicine as a medical technologist, this was not in my frame of reference. I didn’t know what to make of it – but it was real and from that moment on I was intrigued with the concept of energy and especially body energy work. Eventually I went on to become a Jin Shin Jyutsu® practitioner and self-help instructor and also studied craniosacral therapy. I have received both forms of energy work as well as acupuncture regularly for fourteen years. I can’t imagine life without these as a major part of my health maintenance but more importantly they have become part of my personal evolution and growth as a human being.

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D’s story is a short one. She is an old friend who came back into my life a little over a year ago. She had been in despair for some time and we decided we’d work together to bring some change and healing into her life. We started with a Jin Shin Jyutsu® intensive and some informal coaching. Eventually we decided to create a more formal structure and scheduled regular coaching sessions. During her first one I had asked her to do some journaling on where she was a year ago, where she was now, where she wanted to be and what was stopping her from getting there. It was a powerful exercise. In a year she had gone from despair, a long standing dependency on anti-depressants, a suicide attempt, lack of confidence, and simply not taking care in her life. She was addicted to computer games, and essentially felt helpless. Clearly we had a lot of work to do. She committed to it as she could– we took baby steps, sometimes a step backwards. But when she described where she is now she could look back and see the tremendous changes she had made and sustained. She is off anti-depressants (do not go off medications without a doctor to help you), working on healing her marriage, creating a home out of a house she’d ignored for 6 years, working part time at a job she loves, eating better, exercising, and learning to love herself. There’s work ahead but knowing she’s made this much progress allows her to believe in herself again. Recently she admitted she was anxious to make her call to me for her appointment – she said she felt I would judge her and she didn’t want to face the fact that she’d not done her ‘homework’ for two weeks. I reminded her that I’m not her judge or the homework police – as her coach I am her ‘witness’ – the person she can say anything to without being judged – so that she can hear her own voice telling herself the truth. I feel so privileged to have been her traveling companion on this journey to reclaiming her life. We have laughed, cried, and told our stories. It’s been a blessing in both our lives. 

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In 1993 my life was once again in transition. It seemed that in my early forties I had somehow gotten onto a merry-go-round of change that I’d never expected. Two years earlier my husband and I had moved 2000 miles from what had been home most of our lives, we left our parents, grown children, and old friends behind.  Now our marriage was disintegrating and we were both confused and in pain. While I was trying to find direction in my life I got into the habit of getting up very early and having my coffee on our small patio. We had a beautiful view of the mountains and I loved to watch the day break and the sun turn them coppery pink every morning. I journaled there, prayed, and begged those mountains for guidance. One morning I went outside and noticed that there were a lot of feathers strewn on the patio. I thought a cat had gotten one of the doves that lived in the desert near us, but saw no evidence of that. From that day on for several weeks the patio was carpeted with feathers every morning. I started to collect them and wondered how it happened that those feathers greeted me every morning. I asked my neighbors if they had them and was told no. It was as if the birds were giving me a gift, something to support me in this next painful change as I moved closer to divorce. My rational mind said they were just molting, that it was normal. But it never happened again and I’ve always wondered why it was that my very close neighbors never got to share this gift. I still have those feathers – they remind me, when yet another change is imminent, that I can get through it, that I’m not alone, and that the universe supports me.

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Magazines:

     Spirituality and Health
     Ode
     Yes!
     Shambhala Sun



Websites:

     www.sevencups.com
     www.daneldon.org
     www.creativevisions.org
     www.womenforwomen.org